Brazil: Río de Janeiro

Last week, we traveled to Brasil for 10 days with another family from Emerson's class at school. We spent 3 days in Rio, followed by 5 days in Isla Grande, with travel days on either end. We had a wonderful time. The Mom is Macarena (Maca), the Dad is Juan Pablo (Juan P), the daughter in Emerson's class is named Mila, and they also have a 5 year old son named Enzo. Drew started both full days in Rio with volleyball lessons on Copacabana Beach. This was a bucket list item for Drew, so he was super happy. I've never seen so many courts on one beach; they were endless.  

On Saturday, we had tickets to ride the tram up to see the Christ The Redeemer statue. Unfortunately, this did not pan out; really the only miss of the whole trip. Our tickets were for 11am, with our check-in at 10:30am. According to google maps, our Airbnb was 10 min away from the bottom of the tram, so I said let's leave at 10:15am. Well, this was a mistake, as our Uber trips ended up taking 40min due to traffic. So we ended up arriving with only 5 min to spare, and it wasn't enough. We missed our check-in window, and so they converted our timed entry tickets into general entry tickets. The line for general entry was MASSIVE, but it looked like it was moving, so we decided to give it a shot. Apparently the week prior had been nothing but rain, and this was the first really nice day, so the entire city came out to do exactly what we wanted to do. 3 hours later, we were still at least an hour away from the front, and Drew rightly recognized that we would have to stand in a similar line at the top to get back on the tram to come down. So we pulled the plug and called it a day. We were disappointed for sure, but everyone was really good sports about it, and the kids did so well in line; no meltdowns at all. It's amazing what being with friends does to kids' behavior, jajaja. Highlights of the adventure were seeing monkeys as we waited in line and getting ample time to talk with our friends.

After our Christ the Redeemer fail, we spent the afternoon at Ipanema Beach, as our Airbnb was only 2 blocks away. Ipanema Beach lived up to its reputation 100% and totally redeemed the day, pun intended. The sand was bleach white and sooo soft. Sure it was crowded, but everyone was kind and enjoying life. Amazing vibes. And the granite peaks around the city are so unique. It was gorgeous. I would absolutely stay at Ipanema Beach again. 

Lovely Maca!

You can't go to the beach without digging a really big hole!

And then get buried in it, of course!

On Sunday, we went to Sugarloaf Mountain, and this sightseeing experience was exactly what we hoped the previous day would be like. There were no lines to wait in. It wasn't too crowded. We had great weather again, and the views of the city were stunning. 

In the picture below, the long beach in the upper left is Copacabana Beach. 

And we saw monkeys! They were so little and cute! Same kind we saw waiting in line at Christ the Redeemer. 

After our morning at Sugarloaf Mountain, we went and had lunch at a 1970's hole-in-the-wall diner known for rotisserie spring chicken. It was amazingly delicious and looked like it hadn't changed a day in 50 years. 

Another highlight of the Ipanema neighborhood was this bakery that was just down the street from our Airbnb. It was open 24 hours a day and was delicious. Chocolate croissants for days!!

Emerson's 8th Birthday and Mother's Day

 I think we've been celebrating Emerson's birthday for about two weeks now. It started on the 8th, a Friday, when Emerson brought in donut holes to share with his classmates, and he got to wear street clothes to school. Drew actually got to go into the classroom on that day and give a 15-min talk about what life is like in the United States, as the class was doing a social studies lesson on immigration and family origins. So it was nice he got to be there in person while they sang Happy Birthday to Emerson. That evening we had Emerson's chosen dinner menu of spaghetti, green apples, and red peppers, followed by a chocolate torte with whipped cream frosting. Then, he opened his presents. I unfortunately didn't get pictures of any of that, but it was a nice evening. 

On Saturday, which was his actual birthday, we had chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, as is tradition. 

That afternoon we were going over to a classmate's house for an asado with other school parents and kids (mostly boys) from class. The Dad hosting thought it would be fun to surprise Emerson with a cake, since it was his literal birthday, so he graciously got one. The candles were also trick candles, so all the boys there got to help blow them out, and they had alot of fun. Emerson was surprised for sure. 

Sunday was Mother's Day. The morning started with breakfast in bed: the highlights being hand squeezed orange juice by Emerson and a card from Avery. A few weeks ago, we had a BBQ with Avery's class at this privately owned nature park called El Sanctuario de la Naturaleza de Arrayán. It is a very lovely little park, only 20 min from the house. It's tucked in a valley and has a creek running through it, so it's perfect for the kids. So, I decided this is where I wanted to spend Mother's Day. Drew organized the day with 5 other families from our friend group, mostly expat families who work in either the German or Austrian embassies here. It was a lovely day: perfect weather and everyone had a nice relaxing time. We had 10 parents and 14 kids. 

Then on Saturday the 16th, we had a joint birthday party with Sebas, Emerson's best friend, and Agustina, a girl from class who all have May birthdays. We went to Mampato, a little amusement park that is the perfect size for the kids. They can ride all of the rides, and the park isn't so big that they are going to get lost. Emerson was running amuck with his friends, so I actually don't have many photos of him, but Avery and I went around and rode rides together, so I have a few more of him. Almost the whole class came, and yes, we did the piñata with the resulting candy scramble. And Emerson got a giant bag of presents that we've been opening up 4 at a time. Overall, it was a fun day, and minimal work for me, which was a win. 

Reserva Nacional Altos de Lircay

Friday, May 1st was Labor Day in Chile, a public holiday, so the boys had it off from school. We took advantage of the long weekend and drove 4 hours south to a National Reserve called Altos de Lircay, hoping to see some fall colors. The city of Santiago itself gets some fall colors, but not a ton. Maybe half of the trees change; the other half are varieties that stay green even during the winter, so more tropical I suppose. By going south, we were going to areas with colder winters, so most of the trees would be changing, and we weren't disappointed. I also did not realize that grape leaves change color as well, so all the vineyards we passed were spectacular. And so many different shades! Yellows, oranges, reds, deep maroons. Very lovely. 

On the drive into the valley, we got a really nice view of some rocky cliff faces. My two goals on this trip were to see some colors and to get a view of this valley. 

The first afternoon, we took a short hike on some private land (which is for sale if anyone is interested!) to the two lagunas or lakes. The hike was fun because it through some impressive, old growth forest. 

The lagunas themselves were lovely. They are much bigger and deeper than they appear in these photos. You could easily cliff jump into them. And so pristine! We saw a handful of other people on the hike. 

Saturday was the day we had tickets to go into the National Reserve itself. The day started a bit rough, as Emerson didn't want to go hiking; he wanted to stay at the wild camping spot we had and play. But, after realizing the goal of the day was to just spend time in nature and not do a forced march, he acquiesced. Our first mirador was everything I was hoping for, a lovely view across the valley. The hike to this mirador is very family friendly. The reserve was technically sold out, but we hardly saw anyone all day. I think alot of people do much longer, multi-day hikes through this valley, so for us, it felt like we had the place to ourselves. 

One surprise of this area is it was chock full of little lizards. They were everywhere, of all different sizes and colors. The boys had fun making "habitats" for them, aka creating little water pools to see if they'd come drink. And they did!

Since spending time in nature was the only goal, there was lots of time for things like tree climbing!

Another surprise of this National Reserve was the old growth forests, which had some HUGE Coihue or Dombey's Southern Beech trees that were hundreds of years old. The one in the picture below was 500 years old! If you ever need a mental reset, give a tree a hug. It does wonders. 

Our last exploration was along a hiking route that goes up to a rock outcropping. We weren't going to make it all the way today, but for adults, it looked very nice. 

We found a perfect climbing rock, so we spent most of our time pretending to be animals living in caves amongst the rocks. 

The view back across the valley was lovely. It kinda reminded me of the Smoky Mountains, as the cool clouds were getting trapped amongst all the nooks and crannies. 

We ended up staying out in the Reserve the entire day, and the boys had a great time. Adventure's out there!

We were wild camping at this flat pullout along the main road into the reserve. Every morning, we'd see the Caballeros walk the tourist horses up to the places you could go to rent them for the day, and every night they'd walk them back down to their fields. 

Also, as we cooked bacon for breakfast two days in a row, all of the nearby dogs came to visit to check out the smells. They were very cute.