Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all of you! We love you and miss you all. Grant is thinking of you as he sits on Papai Noel's lap in Salvador.

Brazil 3- Iguassu (Foz de Iguacu)

After hanging out in the Bahia, eating acaraje, and having a good vacation, Hyrum had to go back to work. We flew down to southern Brazil to the state of Parana in the city of Foz de Iguacu for a WIFS conference, Workshop on Information Forensics and Security. While he did that, I meandered around the city, swam in the pool, went to the falls, and made a trip to Argentina for the day. Together we went to the falls and to a really amazing bird refuge too.

One of Hyrum’s favorite things on the bus was this sign:

Click on it to get an up close view. Not super politically correct around here (get out of your seat for an obese person, how do you judge?) but effective. I appreciated that people always made sure me and Grant had a seat. It was really nice even though I am not above swaying in the aisle with a baby on my hip.

On one of the days Hyrum was in the conference me and Grant headed to Argentina. It took all day, but it was a lot of fun. We headed out of the hotel first thing in the morning and walked over to the bus station where I asked around for a city bus that headed over the border. Some people pointed me out to a random bench outside of the station and told me to wait there. Luckily there came up a nice Brazilian lady and her two teenage kids who were doing the same thing I was. We hopped a bus and headed to the border. I had to get off on the Brazilian side of the border and they got to keep going so I lost them, but ended up meeting up with them later in Argentina at the falls randomly. The weird thing was that I came across them again in Argentina, and then the following day I ran into them on the Brazilian side of the waterfalls, and then we ran into them again at the airport. We decided to move up our flight to arrive in Sao Paolo earlier in the day so I could hang out with an old mission companion for a few hours at the airport, and low and behold, they were on the same flight to Sao Paolo. Apparently I was meant to make friends with them. So back to Argentina, I had to get off the bus again on the Argentine side of the border and then I show up at a bus station and I am feeling maybe slightly apprehensive, I am not sure where I am going. Luckily at this point I run into my friends again and they help me get to the falls with them.

The Devils throat, from the top, the main horse-shoe bend section of the falls.

I have to say that the pictures I took cannot do the Iguassu Falls justice. They have been voted one of the seven natural wonders of the world and they certainly deserve the title. The falls stretch for miles and they are so amazing. Look online and check out the BBC series, Planet Earth because they do a cool piece on it on there.

The following day I went to the Brazilian side of the waterfalls with Hyrum.

Two of my Brazilian Friends. The daughter was Marina and Pedro, the son was off somewhere getting lost in the falls.

It looks like we are pasted in front of the falls in this picture.

A really un-shy butterfly at the falls.

These little critters, quitos, were all over at the falls.

We flew through Sao Paolo on the way home and I had a good time visiting with my old mission companion, Silvia Lima.

She is a treasured friend and I miss her like crazy. Her oldest daughter is named Nicole like me. Que saudades menina!

Brazil was a great vacation and I am dying to go back already.

Ilheus

After 6 weeks with my American trainer, I was transferred to a city about 6 hours south of Salvador, on the beach, called Ilheus.  It is the heart of Cacao country where most of the chocolate trees are located.  I spent a good 6 1/2 months there so I grew to really love the city and the people.  It is a beautiful place. 

 

Hyrum and Grant enjoying some of the mango varieties.

One of the coolest things we did was tour a cacao plantation.  There was a little museum, they let us drink suco de cacao, a juice made out of the pulp around the chocolate seeds, we rode a cart and tromped through the jungle, and we got to see how they do some of the processing of the cocoa seeds.

Here we are enjoying the horse ride out to the jungle part where the trees grow.  All of the trees need shade so there are some huge trees shading the relatively shorter cacao trees with banana trees and other random palms dispersed among them. 

 

Here is a cacao pod broken open to display the fruit.  Those are the cocoa “beans” covered in a delicious white pulp.  They centrifuge the pulp and make juice out of it but it takes too much effort to be an exportable product and you basically don’t see it outside of the area, not even in Salvador.  So most Brazilians have not tasted the delicious juice either.  They let us have a couple of pods to take home and Hyrum smuggled home some beans to show people and try ourselves.

 

 

Our guide showing us a cacao tree.  Notice the red fruit sticking out of the branches.  It comes in several varieties so they are sometimes yellow on the outside, or red, or greenish.  It needs a lot of water and it was raining a bit that day so it was nice and smushy under our feet and super lush.  Apparently there are monkeys that live in the area but they are shy so we didn’t see any.  We also didn’t see any water snakes which like the area too but we weren’t disappointed about that. 

 

 

When the cocoa beans are harvested they put them in a container and basically let them ferment for a bit, and then they put them out in the sun to dry.  They climb up there barefooted and husk them with their feet.  Our guide let us do a little of it ourselves.  They have huge tin roofs that slide over the top of these areas so that it covers them when it rains, which is frequently.  Apparently when they export them they send the beans whole and process them in factories, so have no fear of dirty jungle-footed Brazilians, or American tourists, stomping on your chocolate. 

 

 

 

 

Besides touring the cacao plantation, we sped around Ilheus looking at my old area, checking out the city, going to church, and swimming on the beach.  Here I am on a typical street in my old area near where I lived.  The streets are mostly cobblestone, built by hand.

A view of Ilheus from a hill above the city.  The city is separated by that bridge with the center of the city to the north (right) and my area and outskirts to the south (left). 

A big catholic church and nunnery above the city.

 

 

 

 

Every city worth its salt has at least one statue of Christ. 

A kite-boarder showing off for us right off the Christ’s beach.

View of the city.

 

 

 

 

One of the things that made me sad is that we took a lot of pictures at church on Sunday with some of the members that I knew and worked with.  Unfortunately, we took the pictures with our sweet Motorola Xoom, and Hyrum had a little accident with suco de maracuja (passion fruit juice) and the xoom died a ghastly death.  So alas, I do not have those pictures to show, but imagine me with sweet smiling Brazilians.  It was so fun to see them again.  They are wonderful, wonderful people.

 

 

On the drive back to Salvador, we stopped at a beautiful waterfall that was about 60meters tall.  We thought it was amazing, and it truly is, but after we went to Iguassu, we probably gush less about it.  On the drive back to Salvador we decided to stay to the beach route and take a ferry across the bay to Salvador.  This let us see some beautiful country and enjoy more of the water views.  It did however, leave us in a terrible back-up waiting for the ferry on Sunday evening.  We passed the time talking to this family who was waiting next to us.  We enjoyed their company until they got a little giggly with the beer as they were waiting.  They did give us some good directions back to our hotel, and they gave us a CD to take home.  Apparently she is a budding singer and her slogan on the CD cover was “A voice that seduces.”  If that doesn’t clinch you, I don’t know what would. 

Brazil 1- Salvador

I have the best husband in the world.  Because I have wanted to take him back to Brazil since we got married, he submitted a paper to a conference there.  His paper was accepted and off Hyrum, Grant, and I went.  Due to amazing an amazing aunt, uncle, cousins, and Grandma and Grandpa, we dropped Scott and James off in Utah to make the trek up to Grandma Diane’s and Grandpa Scott’s in Idaho to celebrate Thanksgiving.  We then took off for Brazil.  After a red eye from Miami, we landed in Salvador.  We stayed at a little posada, or sort of hostel-esque place called La Villa Francaise where the two ladies who run it are from France and speak a sort of Portu-caise, French-Portuguese mix.  They were delightful.  After a nice nap, we took off to one of my mission areas in Salvador called Brotas. 

 

Here I am with Grant in front of the chapel in my area.  Don’t mind my sweaty, non-makeup, jet-lagged self.  That is probably what I looked like on the mission, sans baby and shorts.

In the picture below, look at the car in the background.  Hyrum was too embarrassed to go up close and take a picture so he made me get in it.  The car has a huge set of speakers on the roof.  These are super common and are to share the neighborhood propaganda.  Think adds, election campaigns, etc…

The picture doesn’t do it justice but that alley going down is SUPER steep!  This area was super hilly and I think I got some buff calf muscles climbing up and down the hills.  My companion lost probably 10 kg or so in this area, nice. 

 

 

After a day in Salvador we went down south to another town called Ilheus, about a 6 hour drive, we stayed there for 3 days and then came back to Salvador for a couple of days.  I am going to do another post about Ilheus.  So after we got back we did some more touring of Salvador including swimming on the beach and going down-town. 

 

Me and Grant in front of the Elevador Lacerda, and elevator that connects the upper part of Salvador with the lower, marina part.  It is sort of the icon of the Bahia.  This picture only shows the top portion. 

 

 

 

 

Hyrum in front of the Pelourinho, the tourist, shopping center of Salvador.  Nice facial hair babe.  He grew out his beard on the trip just because he could.  I kind of liked it. 

Hyrum loved trying all the new fruits and veggies to be had there.  Below he is a cart where they take sugar cane and run it through to juice it.  Hyrum thought it tasted like super sweet grass. 

 

 

 

Grant got a taste of it and he liked it as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elevador Lacerda from below.

This is the market that used to be the hub of the slave trade.  Luckily now it is used for much better purposes.  Salvador is Brazil’s third largest city and the people are mostly black, descended from Africa.  For this reason, I was somewhat of a novelty on my mission with my “blonde” hair and blue eyes, and Grant was definitely one on this vacation.  We don’t have any good pictures of the beach at Salvador because I was paranoid to bring our camera there for fear it would get stolen.