My passport is stamped! Canada and the Bahamas let me down, but after traveling for so many hours the least I deserve is a Brazil stamp!
I want to remember everything about our trip. Writing about this experience is intimidating, so I'm breaking our vacation up into multiple posts (probably 3). Fortunately, it was like I hired a photographer to tag along with us everywhere we went. You're the best, Mom. In my phone calendar, the 17 days of our trip were blocked off as "Trip of a Lifetime." Perfect descriptor.
In this post I'll talk about travel, our pit stop in LA, and Iguazu falls.
Los Angeles
If there was an easy way to get to Ribeirão Preto, we would have picked that route in a heartbeat. There's not. Let me make it clear that the headache and time traveling was well worth it to see my parents. To help break up the long travel time, we opted to fly to LA first and spend some time with Jessica and Chris. We flew to Los Angeles the evening of Friday, May 24. After an annoying delay we arrived late only to learn that our car rental place closed at 10pm.
It felt like we were corralling circus animals as we navigated our family through the airport. We didn't think to rent a cart for our luggage and what a terrible mistake that was. People were laughing at us as we attempted to lug 3 car seats, 5 suitcases, a stroller, and 4 backpacks around. The kids weren't at their prime at that late hour and we couldn't count on them for much help. The shuttles to the rental cars were packed and we had to wait and wait to finally be able to fit on one.
Fortunately another car rental place was open and we lucked out and got a van! That was a positive because I doubt our stuff would've fit in the cheap and small rental I booked weeks prior. When all was said and done, we arrived at Jess and Chris' place after midnight. What a rocky start.
Travel Break
We spent Saturday, May 25 playing tourists. Jess had a giant list of ideas. We landed on her favorite hike of all time in Malibu, Point Dume. It was stunning. We also went to a nice park near Beverly Hills. We ate some good food. My mouth is watering thinking about that pesto sandwich... We loved our time with Jess and Chris and they sure bent over backwards to make us feel at home.
Long Leg
We took a direct flight from LAX to Sao Paulo, Brazil on Sunday, May 26. The flight was 11 hours and we landed in Brazil at 5:40am on Monday morning. The kids blew my mind and did awesome on that long journey! Penny slept for over half the flight and the older kids slept too. I got to finish my book! In case you were wondering, the meals they serve you on airplanes get 2 thumbs down. Double yuck.
Once in Brazil, it took us 45 minutes to make it through customs. We eventually made it to my parents and our reunion was frantic. My mom had pao de queijo for us which was so thoughtful. Andrew and my dad rushed most of our luggage to my parent's car. We kept one suitcase to bring with us to Iguazu falls. We zoomed through the airport and had to go back through security to make it onto our flight from Sao Paulo to Iguazu. Shoutout to my dad for being over 60 years old because we were able to go in a faster priority line to check our bag. I'm not sure if we would have made the flight otherwise. Our flight left at 8:20am and we boarded the plane immediately once we got to the gate.
Iguazu Falls
The flight to the falls was about an hour and a half which seemed like a piece of cake after the last one. My parents were also there to lend a hand. We arrived at the hotel and had lunch. Later we went to a wax museum. The weather was disappointing and 20 degrees colder than it normally is. The warmest it was while we were at the falls was 57 degrees. We weren't able to enjoy the hotel pools and outdoor spaces like we wanted, but we made the most of it. The hot tubs were fabulous and indoors and we played pool and ping-pong.
Tuesday morning we went to a bird park across the street from the falls called Parque Das Aves. Wow! The birds were vibrant and beautiful. It truly felt like we were in the jungle. I've never seen such colorful birds.
After it warmed up a bit, we headed to Iguazu falls. We had to take a bus to reach the falls and it was a double-decker bus. Of course our kids wanted to sit on the top because how fun is that. It proved to be chilly and let's just say we sat on the bottom on our way back. Kindly the driver stopped and let me and Penny move down to the bottom mid-ride. I have a sweet memory of my dad using his booming voice to shout "Opa" to the bus driver to stop and let some guys off. James now says Opa and it's adorable.
You can view Iguazu falls from Brazil and Argentina since it's right on the border. We stayed in Brazil. To get to Iguazu, there are different walking paths to take. The kids had plenty of energy to make it. The waterfalls were unbelievable and absolutely stunning. Nothing like I've ever seen before. They just went on and on. From top to bottom, the falls are 3/4 of a mile long. We managed to get pretty wet because the water was really coming down and we didn't even go on a boat. It's hard to describe what it was like so good thing we have oodles of pictures. A perk of the cold weather was that the falls were much less crowded than normal. Look for the rainbow in several of the shots! What a cool thing to see!
James told his school teacher, "I've been waiting my whole life to see one of the 7 wonders of the world." His teacher and I had a good laugh about that. Poor James has had to wait 7 long years. I'm still pinching myself that we got to go there.
Travel resumed
Wednesday morning, May 29 (my mom's birthday!) we flew from Iguazu Falls back to Sao Paulo. Then we drove 4 hours from the Sao Paulo airport to my parent's apartment in Ribeirão Preto. Phew! At long last, we made it to their place.
In my next post I will talk about the city of Ribeirão Preto, the food, and some activities we did there.
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