BRAZIL: goose/man-wolf/possom on the roof

Our apartment in Ilha Grande was our own separate building, surrounded by trees and thick plants. It´s spooky. After coming home last night early (2A), We crawled up into our upstairs loft, I put my earplugs and eye mask, and went right to sleep. I kept hearing Kathy and Kate talking and laughing and panicking about some noise on the roof but I just drifted off to sleep. The last I heard was "doesn´t abuela hear it??!!" (They still only call me Abuela - my grandma camera, my swollen ankles, worrying about the rain...) At 4AM, when I was fast asleep, Kate started screaming bloody murder and screamed THERE´S SOMETHING IN OUR ROOM, IT GOT IN!!! This scared the living hell out of me and I jumped out of bed, screaming, grabbed the railing and tumbled/jumped down the stairs in the dark. Kathy was screaming too. I thought there was somebody or some animal in our room. But no, Kate had some nightmare. Now I have a bunch of bruises on me and I look like someone beat me up. Apparently, they had been hearing some loud animal for hours, some scraping and knocking and sliding around on the roof so loud they couldn´t sleep. It doesn´t sound scary now, but at the edge of a tiny jungle town, in the thick trees when you are alone in your own building it´s scary as hell. They were trying to look up in the lonely planet Brazil what it could be, and apparently there is some animal called a man-wolf (!) , or something. That´s what I secretly hope it was. In the morning, the pousada lady thought it might be geese taking refuge on our roof in the rain. I´m still hoping for man-wolf. Last night was kind of creepy and sinister with the rain. It was really hard to sleep after that, it felt like a horror movie. You know when you get that horrible feeling in your gut, like when I watch the Exorcist, it was like that. It´s been a long time since I was that scared.

For our last night in Ilha grande, we went out to one of the few restaurants in town we hadn´t yet been to for some pasta, then went to the two tiny bars in the main square (where else) to people-watch. We ran into our Argentinean friends, Santiago, Thomas, Frederico, I forget all their names. We had some beer with them, then all went to their place a few blocks away, partly out of curiousity to see how messy their place was. OK, we were bored. It was raining. And it didn´t disappoint. Mattresses pulled out on the floor, the couch taken apart, a certerfold of some magazine taped on the wall (of some lady named "Sabrina"), empty pot of spagetti on the stove, nothing but beer in the refrigerator, one bottle of hand lotion on the counter (which we teased Frederico about but he insisted he really used it as hand lotion). surfing stuff, the distinct smell of 4 or 5 guys all sharing an apartment...it was funny. They had been invited to some party down the beach at the hostel but kind of needed us to get in, just so that they didn´t appear like 3 guys crashing the hostel party to hang out with the busty norweigan girls, haha. We went along anyway, figuring there might be caiaparinas and maybe some British boys for us. But there was neither so we left them there. They were fun to hang out with in Ilha Grande, our Argentinean posse, we have some pictures with them.

We are now in Rio, in Ipanema, in a cute little hostel with a nice pool and deck area. I hope I don´t snore and annoy the other people in my room. I hope Kate doesn´t wake up screaming. I hope we don´t annoy the other people in the room by singing "dragonstea din tei" by O-Zone. Remember the website/email that was sent around with that video of a fat dutch kid lip-synching that song? I have it on my ipod. We sing it pretty much every day. There is even a spanish or portuguese version that I have heard twice here. Its a euro-trash classic, look it up on Amazon.com and I´m sure you´ll recognize it, I dare you to get it out of your head. We had a nice bus ride today to Rio through green jungle-y scenery. I listened to Afterlife, Everything but the girl and some latin music, it was nice and fit the scenery. I still just love the new i-pod.

It´s still raining but we have high hopes for hang-gliding tomorrow. I have no idea what we´ll do tonight. It is so wierd being back in a big city again! The beach area is beautiful, even in the rain. I love the mosaic designs they have all over the beach-front, very 60s mod. Steep little mountains rise right near the city, it´s a cool and stunning sight. Rio must have one of the greatest skylines.

OK, what time is it? It´s caiaparina o´clock.