Waiting for the Plane

Hi Folks:
We are sitting in beautiful Sao Paulo, Brazil waiting for our plane tonight to Chicago, with an onward flight to Dallas. This city is really spectacular, clean and very ärty¨. We are on Avendida Paulista, one of the main streets and it is really a must see street. The architecture is marvelous and every building seems to be having a display of art of some sort. We are hoping to get back to the MASP (Museo de Arte Sao Paulo) this afternoon which has the greatest collection of great paintings that I have ever seen. But more impressive is the obvious delight of `Paulistas´in their art. We have trouble getting down the street without discovering a new display. The cars are another thing that surprises me, as all the cars here are small, almost without exception. That doesn´t mean that they are not new and expensive, in some cases, but they are just consistently small. Given the high use of bio-fuels, I guess that that shouldn´t surprise me, but it does.
We spent three relaxing nights in the Patanal and so now I can say that I fished in Brazil, like my good buddie `The Fenceman´. Of course, I was only fishing for Piranha. It was a great time looking for animals and birds. Lots of photos and a lot of heat. Most unique sightings were of a pair of Giant Otters and Joy´s sighting of a Giant Armadillo. The birds are impossible to describe as I lost count of the types of parrots that we saw and the various storks, cranes, etc. Many hummingbirds (some quite large) and at least 3 kinds of Kingfishers. Lots of pictures to show. My favourite was a flock of bright green parrots which landed in a tree right in front of me and promptly disappeared. Who knew that bright green was such a good camoflage!
The real highlight of the trip to the Patanal was the young folk that we were touring with. We had 1 Irish, 1 German, 2 Isrealis, 1 Monacan/Belgium/? and met a variety of others from many different corners of the world. They would bounce from serious discussions of appropriate revenge for rape, to the foolishness that one might expect of young people on holiday. Some had jobs to return to after a year while others were between military and school, or between degrees, or just hadn´t figured it out yet. But what grand people and what a great hope for the World. They are not afraid of any issue and talk very frankly about what is going on in the World. Most of all though they like each other for themselves and accepted the 2 old folk. Great cervasa talks on the houseboat that doubled as our dining room and bar. We will never forget them!
Now to Texas.
Jim