July 13th 2019: The Netherlands

Wow, a few weeks have passed. It's not that nothing has happened, but we've been quite busy (or lazy, depends on how you look at it). We left of at the canyons in Brasil. Spend the night in a luxury lodge with a nice Brasilian couple. She was a very good cook (delicious dinner and breakfast) and he managed the horses for the trek to the canyons. I've only been on a horse once and that was no success. Every time gravity brought me down the horse came up which did not improve the quality of my voice. So we enjoyed the meals and the wine (Pedro was convinced that the huge wine glasses had to be filled to the rim) but skipped the horses as I've never been a fan of jodeling.

Visited one more set of canyons before descending to beach level again. It was hot and very busy. We forgot to look at Brasilian holidays and as punishment were confronted with a very busy 5 day holiday. Lots of people in inappropriate city clothing with the wrong shoe-wear, lack of supplies, overestimating themselves. Had to tell myself that in ancient times I took the Hippocratic oath as you really don't want to be a doctor with so many idiots on an unintentional suicide mission. Of course the main activity for the day was taking selfies again. For this picture we had to queue up half an hour (OK, a minute, but still ....).

Impressive sight.

I found an interesting track going into the canyon we had admired from the top. Following a river and crossing it about 20 times (no bridges). Unfortunately we were not allowed to go by ourselves. Apparently it was dangerous (translated:  lucrative for locals) and we had to sign up with a guide. The lovely old lady of the hotel we stayed in coincidentally knew a guide (her son) and yes, he was free to accompany us the next day. One more couple? OK (reluctantly). At the start of the track it turned out that that one more couple had more than tripled and unfortunately lots of other people from the city decided to 'explore nature' as well. We got special protectors for our legs. Against snake bites, very reassuring for my lovely wife. With so many people on the track snake bites is the last thing you have to worry about.

And thus we had to cross the river hand in hand like in kinder garten. Every crossing our guide dropped to his knees to make a picture of our group, hands in the air and cheering as if they were sitting in a rollercoaster. Oh joy.... They can probably photoshop that smile on my face again.

Never really got that feeling of being alone in the world like we had elsewhere. It was like walking the Tongariro crossing nowadays.

Managed to get one picture without selfie taking idiots. The end of the canyon. 2 days earlier we were at the top at the very end.

Found a pub in Praia Grande, the small town we stayed in, with some live music. The daughter of the singer had been dancing to mams music all night and as a reward she was allowed to sing for us. Lovely.

So we met up with the ocean again. Behind me the south. Endless beaches all the way to Montevideo in Uruguay. That's what we'll do when we come back from Europe.

As we were a bit early for our air BandB we drove slowly along the coast enjoying the views, weird buildings, typical Brasilian villages and amazing colours. Pink was apparently cheap at one point.

Our last address in Brasil before our Europe trip. A nice place on the river.

We had forgotten about rivers, heath and mosquito's. Luckily they had one of those 'electric tennis rackets' with a still working battery. I practised tennis every evening before going to bed. Overhead backhand shots, simple volleys, must have killed hundreds of them. But of course, some got to me anyway, causing my body to grow lumps the size of extra limbs. Who cares about dengue fever, Zika virus or chikungunya, it's the bloody itch....

We have already put 'the Beast' up for sale and even got some reactions. I did put on some pictures, but was asked to send pictures of the motor. We had a brief look under the hood and had to decide that the last trip over rocky dusty roads had made our vehicle unpresentable. So we took the beast out to the beauty salon and discovered that under the multiple layers of dust a beauty was still hidden. So with a shiny Beast we head of to the airport in Puerto Alegre for our flight to Lissabon. Arrived at the long term parking where I wanted to park the car. 'No sir, we'll do that for you'. Eh, well, but...... Anyway, we had to go to the airport in order not to miss our flight. So they've got our car, our keys and access to some of our stuff. Let's hope we'll find more than the dust of the tires when we get back.

Great time in the Netherlands, meeting up with old friends.

BBQ in the Hague, with some guys of my old student home and their wives. Apart from some additional wrinkles and first signs of bellies nothing had really changed.

Our friends Peter and Floor took us for a boat trip over 'de Vliet' with their daughters.

Enjoying the typical Dutch landscape from the water. Quite hot.

Nienke and Floor after cooling of in the ocean. We sailed to Katwijk and had a quick dip. The daughters had abandoned ship by that time.

It's not Kapiti island, but still very nice.

Windmills of course.

Typical Frisian landscape. The neighbours of Nienkes parents were so nice to take us on board for a trip over the lakes around Sneek.

Yes, flat as....

Nienkes parents on the right, enjoying the hospitality of some really nice people. Thai soup with a Chilean wine on Frisian lakes.

Celebrations in Amsterdam. High school exams had just finished and we were able to celebrate with the children of Nienkes twin sister,

and her brother. 3 kids ready for uni!

The timing of our trip was such that Nienke could attend the lustrum of her student club in Utrecht. Mature woman being 'young' again.

Like in the old days. Well, there was a bit more male attention when they were dancing then. They're having fun though! That's all folks. Of to Utrecht myself to see some more friends.