Beautiful Bonito

After escaping the pantanal, I caught a bus to Bonito. Since the bus arrived pretty late at night, I decided to spend the first night at a hostel. The next morning, I walked up the main drive in town and checked out several hotels. I found a nice room at the hotel Paraíso das águas and decided to spend the next few nights there - it had a queen size bed, a private bath with a hot shower, and even a TV! There was also a swimming pool (too cold) plus a hot tub and sauna (nice). All for $30 USD a night, including breakfast.

I spent a couple of days just hanging around town, visiting the public parks and talking with people. I loved the phone booths in town.
<Benigni takes on another toucan and survives this time.

Another phone booth. Normal phone booths are the green domes across the road.

During two days of my stay, I went on organized day tours. One of the places I visited was Boca da Onça (the mouth of the jaguar).

This jaguar phone booth in front of my hotel wanted a martini in its mouth!

The water flow was extremely light, since it was the middle of the dry season. Since the waterfalls were less than impressive, I got a 50% discount on the price. Not bad.

This is one of the smaller falls.

There were pretty good trails here - a combination of wood boardwalks and compacted soil or gravel. When I signed up, I was advised that there were 866 steps. That didn't seem to daunting over a 4 mile walk. About midway, there was a rest stop where we could use the bathroom, buy food or drink, and just hang out and rest for a while. I took a little stroll around the area and saw this monkey (and several more that were too far away to photograph).Near the end of the 4 miles, we came to the main falls. I can imagine how impressive it would look during the wet season.

At the base of the falls was a pool of cold water to swim in. In the summer it might have been nice, but it was just too cold for me to even think about swimming.

At this point, my guide informed me that the section of trail with 866 steps was coming up. What? Yep, there was a series of staircases that would take us to the top of the falls. He said I had the option of walking 2 miles back to the mid-point, where a truck could pick me up or to walk the steps. I decided to walk the steps.

I'm not sure how wise of a choice that was. My leg muscles were throbbing by the time I was done. The set up was quite nice. After several flights of stairs, there was usually a landing with a bench so you could rest or take in the scenery. I finished the steps about 5 minutes later than everyone else, so they had already caught their breath when I arrived huffing and puffing. A minibus was waiting for us at the top of the stairs to take us to lunch. We went back to the resort there and had a nice lunch, relaxed on hammocks, and could swim in very cold water with big fish. I took a nice nap on the hammocks, flirted with the guide, and practiced my Portuguese with anyone patient enough to try to have a conversation with me. We were back in town around 6 pm, so I took a HOT shower and a nap before heading out for dinner and to listen to live music.
Another tour I took was to visit the Cachoeiras Rio do Peixe (the waterfalls of the river of fish).

Again, we had the opportunity to swim with the fish and splash around under the waterfall. I stuck my foot in the water and decided it was too cold for me. One man on the tour swam under this waterfall, and ended up scraping a layer of skin off his back. It bled for the rest of the hike.While most of the tour was enjoying the water, I wandered down the trail a little bit alone (we weren't really allowed to leave the group) and saw some monkeys and macaws quite close.


We saw more waterfalls, and had some areas that we had to cross the cold river in knee deep water. This confirmed my decision not to submerge my entire body.

The trail looped around back to the farm where we had a nice lunch and then got to watch the owner feed some of the macaws that hang around the farm. It was quite nice to see these birds closer than what I saw them in the pantanal.
Red and green macaw

Hyacinth macaw

After leaving Bonito, I headed back to Campo Grande to spend then night, then catch an early flight to Florianopolis the next morning.

Garopaba Brazil

I planned to end my trip with a relaxing few days at the beach resort town of Garopaba, in the state of Santa Catarina. I had hoped to do a bit of whale watching and just hang out on the beach. I knew I was early in the season - early spring - so it might not be warm enough to tan on the beach. What I didn't expect was how cold (50F) and rainy it was.

On my first day, I had planned to go take a boat trip to go whale watching. This was the season for the Southern Right Whale. Unfortunately, it was too windy for the boats to go out. I ended up strolling through town in between bursts of rain.

Bistro in Garopaba

Fishing boats

Main cathedral in town

View of town as you walked along the beach
There is a surfing school that practices at the far end of the beach. This surfer decided to brave the cold and rain.

At the end of the beach is a trail that connects Garopaba's beach to the neighboring Siriu beach. I decided to walk the trail and check out the sand dunes on the other side.
If the weather had been nicer, I could have gone boarding down the dunes. That seemed like it would be fun to try. Unfortunately, even after it stopped raining a couple of days later, the sand was still too wet to go boarding on.

On the trail back from Siriu beach, it started pouring rain and I slipped in the mud and twisted my knee. Because it wasn't yet tourist season, there were no taxis to be found. I hobbled back to my room at the Hotel Pousada da Lagoa. The owner, Renato, and his wife took pity on me and invited me to join them for a simple dinner of potato soup and bread with herbed butter. It was a hearty warm soup that really hit the spot.

The next day, it was still cold and rainy, and my knee was swollen to the size of a grapefruit. Renato and his wife drove me around looking for whales. We eventually found some near Imbituba.

We climbed a muddy hill in between rain showers and saw the whales.

Notice the V-shaped blow of the whale. This is typical for Right Whales.

On my last day, I woke up and the sun was out. Figures! I only had about 3 hours before catching my bus to Florianopolis and then my flight back to Sao Paulo to fly back home.
I hobbled around and took in a bit more scenery and watched a few surfers before heading to the bus station.

Despite the cold rainy end, and my swollen achy knee, I had a great time.

I love Brazil!

Grand Canyon National Park

Pictures from the south rim at the Grand Canyon.

Yaba-Daba-Doo in Valle, AZ

As you leave the Grand Canyon, you absolutely must stop at Bedrock City. This fun roadside attraction is located halfway between the Grand Canyon and Williams, Arizona at the junction of AZ 64 and US 180 in Valle, Arizona.


There's a little minimart, campground, and lots of Flintstone characters for posing.
You can even get a cup of coffee for 5 cents at Fred's Diner! Can't beat that price.
If you want something more substantial to chew on, there is a row of bones lining the parking lot.
I'm not quite sure how this metal dinosaur fits with the them - I certainly hope it isn't the skeletal remains of Dino!
I'm also not quite sure how this fits the theme, but it's fun, nevertheless.

Puerto Penasco, Mexico - July 2005

My group of friends had so much fun celebrating birthdays in Las Vegas, that we decided to celebrate more 40th birthdays in Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point).
When we first arrived, we had a few problems - like half the house did not have air conditioning. After a few beers and the property manager sending somebody, there were no worries.

The house was nice inside, and had tilework throughout. Much of the house was decorated in a sea-life theme.

Once we saw this hutch with the martini glasses art, we knew we picked the right place. Benigni felt right at home too.

Most of the weekend was spent on the beach.

When we weren't on the beach, we spent time just hanging out at the house and spending time with friends. We fired up the BBQ and grilled fish and meat for dinner, and ate left overs for lunch. We have some great cooks in the group, so nobody went hungry. For the "official" birthday celebrations, we went out to dinner one night. The food was ok, but not nearly as good as what we made at the house. Plus, there was about 1/2 inch of standing water on the floor of the women's restroom when I went, which sort of grossed me out about eating at the restaurant.

When we needed a break from the beach, we spent some time in the town. I had great shrimp cocktail in one beachside restaurant, and the seafood tacos were great too.
Based on all the statues around town, shrimp is obviously an important part of the economy.