tarantulas??? (Brazil day 3)

Well today marked the first meeting of the Earthwatch team... The site coordinator (who is German) came and gave us a 2 hour briefing on the Pantanal. Tomorrow we fly on the prop plane aat 6:15 am. She said i will enjoy the ride because of the view, but she also said drinking the tap water would be fine so i am not sure if she is completely credible. Plus she drove- its easy to say enjoy the propellar plane ride when you arent getting on! Oh, and they brought up that you have to shake your boots before putting them on because tarantulas hide in them! TARANTULAS! I am fine with everything else, but I do not do big hairy spiders. Not cool in the least bit, but they assure me they are mostly harmless. I will live. I hope....

Our group has some people i think i will like and some i wont. There is one surprisingly cool old couple, 2 other younger teachers (one from Boston), and gene of course. Then there is one guy who has been on 8 of these trips and immediately cast the stone of "how have you people lived without ever leaving the country?" Well, not as many people have as much money as you buddy. But anyways, there was also a British guy who got assigned to our room and showed up at noon... and went to the front desk to request a new room in 5 minutes! He's a little up tight to say the least... Finally there are 2 older boring people I will never mention again. The british guy will from now on be refered to as British guy and the holier than thou traveller will be referred to as California snob.

We went into the city last night and had a great time. They have some interesting things here... drive-thru's consist of a guy at one of those grills like the sausage stand at Fenway and people drive up to the street parking spots he is at. Meanwhile there are tables there and teenage waitresses who bring the menu to passersby. One ran across the street to get us to sit down, and we did, even though we had already eaten once. Gene got a burger and i had a bite and had to get my own- the BEST burger ever made! It had cheese, linguica, bacon, and an egg on it (arteries watch out) and has moved past the mozzerela on a stick as the best thing here (and it only cost $2 !!!!!)...

Speaking of these drive thru's, there was another interesting trend we noticed while there. Brazilian's LOVE live music. Not just people playing, but videos of people playing at concerts. Every hotel, restaurant, and even the drive thru's (who bring out a tv and dvd player hooked to a generator) play DVDs of guitar concerts all day long. Its funny, because they can't just listen to their live music here, they have to see it!

A few other random thoughts
The band at the bar we went to (we felt a little out of place but people were friendly and eventually we had a blast) had 3 guitars and played half portuguese music and half random american covers. They played Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd and Wicked Game by Chris Isaak (I wonder if they have seen the video). By the way, Gene was obsessed with them and wants to bring them to the United States. Oh, and the appetizer we got was filet mignon wrapped in bacon. Awesome.

At the pool a woman was sunbathing and she dumped a powder into her suntan lotion and mixed it in with her finger. I asked her what it was and i think she told me it was a bronzing agent. Weird.

The group had to split into two for tomorrow's departure. Hald have a 6 am van ride for 2 hours and then a flight to the site and a 6:15 flight straight from here. To make things more one-sided, only the 6:15 group will get breakfast. And half of them WANTED the 6 am trip! Because of scenery on the van ride. I thought we were going to have to draw straws for it!

Ok, looks like the internet situation in the Pantanal is good. More to come sometime in the next few days... Until then...