Day of sand practice , jetting and shopping 10/30/03
Bom Diem friends and supporters,
Today Sarah and I left the guys alone and hired a
driver and went shopping. We went to the Mercado
Central in downtown Fortaleza. This is a huge three
level craft market. The sellers are worse than any
telemarketer and will not take no for an answer. I
was forced to buy some straw hats, but I only paid him
a third of what he asked. It was ambarrassing and
draining.
The market has hand made items like hammoks, lace,
cashews and other local nuts, of course the regular
tshirts and sarrongs, lots of leather shoes, purses
and such. We see lots of precious stones like
amathyst, jade, crystsl. We also went to a large
mainstream mall, very fancy better than any mall we
have in US. Actually it was very similar to the mall
of America I went to while in Minnesota. The funnest
part of that was going to a large grocery store, I
want to go back when I have more time. The Brazilian
packaging is very different I bought 45 liters of
water and will need more by friday. I severely
underestimated the amount of water it would take to
keep my family of four hydrated. Right now in the
first 4 days we have used 35 liters. Amazing! We are
figuring just for Pauls camel backs we will use 5
liters.
Yesterday the boys made amazing strides, I am happy to
see Pauls confidence rising. He is believing in
himself again, he is joking around and happy again.
Meal times are cool for me to sit back and watch my
kids interact with all these great people. I love my
kids, they are so fun, I so proud of the people they
have become, (tear).
Alan Deyo from Idaho has been adopted as our families
Grandpa, on our flight from Sau Paulo to Brazillia the
ticket checker came to us and collected all our
tickets to make flight changes and after a few minutes
looked at me sadly puzzled and said, I am having
trouble keeping you all together as a family I may
neet to seat your grandpa in another row away from
you. hehehe so from that poing on we have called him
Grandpa Alan and Paul said at dinner last night he
will forever now call him that. Alan has 3 six days
under his belt and will be #377 our last US rider.
Last night at the team meeting the director for the
OLN coverage filled us in on their plan. Outdoor Life
Network will have a team of 12 reporters and cameras
covering this event. It is going to be fum, I will
keep you posted of this.
More later,
Mommy Neff