PH -Wild : Anna 3x20 - Counting Down - 6 days left

Wild - he he, I said to my self, when counting days to the 3x20 Event on September 20: The whole Event is simply a wild thought. But it is, as Anna says, an opportunity for her to meet old friends once again - at the same time. Which is not a Wild Idea.

But you have asked for it - WILD I mean: (2 photo this time)
WILD.

Wild Water - much more than we can drink during next weeks party.
(Foz do Iguazo - Cataratas de Iguazú)

Only 6 days left to Anna's tripple twentieth Birthday. Wow.
But who are coming?

We will have a Wild Celebration next Saturday. Here mr. N and papa with cigars.

By now you have been presented for 12 of the Guests. How many will it be? Stay tuned. More to come. Many more? Or?

Wild Photohunters

TORsday 13 - Jan 24 - 2008

My 13 this Thursday is from The Iguazu Falls on the Frontier between Argentina and Brazil. All pictures taken first week of December 2007. I will come back to more details about the trip and the surroundings and sad facts about the Rainforest. You my look at this as a teaser. OK?

1 - Walking in the Rainforest, you can hear a noise. And suddenly ----

2 - Wow - what is this?

3 - Closer and closer

4 - Very close - you can even come here in a wheel chair.

5 - Here the River starts falling down into the Cataratas de Iguazu - Foz do Iguazo

6 - Water everywhere - it's incredible large

7 - Waterclouds

8 - Rainbow

9 - Impressive

10 - Close and wet - haha - very refreshing

11 - These birds lives only in the Iguazu Falls. Their body temperature force them to stay inside the falls - but they need food and fly out to catch insects. But they can not stay outside for many minutes. Enlarge to watch.

12 - Can we come closer?

13 - Yes, on the Iguazu River in Boat (that's another story)

..... More to come (about the sightseeing options and the Riverboat tour)

PS. This was originally meant to be posted under "Cyber Cruises" - but that meme has moved to Word Press. I'm not there yet. How to find out more about it, go to Mrs Lifecruiser

Iguazu - and return

The three of us went from Buenos Aires to Iguazu on Thursday.
In short: The Waterfalls are a World Heritage. You can´t imagine if you have not been there. It takes 2 days to have a clue of the size. (May be some of you will remember a movie with the title The Mission?)
Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina in one Day. We met Evita, but Ingelin named her Clara.
Saturday we went by bus, walked a lot, went rafting (under the Foz) 4x4 truck in the jungle, dropped the inclusive dinner at the hotel and and ....

Ingelin went back to Miami last Night. We are going North to Salta at noon to day.

More to come.....
Lots of pictures (even cats, birds, racoons, the falls from air, land and from inside)

Another Mystery

The Statue Code in Fortaleza

Once again I got a question related to one of my photos on Fotothing. And once again I needed to refresh my memories and search for the answer. This time I got the answer in less than 1 hour. From Visit Fortaleza in Brazil. As I say: The world is flat, in the sense of never sleeping. And by finding answers to questions from blogger friends, I do learn a lot. And I'll share it with you, my dear reader.

Here goes the story:

I received this comment and question to the photo above:
From: jceca PRO

wonderful looking sculpture ... but .. what is she exactly doing ???

Well, there was something there, in my brain, but blocked (have you also felt that kind of blockage?).
Searched the web. Not there, nothing here, Fortaleza, art, guide, sculpture.... Without result.
Well, to whom can I write asking the question. Some tourist organisation? Yes. Search again.
Find a clue and wrote this e-mail:

Dato:	Mon, 29 Jan 2007 22:37:42 +0100 (CET)
Fra:	"Tor aabo" Se kontaktinformasjon
Emne:	Questions about a beachfront statue
Til:	webmaster@visitfortaleza.com

Hello,
some years ago my wife and I had the luck to visit
your beautiful city.

As most tourists do, we also took some pictures, of
which I have posted some on my Photoblog.

One of the pictures shows a modern sculpture - a woman
with a "bow".
You can see it here:
http://www.fotothing.com/taaboe/photo/9f971d9c3da88f102359e7b0c6fb6446/

Soon after this picture was posted, I got a question
related to the sculpture:
What does it symbolize and who's the artist and where
to find it in Fortaleza?

This I took as a pleasant challenge, but
my searches on Internet have so far been without
result.
That's why I'm adressing Visit Fortaleza and kindly
ask if you can help me.

I've done similar researches before and afterwards
posted an article in my blog.
Like this one after a question about an inscription on
an altar embroidery in a Norwegian 1150 century
church:
http://toraa.blogspot.com/2007/01/mystery-in-church.html

Best regards and thanks in advance

Tor Aabo
(Norway)

Now then, look at the Timestamp on the answer, and you know what I mean by "Flat world".
How long did it take until I received the Answer? Look further down.

Dato:	Mon, 29 Jan 2007 19:56:37 -0200
Fra:	"jose issamu yamada" Legg til i adressebok Yahoo! DomainKeys har bekreftet at denne meldingen ble sendt av gmail.com. Lær mer
Til:	"Tor aabo"
Emne:	Re: Questions about a beachfront statue

Hi,

This is one of the several statues of Iracema in Fortaleza.
I put some info about Iracema here:
http://www.visitfortaleza.com/beaches/iracema.html

If you need more info, let me know (if you could place a link to the
page, I would appreciate it).

Thanks,
Issamu

Correct answer to my question: It took 19 minutes.
I refere the first part from the link above:
The name Iracema refers to an Indian female of the same name, who became part of the History of Ceará.

The New Statue
of Iracema

History books say that a Portuguese called Martim Soares Moreno was one of the greatest heroes of the war against the Dutch invasors, in the first half of the 17th century; Martim Moreno chose to live in Ceará, among the Indians.
In the 19th century, José de Alencar, one of the greatest Brazilian writers, wrote a book called Iracema; in the book, Iracema was the wife of Martim Moreno.

Iracema provided the strenght that Moreno needed to fight. The name Iracema doesn't appear in the History books, but Alencar said that his novel was inspired by tales he heard since childhood.
Iracema is so entrenched in Fortaleza History that there are five statues of her in the city. The oldest one was dates back to 1965, when the novel Iracema was turning the 100th anniversary, and is located in the beach of Mucuripe.

I am overwhelmed by this quick and precise answers. That's what I'm calling Quality Service.

If you want to read more about the history of the region and Fortaleza, click here.

Here are some pictures from our visit to Fortaleza and surroundings some years ago, around Christmas and New Year (What a fantastic arrangement at the Beach on New Year's Eve - Es do Brasil- I did not bring the camera).


The picture to the right, courtesy of www.visitfortaleza
Alle pictures to the right and from Cucumbo, taken by Tor and Anna.
Right from top:
1) Anna in our roof-top pool - very pleasant 'cause of the slow breeze.
2) View from entrence to the appartement - Praia Meireles and Atlantic Ocean in the background
3) View from Balcony to the Meireles Beach .December 26 - 2002
Meireles is the stretch of beach which surrounds the Feirinha de Artesanato (Handicraft Fair). The area is packed with hotels, restaurants, small shopping centers and other tourism oriented businesses.
Meireles has also a large concentration of barracas (rustic restaurants) by the beach; these restaurants serve good food and drink.
4) Anna at Ponte dos Ingleses (Bridge of the
Englishmen) - Praia Iracema
5) Christmas tree made entirely by plastic bottles
For more information, please click on the link given in the answer from VisitFortaleza.

A day-trip to Cucumbo - 30 minutes to the West of Fortaleza
Ask for Tours at your hotel or in tourist kiosks at the Beach (Meireles)

First stop en route to Cucumbo, was this charming Lake. You can rent Jet-boats, windsurfers and have a sightseeing sitting on huge rubber-sausages. Or just take a swim and/or a lunch. Chickens and Ducks are slaughtered just in front of you. Garanteed fresh. (We had Fish).

The Beachbuggies have a stop on this Sandhill from where you can glide on Sandboards down and into the Lake. It is sand, not snow. Beautiful view from up here. And, of course, you can buy different sorts of refreshments, fruits and snacks.

The Beachbuggy Tour in the large, snow-white sandhills in Cucumbo is a must. Here just before going down the steep hills. You can also see the Vikings have been there.

If you want to, or feel it safe i.e. you master riding, you can ride for miles after miles on white sand.

This is a Jangada - typical fish boat, or more correctly a raft with sails, from Ceara. Cucumbo.

After a long day in Cucumbo, it was wonderful just to sit down and zip to a drink

=^.^=
tomorrow

The struggle

Along memorylane:
There is allways a solution

Back in 1998, during Christmas-time, Anna and I spent some 10 days in Paraty. Paraty is a small village in the State of Rio de Janeiro about 245 km down the Coast (Costa Verde) from Rio. The Village was, before the railroad was buildt, a very important harbour for shipping Gold and Coffee from the Brazilian inland to Europe. After the railroad to Rio was buildt, the village was more or less forgotten and left to it’s own destiny.

In the early 1950's, wealthy people in Rio redescovered the charming colonial style village, and it’s popularity have ever since growth. It’s on the UN World Heritage list.

After having dinner, a fantastic bacalaou in a restaurant down by the seaside, we walked out in the direction to our hotel (Poussada el Corsair). When close to the destination, we looked into a little cafe/bar and descided to have some coffee. Sitting down, we were served coffee by a young man (boy is more correct). Excellent Brazilian coffee.

Suddenly, two couples, in their late 20’s arrived. Very spirituell, laughing, talking highly, asked for beer, and got it. Asked for Music. And got it. Samba. Samba the kind you can hardly sit still. Your body can’t help it. It moves all by itself.

Without having a chance to finnish our coffee, we were dragged up from our chairs. C’mon on. Danse Samba. -We can’t.
-You Learn. We teach.

No chance. The body was rentless. It moved.

-See me steps. You do same.

Danse Samba. Danse Samba. O-o –o

Took only minutes, and everybody was on the floor. The Samba.
We got thirsty. Asked for a Bottle of Wine.

Vinho.
Si, Said the Boy behind the Bar. And jumped up on the icecreamfreezer. Picked down a bottle high upon the wall, next to the roof.
And… Where is the Screwdriver? Where is it?. High and low he searched, quick as a propel. No screwdriver.

(He meant Corkdriver)

He looked at us, and remarked our anxiousness.

No problema – No problema.

He picked up a diskcloth, hold it against the bottom of the bottle, and started hammering the bottle against the mural wall.

Bang - bang - bang




There’s allways a solution. We got our wine.

And danced Samba to the Early Morning.

Es do Brazil.

Danse Samba, danse samba

1998 - Paraty - TAA