Traveler or Tourist?

We arrived home Tuesday morning after the red-eye from Sao Paulo. It is strange that three and a half weeks have gone by already, but it is great to have the comforts of the USA.

Our trip to South America was such an experience! Doreen, Stephanie and I maneuvered our way through each country better than I ever expected. It was easy to find our way and make new friends when so many people were willing to go out of their ways to help us. My favorite thing about South America was the local people- even with the language barrier, we were never taken advantage of by the locals.

Things about South America that make me want to book a trip back:

· the stares from people on the street when they see my blond hair (I liked the attention..)

· struggling with Spanish and loving it

· fruit stands

· everything looks like a postcard

· meeting locals

Things I will NOT miss about traveling South America:

· the stares from people on the street when they see my blond hair (it got annoying)

· dog poop on the street

· throwing away toilet paper instead of flushing it

· flip-flops in the shower

· being cold

Pictures of the whole trip (except for some that were lost…) can be found at the following links:

PERU: http://s201.photobucket.com/albums/aa296/carlygralak/Peru/
CHILE: http://s201.photobucket.com/albums/aa296/carlygralak/Chile/
ARGENTINA: http://s201.photobucket.com/albums/aa296/carlygralak/Argentina/
BRAZIL: http://s201.photobucket.com/albums/aa296/carlygralak/Brasil/
*To view each album, follow the link and click on "view as slideshow"

the last supper

Our last night in Rio we went to dinner at the restaurant in Ipanema where the song “girl from Ipenema” was written. The man wrote it about a pretty girl who walked by each day on the way to the beach. Apparently she is an old woman now, but still walks past to the beach. It was a cute restaurant with awesome food.

We ended the evening at a favela party. The party was held in a huge warehouse located within one of the local favelas. It was not as scary as we expected, but as usual the men were all over Stephanie and my blond hair. We stayed upstairs where the beers were only one reai (50 cents) and danced to the blaring music. The party ended at four, so we were especially tired our final day in Rio.

We spent our last day in South America walking the beach and admiring the courage of the Brazilians to wear such skimpy swimming suits. Everyone here walks the streets in their suits and many of the women wear thongs and the men speedos!

GOL!

Two nights ago we learned to Samba in a club in Lapa. Lapa is a part of town not too far from Copacabana. There are many arches that are lit up at night and the streets are filled with vendors selling drinks and food for only 2 reais (that is about 1 U.S. dollar). Some kids from Sao Paulo taught us to Samba and we danced until the morning- we didn´t get home until 4 a.m.

Yesterday we had our last breakfast at the hotel and we moved into our hostel. The Copa Hostel is clean and it is an Internet CAfe during the day and pub at night! Steph and I sat on the beach for a while during the afternoon. Everyone was trying to sell us things, but we didn´t have any money so we just looked. The water was warm and I played in the waves for a while.

Our next stop was Maracana Stadium. It is the largest stadium of its kind in the world. The match we saw was two local Brazilian teams: Flamengo versus Sport. People were yelling cheers as we entered the stadium and continued throughout the game. People had drums, flares, flags and trumpets. The aisles were completely full of people- I could not get down to the bathroom and they did not clear until the end of the game. The game was tied- 1 to 1.