GVI

Aftera 14 hour flight that took off late and after taking too long to get to my hotel room I am in Rio de Janeiro at Copacabana beach. I am stay at the Windsor Palace Hotel on Rua Domingos Fereirra, about a block off the beach. I didn~t get my credentiual yet because of a paperwork snafu. I have to go back to the media center tomorrow and get it. Right now my legs hurt from sitting in an uncomfortable plane seat and note being able to sleep. I have also been walking and trying to film stuff on the beach and in Rio. The favelas are absolutely from hell. Imagine building a fort out of carboard and corregate...

Do I have any regrets doing this expedition? No! An emphatic no! The experience was definitely challenging and you get as much as you put in but being in Thailand and actually teaching is an amazing feeling. The expedition is based in a community called Ao Luk, where everyone is unbelievably friendly and not jaded by the tourism industry. It’s green and lush and distinctively authentic. I felt so welcome in fact that the Mayor and his wife became my new friends. The base we lived on certainly exceeded expectations. Whilst it’s not a Hilton Hotel it’s much more than basic. The people I met we...

Welcome to paradise! Blue skies, clear waters, palm tree lined white sands…..Yet this is no ordinary beautiful ‘Holiday’ TV show type beach – this is Pez Maya! Pez Maya comes with the added luxuries of the most obscure, bizarre and stunning dive sites with an abundance of fish and fantastic coral; the fabulous beach hut accommodation which you will grow to love – especially falling asleep to the sound of the ocean (and of course bob, the resident hut 4 iguana); bucket showers – yes, it is what it sounds, but who else gets to shower with a picture postcard view of paradise?! Also, how could I ...

I’m really sad to leave. This expedition has been really beautiful and wondrous and full of everything. I saw many things I thought I’d see and a billion things I never thought existed, like spiders with two black and yellow spikes on their backs, and moths that look like spaceships. The Amazon is a place filled with hidden things, and if you look hard and patiently everything slides/flies/crawls/hops into view once in a while. Everything has two sides here too: one side is showy and intense; the other side is hidden and silent and doesn’t want to be seen. Like butterflies, one side is to hide and the ...

I finished my voucher for the Rio trip today. It came in about $900 more than I had planned, but some things - like the driver to get me around Rio - were not in the original budget. Once you check "this is my final voucher" in the little radio button, that's it. You have to file an amended report after that. But now it is in the hands of the people who pay for it and they will look at what I have done and ask me why and then they will pay it. And I will pay the credit card. And the planning for Japan is in the bag. The hotel is paid for, the flights are booked and all I have to do now is get on ...

Today I was wondering if I would get the last video I needed for my television piece for the Pan American Games. There was a rumor that the head of the Organizing Committee - Carlos Arthur Nuzman - was going to be in the Main Press Center today. I called all the contacts I could muster last night trying to find out. But it was not confirmed. Then not only did Nuzman show up, but also IOC president Jacques Rogge, Mario Vasquez Rana the head of PASO the Pan American Sports Organization and three other big wigs. So not only did I get the people I needed, I got them all at once! Thanks be to God fo...

I was riding past some of the favelas in Rio on my way between Copcabana and Barra. I was safe in my bus, but there are millions of people living in these slums. The authorities here say that it is a haven for drug dealers and criminals. One of the flightattendants on my flight down said some of the drug lords have offered a $10,000 bounty for killing a policeman. But these things are as close to hell as you can live. At least from the outside they look like it. Imagine if you can buildings made of sheets of plywood randomly tacked together. Cover that with cardboard and a corregated tin froof. T...

I got to play real reporter today. Unfortunately when I get to do that kind of thing, it usually involves stuff blowing up, burning, collapsing or crumbling and people are usually dead. That was the case today, in the aftermath of Brazil's worst air disaster in Sao Paolo in which as many as 195 to 200 people died. The plane slammed into a gas station and a building after sliding off a rain-slicked runway in Sao Paolo. The runway, which some pilots had called "the aircraft carrier" because of its short length, had been resurfaced, but the grooves had not been carved into it to drain the water. The acc...

of home is actually brown from a lack of rain. But that aside, it's HOME! My flight home was not much better than my flight to Brazil, but I did get some sleep. Several of the US medal winners - including rowers and the baseball team - were on the plane home. I was sitting next to one of the rowing coaches. I got into a bit of a snag in Sao Paolo airport because I had a Gerber multitool in the bag with all the TV equipment. It had made it through security going to Rio and had made it through x-ray coming from Rio, but in Sao Paolo, they stopped me and wanted me to throw it away. I said "No Way, t...

I went to a smoking hot Brazilian club last night called Carioca da Gema to hear some authentic Brazilian Music. I closed the place down. It was GREAT!. Yesterday and today were beautiful in Rio and that kind of sucks because I have to leave now. But it has been a good trip. I really got a taste of Brazil. Next I get to taste Japan. More on that later. Now it´s a long flight home. I have to wait several hours at Rio airport. The United Counter does not open for a couple of hours so I have to get something to eat and then sit around. Whee. D.