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I will also always remember the little towns of Cabo Frio and the neighboring towns of Buzios (supposedly one of Bridget Bardot’s hangouts, ans a nice shopping and clubbing area) and Arrial do Cabo, a fishing community. Striking off without the guide, we all piled into one of the RV’s with the intention of spending another nice day on the beach.

Wanting to get out into the water more and hearing about the large amount of wildlife in the area,the stowaway and I went searching for a boat, cruise, tour, or something. Not 40 meters down the beach, a man wearing a classic fisherman’s cap flagged us down.

“Boat ride?”

“Maybe, how much?”

“Eh?” he said. And that is where we learned that “Boat ride?” was all the English he knew.
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What people think about when they hear the words “Rio de Janeiro” probably tells alot about who that person is.

Here’s what I’ve come up with:

• Those of you who think about Ginger Rogers and Fred Astair dancing in the nightclubs of the Copacabana are probably old movie buffs (or maybe just old).
• People who think of Carmen Miranda and the famous black and white stone sidewalks that separate the street from the beach are probably a bit younger and vegetarian.
• A few of you are thinking about the Girl From Ipenema. You are also probably wearing a beret at a jaunty angle, smoking a cigarette in a holder and wondering where your excessively string coffee is.
• Many of you are thinking about long, crowded beached covered with brozned, topless women. You probably think about topless women without reading my blog.
• A few of you think about the amazing pictures taken from helicopters of the famous Cristus Redentor statue overlooking the city. You have too much money.

Me, I think about a fat man, a hysterical man and a poorly hatched plan to make a Broadway show. Who knows what that says about me?

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This was more like it! I placed my feet on the red-plastic stack chair in front of me. I leaned back heavily in my chair and smacked my lips. I put my left hand behind my head and raised my right arm straight up. With my raised hand, I waved to the person about 10 feet behind me and he came over.
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I’ve lived in a a 10 foot by 12 foot box for the last year, and believe it or not, it is still possible to loose things. You’d think that having the ability to touch all your worldly possesstions without moving your feet would make it difficult to loose things. But anyone who has lived on a sailboat or in an RV is nodding right now. I once looked for my swimsuit for three hours. I ended up finding it INSIDE one of the long sleeve shirts hanging in the closet. I guess it had slid off the shelf in the top of the closet and slid down the neck of the shirt. And this wasn’t just a little speedo (god, forbid), but a full-size pair of jams. Hard to loose, you’d think. Three stupid hours! On another occation, I was looking for a roll of paper-towels I had stored in the cabinet behind the drawers. While I didn’t find the towels, I found a bulk-sized CASE of microwave popcorn that I didn’t even remember buying. So I know that it is possible to have things inside the RV that you don’t even know about. That’s why I wasn’t so surprised when a stowaway was discovered just after we left the southern city of Porto Alegre.

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Okay, this was really neat. The place was incredible, the largest water fall in the world.

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My phrase book says that “Brazilian portuguese is notable for it’s complex pronunciation.” If that isn’t the understatement of the year, I don’t know what else is. On paper, it looks fine. Even a little like Spanish. The troubles started, however, with the name of the state in which we entered Brazil. Rio Grande do Sul. Looks like Spanish. However, in Brazil, the letter “r” is sometimes pronounced as an “h”. The “de” is pronounced something like the first sylable in the word “genie.” The final “l” of Sul is also softened quite a bit. So, the state name is more like “Hee-oh Gran-jee do Soo”. Even the currency, the Real, is pronounced like “Hee-Ow”. And don’t get me started on my favorite Brazillian beer, Antartica.
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Entering Uruguay was like stepping into a time machine. We left Argentina with our computer printed exit visas and drove aboard the ultra-modern, high speed catamaran. We exited the boat early in the morning and was greeted by an aging gentleman in a old-style button-down shirt and slacks. Dutifully and carefully, he hand wrote our entry papers, using carbon paper to keep a copy in the huge ledger kept under the ancient wooden desk. The contrast couldn’t have been more dramatic.
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