Making Canada Proud.

My most recent trip to Portland, like most, is a blur. It was for Jon's stag and it was followed up with a trip to the doctors office (don't worry it wasn't for penicillin.) All I can say is it involved drinking a train bar car dry (twice), strippers, troglodytes (people that live under bridges) dancing with transsexuals, dancing with sea men, dancing with seniors, the strongest beer goggles perception known to man and more strippers. Oh and thanks to us Sidney Crosby will never EVER be welcome in Portland. Sorry Sid. What I can and will talk about is my second most recent trip to Portland to celebrate a friends birthday. It, like all trips south of the boarder, was an assault to the body. When it starts off with Popeye's chicken you know your in for grief.

 America! 

The weekend started with shopping for the girls and terrible golf for me. A gentelmens evening at Eastburn turned into getting thrown out of bar down the street for being what we can only imagine as being too "Canadian." I recall asking to be physically thrown out. The hippster bouncer that weighed 35 lbs looked scared when I asked that. Making you proud Canada.

The real fun started the next day with the rental of bikes and a self guided and indulged brewery tour. Portland.

Of course 2:00 AM Voodoo donuts happened. 2:45 AM throw up also happened. Portland.

A Day in Rio

There is nothing quite like sweating out the meat from a previous nights feast while laying on the beach. Fat man's heaven. We played in the surf for awhile before heading to our now private (as the hotel emptied after the weekend) roof top patio. Again, rough life.

We went from riches to rags heading back to our hostel to catch a city tour. With limited time left we opted to pack all the sights into one day. First up was the big man himself, JC. The clouds rolled in as we left the hostel and were told that its not much fun when you cant see 2 feet in front of you.  Thankfully the clouds parted as we made our way to the top of corcocado mountain. Like  "he's on the dashboard for the entire country" - Homer Simpson,  Christ the redeemer stands - tall. Up close it is one big messiah. With the parting of the clouds we were presented with amazing views of the beautiful city of Rio and its surrounding neighborhoods.

Ahhhhhhhh

I can see my house from here

We had little time to take it all in as we were whisked away to our next stop, Santa Teresa. We were only given a brief look at this pretty little neighborhood before being picked up and deposited at the Lappa steps. This art project started as a renovation of some dilapidated steps by using blue, green and yellow tiles - the colors of the Brazilian flag. This never ending piece is now made up of tiles donated and collected from countries all over the world. In a few short steps we covered our South American trip with tiles from New Orleans, BA, Uruguay and Iguazu falls.

Again, too soon we were rounded up and brought to the Cathedral of Rio de Janeiro. This Aztec looking church has a standing room capacity of 20,000 and some pretty wicked acoustics. Oddly Gothic and ugly, it was not the highlight of the day.

Sugar loaf mountain at sunset was next. This giant loaf shaped mountain rises to 1,300 feet above the Atlantic ocean and once again we were given amazing views of this ridiculously beautiful city. Thankfully on the giant cable car ride we didn't have to fend off Jaws from James Bond.
 

Copacobana from a safe distance

With that our quick tour was over. It would have been nice to spend more time at each spot and explore the neighborhoods more but we did cover a lot of ground without getting kidnaped or robbed. Back in our safe and swanky neighborhood we decided to eat cheap and hit a grocery store for meats, cheeses, olives, bread and of course wine. We also drank a gauntlet of booze as we stocked up on the way into the country as, like Canada, alcohol is heavily taxed. Drunk like teenagers we headed back to the hostel bar for happy hour and drank with some young Brits we met on the tour. This was an age check where I was told by Erin, and reconfirmed by Justin and Alison that we are indeed, old. With that went to bed.

Last day in Rio and of the trip was spent lounging pool side before once again visiting our home away from home away from home to rent some bikes. From all we had heard about Copacabana we avoided it. A girl on our city tour stayed there 3 nights and said she would never go back. Still, can we really go to Rio and not see this iconic beach? Barry Manelow would surely say no. So with that in mind we cruised the length of Ipanema and continued on to Copacabana with the intention of not stopping except for a couple pictures. Its amazing how worked up we got from other peoples experiences. Everyone was out to mug us in our minds. In the end we escaped just fine. The beach is long and definitely older than Ipanema . It was easy to see it as the hottest spot "south" of Havana back in the day -  in the song, "north" referred to a club in New York called Copacabana...fun fact of the day.
 

Beach side coconuts and one last meal of empanadas and frozen acai berry followed.
 

And of course one last Caprinahs before heading home.
 

All in all a very short but great trip. When we travel it is like we are on the Amazing Race but Im not sure I would have it any other way. 4 countries in 2 weeks filled with great food, drink and overall good times.
 

The flight home was not so good for Justin and Allison. Their connections proved to be too tight and resulted in 2 missed flights, 1 lost bag and 24 hours to get home.

Champagne Taste on a Caipirinha Budget

Finding a cheap place for 4 people to stay in Rio was a bit of a challenge. Everything nice, clean, and cheap was non-existent. Everything in the good area was old, dirty, or expensive. Everything we had read or head about RIO had us terrified to stay anywhere but Ipanema. Downtown? You will get mugged. Copacabana? You will get scammed. After weeks of looking I settled on a party hostel a block off of Ipanema beach and when we arrived late on a Saturday night we found that it was just that. The lobby was actually a bar and our room was right above it. It wasn't that bad but not ideal. Perhaps spoiled from the previous two stays at luxury hotels, the girls weren't having it. I struggled with it for a bit as I knew for the price and area we were not going to find anything. Being our last stop I was warmed to the idea of upgrading. The female cook staff yelling in Portuguese from the bar kitchen next to our room at 8:00 am convinced me moving was a good idea. With that we went from rags to riches in Rio moving to a beach side 5 * hotel, going from $20 to $250/night in a 1 block move.

The view from our hostel room

Moving on up.

The view from our hotel room

While waiting for our rooms to be ready we went in search of bikes to rent for a couple hours to cover some ground. Lost in translation was the location of said bike rentals as the staff at the hostel pointed in a direction and said there were many places to rent bikes, or so we thought that was what she said. I have said this before, as English speaking travelers we are very spoiled. Brazil, with the majority of tourists coming from Europe, is less English friendly than most South American countries. This was humbling but good for us to struggle a little. We walked half way around the giant and scenic Lagoon before making our way to the ocean side. I was taken back by the amount of  People, of all ages, jogging or exercising on the outdoor city provided workout equipment. I was also taken back by the lack of dog shit on the side walks. So far so good Rio.

We enjoyed a cheap and delicious breakfast of jamon y queso empanadas and pastries with a side frozen acai berry. This meal would become our go to for the next couple days.

We walked the whole length of Ipanema and enjoyed games of footvolley, a volley ball game played with your feet (originated in Rio when soccer was banned!) and guys in speedos doing the splits. The view of ridiculously tanned and fit people went for miles. Definitely made me think of Homer strutting his stuff in Rio.

Spot the splits!
 

Once we hit the end we turned around and headed for our waiting hotel rooms. In retrospect we should have enjoyed the sights a little longer as the busy beach was only alive because it was Sunday. In my mind that was any weekday. Our hotel rooms, although nothing special, had amazing ocean front views and came with a rooftop pool that was well used by us and made the upgrade worthwhile. Pool side and Beach side Caprinahs (a refreshing Brazilian cocktail) were consumed while watching the afternoon sun fade. It was a rough day.

View from pool 

So super cool.

Diner that night was the best we had on the trip and probably my personal highlight over the whole trip. Move over big Jesus, Porcão is the new #1 tourist attraction in town. This all you can eat (and then some) churrascaria (Brazilian style BBQ) is a serious gastronomical attack...literally. Men with swords of varying delicious and perfectly prepared meats assault your tables until you surrender. You are actually given a card with a green "Sim por favour" and red "Nao Obrigado." Even with the red stop sign visible the waiters still try and carve off more meat on to your plate. Kinda like your grandmother would do while saying how skinny you are. IT. WAS. AWESOME.

On top of the amazing meats there was a salad and sushi bar that was top notch. Pair that with an amazing bottle of wine and you have my heaven. Mmmmmm blue cheese crusted sirloin on a stick.... My mouth is actually watering as I reminisce and type this. Must. BBQ. Something...and slather it in chimichurri.

Will finish up Rio once craving subsides.

Big water and the corner of smog and smokey.

Tight connections, the only way to fly.

Our original flight from Montevideo had us sitting at the BA airport for 4 hours before our connecting flight to Iguazu Falls however when we checked in we were told our flight was over sold. On the upside we could get on a flight that left BA 30 minutes after we got in but would be a very tight connection. Sold. When we landed in BA we were met by an airline agent who quickly rushed us through customs then security, pulling us to the front of the line each time and took us straight to our gate. It was awesome. No waiting around for these guys, we are kinda a big deal. Yes, tight connections, the only way to fly indeed. This would later bite two of us on the trip.

We arrived to a very tropical and hot Iguazu. It was odd to be moving north to get hotter weather but we gladly took it. We checked in at our very posh jungle lodge and were happy to find the cabin we booked was as nice as described. It also included the worlds smallest hot tub which we would later take advantage of.

Arriving earlier than expected we decided to head out to see the Brazilian side of the falls but were told we didn't have enough time by the staff at the hotel. How big are these falls? We hung around the pool before heading into town to see what it had to offer. The small tourist town was just that. We wandered the streets looking at tourist shops that all looked the same and found that the town was more or less shut down. It was 4:00 pm. To kill time before having diner at a restaurant that didn't open until 8:00 pm we had drinks on a patio. The special of the day was grenadine pina coladas. Sounded good. We waited a 15 minutes for our drinks and realized our seating choice on a busy street corner was not the best. The heavy traffic fumes mixed with the smoke from a near by asado was a bit much. Our neon pink drinks arrived and tasted like they were made with pepto bismol. They were horrible. So there we sat, drinking our pepto colladas on the corner of smog and smokey.

Our diner proved to be a vast improvement. Deep fried empanadas for $1 each and a calzone the size of a CFL football. Paired with a couple giant heineken made it a great night.

The next day we made our way to the falls on the Argentina side. Our driver said he would be back to pick us up in 7 hours. We laughed and said we would call him to pick us up earlier as we thought that would be way too much time to spend looking at some water. It wasn't. For 7 hours we wandered the trails leading to different vantage points of different falls. Each trail led us to something more spectacular than the last. Words can not describe the falls. We continuously wondered if they were real as it looked like something out of a movie. Indian Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull perhaps?

We started with the upper falls getting amazing views of the area below.

Next was the lower trail bringing us to the base of several of the falls.

A short boat ride brought us over to an island where we had the most scenic picnic lunch I may ever experience.

The island gave an amazing view of the falls we had previously walked above.

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Our last stop was the Devils throat, the epicenter of the largest falls.  A short train ride took up to the top where we took a kilometer walk on a raised path above that brought us over the river. The width of the river makes you realize why the falls are so grand.

Once again, words can not describe the site from above these falls. The rumbling sound and the mist was hypnotic in a way. Again, unreal.

Exhausted from a day of hiking in the sun we opted to float our way back down the river, ensuring to stay left on the way.

Back at the hotel we took in diner and a show by what was explained to us as "Argentina's version of Jimi Hendrix:

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Fulled from a good show and plenty of wine the night got a bit blurry. Cigars, wine and a tiny hot tub followed.

Off to Brazil next.