Day Five - Reo Under Water

The day started with the Cowboys leading the Giants in a rendition of Sunday night football. Earlier Shane was on his little blackberry running around the web finding about satellite feeds coming into Brazil with a sense of urgency. By 7 pm yesterday (or so) he was sure he could get the game but he swapped out all the programed channels on the bigscreen in the Executive lounge and the game wasn't still there.

"I need to go up to your room to get this working" -- I'm pretty sure that was his cover. He disappeared and I have visions of him on the roof with a soddering iron re-working all the circuit boards on the hotel's satellite dish then crawling down the side of the building spider man style so he could splice that cable that you can only get to by hanging upside down between the 17th and 18th floor.

Whatever it was he was back in the lounge a little after nine looking like the cat that ate the cannary (and the chocolate from my pillow) and 10 minutes after that we were watching football on the widescreen in the lounge.

Anyway that was yesterday -- the last thing from when the game ended (in the part that was "today" was the Giants kicked a field goal. At the time I had no clue why, but a few minutes they kicked another and the game ended with the Cowboys 2 points down. Cassandra was sad. John was happy. I was tired. I went to sleep.

Later today I stopped sleeping when I heard a sound I was pretty sure was caused by the folks in room 1608 trying to dig through the wall. Kind of a rumbly scraping sound. They would dig - then rest - then dig again. I laid there and listened. Grind, scrape grind, pause for twice as long as they were digging, then grind, scrape, grind.

Terrified that they were almost through the wall (the sound was getting REALLY close) I sprang from the bed and jumped over to where I could warn Loretta. As I approached her I saw her mouth open and the digging noise started. A moment later her mouth closed and the digging stopped.

When some people get ready to travel to another country they spend months, even years, learning a new language. Others spend a bunch of time shopping for cloths. I'm convinced Loretta spent her time learning new snoreing sounds so she could keep me guessing.

It's working.

Anyway I woke her up and suggested we clean up a bit and then go eat before our showers. It was a rainy day and a bit windy. The surf seemed to be about 3 and a half meters (I'm not allowed to say it in feet becasue they do metric system here but there is just under 4 feet in a meter so you can do the math if you need to).

During breakfast I chose chairs that looked out the window at the ocean. As we watched the big waves crashing into the beach we discussed the contrast of the extreme violence of being in front of the waves compared with the sea behind the break point.

I commented on the fact that NOBODY was in the water - it was just too wild and crazy. I explained that from my perspective a person would have to be crazy to go out there. Loretta thought for a moment and then said; "You know - we should go out there".

"Are you kidding? There is NO WAY I would go out there". "Come on!" Loretta coaxed "The best things in life are highly disturbing when they are happening - Life isn't a spectator sport! Sometimes you've got to grab the bull by the horns"

Well it took her over an hour to talk me into it but finally (and quite reluctantly) I agreed.

Somthing like that is all fun and games until you get run over by the first Mac truck (and let me tell you - when 40,000 kilos of water slams into you it's not unlike the Mac truck thing).

We let the first wave pass then rushed out trying to get to the break point before the second arrived. Turns out they were coming just too fast. The second crashed right in front of us and even though the water did a one hop before reaching us it was still easily twice our height when the spankings began.

For some reason I can't quite explain I took a deep breath as the wave approached and chose to let it out when the wave crashed in front of us and then took a new breath about the time we were covered in salt water.

"Oh crap!" I coughed and gagged "I can't do this".

"It's over - the wave is past" Loretta exclaimed "Get a good breath and come on - we can get farther out!" She grabbed my hand and started running toward the next mountanous wall of water as it formed a scant 20 meters away.

The next one hit us hard - well over our heads. We faltered but didn't fall down. When the water cleared I was in a near panic.

"This is too dangerous! I can't touch the bottom. The water is too deep. The waves are too big" I cried.

"First - it's not dangerous, you're just not used to it" she calmly told me "You probably could reach the bottom but your legs are currently wrapped around my waist and you are tearing my shirt off with both of your hands. If you climb down off of me and we move out another 15 meters we will be behind the break point and no more waves will hit us - it will just be swells"

"I can't - I'm too scared" I responded.

"Ok" she said "You've got a pretty significant life experience just coming out this far but are you sure you want to? You're just a few hundred centemeters from much more forgiving water"

"I've come this far but I'm really satisfied with my accomplishment to this point" I responded "Let's head back in"

We turned, took two steps and the next wave pushed us back to the beach.

As we walked back toward our waiting sandals Loretta explained that the best things in life are typically very troubling as they occur. She told me that two years from now when we talk about this vacation my episode with the waves would be one of my favorite memories. She promised it would all be worth it."

We scarcely made if off the beach before I realized she was probably right.

After the first wave experience we did some more in the water. I got some good rides in on the boogie board and when we were finally quite tired we headed back to the hotel to shower.

I was done showering and Loretta was most of the way through hers when Shane and Cassandra showed up.

We decided to go to Ipanema today but before that we went there we stopped at a Churrascaria (Brazilian BBQ - all you can eat meat) where we ate all we could and then quite a little bit more.

Next we walked by the kid's hotel so they could change their clothes (it was rainy and a bit nippy out) and then headed down the road.

We quickly decided to take a taxi. We piled in and I said "La Playa de Ipanema". The guy gave me a thumbs up and took off in the wrong direction. I believe he was going to go there by way of Venezula but I gave him the stink eye, thrust my thumb over my shoulder and explained that I knew where Ipanema was. He turned the cab around and stopped screwing around.

We walked along the shore for a while. The waves were twice the size of the ones in Copacabana. Very big. Very scary.

Next we walked back throught he shopping district of Ipanema. Loretta bought stuff. Cassandra bought stuff. I walked in the rain and got wet. Then something unexpected happened.

We walked by an open air drug store. In front of the drug store was a freezer full of ice-cream bars. Besides the ice-cream bars sat a little man on a stool.

Shane jumped over, stared into the freezer (it had a glass door on the top) and yelled (not to be confused with the word "said") "HI ICE-CREAM".

The little man jumped off his little stool and hit the ground running. He sprinted into the store and came back out with a key for the lock on the freezer.

Apparently Shane missed the little man when he decided to greet the ice-cream in this mannor. There was a short spot of confusion as Shane tried to explain that he didn't really want any ice-cream, he was just being friendly to it. Next the little man was trying to explain the meaning of gringo loco but he was speaking Portuguese so we never really figured it out.