June 2003

June 02, 2003 - 11:22 a.m.

Hey all....

It’s been a while since we last wrote so I will catch you up. Our new passports came quickly in Buenos Aires, so despite it being quite a sightseeing city we headed out and up to Uruguay which fortunately doesn’t require visas anymore. Uruguay was a small area of rolling grasslands and REALLY nice people.

Uruguayan Coast

We cut south along the coast and were finally treated to some warm beach breezes and cool bird watching. Here we were able to cross into Brazil at the city of Chui...a place that straddles both frontiers and people from Uruguay and Brazil mingle nicely.... However this was the LAST place where our Spanish could be spoken and understood!! Wow now we are REALLY in a place where nobody speaks English. Once in Brazil stuff was pretty much going great until a drunk cyclist decided to bounce off the side of our van while we were leaving a highway toll station! So we thanked our lucky stars that he at least was alive when they put him in the Ambulance... then we headed to two different police stations to begin about 5 hours of paperwork.....welcome to Brazil!!

At least now we are in the beautiful small mountain town of Tres Coroas.... this place has rivers with awesome playspots and some waterfalls nearby .... needless to say we are gonna be here for a while and begin learning how to live and kayak Brazilian style......

June 09, 2003 - 1:06 p.m.

So after a week of paddling in Tres Coroas we have left the little town and made out way north to the city of Florianopolis. The last week was sweet - we spent most days on Rio Parahana at a play spot there (I can now spin my Sonic in a hole). We also did the Rio Cai which has a couple good rapids and takes you through some amazing jungle scenery.

Mark on Rio Cai

Right now we are waiting for our laundry to dry before exploring the island of Santa Catarina. It’s supposed to have some really good surf beaches but unless it stops raining I don’t know if we will try out the surf (wait until we go further north and the weather is better).

We are slowly on the move north again - but we are going to stop at a few rivers which are supposed to have some good paddling.

June 19, 2003 - 8:48 p.m.

Driving in Brasil is very interesting - they place speed bumps in every place possible and in the least visible places. We have become very good at spotting them. We have even found them on a two-lane divided highway. And they are not the small kind that you can go over with speed - these you have to slow down to less than 20 km/h or otherwise the van bottoms out.

Well that was enough of a rant – it’s been a long time since we have updated - we have been spending our time in small Brasilian towns where no e-mail is to be found.

From Florianopolis Mark and I journeyed inland to Ibirama where the Rio Itajai was in flood. Thinking the river will be sweet we jumped at the opportunity to go down it with a local paddler. Mark says the river was a lot of fun - I didn’t finish it as at the end of the first rapid was a gargantuan hole in which I received a good trashing (the only person to make it through the hole was Mark) and decided to hike out.

From there we made our way to Tibagi, which is where the Brasilian slalom team calls home. We met the B team (as the A team was off to compete in Europe) and stayed at their pad for a few days paddling the rapids by town and checking out the local tourist sites. Mark went and did the Rio Iapo with a couple of the team – I’m glad I didn’t go as it was about 25 km of flat water for 5 km of good rapids.

The last couple days we have spent at Brotas, an ecotourism destination just northeast of Sao Paulo. We met some crazy paddlers there and ran the local river - the water was low and we were scraping rocks in a few places but it still had a couple good drops. While we were there we picked up a kayak, a Samba made by a Brasilian company Brudden. The price was too good to pass up and it should be a good play boat for me (Mark can fit in it too). Also the hot weather got to Mark and he decided to go for the VERY short hair look (I like to call it an eight ball).

While we were in Brotas we spent a day fixing the van because we hit a rock and punctured our transmission oil pan. Had to get the pan welded because our van does not exist in Brasil and so replacement parts are hard to find. But Norman seems to be running well now (we just drove about 500 km) so hopefully we won’t have anymore incidents for a while.

Today we left Brotas and drove to Ubatuba. We are supposed to meet up with my brother here on Saturday, and it also is supposed to have some sweet waves for kayak surfing and well as a good beach for soaking up the sun.

Steve, Mark B, Michelle and Mark K in Ubatuba

June 24, 2003 - 2:11 p.m.

So we are now in Rio (arrived this morning) and are going spend a couple days sight seeing. Yesterday we left my brother (Mark) and Steve at the bus station in Ubatuba after a sweet couple days on the surf beaches. The kayak surfing was epic - I got a couple good beatings and tonnes of amazing rides. We even had Mark (my bro) and Steve out on the baby waves in the kayaks. They were looking good until they flipped over and had to bail. Between that and wearing speedos on the beach they made quite a scene.

Rio de Janeiro

June 30, 2003 - 1:02 p.m.

Hey all....

Driving here never loses its adventure. If you choose the backroads, you have to prepare yourself for roads worse than in Peru..... if you choose the highways you have to pay the tolls every 50 km or so. The biggest boo for us is because our van mysteriously has dual rear wheels, we end up paying DOUBLE! But road tripping with your girl still beats any bus.

Currently we are driving back from Rio de Janeiro and west way across 2,000 miles to the Pantanal, Brasil’s most famous everglades style area with the world’s most exotic wildlife. We should be there by tomorrow (July 1st). Rio was absolutely fabulous...... although the big cities in South America are not tempting to drive in, we managed to find a safe place to park our van and went all over to see the sights..... including Brasil’s scantily clad beaches. So yes know that we have been in Brasil for over a month, things are going really smooth and we really like it here...... I hope to come back soon. We are hoping to be in SALTA, Argentina in two weeks to meet back up with Michelle’s Brother and Steve again..... after that we are heading back to Peru via Bolivia..... wish our van lots of luck please!!

Pantanal