BRAZIL

It's been 5 years since I have stepped foot in the country I love so much. From 1993 until 2003 I traveled to Brazil almost twice a year. A total of 18 times. I have been to Manuas, Belo Horizonte, Barretos, Brasillia, Campina Grande, Ouro Preto, Curitiba, and Recife. I love the people, the food the culture. I want to go back so badly.

I have taken a speed canoe down the Amazon to where the Rio Negro and the Solimoes river come together to form the Amazon River.
I have seen the pink freshwater dolphins jumping as the two rivers flow side by side, not mixing for 8 miles. One is dark black tea colored. the other is muddy.
I have taken the excursion into the floating rain forests where I had to lift a canoe over a log jam, only afterward realizing that I had been in the same water as pirahna.
I have held a sloth and had a monkey stick his hand in my coconut (I gave him the rest!)
I have gone to an amazing sight in the forest where we swam in pools under 3 story raging waterfalls.
I have made friends that I treasure to this day.
I remember the faces of the homeless children and orphans that I wanted to bring home with me even when i was single. The school children that would hug us and hold our hands...running after our bus as we left.
I have snorkled in water off the most eastern point of South America.
I love the fact that the people of Brazil are so integrated. Race doesn't matter. I was the oddity, a very white girl with dark hair and light blues eyes. I knew enough portugese to know when I got on an elevator to understand they were talking about my blues eyes :)

I miss the food...Fruit that we have never seen here in the states. Odd ice cream flavors (corn, avocado and buttermilk to name a few) Pizza with boiled eggs, hamburgers with scrambled eggs, Fries with mayo, Fresh sugar cane squeezed as you watch, Coconuts sliced open with a machete then a straw stuck in. Restaurants where they bring you all kinds of meat on swords until you flip over your little GO sign to STOP. Whole fried fish with the heads AND EYES still on! I have eaten the world's largest rodent, a Capivara (NOT good)

I miss the history. Brazil is 500 years old. It has Opera Houses and churches that are older than the entire United States.

I miss the words. Hearing Portugese and being able to practise the langauge.

I miss Brazil. Period