On March 9, Musi and I arrived in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Our friend Diana from Oregon arrived 3 days earlier and secured an apartment for us that she shared with 2 other friends who left the day we arrived.

We arrived from Lima at around 4:30 in the morning and caught a taxi to the apartment. Diana got up to let us in then we all went to sleep. I've had my fill of big cities but the good thing about going to Rio, was getting to see Maria Lucia, the teacher I spent a month with at Esalen studying Spiritual Massage.

The day we arrived, there was a session at the Padre Pio house where Maria Lucia does a lot of Spiritual Work. We took a taxi to the address she gave me and entered a small building. It was lit only with candles and flashlights and was cooking hot. We didn't know if that was part of the deal but found out later that the electricity was out.

We got in line with many other people and waited our turn to recieve the Spiritual Pass. We entered a room with people dressed in white standing behind chairs which we, the people in the line, filled. A woman in front led what I think was a short guided meditation in Portugese. Afterwards, we entered a small chapel and waited for the service that followed.

There was singing led by a man up front and soon he was joined by another man who gave a talk, again of course, in Portugese. Afterwards, we enjoyed a sushi/Japanese meal with Maria Lucia. We then walked with ML to her apartment a short ways away. We wanted to see exactly where it was-- as she was willing to hold on to one of my suitcases to make traveling easier for the rest of the Brazil trip. It was great to see Maria Lucia even if only for a short while. We will be spending the last night there before leaving Brazil.

Yesterday (Thursday, March 13) we took a bus to Caxambu to get to Matutu. Matutu is a community in Brazil where Musi and Bernar were builiding a house upon the invitation of an old friend. After Bernar's passing Musi's plans changed and she wanted to return to Matutu to visit friends and pick up belongings she left here. I told her I was willing to go with her so here we are.

Not so simple as that however. When we arrived on the bus in Caxambu, we secured a taxi to take us about 2 hours to Matutu. We stopped on the way to get food at the last grocery store. By the grace of the Goddess, we ran into Musi's friends and connection for our stay at Matutu. They told us that the road was in poor condition because it has been raining so much lately and that the taxi driver would be able to take us only so far before we would need 4-wheel drive.

We set off on the red brick road to Matutu. And sure enough, it was a bumpy, jumpy ride. The driver didn't really know how to ride the high spots on the dirt road so we did a lot of scraping. He didn't seem phased and kept on going--until the last hill--he just couldn't find his way up. We backed down to a nice spot in the road, unloaded all of our gear to wait for our next gift of fate.

I got out my newly acquired Charango and began to tune it up. I left my Baby Taylor Guitar in Peru as I thought I might and I've decided to try and learn chords on the Charango to acompany myself as it is so much smaller and easier to pack around.

After a while a man drove up in a VW van. Musi told him we where we were heading and being as blessed as we are, when he heard who we were coming to see, he loaded us and all of our gear into his van. He was a master driving the rutted road that only got worse as we drove along.

At a certain point, he too could go no further. He told us we could leave our things in his car and somehow we would get them later. So the three of us took off with what we could carry for a hike of an undetermined (to me) distance.