Our trip to Brazil

Well, we made it home safely...WITH our luggage & only one small flight delay; however, I managed to leave my camera somewhere during the trip home! I have the hotel & the transport company looking for it but I won't hold my breath. All is not lost...I am grateful for the down time we had at Iguasu Falls & the free internet they had available. I happened to download all the photos I had taken in Rio & Iguasu Falls & upload them to my Google photos - so we have those...but all the pics I took of Ty's area in Londrina & the people we visited there are gone - along with our trip to the Amazon! (Ty stopped taking pictures because we were taking pictures of the same things anyway...so we do not have photos of the rest of our trip.) I'm more frustrated than sad - most of the families we visited also took photos so we can probably get copies of those & since I don't have a fancy camera with a fancy lens, the pics we took of the Amazon just weren't that great anyway. Here are a few of my favorites...

Rio de Janeiro

We took a cable car to the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain...

...All the way to the top...

There at the top we saw a beautiful 360 degree view of the surrounding area...

... over 20 miles of beautiful white sand beaches - Copacobana & Ipanema among the most famous.

Directly across the bay is one of the New 7 Wonders of the World...The Christ Redeemer Statue built on top of Corcovado. It was amazing to see these mountains jet straight out of the ground.

What handsome tourists we are, too.

The next day we took a train ride to the top of Corcovado where the Christ Redeemer overlooks all of Rio de Janeiro. It was an incredible sight.

From here you can see how Sugar Loaf looks from our view at the top of Corcovado.

The city spreads out in every direction & favelas (slums) like these tend to crawl up the mountain sides.

This favela is one of the biggest & recently made famous as the one in the opening scene from the new Hulk movie.

Our hotel was right on the Copacabana & we enjoyed a stroll down the beach. Locals create these incredible sand sculptures for tourists like us to pay for a photo backdrop...what the heck - it was less than a dollar.

Ty is enjoying some coconut milk. We didn't have as much time as we'd have liked to in Rio, but Ty & Paul managed a 9 1/2 minute swim before we had to pack & leave for our next stop at Igausu Falls.

Iguasu Falls

We stayed in the Tropical Cataratas Hotel inside the National Park on the Brazil side of the Falls so we had a great view right outside of our hotel.

The Falls are actually on the Argentine side so we toured that side on our first day. We went "up close & personal" as we got in a boat & went right up to the bottom of the falls...

...this was truly one of the most exciting things I have ever done in my life!

...we were totally soaked by the spray.

After our boat ride, we walked along the top of the falls on these platforms - honestly, WHO built these? They were right on the edge of the falls!

The pictures we took don't even do justice to this awesome display of God's handiwork.

Londrina

Even though we don't have pictures of our little tour of Ty's mission, we did enjoy seeing where he served and meeting some of the people he worked with. It was interesting to see the variety of people that he connected with - some poor, some affluent, some young, some old, some with strong testimonies & some struggling - but ALL of them loved Ty! It was wonderful to feel their spirits & recognize that Ty had made a huge impact on their lives. Every mother hopes their missionary is taken care of by those they meet in the mission field. It was an honor to be in their homes & visit with them. The Gospel is alive & well in Brazil.


The Amazon

We stayed at the Ecopark across the River from Manaus.

We took several boat trips; we fished for piranha (Paul caugt two), we hunted for caimen (aligators) at night, we saw monkeys & birds of all kinds, we went on a hike in the jungle. We never got too close to the wildlife because whenever they sensed people, they scurried away...who wouldn't? People are pretty scary! We saw an Indian village & enjoyed a ceremonial dance and we toured a native village & saw how rubber was made.
We saw the "meeting of the waters" where the Rio Negra meets the Amazon (the two rivers don't mix because of the difference in the density, velocity, & temperature of the rivers). Pretty amazing stuff!

The park had a couple of animal reserve projects where they rescue animals from the city & try to assimilate them back into the wild. We visited them & the three of us held a fat Anaconda, tree sloths (odd looking things), & a monkey crawled up Ty to get a banana he was holding.

It was great to experience a small part of the Amazon Jungle & Rainforest. Even with out pictures, we will remember the experience for a long time. We were happy to have the experience with Ty who is ready to move on to the next chapter in his life...he leaves for BYU Idaho Tue, September 2nd.