Okay, I try not to spend too much time detailing the mundane details of our travel, but our arrival here for Carnival is a story of luck worth telling.

Perhaps because we didn´t want to think about the end of our travels with Douglas´s parents and the transition back to shoe-string travel, we were late making plans for leaving Iguazú. We tried to buy tickets from the Argentine side to Sao Paulo the day before, and shock, they were sold out. So, we figured we would have better luck on the Brazilian side, although no one could confirm that, so we booked a taxi to take us there at 11:30am.

Thanks to a one hour time change, we arrived in Foz de Iguazú, Brazil, at 1:30pm. There was a bus, with seats, leaving for Sao Paulo at 2:30pm. Excellent. We arrived in Sao Paulo at 7am the next day, but decided to push on to Belo Horizante to be as close as possible to our final destination, Ouro Preto. Sure enough, there was a bus, with seats, leaving at 8am. We arrived in Belo Horizante at 5pm, without a clue as to where we should stay. We managed to find a cheap hotel, with a room, across from the bus station. That settled, we went back to get tickets for Ouro Preto in the morning. Much to our horror, the line was 45 minutes long and showed no signs of shortening. We got in it, but by the time we got to the front every single seat on the 16 buses to Ouro Preto the next day was gone. So, I convinced Doulgas that we should go to Mariana, which we had heard was close to Ouro Preto. I thought we´d be in a better posistion there. We bought some of the last tickets left to Mariana, which were only available for 6:15am the folliwng day (thank goodness for that hotel next door!). When we got back to the hotel, I checked the email from my cousin who had made the reservations for us. It read, `I couldn´t get reservations in Ouro Preto, so your hotel is in a town just outside with an easy commute- Mariana.` Incredible!!!

So, we are staying in Mariana for Carnvial, but every day we take the bus to Ouro Preto at night. It´s only about 20 minutes away, and during carnival the buses run 24/7. Our location is beautiful. Both Mariana and Ouro Preto are colonial mountain towns made up of steep cobblestone streets and beautiful Catholic churches. If it weren´t for the heat and the Portuguese, I might fancy myself in Cajamarca.

As for carnival- it is everything you´ve heard it to be. Imagine an entire town becoming a hip club packed with people, add an extra element of Halloween (mostly the extremely slutty clothes, devil horns, and the ubiquitous bunny and minnie mouse costumes), take away all open container laws (yesterday the girl in front of me handed her open beer to the ticket person on the bus so she could get out her money), and send a samba parade through it all every once in awhile. Oh, and don´t forget the street food! My favourite so far has been chicken pieces wrapped in bacon on a stick. Finally, make every available cart or kiosk in the city available for selling alcohol, mix the drinks strong, and get the loudest possible sound system. You are ready to celebrate carnival.

My mom asked if there is anything that people do to each other for carnival (in Italy they bop each other on the heads, in Cajamarca they throw paint all over you). Here, not so much. People spray canned foam into the air, and sometimes random passerbys will stop to kiss each other, but all in all it is fairly orderly chaos. Yesterday we saw the samba parades, which were definitely a highlight. We saw some great costumes, but mainly very impressive displays of drumming. I think my heart is still pulsing to the rythms of last night.

Tonight the revelery of carnival ends and we begin Lent. It´s hard to believe that I´ll be home by Easter!