good times . . .

The last few days in the Pantanal have been amazing. Unfortunately, I have had to many good experiences that I wouldn't be able to write about all of them if I had a few years to do so. So, I will write about my best memories of the trip. Day 1 in the Pantanal was one of the best. To start the day off, the Americans (Timothy, Thomas, Emilly, Morgan, Reta, Pilar, Hannes and I) went for a boat trip to see an amazing abundance of wild life. Among these aligators were crocodiles, birds (many, many, many birds), and fish. The aligators were impressive and plentiful. Apparently, there are eight million crocodiles in the Pantanal. Quite impressive, I think. This trip was onlly the begining of a fantastic day. I must pause here to point out that the food is incredibal. Everything looks good and by the time I get to the end of the buffet, I have a large plate full of rice, beans, chicken and pork in one hand and a glass of fresh juice in the other. Now back to the day. The night of day 1 was very fun. The hotel alowed the school to have a school dance. The result was Crosby, Tim and I attempting to learn how to move our hips like a Brazillian. Though there were a lot of embarising moments, I ended up having a great time. After a good six hours of sleep, I woke to a cramed day of a multitude of activities. My group and I, after a great breakfast, started our first activity by walking around the SESC Hotel area and learning about was SESC does. They help communities by offering education, better health and, most of all, a greener environement. After this interesting ordeal, we went out of the hotel area to another SESC owned property where we were able to ride horses. I have many great pictures from this. At night, my group and I went out onto the river again to serch for aligators in the water. They are easy to find at night, as long as you have a search light, because, when the light is on their faces, their eyes shine a very big, bright red color. Our guide on the boat was then able to catch a baby aligator which I was able to hold. It was really neat. We then came back to the hotel to an amusing night of kereoke. Students and drunk tourists alike took to the microphone and started to sing. Some were good, many were bad, but all in all it was a good time. After this I had a nice four hours of sleep before I woke to go an yet another boat trip where my group and I watched a beautiful sunrise. When I came back a few hours later, it was seven in the morning and I was welcomend to the hotel with a great breakfast. Afterwards, a few of my mates (Crosby, Hannes, Reta, Emilly and Martin, the Englsih guy who is an English teacher at the SESC School), some tourists and I went on a escipade through the worlderness. We saw many things, but the best thing we saw was a cute, intelligent monkey who was hungry for some bananas. Though we tried to trick the monkey by putting the bananas in places we thought he would never get too, the monkey was craft enough to get to all the bananas whithin just a few minutes. The rest of the day was nice and relaxing as my group had no activities left to do. So the rest of my day went like this: soccer, pool, soccer, pool, watch soccer (World Cup match between USA and England which ended up as a 1-1 tie after an aweful goal by the U.S.), pool and food. Either due to the lack of sleep or humidity or the combination of both, I became a litle sick and now have a sore throat which is also horse, and a head ache. All is well though because tomorrow, Brazil will play their first World Cup match against North Korea! It should be a great game and the whole school will be watching it in the theater. Should be exciting!! But, now I must get ready because the americans are going into downtown Rio today. It should be fun! Tchau.

-Colin W.