Goodbye Iracambi...Hello Whatever's Next

Once again, hello our faithful readers! Where do I start? My love and I are reunited and I am so happy. I must tell you the story. My mom loves stories. On one of my last days in Iracambi, I was chatting with my honey on Google Chat. (For those who are less familiar with the internet, chatting is typing with someone on the computer in real time, more convenient than e-mail.) And so we made a date for the same evening to talk again on the computer, me still being in Iracambi and Sasha in Salvador about 900 miles north. Very normal, but that day, the internet was down in Centro, the place in Iracambi where I live. And so that morning when I was chatting with Sasha, I was about 2 miles away in Casa do Barro, where the director of the program lives. Naturally, I was going to have to come back there for our evening date at 6pm.
Communication is very intermittent in the jungle so by the time I came back to Centro, our internet was up. And I was relieved because that would save me a 4 mile round-trip walk. But interestingly enough at 5:50pm our internet went down positively. So I started running back up to Casa do Barro. Praying that my love was patient and still online. I knew that I would be late and if you know me by now, you know that I am a Nazi with being on time. And being without someone you love also puts a strain on your mind and heart. Really... at least for me. I ran up and down hills, crossed the river, jumped into mud with my sneakers and I finally got there. Pulled my dirty sneakers off...i was late. I walked in and said, "Hello?". You have to at least say that when you walk into someones house. The house was dark, and then from behind an old piano, a sweet voice said, "Hello". I looked at the beautiful silhouette. It was her, my baby. My love, who has travelled so far to see me. To surprise me. This woman must love me so much.Didn't have the pic from that exact moment, but just take off the wetness and add a gaping mouth to my face if you could imagine. So we were together. Sasha and Talia both traveled for over 30 hours by bus to come and surprise me. That evening and the following day, I showed them Iracambi and the wonderful people there. We hiked the dawn trail and caught the beautiful sunrise. I was pretty happy in that pic. Hiked for most of the morning, then I made pancakes for my girls: Then, after packing up my clothes and saying our goodbyes, we left my way of the waterfall. You can't just leave without jumping into the amazing spring water. Besides, as good Russian Jews, we can't pass up 100% clean waters without jumping in. You know how our Russian mothers swear by the medicinal benefits of rubbing magnetic balls on your temples or putting some horrible smelling cream on your chest and lets not forget the mustard patches that they glue to your back and it feels like they are burning a hole through your spine. So keeping that in mind we jumped in (I know I may be exaggerating a little bit, but that is also the Russian way!):

We finally said goodbye to Iracambi. A place that I would most certainly recommend to anyone either wanting to get their feet wet in Brazil, do some good for the environment, etc. It is filled with awesome people, beautiful views, hiking, waterfalls, and not to mention spiders (big ones) and mosquitoes. Awesome experience.

Here are some memorable pics of Iracambi:

Picking off spiders off my possessions before I go to sleep...
Chasing Lucy with creepy crawlers once in a while... Winning and losing arm-wrestling matches for beers at the local bar (above- me right before a loss)... Finding beauty everywhere. It is so abundant here!

Before we left to continue on our travels, I of course had to see Pedro and finally introduce him to the gang. We went Pedro's favorite sandwich spot: I of course easily defeated my opponents in our sandwich eating competition, but we all thoroughly enjoyed our sandwiches. They are heavenly... yes, they are!With our bellies full, we said goodbye...hopefully to see each other again. I genuinely hope that I could be as good of a host to him as he was to me. Wait a minute! Is that Sofka on the roof?For you Julie :)