January 4th (day three of the trip)

After breakfast this morning we headed downhill on foot for about 25 minutes to a huge huge park. On the way we enjoyed a street filled with a Sunday morning market. The park has 5 or 6 big galleries in it but most were closed until Jan 6 for renovation except the Museum of Modern Art. The first piece we saw was by Yoko Ono and was an installation of about 100 coffins, all in various sizes each with a tree growing out of it. Is this about life after death? Another piece had two enormous screens with one man facing outwards and the other with the same man facing inwards. Non stop he made weird noices, birds, gargling, screaming etc. Not a piece that I would care to live with!! Probably the piece I enjoyed most was a large room with four walls. One wall had small wooden men with briefcases hurrying forward- many rows of many men. One was had the same men in different scenerios of life. The aspect of this that I loved was the cast shadows from the scenerios, especially the man climbing a ladder. On another all the briefcases were being gathered in a giant funnel and then men turned into birds and flew away!!!



Once back outside in the enormous park we joined the throngs of people- running, biking, walking, skateboarding. We decided that since we are leaving Sao Paulo tomorrow we should find our way to the bus station and investigate destinations and times cost etc. We got on the subway okay and off at the right stop but at the bus station I was overwehlmed with the crowds of people, and all the bus companies and no way to communicate with anyone. Somehow although I was totally scared. we managed to book an over night bus to the Falls on the border of Paraguay, Argintina and Brazil for tomorrow. The bus trip is 15 hours and was over $200 dollars. It is only a tiny leg of our trip. I´m hoping it`s cheaper when we`re out of Brazil.

On our way back to our hotel we got off the subway at Luz and right in front of the stop was another fantastic art gallery! (Jim is a saint) This one had a huge collection of Brazilian art from x1x to xx1. Again it was organized by theme not time period and the exhbition walls were very high and hung in the old gallery style of five or six painting deep so that some of them were at 14`feet overhead. There was allot to look at and we enjoyed it all. I loved the styalized sculpture and the modern sculpture better than the realiztic female nudes. Some of the abstract work had real sizzle and a few of the oils of faces and landscapes made me want to come right home and paint in oils. We left the gallery at 5:45 to see the park before it got dark since it is known to be unsafe. We only had 15 minutes before the guards kicked us out. That´s one way to handle unsafe. Eventually we headed home on the subway and we went to the restaurant that we ate the buns at on night one. We managed to figure out the buffet and I had my first fantastic healthy meal. Sometimes it is very scarely to travel in a large city where you can`t communicate with anyone. Despite that, Jim remains peaceful and I feel amazed and proud that we´re having fun and surviving. The journey is the adventure-- just as in life.