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Published: September 15th 2006
Arrived in the Pantanal, the southern wetlands of Brasil after visiting the opposite side of the Iguacu falls.
The Pantanal is a wonderful place for spotting wildlife. Unfortunately though, the weather was not on our side - it rained everyday of our tour (the day we arrived and the we left were beautiful hot, sunny days - typical!). We did see loads though - huge flocks of storks, kingfishers, humming birds, woodpeckers with their red mohicans, black monkeys, toucans, armadillos, a tapir and of course, zillions of alligators - oh yes and lots of pirahna too.
Our arrival into Brasilia was rather disappointing - our reason for visiting was the architecture of Oscar Niemeyer. The images we had already seen in books and magazines and the way in which the city is described gave us a preconceived idea of the way the city would look. We were expecting to be confronted with modernist buildings at every turn and of course, this was not the case.
The construction of the city began in the fifties and was officially inaugurated in 1960 and started functioning as the new capital of Brazil. Obviously other buildings have been constructed since then but
Swastikas and Stripes
There is alot of graffiti with contempt for the USA in South Americait is rather a shame that it seems as if the original vision and ideas of Lucio Costa (winner of the competion for the urban master plan) and Oscar Niemeyer did not follow through to them. Many of the buildings - the highrise hotels, office blocks and huge shopping malls - are pretty hideous to put it bluntly - and we now understand why many people looked at us as if we were crazy when we told them the reason for our visit - the architecture. Of course, the buildings of a city cannot be constructed totally under one vision, ideas must evolve and buildings should reflect the times in which they were constructed - unfortunately, it seems that aesthetics don't seem to come into it for the majority of buildings in Brasilia.
Not to be put off, next day and the day after, armed with our map and a list of Oscar Niemeyer buildings, we spent hours walking down the main axis of the city, visiting all of them. We were definitely not disappointed and we uncovered a few other architectural gems while wandering around the city as well.
Anyway - enough of architecture. We saw some
Pantanal
This alligator was stalking the boat as we were piranha fishing great buildings and got a much needed fix of design and construction. Anyone interested in architecture who happens to be in that part of the world should definitely pay Brasilia a visit.
After 3 days in Brasilia, our next stop was the small town of Ouro Preto. We stayed in a lovely pousada,
Cafe com Arte, and were given free reign over the house - we could use the kitchen, dining area and lounge whenever we wanted, free internet and the owner even told us to browse through her music collection and play music whenever we liked! We relaxed here, walking through the steep cobbled streets, browsing through the jewellery and craft shops for a few days before heading on to Rio de Janeiro.
Our Arrival in Rio was to be at 4am so we booked into a place called
trip hostel in Santa Teresa which ended being our home for the duration of our stay in Rio. The hostel is excellent, very chilled, excellent layout and a really cool owner, it is aimed at a little more mature clientele. Santa Teresa is a pretty part of the city, old houses, trams running up and down the cobbled streets and a
very good ambience around the area.
Our time in Rio was spent sightseeing, more shopping and chilling in the hostel and drinking lots of Caiprinhas (wine is rather expensive here so had ti find a substitute!)
Today is our last day in Brazil - South America has been a blast. Central America next stop! Only seven weeks left now - noooooooooooooo!!!!
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scott
non-member comment
Sounds boring to me