Tchau Tchau Brasil

Well. After we went to Ubatuba we came back to Assis a little.

This is the cockroach that appeared out of nowhere in our sink. I'm surprised that we haven't seen very many here. I think my count is about 5. There is something kind of beautiful about cockroaches. But I feel a responsibility to smash it, because that's what we do here.

One day as we were going to campus to extract more dragonfly DNA, there was this huge protest in front of the University. I don't know exactly what they were protesting, but I guess they just want better conditions and higher quality buildings that don't leak water on the library books:)

One of our friends here told us we needed to try pamonhas. They are kind of like the Brazilian version of tamales, except they have sweet corn juice batter stuff in the middle. I liked it. Apparently some people like to drink corn juice, but that's less common than not.

This huge bird swooped down right in front of me at the lab where we work. It was beautiful.

These are the yummy swiss crepes we tried. They are deep fried so you can like eat them on a stick. Very tasty. Mine had chocolate in the middle and Sam's had jam and cheese.

We went to a place called Morro do Diabo (Devil's hill) This is one of the trees they cut down there or something.

This is it, the devil's hill. It's apparently the highest point in quite a while and covered in green. We couldn't climb it however because apparently you have to hire a guide and they didn't answer the phone when we called.

We went on this nice trail that went to Lago Azul (blue lake). I think we weren't supposed to go on the bridge but we learned that after we discovered that "ponte" means bridge.

Oh here's a gangster photo from Cerra da Canastra.

We really liked the signs in this park. I'm not sure what kind of animal that is announcing the trail, probably an anta!

Sam noticed that the deer signs are a little different. They have different antlers!

This sign is warning against crossing black lion monkeys.

And toucans.

They had a little museum/visitor center area with creepy stuffed animals.

I don't understand why it's so creepy.

I would not want to meet this toucan in the wild, or while it was crossing the street.

Apparently this is where they buried all of the animals that died when they built the road to make the park. Or something like that. There's like jaguars and antas buried here. Oh, anta in English is Tapir if that clarifies anything.

This is us in front of the sign. You will notice my fancy sunglasses that Nathan gave me courtesy of twitter and my nice adventure hat that we found abandoned on the trail. I like it a lot.

And this one you can see my eyes.

This is a cool assassin bug that we saw on a plant. I think assassin bugs are cool.

This is Sam being amazed by this branch that is suspended in the air above her being held up only by vines. It could fall down and kill her any time.

Here's a close up of the branch. Crazy right? 

So we basically started out on this trail and observed many cool things. Like this tree with a fungus growing on it.

This bridge took us out over the marshy area of the park. Supposedly you can sometimes see antas here, but it was too hot so we only saw a lot of dragonflies. We had a lot of fun though, watching them fight and trying to observe them behaviorally.

It was cool to see the division between the two completely different landscapes of marshiness and atlantic rain forest.

This was a really big tree. I'm glad there were no big spiders on this branch.

I need to study butterfly behavior a little more because I have no idea why all these butterflies were just sitting on the ground here.

Here are these really cool huge anthills. We would have stayed there longer, but the trail we were on started getting narrower and narrower and then we had to fight our way through spiderwebs and we didn't know which spiders were going to eat us. So we left. It turns out I think I picked up a tick from here, but I don't think it was a really bad one.

After we got back, our friend Simone asked us if we wanted to go to the Pescaria. Neither me or Sam knew what a Pescaria was so of course we said yes. It turns out it's a little fishing place. We made some nice friends there and then after we'd eaten our fill on fish, we thought it would be a good idea to go have a Churrasco (barbecue)! It was our last one and Simone is an incredible cook, so even though we weren't particularly hungry, we were really grateful.

So. The same day I found out I got the tick, I was going to go to the bank with Lucas to prepare for our trip to Foz do Iguacu (we were leaving the next day), but we got in the car and it wouldn't start!!! We had just filled up the gas tank, and the battery seemed to work fine so we had no idea what was wrong. Fortunately, Lucas helped us call the car rental company and they sent us a tow truck.

I've never ridden in a tow truck before--it turns out it was a very nice experience. I guess what had happened is this car is what they call a flex: you can fill it up with either gasoline or ethanol. However, when you change, it's very important that you drive around the city for at least ten minutes or you end up exactly like we did. Car not starting. Made a good story though.

This is Lucas' pet tarantula Maria bonita. Isn't she beautiful?

We went out to get Pastels with the lab. This one had some kind of creme or something in the inside. It was delicious. It was kind of cool because this was one of the very first places we ate in Brazil when we first got here with Ricardo, and we ended up in exactly the same spot. We came really far.

These are our biology friends. They're pretty cool.

We made it safely to Foz do Iguacu the next day and it was SO hot and humid. We had to go get acai... just to cool off of course:)

I was a little disappointed that we didn't see any wild jaguars, but I guess I'm happy we are alive.

This is one of the first views of the waterfalls. It's breathtaking.

Running all over the ground are these cute little raccoon-like animals called quatis. Supposedly you're not supposed to feed them or they attack you.

This one posed really nicely for me.

One of our best selfies.

It's really fun visiting places with entomologists. We were all just about as excited about the butterflies as the waterfalls.

I think this is called a blue-frosted catone. It was so stunning.

More waterfalls.

I really liked this golden ant.

Another nice butterfly

And more waterfalls

And more lichen/fungi things

And another butterfly

I thought this spider was pretty cool and did a good job camouflaging.

I'm surprised we didn't see more caterpillars but this one seems dangerous.

This quati really wanted Sam's food.

He came pretty close to attacking.

The same butterfly. The colors are so vibrant.

They would just land on you and stay there. Like walking in an outdoor butterfly garden.

We got pretty wet when we went close to the waterfalls.

"Heights do not intimidate me" says the guy who ACTUALLY invented the first airplane. I'm not sure how the story got mixed up but apparently we shouldn't be giving the Wright brothers so much credit.

Then we visited this huge dam Itaipu. I think it's the second largest dam in the world and it was huge! 

Itaipu! A pedra que canta!

The next day we went to Parque das Aves. And saw this cute toucan eating fruit.

And got to hold this Macaw.

And visited a butterfly house (which was barely more impressive than just being by the waterfalls)

It was so cute to see all the different colors of Macaws grooming each other and interacting.

They also let you take pictures next to this supposedly friendly snake:)

This was the pool at the fancy hotel we stayed at.

The guy at the hotel desk knew we didn't speak Portuguese so he gave us this paper with the wifi password on it.

Our last day in Assis we took one more trip to our favorite ice cream place, the Cristal. It's the best cause you can get nutella-filled cones.

And... to conclude our awesome experience, we had one last Acai. This one with a bunch of fruit on top of it. It was probably my favorite but maybe just because I was being nostalgic. 

This was our last picture in Brazil.

I learned a lot, gained a lot of confidence and made amazing friends. I hope I'll go back to Brazil someday. I'm looking for excuses to. Until then, #seeyalaterseeya.