Boa noite~
Hoje we all decided to take a break from the busy city of Rio and ride a ferry out to Ilha Paqueta'. Our trip in the morning began with a bus ride to Centro aka downtown Rio. Bhavna would have been so proud of us since we made it to Centro and back out of Centro safely with no problems. Downtown Rio is very much like downtown Pittsburgh--alive on the days and dead on the weeknights as well as the weekends. People are generally warned to stay out of downtown Rio on the weekends and on weeknights but we were just fine :D I think being in a group of people always helps. The six of us make up a pretty large group so I was comfortable with traveling downtown--plus hopefully my Portuguese wasn't too awful that they knew we were Americans!
The first thing we noticed when we began our boat ride was the haze around Rio de Janeiro--you can see it in the photos above. The haze was gray and hovering just above all the taller buildings that we could see from the coast. Looks like a pollution and salt water vapor mixture to me. We all realized we were inhaling all of that during our stay so it was good to get away for a couple of hours! The cloud of pollution evoked me to think of "sustainability" and the rest of the developed world. Brazil is considered a developing country so it has yet to reach the potential of all the developed powers in this world. I think destruction of our environment is always a part of the process to become a developed country but I always ponder why? We can all be a developed world by saving our planet instead..don't we digress if we continue to deplete what we have left on this Earth? I don't know--these were just some thoughts running through my head.
When we finally got to the island the first thing I smelt was horse poo poo and pee pee!! Yucky. The island has a lot of horse drawn carriages and bicycles that many people can rent--Jen, Preston, Marianne and I decided to go by foot. Chad and Oren rented a bicycle for two and rode it around one half of the island. They went off to do their own thing for the day.
I enjoyed walking around and taking many photos and just absorbing the nature that the island offered. The skies were clear and the sun was warm. Near the port we noticed a lot of polluted water and dead fish so the smell wasn't so nice but on the other side of the port the island was quite beautiful and the waters were calm and tranquil. I loved our time there very much. Near sunset, I returned on the ferry with a decadent and warm chocolate filled churro to travel back to Rio with my mates.
Tchau, tchau~
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