Blogs from Alagoas, Brazil, South America - page 3

With all the videos, when you click on it, I think you have to copy and paste the link into a new browser. After a little fiasco with rental cars, local Brazillian tag-alongs and being pulled over in a road block, Lars, KrisAnn, Erin and I took one of the rental cars and headed north. It surely was tough to say goodbye to that hotel guy :). He was so sweet to me. We exchanged email addresses, though I have no idea how that's going to go since we have no common language... Anyways. Driving north, we discovered the terribleness of our map. It was just a loose interpretation of the roads in Alagoas. Eventually we made our way into a sugar cane field trying to find a secluded beach, but ended up at a three-way ... read more

I wrote this on Feb 5th and just found it in my notebook now: No special occasion for writing tonight. It´s just that it´s such a beautiful night and I felt like sharing it. I am sitting on the grass under a palm tree in the evening, to the side of the path the runs the full length of the beach (several kilometers). I came out to see the night because it is so clear and mild. I wanted to see the moon rising. Tonight the moon is more beautiful than I expected it to be. It is rising directly in front of the place I have chosen to sit. It´s nearly round still because the full moon was only 3 days ago. I am watching it rise over the the multicolored sailboats that line ... read more

That night when we got home, Marcelo asked me what I wanted to do the next day. He said we could either go to a party or we could go to a futbol (soccer) game that he had mentioned to me a few days previous with his friend Jesus. He warned me that Jesus took the game rather seriously and was the kinda guy who would get ready for the game by consuming sufficient beer to get wild, paint his face, swing his jersy in the air, and spit curses at the top of his lungs from the stands. The answer naturally was, "Oh, I wanna go to the soccer game!" It seemed to me that soccer and culture in Brazil were almost one in the same; so if I wanted to understand what made Brazilians ... read more

Lesson to all Canadians: Brazilians don´t give a s#$t about Canadian mula. "No we don´t exchange Canadian dollars. Not Canadian sorry. Not here sorry." Another lesson: travellers cheques (in Canadian funds especially) are equally useless in this city. And the most important lesson: this country suffers from a serious case of disorganization. You go into a bank and all you see is mayhem. People friggin´ everywhere, no information counters, no "Can I help you with something?" The only people standing around are stern looking, gun toting security guards who look at you like "are you kidding me?" when you ask them a question. In order to find out that the answer is "nao" you have to stand in loosely established line-ups for an eternity. Everyone will give you the same beaurocratic answer: "Oh no. We can´t ... read more

So, here I am in Brasil. I arrived the day before yesterday after more than 24 hours of flying. I took off and landed so many times in that period of time that I lost count. I learned a few things about flying that I will keep in mind for future voyages: bring power bars, things like nuts and other satiating foods containing protiein, because air line food is for dogs. Since I didn´t want to be presented with pork I opted for the veggie meal. Big mistake. What came for supper was some kinda bean something or other with unidentifiable ingredients, served on top of a bed of mushy fragments of cauliflower and nutritionless rice. There was a hard white bun with margarine, a disgusting bowl of bean salad, and a bowl of mushy, flavourless ... read more