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Oi! The long silence broken. I’m in Rio de Janeiro and it’s AWESOME! After Ilhabela (where we finally did have one good meal–Italian, and the proprieters who both spoke English came and hung out at our table) we went to Parati, which was incredibly cute and very touristy. The reason I’ve not posted for so many days is that the internet was down–not just at the hotel or the internet cafe, but in the ENTIRE TOWN of Parati. There’s one company that services the whole town, and they were upgrading their system or something, and then the upgrade didn’t work, so they were switching back–we were there for three days, and there was no internet the whole time. Can you imagine if one day Seattle woke up and the internet was down? There’d be a riot.

Anyway. Our hotel in Parati was in the historic city center, the most picturesque and tourist-laden part of the town. No cars are allowed in the center and the whole thing is restored colonial-era buildings, including our airy and rustic hotel. It was lovely though crowded. The first day, we drove out of town in search of a more open beach–the guidebooks were more or less useless on this front, so we just drove south on Highway 101 until we saw a sign for “praia” with an arrow, and we made a harrowing left off the road. We drove down a bumpy dirt road (paved at the steepest parts, as if they had a limited amount of concrete and wanted to make the most of it) for probably 20 minutes and were starting to wonder if we’d really gone into the middle of nowhere (no ocean in sight) when we crossed a rickety bridge and had to slow to a crawl to avoid hitting the milling crowds of tan brazilians. There was a whole populated campground down there, a little cafe where you could order a cold beer, a guy walking up and down the beach (yes, we had come to the beach at last, and it was a gorgeous one) selling ice cream, and little stands every 100 yards selling coco gelados (a cold coconut that they lop the top off of and let you drink all the cold coconut milk from the inside for a little over a US dollar). So much for the secluded beach we were hoping for, but the place is too gorgeous to mind much, and it was certainly less jammed than the beaches in Parati proper, so we settled in and got our worst Brazilian sunburns yet. Imagine a golden stretch of beach; waves big enough to make swimming interesting, not big enough to be threatening; and right up to the edge of the beach, thick, green jungle everywhere you can see–mountains rising out of the water covered with growth. There was a little island too far away to swim to, around the corner of the point. Ice-cold beer for two for the same price as the coco gelado. It was awesome.

So Parati was a success. Poor Sean is still recovering from his red tummy, though I seem to have fared a little better. We ate well and spent one whole day just lounging around the hotel by the pool, recovering from general travel exhaustion (when every interaction you have is with someone whose language you don’t speak, just venturing forth from your room can be hard work), reading, writing postcards…

We checked into our Rio hotel yesterday. What an exciting city! It’s more international than Sao Paulo, which is to say somewhat more recognizable to a tourist, but I like it. We’re staying in Copacabana in a hotel that’s about four blocks away from the beach. We walked down there today; didn’t spend much time there because we were on a mission to get new white things for New Year’s. So now I have a white Brazilian new year’s dress and Sean has these light cotten white pants that I keep trying to convince him he’ll wear more than once, with middling success. Somebody, when we get back to Seattle, tell him he looks good in white.

Today was the best food so far. We had lunch at this little stand-up bar and ordered filet mignon, cheese and pineapple sandwiches. A little worchestershire sauce, a little of this mustardy-looking stuff that’s not really mustard (but TASTY) and the flavor is so good. Tonight we’re going to a place called Porcão where they just bring you barbeque nonstop, without you even ordering–apparently they have like thirty-eight different ways to prepare beef. Sean’s been salivating all day. In fact, we have reservations in half an hour, so I better head back to the hotel–I’ll let you know how the endless barbeque in Rio is in the next post–

Feliz 2006, everybody! Brazil is hot and sexy and fun. My love to all–

Alissa