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Published: June 26th 2008
hello again, sorry this one took a while but this travelling stuff actually takes up some time. Where were we...oh yeah, we ended South Africa with a bang, getting to partake in all of Dave and Leisel´s farwell bashes and just doing some relaxing in Durbs before moving on. I could say a lot about the two months in SA but i´ll save you all the biased ramblings and just say we´ve had a fantastic time. Dave and Liesel, Phil and Jess and of course Viv, have been absolute superstars. Thanks for everything guys, and thank you South Africa. You may be a diamond in the rough, but a diamond you are! Your potential is breathtaking and your time is at hand.
The small part of Brazil that we´ve seen in the last two weeks has been equally amazing. We´ve loved every place we´ve stayed and have enjoyed some of the most beautiful beaches I´ve ever seen in my life. Having just travelled the South African coast, that´s a pretty big statement. The similarities between South Africa and Brazil are grand. Two developing economies, stunning coastlines, frieindly people, first world riches, dire poverty, too much crime, too few believers, countries
morning breakfast
Having Breakfast at the Casa Club where we stayed. "Casa" as in house where we stayed, "club" as in what it turned into at midnight.....sleep was as rare as hot water, but all in all a good staywhose children will know lives their parents only dreamed of, it´s been quite a segueway.
We flew into Sao Paulo from Durban and checked into the Casa Club Hostel in Villa Madelena, a beautiful suburb of the city. The city itself is a massive sprawl of very nice and very not so nice areas, home to no less than 20 million people. Imagine a Brooklyn vibe spread over 600 square miles. It´s massive! We spent our first day exploring the downtown area and getting a bit of a feel for the lingo and what not. Fortunately, Portugese is quite a bit like Spanish. Unfortunately, our Spanish sucks, but we managed. It´s amazing what you can communicate with your hands alone if you have to...thankfully we have our little italian along, they have it down to a fine art 😊 I would say the highlight of downtown was the "mercado" or market where Paolista´s go for their fresh produce, meats, fish and cheeses. The variety was stunning. I made the mistake of accepting an offer to try one of the local fruits from one of the vendors and then telling him "it was delicious , I´ll take two "...the guy´s
Amazonian Lychees
Not quite as yummy as the ones back home...but the ones back home don´t look like testi.....furry golf balls eyes lit up like he had a 1000 lb marlin on the line. Over the next ten minutes I had tasted more fruit than I knew existed and managed to breeze through 2 days of budget, two pieces of fruit at a time. I mean, I was tasting this guy´s kid through college!!! After noticing Lee´s face was losing most of it´s color and that the vendor expected the growing mountain of exotic fruit to go home with me, I had to sheepishly decline in mangled Portugese all but two mangos and a couple of lychees. Public school for his kids I guess, and a good few giggles and the two best mangos I´ve ever tasted for us. I now nod and say "no obrigado".
After the fruit "incident" we grabbed some lunch where we discovered "pastels" a brazilian street food, quick, cheap and delicious, basically a fried pastry filled with shrimp, chicken or beef...safe to say we became well aquainted over the course of our stay.
We left the hustle and bustle of Sao Paulo, and bused it up to Paraty (para-chee) an little town on the coast about halfway up to Rio. Here again expectations were
sao paulo
A shot down an alley, nice area around where we were staying greatly exceeded. We found a good home at the "Historic Centre Hostel", a happy little spot in the middle of the preserved historic district, with a good mix of travellers like ourselves. John, the owner and rather eccentric British expat, took good care of us. He certainly had his finger on the pulse of Paraty and it´s surrounds and as he would say "if I can´t...I know a man that can" and he certainly did.
We took a boat trip on the first day and began having the first of what would be many "Oh my God" moments along Brazil´s coast. The place is insanely beautiful! We spent the day on getting dropped of at islands and beaches, each more perfect than the next, each a little closer to paradise than the last, each a littler more breathtaking and each giving you a little more of that "HOW THE HELL DID I GET TO BE HERE" feeling. Every day felt like it could get no better until you woke up the next day and it did. I honestly can´t do it justice with words, so I´ll stop trying and hope the pictures will be more fair. Hiking through a
El mercado
Anything and everything goes in the market. Lee refused to add one of these to a meat sauce jungle for a few hours and stepping out onto a perfect empty beach populated by a couple of fisherman and a few nomad surfers gives you an incredible feeling. Miles and miles away from stress and familiarty, surrounded by natural splendor and new experiences...it´s why we´re travelling!
After five days in Paraty, we bused it to a ferry which took us to Ilha Grande, an island about two hours off the coast of Brazil. Hate to sound redundant here , but once again...STUNNING! The island used to be a big pirate hangout and it still has that feel. If it were in the Carribean, billionaires would build houses on it, actors would vacation on it and rich Europeans would lie topless on it, making it all but unavailable to the masses. Luckily it´s not, it´s in Brazil which means local fisherman build houses on it, backpackers vacation on it and topless is only a few square inches away. We spent most of our time hiking the mountian, through the jungle to beaches that left us pratically speechless....after a while we´d just laugh about it...here we are again in paradise. Ilha Grande is home to many beaches but the pick
El Mercado
One of the many fruit stand displaying an amazing array of fruit. Got to taste so many weird flavours (an avocado that tasted like pumpkin...PUMPKIN!) oh...and the fruit aint cheap!! of the litter, and apparently what many feel is the best Brazil has to offer is a beach called Lopes Mendes. Sand so fine it squeaks when you walk on it, perfect waves, tiny bikinis, gorgeous surroundings, David in a speedo...pretty much perfection and well well worth the two hour walk. They say there is still treasure burried on Ilha Grande, I say the island itself is the treasure. Go there.
...and then theres RIO!!!! what can you say about Rio, its reputation precedes it and so it should! Take Manhattan, mix in Miami, give it a laid back attitude, the world´s largest urban forest, the occasional scenic mountain and fantastic beaches and you´re maybe halfway there. And these aren´t your typical "city beaches", these are beaches you´d fly to that happen to be in a city. We stayed in Ipanema...yes where the girl was from...at the Crab hostel, about a block off the beach. The place was nice enough and it´s location was perfect. To me Ipanema felt like the upper East Side, only instead of a river you have a stunning beach, instead of a guy in a suit on the corner holding a briefcase, there´s a
El Mercado
more of the market guy in a bathing suit holding a surfboard.
To be fair, Rio has its dark side too. There are certainly places you don´t go when dark, and some I wouldn´t go when in the middle of the day. Like most cities in the developing world Rio is ringed by poverty and with that comes the usual desperation with its attendant crime, but it´s certainly not a reason not to go. I actually accidentily ran into the middle of a favela one day, and was greeted by nothing more than sme srange looks and smiles, as if to say "we know you´re lost gringo, but we´re col with it." We never felt unsafe, there is a good police presence and i think you´d have to go find trouble rather than it finding you. It´s the same old story, cities like Rio and Johhanesburg get undeserved reputations for incidents that happen in places that don´t really apply to tourists and good news doesn´t sell newspapers...thats my two cents anyways.
Rio highlights......the beaches. Ipanema and Copacobana are world class. They play volleyball without hands, soccer style...amazing to watch. They play beach soccer and use two goalies in each goal, or else it´s
cathedral
The main cathedral in downtown SP too easy to score. Great waves on Ipanema. Very clean sand, clean toilets, awesome places to have a cold beer on the boardwalk, very skimpy bathing suits, beach bodies everywhere. It seems Rio´s beaches are its essence and the locals take great pride in them, they repect them.
The churrascarias...one of the best meals Ivé ever had. Meat in all its forms grilled to perfection. Waiters running around with every corner of the farm roasting on a stick...carnivore heaven, and an amazing salad bar for the soft of heart.
...and last but not least, Rio´s most identifiable asset, Christ the Redeemer, overseeing the city, arms outstretched as say "look at all this glory." We did the proper tourist thing and took the train up to the statue. What an incredible view and the perfect place to get a sense of the city. Looking down on its beaches, its mountains, its neighborhoods and favelas, it was simply awesome.
It has been such an amazing two weeks in Brazil, and our only regret is not planning to stay longer to explore more. It´s a country where a million shades of brown live amongst a million shades of green. A
Local Street Market
woke up one morning to find a full blown street market had sprung up overnight country that feels very much at peace with itself, whose people seem to have tapped into what matters more than bank accounts and 60 hour work weeks. It is a country with a very bright future indeed.
Cheers for now, we´ll catch you from the Andes...
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