December 9, 2010

Time to move again.

We had had 3 very good nights at the Poussada El Shaddai in Foz do Iguacu. The room was simple but very comfortable. Breakfast was more than adequate and the staff was stellar. They went out of their way to help us, equipped us with brochures and were always smiling and service minded. If you need a great budget place to stay in otherwise very expensive Foz do Iguacu, look no further.

Concerning spelling of this place it can be quite confusing, It is called “Iguazu” in Argentine Spanish, “Iguacu” in Brazilian Portuguese and “Iguassu” in English, It took some time to figure out.

We had a late flight and could relax and slowly get ready in the morning. We had ordered an airport taxi for 11 o´clock. Our timing was impeccable. I took this photo just as we got outside to wait for our transportation:

This is 7 months worth of luggage:

Here´s the entrance to the El Shaddai:

We flew with Tam this time. At check-in we were told that our plane out of Iguassu was delayed and that we had been put on a different plane for our second leg to Florianopolis. Instead of arriving at 5pm we would be arriving at 7pm. We knew that Laura would be at the airport to meet us and that Dauro was coming in to Florianopolis with a flight at 5:20pm. After security we wanted to call them, only to realize that we hadn´t noted their phone numbers. Good planning, again.

I tried to get online. After a while I found a signal from a provider called Vex I had used before. When getting internet access somewhere in Atlanta I had connected through a service called Boingo, where I registered my name and credit card, That turned out to be a good move. Vex, and several others, offer Boingo users WiFi access. It´s often a hassle to register at a new airport, since they ask you all sorts of stuff you need to type in before you can get access. If you have 45 minutes to go online at an airport you can easily waste 15 of those minutes finding out how to register and get online. With my Boingo registration all I´ve had to do is to type in my username and password and I´m up and running.

Well, the problem here was that the signal was very weak. I could connect, but did not even get enough data to see the login screen. I started wandering around the waiitng hall, looking for a strong enough signal. After much trial and error I found a single spot that worked, and that was in the middle of the area where people came out of security. I had homed in on the area and first tried to stay anonymously by the wall. Not strong enough. In the end I dared try in the middle of the floor, close to one of the security people. It worked! The security woman acted like she didn´t see me and let me stand there with my laptop.

The connection was still weak, but I just managed to send Dauro a message through Facebook. I also managed to find his phone number and do a very short Skype chat with my mother.

I thought it was kind of cool that WiFi only worked in such a small area and that I had found it. It probably only worked in a circle with a radius of a couple of meters. When Helene passed by I asked her to take a picture of me for the blog. So she did, and now the security woman suddenly woke up and got into the action. In no uncertain terms she explained to Helene that she had just committed a crime. It was absolutely forbidden to photograph the security check area. Instead of arresting the love of my life she asked her to erase the two pictures she had taken from the camera. My precious blog photos were destroyed before my very eyes.

Afterwards I asked Adrian to take a photo of me in the waiting hall. In other words, this is a reconstruction:

The first leg was to Sao Paulo with an Airbus A320:

In Sao Paulo I got online and tried to reach Dauro and Laura again, to no avail. Dauro was not answering the phone, most likely becuase he was on a flight.

The information screens at the Guerulhous airport in Sao Paulo obviously run a very stable operating system known as Windows. Oh no! Hide, it´s the blue screen of death!

Our next flight was with another A320, we kind of know these planes by now:

On arrival Iseline helped out with the luggage:

Dauro and Laura were waiting for us. Dauro had read my Facebook message when he landed. Here is Dauro in between the boys and Helene, smiling as always:

It had been over 13 years since we last saw each other, but it seemed like yesterday. We dumped our stuff at the appartment we have rented and went over to their place for dinner.

Here are their two boys, Bruno and Miguel:

And here is their dog, Tootoo:

After dinner we sat on the porch and chatted until it was very late. It was great to be in Florianopolis again:

Everyone was tired in the end.

As we drove back to the apartment we scared a bird which landed on a nearby fence post. I just managed to roll down the window and catch this owl with my camera:

We were looking forward to 10 days here. We hope to be able to spend a lot of time at the beach and calm things down. The last weeks have been very intense for all of us.

Eirik

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