Relaxication

Duck and I are really taking it easy. Yesterday consisted of lots of what our friend Jaclyn calls porch sittin’, in our case reading and enjoying beverages and more giant green olives than we could ever possibly want, sitting by the pool and going for the occasional dip, and indulging in a long massage.

Thursday afternoon we walked down to the big falls, Garganta do Diablo (Devil’s Throat). One of the perks to our hotel being inside the park is that we don’t have to leave when the park closes. The result is that we were able to wait for the crowds to dissipate a bit before having our own photo ops. I picked a person with English on her t-shirt to ask to take our photo, and we struck up a conversation. Turns out that her parents were with her and they’re from São Paulo, and her dad asked if I was Jewish (he saw my Star of David necklace). We chatted for a little while about the Jewish communities in São Paulo (where they live) and Belo Horizonte.

Duck also actually did something yesterday, which was to go on the boat tour where they take you under the falls. Also on Duck’s boat tour (not to be confused with a duckboat) was the Jewish family from last night, whom we’ve discovered are here with their extended family for the patriarch’s 80th birthday (#lifegoals). Duck talked with them further and I’m looking forward to running into them again, hopefully, and talking more about the Jewish community in Brazil. It would be fun to meet up with them in São Paulo for a Shabbat!

Last night we were playing Bananagrams on the porch when we spilled a bunch of tiles on the floor by the table next to us (about 5 feet away). This led to a long conversation struck up with the couple there who are from Victoria, Canada, one of whom was also Jewish. Now we’re off to another hike down to the big falls to have lunch at the restaurant there!

Oh – a note about the flooding in Belo Horizonte: our landlady said our neighborhood is pretty far from the affected areas, so we are keeping our plans to head there on Friday.