After crossing the border into Nicaragua, we hopped on an old converted school bus headed to the beach.  Just north of San Juan del Sur is a small village called Playa Gigante.  The population is about 500 and growing.  Originally struggling as a fishing village, new foreign investors are starting to bring tourism to the area.  Playa Gigante isn’t an ideal surf location, but a short walk or boat ride will take you to great waves.  And that’s enough reason for the avid surfer to arrive, maybe not in droves, but enough to make a difference.

We met back up with Hedda & Michael Hagen for the week, and Michael Hagen has been teaching us how to surf on Playa Amarillo.  Other than a few unused shelters built on the beach, Playa Amarillo is completely undeveloped–no boats, houses or restaurants.  The last two days the four of us have had the beach completely to ourselves.  Since I’m just a beginner surfer, I can’t speak for the quality of waves in Nicaragua, but a beautiful sandy, deserted beach anywhere in the world is a real jewel.

Since I’ve skied all my life, learning to surf seemed like it should be easy, but it’s not.  The toughest thing about surfing is not tiring yourself out while paddling out past the waves crashing down.  The waves keep breaking; even as I get past one, there’s another one and another one, as if they multiply.   As I try to dodge the white water, I’m kind of panicked, thinking “oh shit,” “oh shit”…if a wave crashes down on me, I’m thinking something way worse than “oh shit”…by the time I make it out past the waves breaking, I’m completely relieved and exhausted…while I wait for a set to roll in, I try to catch my breath…when the time is right, I try not to get frantic as I start paddling against the wave thinking, “hurry, hurry, paddle faster!”…as the wave takes me, “yeah, here we go!”…if I get to my feet, I’m elated thinking, that wasn’t so hard, along with “whoa, this is excellent!”.  If I didn’t make it to my feet, I’m holding my breath underwater wondering when I will be released from the grips of this mighty wave and wondering whether my surf board is going to knock me out.  It’s obviously going to take time to get it right–but it’s the right combination of challenging and rewarding to keep me going back for more. {above: Michael Hagen surfing.  Look closely and you can see a blur of orange under the wave.}

From Paraty we headed straight for Rio to meet up with Hedda (and her friend Claire) for a few days to catch up since we last saw her in July. The overcast skies didn’t keep us from doing the requisite tourist activities. We went up to Christ the Redeemer, watched a football (soccer) game, toured Rocinha favela (township), watched Brazilian volleyball on Ipanema Beach (no hands, only feet, head and chest), went to a churrascaria for all you can eat meat, and went to Lapa for dinner where Hedda almost had her wallet stolen. I’d say we did all that we could do as a tourist in Rio.

According to the Patricia, there’s not much to do in Sao Paolo except eat (& drink) and shop–which is what we did. Similar to my story with Neil, Patricia had been inviting me to visit Brazil for Carnaval for some time. But every year was the same excuse, I just didn’t have the time to make the long trip. But just recently she landed a big job that brought her back to her native Brazil, so the timing couldn’t have been better to visit Sao Paolo and check in on Patty, and do the thing we like most, eat.

The big thing in Brazil is the churrascaria, which is a Brazilian steakhouse. There are two styles of steakhouses; the traditional steakhouse where different types of grilled meats are bought out on a huge skewer (called rodizio dining) which is sliced and served table-side. The second style of Brazilian steakhouse has a grilling station near your table, and the waiter will bring out a large piece of meat, slice it, and cook it, and serve it at the same pace you eat. As you nearly finish eating what is on your plate, more is served.  We ate so much at lunch that we weren’t hungry the rest of the day, but rest assured, we still forced down dinner at 10:30pm (Brazilians eat late).

The gauchos (former cattle ranchers) in the south of Brazil are very serious about this second method of cooking steak. Patricia’s friends mentioned that it is a “selling point” to those buying a house. Apparently, these grills are the centerpiece in the living room of any self-respecting gaucho.

Oh, and BTW, Patricia is happy to be back in Sao Paolo, reunited with her family, meeting up with old friends, and energetic for her new job.

It’s the long Easter weekend–Mike and I decide on Saturday morning to go on one more safari. We learned that there is a private game reserve only two hours from Cape Town, so we figured, why not.

A few hours later, we arrive only to find out that Good Charlotte, the band from the US is staying at our lodge and MTV is filming the band while on safari. Also, Paris Hilton who dates the lead singer is also at the lodge. Anyways, the big story about this is that while we are in the lobby registering, I recognize someone I know– Gary, from Philadelphia. It turns out he’s on tour with Good Charlotte as the sound/audio man. He arranges for us to get tickets and back stage passes to the Coke Festival concert.  Thanks Gary!

Kelly and I spent the afternoon preparing thanksgiving dinner and by early evening we sat down to a fabulous meal.  It’s not so easy to find turkey in Turkey, so instead we made chicken.  Kelly imported cranberry sauce and pumpkin puree from home, which helped to really make it Thanksgiving. We improvised and made pumpkin burek as a substitute to pumpkin pie.  We celebrated the night with Ali, a friend we made in Istanbul.
Kelly flew back to the States early the next morning, and we were off to Cairo. 

Stop #4 on our day-long eating tour–gozlme–otherwise known as a Turkish quesadilla…

Stop #?? Turkish pastry shop. Dessert is a universal language.

Somewhere between Stop #4 and Stop ??. Smyrna bar. We had some drinks and texted Danielle via Blackberry while old-school Cuban music played in the background. Note from Kelly: Christine and Mike are such hi-tech tourists.

50 YTL for one bag of veggies? I think we got fleeced! Check out the smiles on the vendors’ faces–they seem to agree…

Ask and you shall receive. We were searching for nutmeg and some rosemary when this adorable spice shop appeared. This nice gentleman sold us one nut and then opened a drawer to reveal his secret stash of rosemary. Thanksgiving here we come…

So, we have our first visitor…Hedda, who has tracked us down again. Back in December, she and her husband Michael showed up in Krabi, Thailand and followed us to Bangkok to take a cooking class. Now, she’s here in Barcelona. We’ve shared tapas with her, many bottles of wine and cheese, gone to La Sagrada Familia, Fundacio Joan Miro, and there’s even more to do in the next few days with her. She’s our first visitor and we’re excited to have her here to share in our travels. I wonder where we’ll meet up with next!
And, the question also remains which one of you will we see next??