I knew the leg from Florianopolis to Villa La Angostura was going to be one of the most inefficient of the entire voyage. I had spent many hours trying to find something more convenient, but there were just too many constraints. Brazil and Argentina both have flight networks centralized around a single city (Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires). The solution was to fly to Sao Paulo (wrong direction), wait 4 1/2 hours, then fly to Buenos Aires and sleep over there. Tomorrow we will then continue to Bariloche and go by car to Villa La Angostura.

We spent the morning packing and getting ready. Laura and her sister, Sonia, came to help us get our luggage to the airport. Ready to go, the apartment we have rented in the background:

And here we are at the airport. We were all very emotional:

The kids are all ready:

I used one of the automatic check-in machines. The user interface was not at all created to make it easy to check in several people. For all 5 of us I had to press a lot of buttons to select country of residence, country of passport and then type in the passport number. At the very end I was told that it was not possible to check us in to our connecting flight in Sao Paulo and that I had to talk to the personell at the check-in counter. Beautiful.

I had bought the ticket online with the airline TAM. The first flight was operated by TAM, but the second, from Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires, was operated by LAN with a TAM code share. At the counter the lady told us that since the flight was operated by LAN they could not check us in. We would have to do that at the LAN desk in Sao Paulo. I had never before experienced that it was not possible to check in when the flight was code-shared. After all we had a TAM ticket. I insisted a couple of times, but the lady was quite certain, so I let it go. She assured us that our luggage would go to Buenos Aires, it was only the seats we needed to get in Sao Paulo.

Our plane was another Airbus A320. Here is Isliene running towards the tarmac. She really loves flying and told me she was happy we couldn´t get a direct flight to Buenos Aires, so she could fly two times today:

Our flight was about an hour delayed, but with 4 1/2 hours in Sao Paulo that wasn´t a problem. Once we arrived I checked the screens for our connecting flight:

Canceled. Lovely. That explained why it was impossible to check in to the flight. Note also that the only other flight to Buenos Aires is with Qatar Airways.

I immediately realized that our luggage now was in a dangerous limbo. It had arrived in Sao Paulo with a luggage tag for a flight which did not exist. Ouch!

Now, who do we speak to, TAM or LAN? We first tried the TAM check-in counter. They sent us t the TAM ticket office. The TAM ticket office sent us to the LAN check-in counter.  At LAN there was a long waiting line, so we got hold of someone who took us aside. This woman seemd to know what she was doing, spoke perfect English and was very service minded. She told us everything was perfectly fine. There was a GOL flight to Buenos Aires leaving at exactly the same time to the same airport in Buenos Aires. They would rebook us and the luggage was being taken care of. Do not worry, just smoke your opium over there and relax, sir.

Update: It was only about a week later that we were to learn that the flight was canceled because of a worker conflict in LAN and a one-day strike. They were probably not very happy that GOL set up an extra flight at the exactly the same time to the same destination.

She took us over to a counter.

They copied down all information from our luggage tags and wrote things on a paper, then a guy took out his mobile phone and spoke for a long time with someone about luggage and read out the numbers from our tags. I was not very reassured.

After about only half an hour we got a hand-written Flight Interruption Manifest.

Then we were told to go over to the GOL ticket office, speak to a guy called Cajo, and exchange our shiny new hand written FIM into a GOL ticket. Then we could go and check in to our GOL flight. We were glad we had enough time.

We were told where the GOL office was but could not find it. Everyone we asked was helpful and turned us in the right direction, but it was not there. We were obviously homing in on it and when I finally asked yet another guy. He spotted my FIM and pointed to his name tag. It said “Cajo.” Cajo worked for LAN and was placed there only to catch LAN passengers and help them exchange their FIMs for tickets. The GOL office was in an office where the door was marked “Passenger lounge!”

Cajo stayed inside for a long time before he came out with our tickets. I mentioned our luggage to him. He reassured me that everything was taken care of.

OK. Now it was time to stand in the long line to check in for the GOL flight. Once we could check in I made sure to ask the person there about the luggage. She seemed to know nothing and asked for a colleague. Before her colleague had time to arrive Cajo appeared like a jack-in.the-box and assured everyone present that LAN had total control of the luggage and had correctly transferred it to GOL and that it would be on the flight. I actually believed everything woukd be fine at this point.

Our flight was about an hour late, which seems to be the standard here. This time we flew in a Boeing 737-800 (stitched photo. Added bonus: Helene two times :-)):

We got some great views of Buenos Aires coming in:

The kids were startng to become pretty tired. it had been a long day, and we were still not at our destination.

Waiting in line for passport control we saw this sign.

It seems to be standard policy in both Brazil and Argentina to charge entry fees from citizens of countries who charge fees for Brazilians and Argentininas respectively. It reminded us of our little incident in Iguassu 15 years ago, when Helene needed a visa to enter Brazil. That was only needed because France demanded visas from Brazilians at the time.

We were a bit nervous at baggage claim, but had high spirits. Time passed and there were fewer and fewer people around us waiting for their luggage. In the end the belt stopped moving, the dreaded sign all travellers fear. There was a small counter over in a corner for registering lost luggage. Two other people had lost luggage and they were of course ahead of us in the line.

People in South America really have a different notion of and relationship to time then we have in Europe. It is not common to plan anything, if you can avoid it. Last time we were here the people we visited in Argentina and Brazil were making fun of us all the time becase we kept asking strange questions like “What should we do during the week?” or “What is the plan for tomorrow?” These were typical gringo questions. Of course we would do whatever we wanted and make it up as we went along. It seems to me that to them it was like us being asked to order what we were going to eat at a restaurant several days before going there.

Also, whenever you are in line to have some kind of paperwork done. it just takes forever. People here seem to accept it and just wait peacefully and chat with the other people in the line. I remember being in a travel agency in Ushuaia 15 years ago. There were 4 people ahead of us and we had to wait 2 hours. Nobody else seemed to think this was out of the ordinary at all.

It took pretty exactly one hour to register the lost luggage of the two people in front of us.  Here I am, waiting in line, trying to act like a South American:

The human psyche is interesting. We are really not made for this modern world. There was a single luggage arrival belt where we were and other flights arrived as we stood in line. Every time the belt started moving my brain told me to keep an eye on the luggage coming out of the hole in the wall, in case our backpacks arrived. Totally meaningless of course.

Once it was our turn I explained the situation. She took my baggage ticket and picked up her mobile phone. She said to the person on the other end of the line that she had another person who had been rebooked from LAN to GOL and that not a single piece of luggage had made it from other parts of Brazil to that flight for those who had been rebooked from LAN. Then she hung up. It almost seemed like she needed to vent and thought I didn´t understand Spanish. During her conversation I leaned slightly over the counter and by chance, and to my horror, discovered that she did not have a computer. She only had a large pile of forms. She was only registering everything on paper forms! This did not bode well for getting our luggage back any time soon.

It of course took a very long time to fill in everything.

She claimed the luggage most probably would arrive early tomorrow morning. Yeah, sure. She also claimed she needed our luggage tags. I insisted on taking photos of them, oherwise we would have no record of having checked in our luggage:

We were completely exhausted when we finally could head for the beds we had reserved close to the airport. I had had my brain continuously on overclocking mode since we figured out the luggage was lost. Still I needed to do a bit of blogging before going to bed. What does one not do for the readers?

Eirik

—–

We had had two days with great weather near Anitapolis and the good weather continued on our last day in Florianopolis. Already in the morning it was clear that this was going to be a very hot day, probably ending up around 35 C (95F).

So far I haven´t told you about some of the challenges we have had with packages during the voyage. Since about half of my day was lost on trying to run after packages it is about time that I tell you the tale of my new glasses.

Warning: Long story about UPS coming up. If you are bored by such stories, please skip down to the first photo.

The glasses I am currently wearing are about 2 years old and have unfortunately amassed quite a number of scratches which obstruct my view. I am picky when it comes to glasses because I very quickly build up bad headaches when my glasses are scratched and/or dirty. I am very farsighted and am thus totally dependent on my glasses.

So, I decided to get a new pair of glasses for the voyage and use the old ones as back-ups. As everything piled up before the voyage, and also because I am in general a last-minute person, I of course ordered new glasses in the last minute. The store promised to have them ready in time and I  showed up to pick up my shiny new glasses 3 days before our departure.

I tried them on, but something was wrong. I hinted that the strength might be wrong. The lady in the store suggested it might be because the shape was a bit different than my old glasses, and that made them seem unfamiliar, Maybe I would like to try them for a couple of days and then I could come back if they still weren´t to my liking? I dont´t think so. I insisted that they measure the strength of the glasses. Reluctantly she complied. Her face changed as she got the results from the machine. She got her boss. The strength was indeed wrong. They had mixed up and had gotten me a pair of reading glasses. Since I am an old man I also have reading glasses. I did not need a second pair.

Her boss excused herself and said that they would send me a new pair of glasses, wherever in the world I would be. They got my email address.

One of our last days in California they sent me an email. I suggested to send the glasses to our hotel in New York. They claimed there was plenty of time for them to arrive.

In my previous work I was used to sending packages around the world. Routinely we would send documents and other stuff from Oslo to San Francisco, or Beijing, or Brisbane. Sure, sometimes things would be a day delayed, but that was about it. Given my own experience there shouldn´t be any risk at all. Wrong.

The glasses were caught up in customs in New York. The customs people had only looked at the first line describing the contents. It said “lens cleaners,” which referred to a small bottle of cleaner that was sent with the glasses. Once the misunderstanding was explained we were leaving New York. I told UPS to send the package to Washington instead, which they said was no problem.

In Washington I started asking questions when we had a few days left there. UPS claimed the glasses were delivered to CIVIC in Washington, CIVIC went out of their way to prove this was not the case and even got hold of the surveillance video for their entrance to be sure no one from UPS had been there during the time slot UPS claimed. I asked UPS for a copy of the signed document.

When I got this on email (we were in Chattanooga by then), I could see that the package had been delivered to our hotel in New York! UPS excused themselves profoundly, and had no idea how this could have happened. I called the hotel in New York and got hold of the person who had signed for the package. She told me that since we had left, their standard procedure was to give the package back to UPS the next day, which she had done. UPS had no record of having received the package in return.

Back in Norway the store struggled with the Norwegian postal service (they use UPS as a subsupplier) which offered to send a new package for free, but would not cover the glasses because they were only missing, not lost. In the end the store decided to take the risk and ordered a new pair of glasses for me. Once they were finished we were in Peru. The store suggested to send them to us in Brasil. There should be plenty of margin.

They had not cared to supply me with a reference number for the package and I started getting nervous when we only had 5 days left in Brazil. I asked for the number and did not get it until this morning.

I checked online and the package was stuck in customs in Sao Paulo, and had been so since Thursday. It was now Monday.

I sent an email to the contact person at the Norwegian postal service, asking them to reroute the package to Argentina. They answered almost immediately that they could do nothing once the package was stuck in customs, and it certainly wasn´t their fault. I had to blame Brazilian customs and also call UPS if I wanted something to be done.

I tried to get a good phone line, but was unable to, besides it would cost much more than I had left on my Brazilian pre-paid SIM to call Sao Paulo for any meaningful amount of time, if I managed.

Helene and the kids went to the beach while I drove over to Dauro and Laura´s house to use their internet line. I have a Skype account and use their fantastic SkypeOut system using my iPhone. I can call from anywhere in the world to anywhere in the world using my iPhone, as long as I have a WiFi connection. And the best of all: I only pay local phone call prices in the country I call.

Once arrived it took me some time to get through and explain it all to the UPS guy. His English was not perfect, but good enough. He could tell me that in Brazil customs demand a Brazilian social security number of the receiver, or, if the receiver is a non-resident, a passport number. My passport number was not given in the sending documents, so the package was sitting in customs in Sao Paulo until someone started missing the package and called UPS to give them the number. Also, once the package had arrived in Brazil it was impossible to have it diverted to another country. The only way to get hold of it now was to have Dauro and Laura receive it at their home and then resend it.

Lovely. Thank you Norwegian postal service. Nothing you can do, huh?

The only reasonable place to have it resent is Tahiti. Dauro and Laura will be kind enough to organize it for us. Let´s see if I ever get the glasses. To be continued.

This, my dear reader, was only one of the never ending package stories we have endured. We have had school books arrive too late in Washington and resent to Florianopolis. Because of an address error they waited for us at a post office in Florianopolis for 2 weeks. Once we discovered this we were one day late, and they were already sent back to Washington by boat. They will arrive there in about 30 days before they potentially can be resent.

I also ordered Christmas gifts for the kids from Amazon in France. Delivery in 3-6 days they said. Don´t believe in advertising. After 2 weeks they are still not here. The trace shows they will be delivered in a day or two. Dauro and Laura will have to resend those too to Tahiti.

Once I got back to the house it was time for lunch. After lunch it was too hot to go to the beach. We waited the heat out in the house. Even inside the house it was so hot that Viktor did his Saxophone lesson in his underwear.

We went to the beach around 5pm. The boys are all wearing sunproof t-shirts, are infused with sun screen and ready to go:

Relaxing at the beach was soothing for the soul after a day of frustration:

In the evening we were invited over to Dauro and Laura for a farewell dinner. Laura´s mother was there and also our friends from the trip to Anitapolis, Eloise and Rogerio.

Laura´s mother and Bruno:

As a farewell gift the boys and I got Brazilian football t-shirts. We had to promise to wear them in Argentina:

Bruno practised his trick shots during the evening. He does an impressive kick with his feet crossed, moving the left foot over to do the kick in the last moment. Are we looking at the next Ronaldo here?

It was tough for Viktor to say good bye to Tootoo:

Viktor asked Dauro to cut off some hair from Tootoo´s tail, so he could have something to remember him by:

Iseline said good bye to Branquito:

We were all a bit sad. We had had such a good time here and it was great to see Dauro and Laura again. Let´s hope we do not have to wait another 15 years before we see each other again.

Eirik

—–

We started our day with a great breakfast:

then strolled a little bit down the river

until we reached a great place to cool off:

I tried a bit of fishing again, with no luck, before I joined the others. We had no goal or plan for the morning, we just existed and enjoyed each others company while regulating our temperature by moving in and out of the very comfortable water, which must have held around 24 degrees C (75 F).

We were just by a side stream with a waterfall. Dauro told us that in this very lush area there were 20 times more streams/creeks/rivers than people. 3000 inhabitants, 5 rivers and a total of 60 000 distinct waterways. I was lazy and didn´t want to sweat in the jungle, so at first I stayed by the river. After all, I have seen many waterfalls in Norway and the stream didn´t look very promising

However, Helene insisted after having returned, and I reluctantly followed the small stream into the forest together with Adrian. Wow, the waterfall was a paradise in the paradise

with a natural swimming pool at its base

Natural massage:

Warning, Gwen, insects coming up!

These caterpillars were holding their annual meeting on a tree:

while this guy was observing from a distance and taking the minutes:

We returned and were served another great meal. Mariana was very proud when we were served fish fingers made from the fish she caught yesterday

After lunch we relaxed on the great covered patio

Dauro has worked for many years as a free-lance journalist and he told us the story of how he had gotten in touch with an environemntalist through the net. the environmentalist had told him about a phosphate mine project in this area. A joint venture project where the Norwegian company Yara was involved wanted to make a huge day mine to extract phosphate here and had been given the permission by local authorities to destroy large areas of otherwise protected atlantic rain forest.

Dauro had gotten the idea of contacting Norwegian journalists about this. He used his contact net and Helene was amongst those who resent his message to Norwegian journalists. One of them got very interested and came over to Brasil to write about this. He had stayed here at Fernando and Regina´s poussada.

You can read his article here (Norwegian). Here are the English, French and Spanish Google translations.

Just a few weeks after the article was published in Norway Yara pulled out of the project. The company who bought the project now seems to be giving up on making a mine after having met a lot of resistance.

Viktor played the saxophone before we left

We were all sorry to have to leave this fantastic place, but our time in paradise was over. It was time to head back to Florianopolis and civilization. Adrian commented that next time we should stay here for a week. We all fully agreed.

Tomorrow will be our last day in Brazil, time flies too fast.

Eirik

—–

For the weekend Dauro and Laura had organized a stay at a poussada up in a mountain area west of Florianopolis.  They know the owners and told us this place is a real paradise.

We got up early and met some friend of theirs, a couple (Eloisa and Rogerio) with their 6 year old boy (Theo), at the outskirts of the city at 9am. After a bit of highway we took a road that gradually made us gain altitude. The landscape was hilly and covered with pine forest. It reminded us a lot of the Telemark region in Norway:

Then we took a gravel road, which seemed to never end. Later Dauro explained to us that rains had been so heavy here over a long period, that road workers were not able to fill all the holes dug out by the rain as fast as new ones were created. To say it was a bumpy ride would be a gross understatement.

The houses here were magnificent. Large and with enormous and very elaborate gardens, small ponds with bridges, flowers everywhere. Unfortunately none of my attempts to photograph them from the car were successful.

The occasional palm tree now broke the illusion of being in Telemark:

At last we arrived in the small town of Anitapolis, where we stopped to find an internet cafe. I know what you are thinking now, but it was not me, it was Dauro who needed to be able to reach his work colleagues. Anitapolis is a nice little town with buildings in many bright colors

and was decorated for Christmas:

The last few kilometers were really off the beaten path

and as we aproached the landscape started to look more and more like the paradise our friends had described to us

We could soon see the poussada:

We were warmly welcomed and the Cashaca (sugarcane alcohol) was put on the table:

Fernando and Regina settled down here 7 years ago and have turned a worn down place into a true paradise.

This is where we stayed:

and this is where the two other families stayed:

The kids loved the place:

What a difference it makes to change your surroundings. The atmosphere was very relaxed and we all forgot about the world around us during the day.

We tried out the sauna, a small work of art:

and then ran down to the stream, which was very close:

There was a natural swimming pool:

After a while Dauro arrived with some wine:

Iseline found a round rock. Her theory was that it was a fossilized dinosaur egg:

Everyone just chilled out:

The owners´s two daughters were with us all the time. They seemed to roam about freely. This is the youngest one, Anna Clara:

After a great late lunch I wanted to try out fishing in the river. Fernando told us there were two types of fish in the river, one small type and one large type. He showed me where to dig for worms and with the help of Iseline and his oldest daughter, Mariana, I soon had enough bait. We tried for quite a while, but the small fish here kept stealing the bait, no matter where we tried:

*

Mariana then suggested that we could fish in the fish ponds Fernando and Regina have made. They have set out fry of many different edible species in them. Fernando told us we could fish there “for the photos.”

You can see the two ponds on the left here.

The girls took turns trying and on her second attempt Mariana got something very big on the line. I was afraid she would lose it, but the excellent braided line I had bought for the voyage was no match for a fish without sharp teeth. After a short fight (Mariana did all the work), with both girls screaming with joy, I got the fish into my net:

We fetched Fernando, who was genuinely surprised that Mariana had caught such a large fish. He wasn´t sure about the species, it could be a tilapia. He suggested we should eat it for lunch the next day. I then proceeded to extinguish the fish´s consciousness and we could take another photo:

For dinner our hosts prepared our food in an oven placed directly in the dining room:

On the menu was mini-pizzas:

It was my parents´s wedding anniversary day today, but I could not congratulate them since there is no cell phone coverage here. We are completely isolated.

After dinner we all fell asleep like babies.

Eirik

—–

Over the past three days the boys and i have tried to get haircuts. However, a series of unfortunate circumstances, such as long lines of waiting people, or showing up 10 minutes after the daily 2 hour siesta starts, have kept us from getting our hair volume reduced.

I have spent my last 20 summers in France, still I have a hard time getting used to this siesta thing. Time and time again I find myself in front of entrances to shops around noon, only to find out that everyone is on their daily 2 hour lunch break. This custom is of unknown origin but is common in countries with a hot climate combined with the largest meal of the day being eaten around noon. The combination of heat and drowsiness from over-intake of calories makes it desirable to sleep for a while. If you want to sleep, you have to close your shop. Here in South America the latinos have introduced the custom everywhere. 15 years ago we were in Ushuaia. At 55 degrees south, and no Gulf Stream, Ushuaia has roughly the same climate as Tromsø in northern Norway. Still, the shops closed for two hours in the middle of the day, probably more because of culture than because of the intense heat.

My hair was increasingly becoming a burden, it was both too hot and too heavy. This made it paramount to manage to get that hair cut today. In addition we had been invited to Miguel´s summer break party at his school. I couldn´t show up there with the top of my head in such a mess.

So, the boys and I moved over to the local barber shop close to our house, well ahead of the siesta, after a recommendation from Dauro, hoping to be able to cut our hair this time. There were only 2 people ahead of us, so we sat down to wait. This small barber shop is a one-man operation on a few square meters. Prices are low and the guy is quick and gives you a decent hair cut. My kind of place.

Half way through I could already feel the weight difference on my head.

30 reals (18 USD) for three haircuts. You cannot complain about that.

We sacrificed a chicken to the weather gods at midnight yesterday and it seemed to have had a slight effect. The sun was even peeping through from time to time. Back at the house we had some food and then started to prepare for going to the beach. Getting everyone ready and infused with sunscreen is a time consuming process.

I have a very strong love/hate relationship with sunscreen. On the one hand I would not be able to do anything useful in good weather without it. My skin is a total evolutionary failure. Unprotected it takes about 15 minutes of intense sun to kill off the outerrmost skin cells and change its color from vanilla white to strawberry red. The consequences are harsh and the pain lasts for a few days before my skin comes off in large flakes of dead white skin cells.

I have been able to build a mild brown chocolate color on a few rare occasions, but this takes months of planning, close timing and calculation of how long I expose myself and with which sunscreen factor I have infused my delicate white flesh.

On the other hand sunscreen is a royal pain in the behind. It is greasy and takes a long time to apply. It´s often difficult to see where it has been already applied, and if I forget even the most minuscule patch, I will burn and suffer. Being on the genetic fringe of fitness for survival I also sweat way too much than what the body should be able to afford in water-loss. As soon as sweat starts running down my forehead I get sunscreen in my eyes, which is very painful.

Sand sticks to it and worst of all, I always get some on my glasses. The glasses then become impossible to clean properly in any reasonable way without prolonged access to soap and hot water. When my glasses get stained I develop a strong hedache in about 30 minutes and become grumpy and difficult to live with.

Helene has good mediterranean genes and good skin. Even though she intellectually understands the challenges of my skin she has never really grasped the concept, much like I never get used to the siesta. I can get sunburned on a cloudy day, or through the windshield of a car. These are very alien ideas to the French.

Once I was with my father-in-law on a fishing trip in the alps. We fished for a whole day at 2350 meters (7700 feet) altitude at the height of summer. At that altitude, in the alps, there are no trees. The reflecting sun in the water made things even worse. I applied sunscreen with protection factor 60 diligently every 2 hours, 6 times in total, on every part of my skin that was exposed. My father-in-law applied nothing. At the end of the day we had both developed a tan, but not one of us was burned. Enough said.

Our kids have various degrees of protective skin. Viktor, the poor boy, has inherited my in-bred Norwegian skin. Iseline is a bit in between and Adrian has strong mediterranean natural skin armor.

After what seemed like an eternity everyone was covered in sunscreen from top to bottom and we could venture out into the baking sun.

Except, there was no baking sun anymore. During the time we had been indoors applying the stuff, the sky had completely covered and it had started to rain!

Defiant, and with a Norwegian attitude to weather, I proclaimed to the family that I was not going to let some weather god mess with our beach excursion. We are going to the beach, we(a)ther you like it or not!

Once we arrived only the surfers were left, they also disappeared soon, as the rain intensified:

The kids loved it. The temperature was very comfortable, and we soon had the beach to ourselves:

Rain on sunscreen infused skin:

I guess you have to live in Norway to appreciate going swimming in this kind of weather:

Afterwards we got ready to go to Miguel´s school and the school´s summer break party. The event was very much like what we are used to from Norway, The kids performed in different groups. They danced and sung for us.

Gabi and her nephew, Vitor, and niece, Caro, were also there.

In a break the boys showed Vitor how to play Angry Birds on my iPhone:

Laura and Bruno:

After a while Santa Claus and his bodyguard arrived. Santa threw candy into the crowd of children creating total chaos:

Then Santa was escorted safely through the crowd while waving to his hard-core fans:

We probably wouldn´t see Gabi, Vitor and Caro again on this trip, so we did our good-byes.

Tomorrow we will leave on a weekend trip together with Dauro and Laura.

See you around, folks!

Eirik

—–

Rain, rain, rain, more rain and then some rain. It poured down all day. Cats and dogs do not cover this kind of weather. This was hippos and elephants pouring down.

The house we are renting is a Brazilian beach house. On Friday, when we had a relatively cold day (15 C, 60 F, brrrr), we could feel that the house was not insulated in any way. The wind came right through the walls and we were quite cold. The construction is basically a single layer of planks. Today the water started to leak in at one place, just as we were about to leave the house and head for Dauro and Laura´s home. The water was dripping fast and straight down on and into the cupboard I used to store the laptops and other electronics.

Panic!

We found the source upstairs, by one of the windows. The water was running over a window post before dripping on the floor. Perfect, we could intercept the flow with a bucket.

I used the opportunity to photograph a drop building up and falling. 1-2-3:

We contacted the owners who live across the street, and they fixed the leakage with some silicone gel.

We headed over to our friends´s place to do some home schooling. Here´s Adrian and Viktor during a “recess.”

Branquito seemed to like getting company and was particularly fond of Iseline. On several of the days we were there he came over to her and fell asleep on her lap.

So, I guess you want to know the secret to making perfect mousse now? Have you been studying the classic recipe? Good.

OK, time to tell the world the secret the French have kept hidden for centuries. I predict that my publishing of this today will fundamentally change the power balance in the world. The French have lost so much. Their empire, the status of French as a world language, their status as a financial and military superpower,  their status as a maker of the world´s best wine (Caifornian wines now regularly win blind-test competitions in Paris), status as the world´s best chefs (Norway routinely wins the Bocus d´or). etc, etc, All they have left is dessert supremacy, and they are desperately clinging on to it.

The secret my friend, the missing piece of information, is the temperature of the chocolate! Yes, they tell you to melt the chocolate and then mix in the yolks. Nowhere do they tell you that the high temperature of recently melted chocolate will ruin the hardening capability of the yolks. When I finally noticed while watching my sister-in-law make mousse I was dumbstruck. When I asked her why this was not mentioned in the recipe she claimed “but that is obvious.” They claim it is obvious, but all their recipes use lots of text to talk about the fragile mixing of the whites, which is just a decoy. Nowhere have I seen a single sentence about the temperature of the chocolate. This is clearly a French conspiracy!

The trick, people, is to cool the chocolate until it almost stiffens again and only then mix in the yolks!

If you want to become a mousse master I will now give you the recipe as it should have been published by the French. Today I share with you the essence of over 20 years of hard work.

Holy Chocolate Mousse (4 portions)

Ingredients:

8 eggs

240 grams of sweet dark baking chocolate

(40-60% cocoa, 55% works best. My favorite: Cote d´Or “Noir de Noir” 55%. Norwegian “Dronning” works)

2 tablespoons of cognac (anything from VS quality and up will do)

1 teaspoon finely grated orange peel

1 pinch of salt

Method:

Make sure the eggs are at room temperature. Take them out of the fridge in the morning if you are making Holy Chocolate Mousse in the evening. If you only have cold eggs, do not despair. Fill the sink with warm (not hot!!!) water and put the eggs in. In about 10 minutes they will have room temperature. If you do this, make sure to dry the eggs off before separating, so you do not mix water into the Holy Chocolate Mousse later on.

Make sure you have enough room in the refrigerator for the individual servings of finished Holy Chocolate Mousse. You must clear enough space in the refrigerator before starting, since you need to get the Holy Chocolate Mousse into the refrigerator as soon as possible when it is finished.

Now melt the chocolate. Since it needs to be cooled again it is time-wise the bottleneck of the process. If you have a cermaic stove or an induction stove, with a very low minimum setting, you can melt it directly in a kettle. If not, use a hot water bath, putting one kettle inside another kettle with hot water. Do not microwave, you risk burning the chocolate and ruining the taste. Be careful with water. A single drop of water in melted chocolate will make it stiffen prematurely.

Next, finely grate the peel of an orange. Most cheese graters have a “fine” option. The best is organic untreated oranges, otherwise rinse thoroughly before grating. Make sure you get a ripe, nice, deep orange orange. Only grate the surface of the orange. All your grated orange peel powder should be nice and deep orange. Leave the white stuff on the orange.

Put the cognac in a small glass and mix in the grated orange peel. Make sure all the peel is covered in cognac. The idea here is that the alcohol will dissolve all the yummy tasty orangey stuff. You are basically making home made Grand Marnier.

Separate the eggs into whites and yolks. Make sure the bowl you use for the whites is fat-free. Fat will render your whites useless as they will not stiffen well enough. Do not, ABSOLUTELY DO NOT, get any yolk inside the bowl with the whites. They will not stiffen well enough if this happens. If you still spill some yolk, fear not. Normally all traces of yolk can be removed with a spoon, if you are careful.

Once the chocolate has melted completely (not a lump in sight), pour a little cold water into the sink, and put the kettle in the water. Again, be careful and do not spill the slightest amount of water into the chocolate. Stir from time to time, so the chocolate does not stiffen at the bottom. This is only a time saver and can be risky as you must survey the kettle at all times. If the chocolate gets too cold it will stiffen and you have to start all over. If you wish, you can also just let the kettle cool without using cold water. It just takes longer.

Feel the temperature of the chocolate by sticking the little finger of your right hand (left, if you are left-handed) into the chocolate. Lick off the chocolate in a slow, sensual fashion (this is known as the Holy Chocolate degustation ritual). Check regularly. When you do not feel the heat of the chocolate as you put your finger in, it will be ready. It should hold about 28 degrees C (82 F) at this point and it should all still be liquid.

Your orange peel should be well infused into the cognac at this point. Pour the cognac/orange mixture into the yolks. Pour all of this into the chocolate and mix vigorously with a wooden spoon, or with the manual power-mixing tool of your choice. Be quick, aggressive and firm. If you are not fast enough, and mix hard enough, your chocolate will become lumpy. This is not necessarily a catastrophe though, as long as there is not an abundance of lumps. In fact, some moussetafarian priests even prefer their Holy Chocolate Mousse this way.

Once you have finished the mixing, and avoided spilling cognac and yolks all over your kitchen, observe the surface of the chocolate mixture. If it is all shiny and bright, like a newly polished car, then your chocolate was cool enough. If it is pale and matte, your chocolate was too hot when you mixed in the yolks, and you have failed completely. Please eat the chocolate mixture and start all over.

OK. Now we are ready for the whites. Throw a pinch of salt in your whites and beat them to death, and then some, with an electric mixer. I have found that a good old Kitchenaid mixer gives very good results. Make sure the whites become as stiff as possible. You will see the pattern made by the mixer at the surface of the whtes becoming increasingly distinct as they stiffen. With practice you will be able to see from that pattern when they are stiff enough.

IMPORTANT: If you are making more than 4 portions, then never beat more than 8 whites at a time. If you do, the mixture will prematurily collpase under its own weight. Instead make several batches of whites. When you do this, make sure you have no delays between the batches, and make sure you do not start mixing any whites with the chocolate until all whites have been beaten. Otherwise the whites will start to turn liquid and you will get a liquid residue at the bottom of your Holy Chocolate Mousse. Having liquid at the bottom of Holy Chocolate Mousse is a disgrace and is considered one of the worst sins of Holy Chocolate Moussetafarianism. I self-flagellate 40 times on the rare occasions when this happens.

We´re getting closer.

Make sure you have a large enough container to hold the final coming together of the Holy Chocolate Mousse. First, mix a few tablespoonfulls of whites into the chocolate mix to make it a bit more liquid. You can mix as hard as you wish. Next, pour the mix into the large container. Mix in one third of the whites. Do not stir (nor shake, for that matter) but fold in by using a very large wooden or plastic spoon. You can mix by making back and forth movements, with the thin side of the spoon in the moving direction, as long as you do not stir. Most people think this stage is the most fragile. This is not true, and the reason for this delusion has been untrue wicked rumors put out by the French. You can mix rather violently and still get good Holy Chocolate Mousse. Remember, the secret is the temperature of the chocolate. Still, you do not need to overdo the mixing. There is no need to be violent against the Holy Chocolate Mousse, unless you need to.

Mix in the remaining 2/3 of the whites. The point with mixing in two rounds is that the mixture will get more liquid as you mix in the first 1/3. This way the second 2/3 will take less of a beating, so to speak, and lower the chances of the whites collapsing into a liquid,

Once the lumps of whites have been assimilated into the Holy Chocolate Mousse, and this miracle of the culinary world has materialized before your very eyes, you must treat it with the utmost respect.

The viscosity (how liquid it is) of the mousse can vary greatly at this stage, depending on the cocoa butter content of your chocolate. Sometimes it is almost as thick as whipped cream, other times it can be as floating as egg liqueur. Do not despair, if you have cooled the chocolate correctly before mixing in the yolks, it will readily stiffen in the refrigerator.

You have little time now, since the liquifying process of the whites has already started. Put the Holy Chocolate Mousse into 4 dessert bowls to make the 4 individual portions. I normally use a soup serving utensil for this part. You may choose to put the Holy Chocolate Mousse into a large bowl, but this will increase the danger of liquid disgrace, because the bottom Holy Chocolate Mousse will suffer from the weight of the top Holy Chocolate Mousse.

As soon as you have put the Holy Chocolate Mousse into the bowls, cover immediately with thin plastic film, and put them in the refrigerator without delay. Wait at least 5 hours before you consume the Holy Chocolate Mousse. Best results are obtained by waiting until the next day.

Remember that Holy Chocolate Mousse contains raw eggs, so it will not keep for very long. You should not consume Holy Chocolate Mousse which is older than 2 days. Leaving Holy Chocolate Mousse to rot in the refrigerator is the cardinal sin of a moussetafarian. Mousse must be consumed in time, for it is its destiny.

There you have it: The new testament of Holy Chocolate Mousse.

Now go out there and multiply, populate the land, and make much Holy Chocolate Mousse.

Eirik

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P.S. If you do make Holy Chocolate Mousse, please let me know about it and tell me about your experience, preferably in a comment to this blog entry. I am always looking for more input in my eternal quest for the perfect mousse.

Laura´s friend Gabi had invited us to spend a day with her and her niece and nephew at Jujucê beach where her parents have an apartment. She came to meet us at 10am and we drove together up to the north of the island, a trip of about 40 minutes. On our way we stopped at a viewpoint with a great view of parts of the island:

After 2 days of cold and rain it was good to get some good weather again. The temperature was back up in the normal Brazil summer range. Wow, 10 degrees C (18 F) sure makes a big difference.

Here´s the beach bunch ready to go:

The beach was just the way beaches are supposed to be:

We spent our whole day at the beach, only interrupted by lunch. Finally we got one of the beach days we have been talking about since we started the voyage.

We had our lunch in one of the kilo restaurants, where you pay per kilo of what you take from the buffet:

Buffet lunch with a wide choice is perfect when you don´t want to waste time at restaurants.

The girls did not let each other drift apart more than a maximum of a meter during the entire day:

Back at the beach life was hard:

The kids spent their day playing and swimming. The atmosphere was so relaxed I forgot to take pictures.

There were many people walking up and down the beach trying to sell things. Everything from cashew nuts and melted cheese to clothes and ornaments with mirrors (!) to hang on the wall. Gabi spoke with some of them and they said business was very tough, they hardly sold anything. Hopefully business would pick up as tourist season really started. Season here is from Christmas to March.

The most exotic sales scheme was this wagon:

This is a transportable bar. Complete with all the alcohol, juices, drink mixing machines etc. It doubles as a rolling discotheque with loud music announcing its not-so-imminent arrival.

It was great to just sit at the beach and chill out. We did not head for home before 6:30pm. On our way back we stopped at a village called “Santo Antonio da Lisboa” and ate at a fantastic seafood restaurant called “Ze Do Cacupé.” Highly recommended! Helene and I split an out-of-this-world seafood risotto.

We were back home at around 9pm and got the kids to bed. They have been going to bed around midnight the past few days and needed some sleep. After a few protests they fell asleep very fast.

Eirik

—–

The weather was again so-so. Dark clouds and a thin drizzle in the air. A bit warmer, but not too much. We decided to go to downtown Florianopolis and see the city.

Going in I took some pictures to show you what it looks like in the inland rural villages of the island.

We are on the island of Santa Catarina, which is in the state of Santa Catarina. The city of Florianopolis is halfway on the mainland, haldway on the island, with bridges connecting the two halves.

The city gave a very different impression than its surroundings

We had brought an iPad, since we have the Lonely Planet guide for Brazil on it in electronic format. It was really only in the car on the way in that I realized the potential of that thing, now that we had managed to get it online. It has a built-in GPS and we could use the web as we walked along.

The iPad is a tourist guide killer! We used it to see the map of the city and seeing exactly where we were using the standard maps application. The detailed map downloaded from the net as we went along and points of interest were well marked.

We used the Lonely Planet guide to look up stuff and surfed the web when we wanted more information about a building, restaurant etc. We had bought the iPads mostly to use as electronic books, but got a lot more for our money.

With all this electronic help I would have liked to write that we efficently homed in on an excellent store where Helene could get gluten- and milk-free food. Alas, we just stumbled on the best store we had seen since the US. South America has not been easy for Helene, it has been difficult to find gluten-free things like bread and cereal bars. In the Amazon one comment was: “Oh, you westerners, you have so many strange food allergies. Here in the Amazon we just eat whatever we have.”

We strolled down to the main square and the pedestrian and shopping area. In the middle of the main square there is an enormous fig tree which is well over 100 years old:

Fig trees normally drop down lianes that form new trunks and roots to support the constantly growing branches of the tree. As you can see the tree is being helped with supporting metal rods, Lianes don´t grow very large root systems on stone mosaics.

The GPS claimed there was a cathedral right here:

Cathedrals tend to be large structures, but we had to go looking for it. The GPS was off by about 100 meters (110 yards) and the cathedral was hidden behind the fig tree. We found it after a while:

The shopping area was decorated for Christmas. We still have a hard time realizing Christmas is coming up soon. It is too warm and there is too much light in the evening.

People were out Christmas shopping. Dauro had told us that flat screen TVs were the hot thing this year:

Brasils economy is booming and our conversations with Dauro and Laura have been a stark contrast to what the Argentineans had to say. It seems president Lula and his government have done a good job in Brazil over the last 8 years. 2/3 of the people who lived in extreme poverty in Brazil 8 years ago are now out of poverty, some 30 million people. The economy is rapidly expanding and will grow with about 8% this year. People want their share of the party now and consumer loans with 12 month pay back time and very high interest is a common way to finance expensive purchases. I´ve heard it all before. Let´s hope Brazil does not turn into another consumer spending bubble.

The strong Brazilian economic performance and the weak Argentinian one has inverted the stream of tourists and shopping expeditions. Because the real is so much stronger than the peso, Brazilians now cross the border to go shopping and also come to Argentina as tourists. When we were here 15 years ago the real and the peso had the same value. Today you get 2.3 pesos for each real!

We found a Santa at the entrance to one of the stores.

Straying a bit off the main pedestrian area we discovered a somewhat original power line setup:

For lunch we found a kilo restaurant, a great Brazilian concept. Basically the restaurant has a large buffet with all sorts of yummy stuff. You grab a plate and fill it with what you want. Then you put your plate on a scale and pay for the weight of what you have taken. The kids can chose what they like best and we don´t have to wait for an hour for the kitchen to finish our food. Peace and harmony:

If you watch very closely you can see the red digits of the electronic scale in the background.

Afterwards we went to the main indoor market in Florianopolis. The building is from the 19th century:

Not only did they have fish at the market:

They also had Norwegian fish hooks:

After the market the rain started and we hurried to Dauro and Laura´s place where we ordered pizza takeaway:

For dessert we had a chocolate and strawberry pizza! What a brilliant idea:

Speaking of chocolate, I guess you have memorized the ingredients of chocolate mousse by now?

OK. Here they are again:

8 eggs

240 grams of chocolate

2 tablespoons of cognac

1 teaspoon finely grated orange peel

1 pinch of salt

To make mousse, the standard recipe tells you to separate the eggs into whites and yolks. Then you beat the whites, with a pinch of salt added, until they are as stiff as can be. Melt the chocolate and mix in the egg yolks, cognac and orange peel. Very carefully mix the whites into the mousse one third of them at a time. Make sure you never stir, just fold them in. Put in the refrigerator. Consumable after about 5 hours.

That´s the official version the French allow to be published. However, there is a bug in there, a booby trap so to speak, secretly put in by the French so they can rule the dessert world. If you try the method they lay out you will get thick chocolate soup.

Can you find the error? It took me 7 years to find out. Soon, I will let you know what it is.

Eirik

—–

When we got up in the morning it was raining and cold. It couldn´t have been more than 15 degrees C (60 F) Hey, wasn´t this supposed to be Brazil in late spring, almost summer? Later Dauro told us that this was the coldest day in December here for the last 25 years. The weather gods were obviously in the mood to rebalance the average weather for our voyage.

Instead of the planned lazy day on the beach, working on a sun tan, reading a book, and playing in the water with the children, we headed over to take advantage of the internet line of our friends.

We did intense schooling for the whole day, until Dauro and Laura came home with the kids close to 9pm.

On most days of this voyage I have taken between 100 and 200 photos. Today I took 22. Seven of them were photos of Branquito, Dauro and Laura´s cat, while it was drinking. and twelve were of a SIM card massacre (see below) Branquito refuses to drink still water, it wants fresh water right out of the tap. It starts meowing loudly until you get it and turn on the water:

1-2-3

Did you know that scientists only recently discovered how cats drink from a bowl? By using high speed cameras they have found out that the cat does not scoop up the liquid as previously thought. Instead, with surgical precision, they lay their tongues flat, with the bottom side only barely touching the surface of the water, and then pull them up quickly. This creates a column of liquid standing straight up into the air. The cat then throws it´s mouth forward to catch the column. Impressive, indeed.

For us adults it was good to see the kids advance in their curriculum. We do hope, however, that the weather will improve. This is not tunring into the beach stay we had hoped it would be.

In the evening I suddenly realized that our iPads could use the GSM network to connect to the internet. With the ridiculously low pricing of data transfer here I could buy a separate SIM for one of the iPads. To test if it worked I got the SIM I had already bought out of my iPhone and proceeded to install the card in an iPad.

Full stop.

I had forgotten that the iPads do not take SIMs, they take the new fancy micro-SIMs. Bummer! The SIMs from TIM need to be activated by making a phone call with them first, so even if I could get hold of a micro-SIM, which was not very likely, I wouldn´t be able to activate it (you cannot make phone calls with an iPad).

I put the card back in my iPhone and consulted with my old friend Google. He could tell me that micro-SIMs contain the exact same CPU and contact surfaces as a standard SIM. They are really the same, just with less plastic around the edges. I even found a site explaining how to cut a SIM to make a micro-SIM.

I went over to the local store to get one and went to work. All I had to lose was 6 USD.

So, that big SIM needs to go into that little drawer there:

I cut off 3 pieces and a corner:

and made it fit:

It didn´t work! Ahwwww! I noticed that the card was not completely centerd and proceeded to cut off another piece, about half a millimeter (teeny weeny fraction of an inch) thick. It now looked like this, as seen from the contact side:

I didn´t have much hope, but put it in the iPad once again. Holy mackerel! It worked! I was online. I was happy. Me Tarzan, me make micro-SIM with bare hands. Me strong!

Eirik

—–

The weather was sort of gray when we got up. With danger of rain we decided to do a walk we did 15 years ago together with Dauro and Laura. First we met up at their place.

Our kids love the iPods they got as a present for the voyage and they are great all-purpose entertainment devices. However, it has become increasingly necessary to police their usage of them. I don´t want to hear in 10 years time: “Dad, we never got to see anything on that around the world voayge, becase we had our eyes on the iPods all the time.” As the adults got everything ready for the hike I took a look into the living room and saw this scene with our very social kids playing with Miguel and Bruno:

We finally got everyone into the cars and drove to the start of the “Costa da Lagoa” trail. A nice trail that goes through a very lush jungle. They call the type of jungle they have here “Atlantic Forest.” Iseline is really in a stubborn period and had decided that she was not going to walk with us and staged another strike:

It was difficult to get her to take part in the photo at the beginning of the trail.

She came around. We had very good memories from the walk 15 years ago and everything seemed to be the same, with the exception that were more houses close to the trail. Dauro told us that the area had been heavily developed during the last 15 years.

The path follows the coastline of an enormous freshwater lagoon called “Lagoa do Conceicao.”

These guys seemed to waiting for something:

About half way we reached a natural swimming pool formed by a small stream. We swam in this one 15 years ago also. It was hot and we were soon in the water:

My padawan practices his skills and tries to get in touch with the essence of mousse. He is a good man and will be strong when he is ready, if he is able to resist the temptations of the dark mousse:

It´s late spring here and there were beautiful flowers all around us. I went bananas with my camera:

This looks like a small regular jungle plant:

until you put a kid in front of it:

Our goal was the village of “Costa da Lagoa.” It took us about 2 hours to get there, bathing break included:

Last time we were here there were only a few houses and a single restaurant. There were very few people around in this village, which can only be reached by the trail or by boat. I remember feeling that we were really remote. Now there was a beach side with several restaurants and lots of visitors. Tourism had really come to Costa da Lagoa.

Laura, Bruno and Miguel had taken the public transport ferry and were waiting for us at a restaurant. We had a great seafood meal with shrimps in many different shapes and forms.

While we were waiting for our food the kids played in the strip of water you can see to the left on the photo above. A restaurant playing area that beats the playing area of our local McDonald´s hands down:

The rain had stayed away, except for a small drizzle and we were all happy as we headed towards the ferry:

and took it back to where we had the cars:

Adrian took a series of photos of Helene and me inside the ferry. The trick is to follow the little red light which measures the scene for the camera. From it it is possible to infer exactly when the photo will be taken and then change your facial expression in the very last moment:

Bummer, I was too slow in this one:

Back at Dauro and Laura´s place we had Laura´s mother and sister and her sister´s husband over for dinner:

Finally, the mousse was eaten. I had been a bit nervous since it had been very liquid at the end of production, probably because of the high temperature in the kitchen. My worries were unnecessary, the mousse turned out very well.

So, I guess you want to know the secret now? Not so fast, you need to learn some basics first. You need to learn the standard recipe for mousse, the way Odin meant it to be. The ingredient list for hard-core pure mousse is as follows:

2 eggs per person

30 grams of chocolate per egg.

That´s it!

The chocolate should be standard dark sweet baking chocolate. Cocoa content should be between 40% and 60%. I have found that 55% works best. My favorite chocolate is 55% Belgian Cote d´Or chocolate.

In addition I add the following taste enhancers:

1 tablespoon of cognac for every 4 eggs.

1 teaspoon of finely grated orange peel per 2 tablespoons of cognac.

1 pinch of salt for every 8th egg.

If you got all the math correct you should end up with the following list for mousse for 4 people:

8 eggs

240 grams of chocolate

2 tablespoons of cognac

1 teaspoon finely grated orange peel

1 pinch of salt

Now, please memorize this and I will tell you more later. Oh, and by the way, this list adds up to pretty exactly 2000 calories. You can survive for a whole day on this one small batch of mousse.

I had brought the projector and the kids had a cinema evening:

See you around, folks!

Eirik

—–