The End of The World

If you ever go to Ushuaia, Argentina, the most southern city at the tip of of South America, make sure you have a window seat. Its the time you will drop your jaw. In my case, I could taste the condensation on my mini glass, I was so glued to the view. Its like a free helicoptor tour before you ever set foot.

The pilot notifies us of our 6 degree celsius temperature - which doesnt faze me - I dont even have a hat or gloves packed. The annoying heat sensor camera greets me in this bodunk airport. Once I am cleared of the swine flu, I sway towards the front of the turnstile looking for my bag - of course as in all nowhere towns - 0nly one baggage depot.

I break out my latin american spanish pocket book and start to practice lines for the taxi. I have a feeling english will be quite a luxury in this location. I fail with the pronounciation and show him what I had written down for my hostel. He immediately comprehends - and off we go! Opening the window to breath in that fresh mountain air, I decide not to take out the camera just yet and enjoy for myself. The snowfilled mountains and incredible lakes flowing into channels is a site unto itself. Pictures are not going to do this place justice.

I check in with my Spanglish and immediately start planning. The receptionist recommends I get in a cab immediately and head up to the Martial Glacier. It is 2pm and the Glaciar park closes at 5pm. Lets get this done. Cab indicates I should turn around and look out the back glass as he ascends in zigzags up the muddy roads. Behind me is the full Andes mountain horizon with the Beagle Channel flowing in front of them.

20 pesos / 5 dollars to the top and I notice a ski mountain with tons of tweens and snowboards. Is this it? No clue. As I traverse the parking lot, I notice a random little tea house tucked into the mountainside below. 

Im starving - a bit of free time - why not? Along the wooden bridges, I open the small door to the tea house as the bells hanging start ringing. The cottage is surrounding by windows showing the still vista I saw from the cab. Awesome. Tea - Sandwich and an english speaking waitress make for a terrific lunch. Now where is this glacier?

I trek up to the ticket office - spanglish my way to the purchase of a chairlift ticket to the base of the glacier.  Ticket 30 pesos - 7 dollars. The lift is a bit cold with the wind - snapping pictures, Im expecting a bit of a trek after the lift to the actual base of the glacier. First time I have ever jumped off a lift without skis - interesting. I follow the trail for trekkers through the trees, blazing the ice and snow as I climb. Im the only one doing this which makes it exciting and chilling at the same time. Im still good on time, but I check my watch so I can time how long it will be to get back. That lift stops at 430pm. Im wearing sneakers since I rushed out of the hostel - who knew I would be trekking? The ice is dangerous but the glacier is up ahead.

I think the guy at the ticket office was saying it will look like a mountain as the glacier is under the snow and is only visible in the summer. No wonder why I am the only one doing this trek. I reach the clearing and the wind takes a strong gust and rips it in my direction. I grab onto a tree to hold myself in place. Not easy. The clearing has no protection and the massive mountain glacier is encapsulating. I take out my camera to shoot a video. As I push record, the wind whips another insane gust and I duck low to hold my position. The video is awesome. (on youtube) I stand firm and switch my breath between the view below of the andes and the channel - then back to the mountain/glacier and back again. Its an awesome moment.

A few prayers later, I decide to take the journey back as darkness looms and so does that chair lift deadline. This location by the way has less sunlight since it is only 5 hours by boat from Antartica - that means the sun doesnt even rise here until 10am. Great for the night owls.

Back at the hostel, I realize the little sleep, and take a long nap til about 83opm. Since restaurants dont open in argentina til then, it was fine. I taxi to the downtown. Nice! Kinda like a park city, Utah. Less restaurants, less bars, less stores but nice. I stroll the streets, pop in to a few local bars - dont know anyone - dont know spanish - didnt stick around. The strolling was cool. I stumble upon a meat place. The only other option here is a fish place. After a grand meal, I walk around the closed shops breathing in the phenomenal air. I advance on a street corner and notice to the right, that the entire street has become a snowboarding park. They built a full one on an actual street - totally odd. And next to it is an Irish pub - packed!

After taking pictures, I decide to get in the taxi back to my hostel so I can write my blog and get to bed - huge day tomorrow...

Need I Say More

A Special Yoga Class - Three Hours in Portuguese - Need I Say More

"You Must Breath in the Nature"

Pedra Da Gavea

You have no idea! This is the largest rock formation on earth and it is just under 1,000 meters to the summit - way higher than sugarloaf mountain. I sort of get an inclination of how difficult this was going to be when I was notified of Rock Climbing portions. Marcello convinces me to stick with my sneakers over my hiking boots and to bring a huge bottle of water.

9am wake up - 3pm start. Can I say nothing reminds me of my brother more than Marcello. Granted we did go up SugarLoaf mountain that morning by cable car - but still. Oh and Marcello asked two danish girls - who just arrived into rio and we met on the top of Sugarloaf - to join us on this hike - this will be important later in the blog as they had no idea what they were saying yes to.

We arrive at the base of the monolith and park the cars. A couple who was joining us decided to back out right then and there. Pedro knew the girl and described the climb. She realized it wasnt for her. Two down.

We set out - check in at the bottom with a park ranger - write our names down in case we never make it back. He shouts concerns in portuguese and Marcello/Pedro respond. The hike begins.

Im excited - last significant hike was probably 12 years ago in New Hampshire - but I start to remember a small hike at my brother engagement weekend in upstate NY. Images of sweat and hard breathing with a few "have to stop" moments. Uh oh, this could be a problem. We hit a few challenging passes, some with massive roots to climb like a ladder. As a joke, I pop out "are we there yet?" everyone nervously laughs.

A little exercise starts to kick in and the breathing gets a bit faster. Marcello explains to breath totally through the nose - I try - but then go back to my traditional heavy mouth breathing. "You must breath in the Nature" Marcello points out. Im ready to push him off the rocks. Huffing and Puffing starts to begin and I am the only one of the group that you can hear the patterns. As the sweat starts to sting my eyes, I start plunging down the water. This is going to be rough.

We reach the rock climbing portion of the hike and Marcello goes first. I have been doing a bit of climbing at my gym in Astoria so I actually feel the excitement of doing this for real. No ropes is a bit concerning, but what the hell. Some strong pulls and weird foot stands, I eventually make it to the top of this landing. But the danish girls are still below. They are considering heading back. A bit of Marcello charm and they make for an attempt. Daniel - tall artist with cool hair - seems to be the more experienced of our group and helps the girls along this difficult passe.

Only one third of the way up. My shirt and now shorts are soaked in sweat, but the views are starting to get addicting. Lets go some more! Right about this time, we see this enormous peak rock that has indentations making it look like an angry old man. Pedro points to it (picture below) and says thats where we are headed. I truly assume he is joking. There is no way to reach that, its all rock - we cant climb that without ropes. He points to the little bit of greens that strike up the middle and says we will go through that way. "Are you insane?" The view from where we were (halfway point) was nice so I'm thinking we take pics and go down from here. Nope!

Don't ask me how but we do continue on. One of the danish girls begins to cry. She seems to be holding it in from time to time. The other is up ahead with the group. I'm constantly at the rear. There is no question, I am the most out of shape of the group, sweating the most, stopping the most, drinking the most and at times feeling that I will pass out. This is a tough hike, toughest I have ever been on. A bit more than I anticipated.

As we near 3 quarters, I come into a comfortability with my body - im going to get to the top. We reach a rather tall grass area near the peak and Marcello stops us all. He wants us to run the rest of the way because once we reach the top there will be a grassy field that we can pave through to the end of the rock ledge. He takes off, we all follow and as I come upon the large peak, my eyes reveal Rio - WOW! Totally incredible. The pictures say it all. Breathtaking and well worth the intensity.








We are all enjoying the views and pictures as we hit this peak right before sunset. How awesome to be lucky enough to see the sunset over Rio from the highest location. How come nobody else is up here. This is a public park - its a beautiful day - I know its not high season, but so what? And then it dawns on me when Marcello gives us the Chevy Chase - ok looks good - lets go!. Lets go!!??? But we just got here?
















You got to be kidding me? The realization starts to hit HARD! Just above the beautiful Rio landscape is the most beautiful sunset. I said SUNSET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The group is starting to run. What was Marcello thinking? no time to ask. All I can think about is making it to the rock climbing bit before dark. How on earth are we going to do that if its pitch black? Let alone get down the rest of the mountain!

Danish girl crying, Im now in front booking it - screw these guys. Every step I take on a branch, sand, mud or whatever feels like an ankle twist. Going down is dangerous enough, but with nightvision, its a whole nuther story. And Im not even sure if my nightvision works. As the sun is half way through the horizon, we make it to the rock climbing portion. Safely we transport all parties down. I became the rock climbing expert and helped the assembly line down.
Now the sun is gone and we have a bit of remnance light helping. We are running and leaping over logs and across terrain. My knees are pounding, my ankles are definitely strained and now Im thinking ahead to the dark. There is without a doubt going to be darkness for half this hike down. The trees are covering the moonlight and its super dangerous when Marcello takes out his blackberry as a flashlight. I have a cell phone as well and Daniel has a lighter. We scatter throughout the group so there is a portion of light for everyone. Im a bit ahead of the group when I fall flat on my face. OWWWWWWWWWWW!!!

I stand up quickly, wipe off the mud when the group catches up. I pretend like nothing happened as they cant see me anyway lol. As I mozy backwards to the middle of the group I grab onto a fallen tree for stability. Total mistake. I immediately drop holding my hand. (MAJOR CURSE WORD!) I have been bitten. No clue by what and the group needs to continue on so I wince and move forward. You can just imagine all the questions I was asking Pedro for about 20 minutes as we near the last third. It was hurting bad.
















We did see a terrantula on the way up crossing the rocks, maybe that was it. I didnt care, getting off the mountain was the key - not like Im going to be airlifted right now.

Daniel and I decide to leave the group and zip ahead, we are both tired of the hike and want to see the end. We start moving quickly until we eventually hit a cobblestone road and we see the park ranger station ahead with a light on! YES! No ranger there though. What If we never made it down? These guys dont give a rats...

The rest of the group finds us there relieving ourselves. Back in the cars - got to get to the showers, eat, pack and say goodbye to everyone - no sleep - drive to the airport at 5am.

Sao Paolo here I come!

PS Still have to give you a past blog on the favellas and I just got a picture uploaded of me doing yoga so I have to get that up as well - so two small blogs before Sao Paolo.

Hairy Beast takes the Beach

A beautiful beach day, I decide to join Marcello and his local friends at POSTO 9 in Ipanema Beach - this is the top location for all the young people and since it is a tuesday - most live at home with no jobs - and it is a glorious sunny day after three days of NYC weather. I order my chair for 3 reales and have it set up by his group of english speaking friends. No one is fat or hairy here.

I chat it up with a few of his friends and then decide to go for a walk on my own down the beach. About 5 minutes along, a random guy shouts at me. Your in Rio - take off your shirt! I was shocked by the english and then by the randomness. Whats wrong with this dude - telling me what I should do. Then I start to look around. I couldnt find a single person wearing a shirt at all - not even one. Just my moronic self waltzing along in a yellow t-shirt and cargo shirts while the rest are in strings (men and women).

Embarassed, I walk back to my crowd to regroup. My shirt comes off and so does my cargo shorts. I borrow a pair of board shorts from Marcellos friend Lao and I trot down to the ocean - 10 days in Rio and I havent been in. Mostly because I dont go in, but I was using the excuse warned to me by everyone in Rio. Be careful of the undertow - its intense. Knowing me, I have trouble with the undertow in a stationary pool - but im up for the challenge - hairy body and all.

Feet dip in - cold! (not really) I gradually torture myself to the family jewels and WHACK! A massive wave takes me out. Struggling for air with body flailing, I stand up choking. The undertow is insane with just the whitewater! I think Im going back up just a bit. Meanwhile there are surfers whiping by on awesome waves at astronomical speeds. I squat down for a bathroom break before returning to shore.

The sun is setting as Marcello and I walk all the way to the end of Ipanema along the wave lines. I pay close attention to my footprints in the sand to see how my arch is looking. Big day tomorrow - massive hike up the largest monolith in the world. Arch needs to be healthy.

Rio is a marvelous place because has the similarities of three US states. Miami for its beaches and nightlife, NYC for its restaurants and lively 24 hour streetlife, and New Hampshire for its mountains, forests, and natural inhabitants. I think it might be up there as one of the great places to live if you know portuguese but that is to be determined as I know 10 words and maybe three or four expressions.

Marcello and I stop at a kiosk (hundreds of them) and grab an ACAI (which is like a smoothie with granola and the Acai Berries) and a Peru da Minas which is Turkey and cheese. You literally double park, get out, order at a counter, eat in less than 10 minutes and back in the car to the next plan. Cheap, fast and good!

We drive over to the Che Legarto hostel where I spent most of my time in Rio and picked up my bags as I exchanged goodbyes with the wonderful people I got to meet. I was off to Marcellos for the last two nights. Staying at marcellos house was interesting. Its a fully loaded massive apartment with a ton of bedrooms and would be well into the millions in NYC, but they dont have a dryer for clothes and they heat their showers by igniting a gas burner, similar to what we do with our barbecues! It has a art cultural feel, like an apartment in paris, probably because the father is an Art Dealer and the mother works for Sothebys.

My massive guest room was amazing after all the hostel living - but it was the hot shower that created the orgasmic feeling of instant health.

sleepy sleep for eight hours ahhhh...

Handgliding Pictures

Pre flight preparations

a mountain of excitement

flight over mansions

Flight over mountains

Flight over beach

Flight over ocean no hands

Over the ocean straight ahead

Rips the straps and so Im dangling before landing

Landed and Alive - what a rush!

If You Stop We Will Die

Driving up a most narrow road with tree branches pounding the car as the driver continues beeping in order to notify downhill drivers of our presence, I start to pray. Am I really going to do this? We reach the summit and prepare ourselves - a bit crash course - which can be summed up with six words IF YOU STOP WE WILL DIE...

I take his words into serious consideration and start focusing really hard. I grab onto my guides straps and walk onto the platform. Stomach in knots - no real preparation time before he yells GO!

I sprint as hard as I can eyes completely on the horizon - if you look down you may stop - all of a sudden there is no more platform left and the massive green and white wings take over as we cut through the clouds over the entire city of RIO. The favella that I visited this morning holding over 200,000 people was on my left, beaches below, ocean in front, rainforest to my right and the wind is whizzing by at astronomical forces. I perch my arms out like a bird. We are so high, I can see helicopters and birds below. When was the last time you were on top of the birds flying - seeing their wings from above.

Its an incredible feeling and breathing in the air as we turn hard toward the ocean. Denario describes to me all that I can see including the mansions on the cliffs with their gynormous pools. Im starting to get a little fear of heights. All the straps hooked into me are really pulling and it feels that at any moment, someone is going to cut the cords. 15 minutes later he notifies me that we will be landing. Of course, there is a sudden extreme speed up directly toward the beach sand shores. Where are the brakes? Whistling in for our landing the sand seems to be moving faster than the landing strip at an airport. All of a sudden, he pulls out my straps and my feet go dangling as we come to a complete stop with my feet planted in the sand. WOW! Can we please do it again!

Handgliding over Rio - how many people can say that! I wanted to do this on my birthday but choosing a day with the right wind and sun conditions makes it all the worth waiting.

Pics of me actually in the air are on a disk that I bought but of course no disk option in the internet cafe. I will post it as soon as I can!

Tomorrows post: Walking in the Favellas with Machettes - this happened before handgliding, but I had to skip to the juice!

Party like its 1999

One of the biggest events in Rio and Brazil for that matter is their Football (soccer). And since Rios got one of the biggest stadiums - why not go to a game? Flamengo vs Internacional was the match and I went with a tour. Some random Brazillian guy in a green shirt screaming songs on the bus as we roll into the stadium parking lot high on Caprihnas (brazillian drink - very popular). They have a lot to live up to since I am a Penn Stater and we have one of the largest stadiums in the entire USA with some of the loudest fans in the world.

Entering the empty stadium and trailing down to our seats, we are only 5 rows from the 50 yard line. Great seats! I guess we will wait til it fills in with the fans. Hunger pursues and I decided to walk up to the food stands. Laughing hard as I try to order a cold packaged hot dog and non-alcoholic beer (thats all they had). The selection is hilarious. Only other option was a packaged chicken salad sandwich - the packaged sandwiches are huge here. At least the prices arent jacked, but boy do I wish I was at Yankee Stadium right now. Some homeless guy tries to get my reales as I find my seat.

I sit next to a New Yorker and we chat a bit - I buy a headband (1reales) - the stadium never fills up. Apparently Brazil played in the daytime vs Italy and everyone stayed home to watch that, plus it was Sunday and Sunday dinner is a big thing here as the brazillian people are a family oriented species. So the short version - it wasnt loud - it wasnt exciting and I was bored to the point of wanting to leave. What makes it worse! They dont have a timeclock anywhere. You never know how much time is left in the half or game for that matter. So ridiculous. Flamengo won (4-0) - apparently the more popular team. We Are! Penn State!

From there Pedro picks me up to bring me to a Favella Funk Party! Odd event! It is a massive stage and air conditioned dark room filled with extremely poor people partying like its 1999. Dont even bother trying to get a drink at the bar - they had one bar tender and probably close to 3,000 people in the place. It was interesting how happy everyone was - its just a way of life, but at the end of the party - everyone goes back to their Favellas - which is no way to live - its just horrible. I didnt bring my camera for obvious reasons here.

Days seem to meld together when you are on Rio Time - things dont really happen til about 2pm. So a typical day here is 2pm til 6am and back again. At least if you hang with Pedro and Marcello. Its an interesting culture, different from NYC as even the bands at the bars and clubs are still going til the early morning. Anyway, this schedule brought upon a cold for me that I am battling with ACAI, GRAVIOLA and my regimen of vitamins. I have kept it from getting out of control.

I had grand plans for my birthday - so excited to make it happen - but due to unforseen events it was not possible. Instead those plans have been moved to Friday. The secret continues. Instead, Pedro and Marcello take me to a beautiful house on a cliff overlooking the ocean (marcellos father bought this house in 1971 probably for peanuts, considering the cost now is around 8 million reales). I have been to some beautiful places in the world and even some wonderful houses overlooking oceans - but no picture will bring you to how I felt when I walked out to the great expanse of the entire ocean surround the cliff of this house. It is one of the most breathtaking places. I took tons of pictures and spent a lot of time just sitting on the many decks. Every bedroom in the house is overlooking the ocean but from a height the equivalent of a mountain. It was the perfect relaxing atmosphere to spend the daytime of my birthday.

A pasta meal was prepared for a late lunch followed by a deep nap. This location is a part of Pedro and Marcellos plans for their future entreprenuership. Maybe someday I will be able to rent it out for a party - but for now - Im here on my birthday and I will take in the views right now!

It was quite nice when Pedro and Marcello showed up for the night, with a gift for me - Johnny Walker Red - it was such a nice thought and the beginning of the second half of my birthday. It was an awesome low key samba band at a club called MELT. After intense negotiations with the door charge lady - dropped 40 reales to 20 reales so that we can get in, we waltz up the stairs just in time for the start of the band. I am a huge fan of brazillian music because of the brass. Trumpet, Sax and Trombone wailing away - and me dancing away. Of course in the front - of course terrible moves - but loads of fun. Hand slapping with the band members and sweating through my t-shirt, I find myself really enjoying myself. I didnt even have one drink the whole night. I gave Pedro and Marcello hugs thanking them for such a great time.

A little late night eat followed by 6 flights of stairs to my room - I slept like a baby with a runny nose.