Well today was a full day.

Today we went to Panorama which is about an hour and a half from Osvaldo Cruz.  Panorama boasts one of the biggest rivers in Brazil.  13 Km across at some points.  It is second, I think, only to the Amazon.  It was way fun. 

 When we first got there, we went swimming.  They had a roped in area that was about 150 meters long that boats were not allowed to enter.  Warren and I swam around the hole thing.  It was an interesting feeling swimming in water(that wasn’t right off the shore) when you knew Parana were swimming in the same water.  I knew they wouldn’t bite me(probably), but still.  While we were swimming I saw a fish that was like a foot across.  I think it was Pacu, which is like a cousin to the Parana.  That got me really excited about fishing.

That is what we did next.  We went fishing.  We tried in one spot for a while with no luck, so we decided to head back.  On our way back, we say fishing splashing around not far off of the beach.  It was too good to pass up, so we stopped and cast out.  Pastor Iuri, the national Pastor, was with us and he hooked one and brought it all the way up to the shore, and right as he was about to grab it, it flopped off of the line and got away.  I hooked one that jumped the line before I even got it close to me.  We decided to try a little later, so we headed off to play some sports.

We ended up playing some basketball, and tennis.  Well, it wasn’t really tennis, because we didn’t have a net so we kind of had to pretend.
It worked out OK, but it wasn’t the real thing, so we decided to try our hand at fishing again.

Pastor, Corina, and I went fishing in the second spot where Pastor had lost his fish.  I did a number of casts and finally hooked one.  This time, I gave it an almighty jerk so that the hook would set.   I realed it in and pulled it way up on shore to make sure there would be no relapse of what happened to Pastor.  It was about a foot long and I don’t remember what it was called, but it wasn’t a Parana, but it was still a fish, so I was happy.

After that, we left for home and enjoyed a beautiful sunset over the Brasilian countryside on our way home which made a perfect end to an adventuresome day.