You know when you hear that a movie is so good, like one of the best films of the year, and then when you go see it you think yeah, this is pretty good, but there´s no way it could meet your high expectations? Well Salvador was kind of like that for us. We had heard so many great things about the city and the fact is that we had a great time there, but it´s tough to live up to that kind of hype. Salvador is known for rich Afro-Brazilian culture with samba mus...

Our days in Brazil are almost numbered - we booked a flight heading to Cartagena, Colombia this Saturday. We wish we could spend more time here but unfortunately this country is killing our budget. Brazil is not cheap! We've tried to balance being somewhat frugal with not wanting to miss out on cultural experiences like seeing the Christo statue over Rio (over US $50), or going to a soccer game at the famous Maracaña stadium (also $50) and getting to yell VAMO...

We have an exciting end to our homestay to report. After being left with a messy kitchen and no keys of our own, we decided to strike out for greener pastures on Monday. We'd had the song Copacabana in our heads since we got to Brazil so that's the first place we tried. The good news is we found a fantastic hostel with our own kitchen and super friendly front desk staff that speak English. The bad news is that our homestay was not especially supportive of our dec...

Well it had to happen at some point. We fell off the blog wagon here in Brazil, partly by necessity and partly by choice. Josh got sick in the beach town of Paraty with a pretty ugly virus. I got to run around town speaking a mix of Spanglish and terrible Portugues looking for a doctor who spoke English or Spanish. The tourist office told me to go see Dr. Marcio, by the bus station. That's it. No address, no telephone number, just go behind the bus station and lo...

Yesterday at Iguazu Falls was probably my most favorite day of the trip so far. We got up and out of the hostel by 10am, which is actually a pretty decent accomplishment for us. We didn't beat the tour groups to the falls but managed to get in some peaceful hiking anyways. It's hard to describe the enormity and beauty of these waterfalls, so I'll just let you look at the photos. Other than the falls there's not too much to do here in Iguazu, on the three border...