Passos

We arrived about forty-five minutes late, nothing new… As we stood up in the bus to file out of the bus, we saw what seemed to be our welcoming party; Pedro, Pedrinho and a few other people I didn't know. We all got into his car and took off to his place which was only about ten minutes away. It was about one in the morning when we got to his place. Both Susan and myself were very ready for bed seeing how we'd been up since 630 in the morning, partly with a hangover from the night before, and the daily drinking routine of the what I've come to understand as the Brazilian lifestyle. Unfortunately (or fortunately) however, when we arrived, there were probably about thirty people parting at his house. Pedro said that they were commemorating his birthday that night because He wasn't going to be in town the day he actually turned 23. And so, as I've become so accustomed to this, the first thing I did was drop off my backpack and grab a beer. Like most parties with Pedro, the bulk of it consisted of playing songs on the guitar and everyone singing for hours on end. We finally went to bed around 3:30 in the morning as I could barley stay awake any longer.

The following day was easy enough, especially because of the wonderful nine hours of sleep. We woke up, ate some leftovers from the night before and took off. After the usual errands we needed to do like checking times of busses to the next location and pulling out money from the bank, we headed downtown. We walked around a little and went to a nice little cafe. As we walked the streets, we soon noticed that our friend Pedro pretty much knew half the population of this 130,000 habitant city. Making many stops to talk to old friends, Susan decided that she wanted to go off shopping so Pedro and I went to a bar for some beer while Susan shopped there downtown. Later that evening, we went to Pedro's godmother's house for some of the best meat I've had here in Brazil. This, of course, was shortly proceeded by going out to the bars. Getting home around four a.m., we went to bed with plans to wake up early.

I awoke to a bang on the door and the word: "WAKE!" in that familiar Brazilian accent around 1 in the afternoon. Coming out of the room I noticed a big spread of food on the table so I quickly woke Susan up to come eat. We ate(yet another wonderful meal in Passos), we had our coffee, and we decided what our plans were going to be for the day. Pitching R$10 each for gas money, we set off on a kind of mini-road trip within our road trip. 45 minuets from the city is a giant lake and around this lake there are many waterfalls. So we spent a few hours at one; putting out feet in the crystal clear water, rock climbing, skipping stones, and enjoying the general serenity of the place. following our day in the sun and water, we checked the dam. Damn, pretty massive I thought, I think it was probably the first dam I'd ever seen actually. We went to both sides, taking lots of pictures along the way and after the sun had set, we headed back to town. The nights' festivities included playing pool at a kind of trashy yet entertaining place where I learned how to play pool the way Brazilians do it. We went to bed relatively early (3:00a.m.) because we needed to wake up super early the following day. At 6:30a.m., I was already up, clothed, and drinking coffee. We had a kind of last breakfast with Pedro, his brother, and his dad while we packed up our stuff to go to the next place. At 7, we were at the bus station shaking hands and going our separate ways. Pedro was going back to São João for "Inverno Cultural" and Susan and I were heading to Foz do Iguaçu. At 7:10, the bus was off and we were on our way for our little than over 24 hour bus ride there.

The first stop was in Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, arriving there around noon. We then waited in the bus station for about three hours for the bus to Iguaçu, sipping espresso and playing cards patiently. Then at three in the afternoon, we got on the bus for the longest bus trip I'd ever taken. kilometer after kilometer, mile after mile, hour after hour, we pressed on. Passing through who knows how many cities, taking breaks maybe once every four hours to stretch our feet and maybe have a snack. it was only after the sun had set and risen again that we had made it to our final destination.