Two Beers and a Pretzel

I´m still in Florianopolis.  The sunburn is gone, and I actually retained a little color.  I´m planning the next part of my journey in Brazil.  Actually, I´m just reviewing the itinerary.  I´ve hired a guide to take me around the Atlantic coast for 2 weeks (including Rio) and teach me Portugese.

When I get a better internet connection, I´ll upload more pics and a lot more details of the last few days.  The New Year celebration on the beach was really cool.  Everyone set off fireworks for about an hour, and I participated in a Brazilian ritual of putting flowers in the ocean for the new year.  Then went swimming in the pool and to a party with locals until roughly 5 am.

The only downers were seeing the motorcycle accidents, and the dead guy on the way home (2 drug dealers fighting over turf in the prime season).  However, I´m safe and happy.

It was a nice day, so I bummed around downtown again today.  It was a little messy after last nights party.  Ok, actually the town is pretty dirty to begin with and there were a lot of cleaning crews out, so it may have actually been more clean than normal.  I bought a Cuban cigar – holy crap it was potent, but good.  I stopped after one Havana sourced stogie, having learned my lesson 7 years ago in Germany about smoking too many Cuban cigars.  Ask Shelly, Joe, Sweeney or Merkle about it.  I swear it was all the schnapps shots (I think Enzian was actually the German work for kerosene) that made me sicker than should be legally allowed, but I’m guessing the 2 cigars might have contributed to my pain.

So, back to the change of plans…

I was going to take a 16 hour bus to Panama and see the canal, then catch a flight to Sao Paulo and a puddle jumper to Porto Alegre.  Aside from my total disdain for an extended overnight bus ride (the seats are not remotely made for guys with wide shoulders), the flights were going to be about $900-1000, and I would still need a ticket out of Brazil before I can get an entry Visa.

Instead of that, I found a sub $400 round trip from Buenos Aires (EZE) to Porto Alegre (POA) that gives me about a  month to play in Brazil.  There’s a sub $800 one-way flight from San Jose (SJO) to EZE every day this coming week at all hours. That gives me flexibility in case of any snafu’s getting the Visa and also takes care of my exit ticket requirement.

The practical upshot of this plan is a week in Buenos Aires.  I have no idea what I’ll do, but I have the Lonely Planet guide to figure that out…  Tango lessons or something.  Everything I’ve heard is that it’s a great place.

The bummer is that I’ll totally bypass Panama and only see the canal from the air.  I may remedy this by extending my South American expedition to Argentina, Brazil, Argentina again, Chile, Peru, Columbia, then sail to Panama, see the canal, and then fly to New Zealand in late February.