Quit the Copa and Courting Coati

Did a museum or two in Rio before leaving - which was at least two more than most of our stoner beach-party hostel comrades. Most interesting getting to see in the ex national palace the bullet, gun, and holed shirt from when President Vargas shot himself rather than surrender to a brewing coup. As in Mr Moralos in Mexico, another leader who cared too much about the people rather than big business and paid the price.

Also a bit of lying on the Copacabana. Chris finally surrendered to one of the many thousand touts asking us every 30 seconds if we want to buy [insert overpriced food or tacky souvenir]. Chris had intended to buy 2 rugs for 30 Real, but after some arch haggling he triumphantly got the guy down to 3 for 45.

From my brief Rio experience Brazil is a complicated place. Mexico, despite much European influence, is essentially (trying to be) a united nation proud of its indigenous culture, while Argentina wants to be Spain with a strong Latin American twist. Gross simplicifications of course, but I couldn't even begin to try and sum up Brazil in so pithy a way. The slums, differences between native population, portugeuese and african descendents - the only unifying thing I can point to is futball, and I knew that before I landed.

Next target was Iguassu falls, a wonder of waterfalls on the Brazil Argentina border. We stayed on the Argentine, or pepper steak, side. The waterfalls are truly magnificent, the natural world's answer to the Sistine Chapel or Grace Kelly. There are views from both sides of the many falls, the Devils Throat in particular was one of the more impressive things I´ve seen. There was so much spray from the force of water at its base that you couldn´t see the bottom. We went on a bracing up-close jetboat trip near a couple of the smaller ones, which more than satisfied shower requirements for a couple of days. I gather the falls will feature in upcoming Indy movie, so consider this a plug (though I read this on the net so its not writ in stone).

There was a lot of interesting wildlife in the area also, eagles, lizards and butterflies all fascinated. There are hordes of raccoon-like Coati who are totally fearless hunting for food from park-goers. At one point a couple of them went for the bag Beth was carrying. She is a resourceful kiwi though, not easily fazed by such things, and valiantly threw the bag to the ground before bravely executing a tactical withdrawal while yelling her scream-like warcry. Chris of course was in standard mode, instantly jumping within hugging distance of the critters to take as many photos as possible. Somehow the bag was recovered and the journey continued.

The Brazil side of the falls was less edifying but had an excellent bird and reptile park (cue another thousand photos from Chris and about 3 from me). Some excellent birds to see, including several cool varieties of hummingbird, and a large cage of intimidating and deafening Macaws we entered. I also held a snake for the first time (though to be fair the snake was about 20cm long, but baby steps - I wasn´t going near the several-metre-long anaconda they had on display).

[SPORT WARNING]
On other matters - I will be most impressed if someone came name a weaker top 5 batting order since 1970 than the one the black caps put out at Lords. Only 2 real batsman, and while I have hope for Taylor, and one of the new guys may come good, the future is even bleaker than it was when we got creamed by the Windies a decade ago in our centennial. Rough times. I don't even blame the selectors, I can't name anyone else who demands a place, but I think we all need ot pray McCullum and Vettori keep their unreal form on the go.

I have too much to say on football to really go into it but
- why did Benetiz have both Torres and Crouch on the bench when Liverpool needed to score at the end of the Champs League game
-Man United's defence is possibly the best the premiership has seen
-I'm confident the Ginger Prince will lead the devils home this week.