A lot has happened in the last few days since I arrived in the customs line in São Paulo. It was a relatively quick and painless entry into the country, with of course the exception of my right foot, which kept hurting because I’m wearing barefoot shoes against my podiatrist’s recommendation. Our flight from São Paulo to Florianópolis was right on time, with Portuguese only announcements to boot. Which leads me to another digression. Of course one would expect this, but I can’t sit in Brazilian exit rows. Very sad. I guess I’ll stick with regular seats for now.

We landed in Florianópolis right on time. Our luggage practically beat us to the baggage belt, which I did not expect, being a fairly regular traveler in US airports. I must say, either it took a long time to deplane in Florianópolis, or the Brazilian Baggage Authority is on it.

Silvano and Cynthia Silva picked us up from the airport and drove us to a hotel on the beach. We were treated to a room on the third floor, which seemed to me to be very clean. It was a two room suite with two single beds in the first room, and a queen or double bed in the other. I’m not sure whether it was a queen or double since I didn’t have my tape measure with me. Right when we got to our room, I decided to ask the guy, “Habla usted Español?” To which he of course responded, “I don’t speak English.” Whoops.

We went and ate shrimp and cow covered with breading and fried potatoes by the bay. I had some kind of juice from a fruit called an açarola. I tried to exercise my Spanish again on another hotel employee, and this met with some success, as I used my absolutely stellar skills to navigate the complicated mess of purchasing two bottles of water.

Of course, since we had flown overnight the night before, the last thing we wanted to do was go to bed, so of course we made use of the fact that we were at a beach hotel and walked on the street by the hotel. And then we walked on the beach. I observed the Southern Cross with my own eyes, which I thought was pretty cool to be honest. I’m hoping maybe I’ll get a few more glances upward into a clear sky while I’m here to learn a little more about the southern hemisphere’s constellations.

The next day, we found out that our hotel owners were Argentine, which was the reason for a higher than normal concentration of Spanish speakers. We climbed around on the rocks by the beach there and enjoyed the view. It’s a pretty nice view, similar to the California coast but different because it’s Brazilian rocks, plants, poisonous snakes, etc. Just kidding about the snakes, I haven’t been bitten yet.

The next step was driving south towards Porto Alegre. We were on the BR101 for all of the way except for the last 40-50 kilometers. The BR101 didn’t wend its way through anything, since it was a four-lane mostly express way. It was still a pretty drive though. We drove through some rice country, which I didn’t really expect. It, of course, reminded me of home.

Heavy rain did not impede our progress, although a few slow drivers in front of us did. We made it to base camp at Novo Hamburgo at about 7:45PM local time. A quick supper was supped, and we did some other things. It’s a bit of a blur at the moment. I suppose you could say that what happens in Novo Hamburgo stays in Novo Hamburgo?

It’s currently 11:52PM local time on Tuesday, and I really need to go to bed. I’ll maybe share about some of the work in another letter blog post.

Addendum: In a previous post, I incorrectly stated that Novo Hamburgo is 3 hours ahead of Pacific Time. It is actually UTC-03:00 year round, to my understanding, which makes it 4 hours ahead in the North American summertime, and 5 hours ahead in the North American wintertime. This of course may also be found incorrect at a future date.

Thank you for reading.