¡Brasil!

Now that work here in Chile is over I'm off on my next big adventure: a trip with two great friends to Brazil! Alexandria, my oldest and dearest friend, and Allegra, my roommate here in Chile, are meeting me down in Rio where we'll start what will be a month of beaches, jungle and caipirinhas. Ahhh....what a life!
We start in Rio and spend about a week there, visiting the tourist sights, and above all else, the beach :) Then we fly to Iguazu Falls. Thanks to the Brazil AirPass, we get to fly around the ENORMOUS country of Brazil, which lets us see a lot more! We are planning to see Iguazu from both the Brazil side and the Argentinian side, and hang out around the falls for a few days. Then from Iguazu we turn in our shorts and tank tops for long pants, high socks, and very fasionable mosquito net hats. (Thanks, Mom.) We are off to Manaus to do a 6 day, 5 night ecotourism trek through the Amazon jungle! We get to sleep in hammocks, fish for piranhas and canoe down the Amazon river. Along with this I plan on finding both El Dorado (The City of Gold) and the Fountain of Youth. That is, if I don't get Dengue Fever first.
After our trek through the jungle we fly over to Recife for what will most likely be some much needed time in the sun. We plan to do a bit of exploring the town, leaving lots of time to hit the beach. After 2 days in Recife we continue down the coast to Salvador, where we explore more beaches. Are you noticing a trend? With our safely tanned skin (I have 3 full bottles of sunscreen) and our bellys full of caipirinhas (the national drink) we head back to Rio by bus, stopping whereever we darn well please :) It's going to be epic!
So I've got my big yellow backpack almost all packed, a few Reals stored safely in my oh-so-fashionable money belt, and I'm ready to head out and meet up with my girls! Now to learn some Portuguese...