tra la la la la, la la BRAZIL

Nine days until Christmas and it has never  felt so little like the holiday season! There is a chance that it has something to do with the fact that A: there is no snow, B: I don't watch TV so I havn't seen any adds nor heard any carols C: it is about 36 degrees on average, and D: there is no snow! Oh well, I think that is part of adjusting, we do have a Christmas tree up so that brings a bit of the holiday feel to the house. This last week, I got the pleasure of vacationing with my family in Brazil! It was amazing and Beautiful, the roads on the way there were a little less than desirable but all in all it was totally worth the 12 hour drive, 2 hour wait to cross the customs and immigration lines, and the three hour wait for the gas protest to be over|!
We left Santa Cruz early in the morning and drove straight to the Brazilian Border about 6/7 hours away, with the exception of stopping at a really tall mountain also known as "Devil's Tooth" we took pictures, explored the cathedral and ate some amazing Cunape, then we were back on the road. We got into Puerto Suarez (also known as la frontera) and spent the night there, It is a town right on the river and it is pretty much infested with frogs! The fact that we were experiencing a torrential downpour just added to the froggyness of it all, they were everywhere! The next day we were off and into Brazil, we didnt need to do anything to cross the border from Bolivia into Brazil just for the day because we were only going into Corumba which is the "frontera" in Brazil and there is no control there. It was crazy to see the difference between the 2 countries even after only passing a 200m distance across the border. Bolivia is all dirt roads and park wherever you want and there are beggars and garbage and no order but on the Brazilian side there are sidewalks and paved roads and garbage cans and painted taken care of buildings...not to mention that within that 200m gap, there is a total change in the language! Brazil= Portuguese, Bolivia= Spanish.
Bonita was our final Brazilian destination, about 6 hrs away from the Bolivian border, and let me tell you it sure was BONITO! There was scuba diving in rivers and we river rafted down waterfalls, there was ridiculous amounts of food involved and I was mistaken for food by a fish, apparently blue nail polish is yummy...according to the fish that bit my toe. There was sun and Portuguese and family and laughs and fish and rivers and sunburns and killer rain and monkeys and toucans and crocodiles and giant spiders/ cockroaches not to mention shopping and red mud everywhere!
It was a vacation well worth remembering, I love Brazil and will deffs be back. This trip was not only a super great vacation, it was an opportunity for me to get to know my family and to grow closer and more comfortable with them, it was the start of a new step in my exchange!