We are all ALIENS here!

• Just got back from 4 days in the Pantanal, Brazil - the largest floodplain on earth! We went walking for hours through the underbrush, did boat trips every morning and night, horse-back riding, fishing...
  
• Saw so many amazing plants, birds, and wildlife: storks, emu, capybara, frogs, hawks, monkeys, nose-bears, butterflies, tortoises, frogs, snakes...!
• Went fishing for piranha (hooked 2 but they were little, so threw them back)
• Went on a night cruise to check out Cayman crocs - ended up getting into the boat about 3 metres away from one! SO AWESOME! (They´re little, and don´t eat humans, so no danger. Apparently. Hee hee.)
• All I kept thinking as we went on 3-hour walks through the thick, lush green vegetation, and learned about how all the plants and animals and birds and fish co-exist, is how there is such a BEAUTIFUL balance in nature. Every creature has a predator, every creature has its prey. The cycle is perfect. We - humans - mess it all up. We don´t belong! We come in, destroy, ruin the cycle, build unnatural things out of unnatural materials, pollute water and air, disturb the entire system... how are we even here?!?! We so clearly DO NOT BELONG HERE! Think about it.
  
• Don´t panic. I haven´t lost my mind. Just dealing with greater existential and spiritual and philosophical issues. It´s a glorious gift to be able to philosophise, and contemplate, and piece it all together. Or attempt to, at least. ;-)
• I am having the most amazing time in South America - Brazil specifically. I´ve gone from sleepy beach towns, to magnificent quiet islands, to fabulous wild Rio, to the ecological heart of the continent. And tomorrow... *drumroll please*...
• I´m heading to the Amazon!!!
• That´s right! I take a 24-hour bus, then a 4-day boat all the way up to Manaus, the very centre of the Amazon Basin!
• HOORAY FOR BIG ADVENTURES!!!
• In truth, my plans have been changing daily. It´s so much more fun that way! I love being this spontaneous! And I´ve been making wonderful friends along the way, so I find myself travelling with good people all the time.
• So... au revoir, dear readers! I´ll be back again soon with more MAD ADVENTURES!!!

HUGE love!!! xoxox