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Rio De Janeiro...The Petropolis...The Land of Samba...The River January
Have you ever gone somewhere you have heard so much about that you figured its got to be all hype? Not Rio dudes...the place is all that and more. And I don't even dance...
Its hard to imagine a more beautiful city than this place. Nestled around huge volcanic rocks beside long stretches of white beaches split up by rivers, jungles, forests and lakes... No picture I have seen does it justice. It is an amazing contradiction: a city but in a jungle...in a mountain... Fitting for a world famous place named by accident by a lost explorer who thought the bay was a river. The crowning jewel? Hows about a 125 foot tall Jesus overlooking the city from a mountaintop jungle? No matter where you are, it always feels like you are staring at the dashboard in a cheap taxi in Manila!
As luck would have it there was an international conference for Quantum theory being held, so I hung out with some theoretical mathematicians while cruising the sights (I kid you not George brother). Nothing like superstring theory to jazz up a samba lesson... Things were going so smooth I got a little sloppy. While dropping off some friends in the suburbs one night we drove by the assassination of the attorney general of Brazil. A bunch of guys told him to get out of his Audi and he pulled a pistol on them...they cut him down with machine guns left him sprawled out in the street... Poor Guy, looked like he had better days...
So what could top a week in Rio, knowing you are leaving South America and have to go back to work? Absolutely nothing... but a week in Weisbaden Germany during the annual wine festival sure helped sooth the pain... heh heh.
Adeus para agora meus amigos,
Joe Atu Matua Mancuso
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South...American Beauty
Lester Burnham : I feel like I've been in a coma for the past twenty years. And I'm just now waking up. American Beauty ( 1999 )
Iguazu Falls - Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay
So a brief hop up to Iguazu landed me in a 10 dollar wood lodge and one strange triple border. For the next three days I hopped across the borders 8 times and saw some serious nature. The falls were at a record low but they still were a spectacle to behold (even at their lowest they are bigger than Niagra or Victoria). The Devil´s Throat is a thundering assault on the senses and a great opportunity to catch a free shower if you have been on the run all day. Along the borders are awesome trails with hundreds of tropical birds, rodents, mammals and (think I may have heard one one night)...jaguars. Throw in some big time smuggling and a little wild west pandemonium and that about sums it up.
Creating these unique opportunities are the goal of every trip. There comes a point where there is so much sensory overload going on around me, I go into Kevin Spacey mode and turn off my mind...and just "let everything flow around and through me...and not try to hold on to it."
It works...
Bom dia e adeus para agora,
Jose Atu Mancuso
"Traveling is almost like talking with men of other centuries." -- René Descartes
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