Planes, Trains, Taxis & TULSA

We are here! We got to the house at 3:00 this morning, then slept until 9:00, ate breakfast and met the other volunteers. It was pouring earlier, but I think it's stopped now. But here's our trip up to that point...

We left Portland on time, but everything after that had some element of delay or surprise to it. When we approached Dallas, TX the pilot first said that we were making good time and would be about twenty minutes early. A few minutes later he came back on and said there was rain and lightening in Dallas so they closed the airport for a couple hours. We were going to circle and wait it out. We circled and circled and circled for awhile, then he announced that we would need to land and refuel in Tulsa, OK. So we landed, refueled, and sat there in Tulsa to wait out the storm, then flew into Dallas. We were supposed to get to Dallas at 5:25 or 5:35pm and ended up getting there at 8:00. We were worried we would miss our flight to Sao Paulo which was scheduled for 7:45, so we basically ran to the Gate. They were still boarding a Miami flight before us so we waited, and waited... and waited. We finally left at Midnight and flew for 10 hours. When we got into Sao Paulo we had already missed our connection to Rio. They put us in a taxi to another airport in Sao Paulo, where we caught our flight to Rio. We took a taxi to our hotel.

***Check the pictures page for photos of each portion***

Now the interesting part...
As we took the taxi through Sao Paulo streets, I noticed they were crazy with cars, bicycles, motorcycles, honking, sirens, and car alarms. There's graffiti covering the entire side of tall apartment buildings. I wondered how people got up there to tag it all. But through all the craziness, it all flowed in a rhythm of purpose. It felt as though that's how it had always been and that's how it will always be, and there wasn't anything anyone could do to change it. There were murals between good old fashioned graffiti and advertisements along the highway. The visual landscape was as diverse as the people there. It reminded me of America, but with a slightly larger proportion of gorgeous women. Even the murals were diverse, depicting the soul of Sao Paulo - the culture, music and their history.

My impression of Rio was similar, but without the enchanting rhythm, just craziness. Our first night in Rio we took a brief walk along ipanema beach and watched kids flying kites in the dark. (It gets dark here at like 5:30pm because it's winter) What made the biggest impression on me in Rio was the caution with which one must breathe. There are so many smells that you never know when an awful one will hit you. The mix of smells included fresh, cologne, sewer, hamburger being grilled, plastic, etc.