Saturday, May 17, 2008

Simul-blogging

Wonder of wonders, Rose and I just sat down and, unbeknownst to each other, began composing blogs in unison. So here is my take on recent events:

Just a quick note from Florianopolis, Brazil, an island just off the coast in the southern state of Santa Catarina. Fresh out of an all you can eat sushi buffet, we are stuffed to the gills with raw fish and rice. In fact our fish consumption has rocketed off the charts lately, as our last two suppers (before today´s sushi) consisted of tainha (which I believe are ¨mullet¨ in english). Taihna season is in full swing and you can buy them fresh for a couple of reais, good sized ones that are more than enough for Rose and I. A fine, fatty, mild, white-fleshed fish, easy to fillet - no idea how the popular Argentine haircut got named after them...

Today we rode a bus for a few hours to avoid a busy section of coastal highway - our diesel particulate consumption for the year is already way too high. But the days before that consisted of some good coastal riding along sandy dirt roads. So sandy, in fact, that we abandoned the road entirely at one point and rode on the beach for a 25 kilometer stretch as the beach was much firmer than the road. It was a pretty cool feeling to be rolling along listening to the breakers, and watching the shorebirds - avocets with their formal black and white attire, raucous oystercatchers with their carrot-like bills, skimmers, gulls, egrets... We finally saw a toucan the other week too, but that was back up in the mountians.

We spent the better part of one lovely afternoon a few days ago floating placidly on a estuarine river after the tugboat ¨powering¨our ferry broke down. Luckily, one of the pickups that happened to be on the ferry had the right tools and they got it fixed eventually. The weather has been sublime - sunny but not too hot. We are hoping to get in some more surfing now that we are in the thick of Brazilian surf territory and thus should be able to find boards to rent. So far we have only gotten one day in the water, back in Torres where we were able to convince a local restarauntuer/motorcycle gang member (Kruger) to rent us a couple of his boards and wetsuits. My wetsuit was a bit loose, as Kruger has a solid 30 kg on me - mostly around the mid-section. Anyhow, thats all for now.

All the best,

Ty

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