Flying Down to Rio

For the last several weeks my wife Arlene and I have been visiting in South America.  It was a fascinating trip and lots of fun.  We visited Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and took a cruise up the Brazilian coast, which included a stop in Uruguay.

Rio was my favorite, even though Buenos Aires is a beautiful city, the “Paris” of South America.  Rio has an energy and vitality that only comes when a country is doing well economically.  Brazil has a huge amount of land and wonderful natural resources.  They are now being successful at using their products, including enough oil to be self-sufficient.

The people in Rio were sensational.  They are happy, forthcoming, and most of all beautiful.  We stayed at Ipanema Beach, and the women and the men . . . you get the idea.

Over and over we were befriended by strangers, when we were lost.  Several people took us by the hand to show us how to get somewhere, rather than just pointing.  I’ve only encountered courtesy like this in one other place, and interesting that it was in Portugal, the people who settled in Brazil.

The only problem I had with the trip is the density of people in the cities.  Rio has 17 million; Sao Paulo has 25 million.  I have encountered the population bomb in Asia before, and it’s really frightening.

As a planet we have got to figure out how to limit the expansion of population, or we are sure to run out of everything we need to survive.  We need to start now.  No one wants any government to limit family size.  In China it got a lot of female babies killed, but we better do something and pretty damn quick.