Hello everyone! I am back with my final blog post collection before heading off to Israel and our last South American blog post! So first of all, after getting all packed up, we woke up at 3:00 IN THE MORNING and then we drove all the way to the La Paz airport. Once we got there, we waited a little while and then took off to Santa Cruz, where we waited a few more hours and then flew 3 hours to the city of Sao Paulo, thus ending our trip in Bolivia. In Sao Paulo, we waited for 5 hours before flying to Brasilia, the overlooked and art-deco capital of Brazil. Once we got there, we got into a cab and then we drove to our new hotel, where we had an amazing meal and then we fell asleep soundly. The next day, we did not do much except for visiting the mall and seeing a bunch of weird stores with cheap products in them. However, when we were chilling out in the hotel, it suddenly started to pour like it was a storm and there was tons of lightning and thunder everywhere. It was very awesome, but also very dangerous as well. A few hours later, we had dinner at our favorite steak restaurant, Fogo de Chao, where they stuffed us with tons of steak and delicious bread.
The next day was very exciting, unlike the last days. We first got dressed and after we got ready, we met our tour guide for the day, Juan, and then he showed us around the city. We first stopped at the statue of Juscelino Kubitschek, who was the Brazilian president who made Brasilia. It was a very art-deco memorial and although it was a little bit communist, we then drove to an amusement park where we had fun on gym equipment and spied on the currently closed park. After that, we drove to a small neighborhood where we saw how people lived their average lives. It was a very nature-caring place and it was very fascinating to see how people interacted with nature there. After that, we had an amazing lunch buffet and then we drove to a closed cathedral, which we might visit again tomorrow. We drove to a plaza where we got the perfect view of the Congress building and a museum that housed a bunch of cool architecture. We saw this one cool piece of architecture that was an illusion in the sense that it changes from perspective! There were also very cool paintings of the emperors and we finished off our day by saying goodbye to Juan and then having a nice dinner.
The next day, we woke up early in the morning and then we met Juan, who took us on our last tour in South America! We first drove all the way to the cathedral that we didn’t get to see yesterday because it was closed. Once we got to the magnificent cathedral, we went inside of it(which we couldn’t do yesterday) and then we saw the awesome interior with angel statues levitating from the sky! It was like being inside a painting there and it was designed in the way that even if someone whispers, everyone can hear what they say because it was like a bowl-shaped interior, so you can hear everything. After that, we went to the military base one last time and Ella sang an amazing opera that she had been working on for a while(link below). After that, we went back to the Kubitschek memorial, where we learned more about his life and how he built the entire city of Brasilia within the course of three years! He came from a poor family but married a wealthy wife and after many years of hard work, became president of Brazil. Later in his career, he helped improve energy and transportation and had an unfortunate “accident” resulting in his death. It was interesting to learn about him and later on we had an amazing lunch at that same buffet we ate at yesterday and then Juan took us to the airport. We said goodbye to him and although it was very sad, Ella gave him a cool handmade bracelet that he was very fond of. We then waited in the airport for hours until boarding a plane and then flying all the way over to Lisbon before going to Israel. Once we got to Israel, the entire airport was crowded by a group of eritries, who were Christians immigrating from Egypt. They were having a big reunion and were celebrating, which was good, but they also blocked our entrance into the main area. We finally met our family, which included Oved, Matan, Maytall, Noa, Motee, and Emri, and after an extremely happy reunion we drove all the way to Savta’s house where we met her and she cried so much. We were so happy to see her again and we also met Ronit and Ariel there, where we had a hearty dinner and celebrated our return.
