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Published: October 7th 2014
After a great time exploring the jungle, we said goodbye to Colombia and set off extra early from our hostal in Leticia for the Brazilian river port of Tabatinga, in order to float down the Amazon to Manaus. As our boat tickets didn't have assigned seats, and with our now extensive knowledge of South American transportation, we knew there would be a crazy scrum to secure good seats on the boat, so an early arrival would help. We were glad to have turned up early as the boarding process was fairly lengthy, involving showing our passports four or five times to various Brazilian police officers and virtually turning our rucksacks inside out as they were thoroughly checked for Colombian contraband.
After all the checks were finally complete, we boarded the boat, managed to secure a row of three seats to ourselves and settled in for the thirty hour journey to Manaus. The boat journey was great and very comfortable, we were well fed and watered and there was plenty of room to wander to the back of the boat to sit and watch the jungle pass by and appreciate the vastness of the Amazon River. Ross even spotted an Amazonian
dolphin swim past.
We eventually arrived in the city of Manaus and found the cheap and cheerful lodgings we had arranged. Our room was in the house of a local family and came complete with tiny growling dogs, that were really about as fierce as a teddy bear, and a rooster outside the window, that was lucky to survive after waking us up at four in the morning, one minute past four, two minutes past four, three minutes past four and so on.
After a strong dose of coffee the next morning, we decided we probably ought to develop some sort of plan for our time in Brazil. During our research we realised just how big the country actually is and decided that we would fly straight to Rio de Janeiro from Manaus and miss the north-east of the country (oh well, we'll just have to come back). Unfortunately, flights in Brazil are not as cheap as in many of the other South American countries, so we had to opt for the cheapest available flight to Rio leaving at two o'clock in the morning.
With our plans made, we set off to explore the city of Manaus,
which was built on the back of the rubber boom and was once known as the "Paris of the Amazon" due to some impressive old buildings in the historic centre. These days Manaus has a distinct feeling of faded glory (although perhaps it does not look it's best on a Sunday, during a heatwave, at what felt like 100% humidity and after very little sleep).
That night we were kindly given a lift to the airport by the family we were staying with in order to catch our flight to Rio. Staying awake in the airport so as not to miss our flight was tricky after the rooster incident, but with another good dose of coffee, we just managed and landed in the iconic city of Rio De Janeiro at around six in the morning, ready to go to sleep.
Rio is a city with a reputation for being a bit dangerous, whilst also being a must see destination. We were therefore a little apprehensive about spending long here and had only booked a two night stay in a hostel. As we checked in, the very friendly Brazilian girl on reception laughed and said "there's no way you
will want to leave that soon." Sure enough by the end of our first day in sunny Rio, and after a good siesta, we were back at reception booking more nights.
We had a great stay in Rio, with so many things to see and do, all linked up with an easy metro and bus system and when our legs got a bit tired, we could relax on one of the famous beaches of Ipanema or Copacabana and soak up the Brazilian beach atmosphere with a cool beer. As for the dangerous reputation, we certainty felt it was far safer than a good many other city's we have visited on our travels so far.
From the crazy hustle and bustle of Rio, we headed a few hours south down the coast to the small town of Paraty. Described in our guide book as "one of Brazil's most appealing and exquisitely preserved historical gems", it did not disappoint. We enjoyed wandering through the old cobbled streets and along the harbour. On our second day we took a local bus to nearby Trindade to laze on some fantastic beaches and swim in the Atlantic. Another day was spent visiting a
waterfall with a slick rock face that was great for sliding down into the slightly chilly pool below.
From Paraty we decided to continue heading south along the coast, giving the monster city of São Paulo a miss, which turned out to be a little difficult, as information for the foreign traveler away from the well trodden tourist trail is a bit sketchy, as is our Portuguese. After leaving Paraty, we spent an interesting night in a budget hotel, mainly inhabited by oil workers, in the small port town of São Sebastiao, which despite the giant oil tankers in the bay, has managed to retain a really pretty colonial centre. Although, due to the aforementioned language difficulties, we did walk quite a long way from the bus station in the wrong direction before finding the centre.
From São Sebastiao we headed to the port city of Santos, which was much larger and not so pretty, but did have quite a nice long city beach. It also had a historical colonial centre this time right next to the bus terminal, but anyone we asked, including a friendly security guard, would not direct us to any hotels in the colonial
centre, they just kept telling us they were bad, but not why they were bad. We headed out to the city beach area in the end and the first hostel we looked at for a room was so awful inside (and after over nine months on the road our standards are pretty low) we could not imagine how bad the ones in the colonial centre must have been. Luckily on our second attempt we found a much nicer place.
The following day we jumped off the bus at the small town of Morretes, again a very pretty town where the bulk of the accommodation selection is within the pretty colonial area and, unlike the previous evening, was at totally the other end of the class scale and would generally be well out of our budget range. However, being out of season, we have found that making noises of disappointment and heading for the door after being told the price of a room, often results in a hefty discount (we have become rather good at this tactic, even once getting virtually out of the door before the hotelier shouted a much revised offer after us). So we did enjoy a
rather luxurious (for us anyway) night in Morretes.
We had been aiming for the small island of Ilha Do Mel, which we had read was the most picturesque and pristine beach resort in all of Southern Brazil, especially out of season. Apparently home to only "surfers and escapists" in the winter, with no roads and limited development, this island sounded like just the place to spend a few days and relax. We made it easily to the old port town of Paranagua, where we could buy our tickets for the boat out to the island, after which we went for a look around the town until the boat was due to leave. When we went back to the port to board the boat we noticed a lot more people boarding, most of whom were young Brazilians carrying a not insignificant amount of beer and spirits with them (and strangely almost all carrying their own pillow). This didn't seem to fit with what we had read about the island, but we figured a few folks having a beach party was probably a nice thing, it was after all a Friday night (we did, however, start to wonder whether there may
be a pillow shortage on the island).
When we landed and begun to explore the island, all became clear. It was not a normal weekend but a bank holiday during which the Ilha do Mel becomes a destination for young folk to party hard. A good few years ago this may have been music to our ears, but now due to the slow (in Liz's case) but steady onset of age and common sense (again in Liz's case anyway), this was not what we wanted to hear. This also meant that the islands many small pousadas (sort of budget B&Bs) were completely booked up. Eventually one Pousada owner did a little phoning around for us and found a friend who had one small room left available. This room turned out to not actually be a room at all, but a cupboard at the top of a ladder in the loft, just big enough for a mattress and only high enough to sit up in at one end. Well it wasn't the Ritz but the lady was nice and the cupboard reminded us a little of camping, besides it didn't look like we were going to find anywhere else.
After a nice meal in a small restaurant by the beach, we headed back to our cupboard where we met the other group of residents in the pousada, just getting started on a big bottle of vodka before heading out for the night. They were still just getting started at midnight before eventually heading out and finally allowing us to get some sleep, before crashing back in again at four thirty. Oh well, sleep is over rated anyway (Ross' parents, remembering all the times he would roll home in the early hours as a teenager would probably say with a grin of satisfaction on their faces "what goes around comes around").
Due to our early awakening, we were at least the first up in the morning and took some satisfaction in munching most of the best stuff that had been laid out for breakfast (it's the small victories). We also had a lovely peaceful walk to the less inhabited northern end of the island, where we explored an old and well preserved fort dating back to the 1760s and watched dolphins really close to shore (oh dear, we have become dull).
The island was incredibly scenic as described
and we would have spent more time there, but our timing was clearly not good, so when we returned from our walk and saw that many previously empty patches of ground had suddenly mushroomed a whole pile of tents, complete with portable stereo systems and small pyramids of alcohol, we decided to bail out. We hastily packed our things, thanked the nice lady for the rental of her cupboard and jumped on the first available boat back to Paranagua, where we found a room immediately, had a very tasty hot dog and cake dinner at a church fete (good old nuns you can always rely on them in a time of crisis) and slept.
A trip to Brazil would not be complete without a visit to the famous Iguacu falls, situated on the river Iguacu and forming a border between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. We were now almost directly opposite the falls on the other side of the country, so after a quick overnight stay in the city of Curitiba, we caught a ten hour bus (ten hours and we were still in the same region) to the city of Foz do Iguacu.
We easily found a nice
place to stay in town and the next day, full of anticipation, caught a local bus to the Brazilian side of the falls. Iguacu falls did not disappoint. It is not just one single waterfall, but a total of 275 individual falls spread over an area of about three kilometres, with a drop of 80 metres and is spectacular to see and hear. The biggest and most impressive part of the falls is called the devil's throat and from the Brazilian side we could get up really close and see the morning sun create a series of rainbows in the spray.
The following day we decided to cross the Argentine border for the day to get a different perspective of the falls from that side. This is not quite as easy as it sounds because despite the hundreds if not thousands of tourists who must do this every year, the border authorities insist that you must pass through immigration and stamp out of Brazil (the Brazilian border control is on the road in the middle of nowhere and the bus will drop you off, but not wait for you to get your exit stamp, meaning you then wait there
for the next bus), then stamp into Argentina and go through the whole process again in reverse a few hours later when you return. This seemed all fairly unnecessary to us and took up valuable stamp space in our passports. When we eventually made it to the Argentinian side of the falls, we found it to be far busier than the Brazilian side, but it was great to see the falls from this side and to see some parts that can only be seen from the Argentinian side, so worth the trip we decided.
With both sides of the falls well and truly seen, there was not much more to do in the town of Foz do Iguacu, apart from eat one more buffet lunch and board an overnight bus back towards the coast and our next stop, the town of Blumenau. We decided to stop off here as it sounded interesting because it was founded by German immigrants and still retains some very German architecture, beer and even to some extent the German language. The city made an interesting stop over (staying in the very German Hotel Herman). We spent a day visiting the beer museum (Ross' idea),
tasting the local beer in a German themed pub (again Ross' idea) and exploring an outlying village with a distinctly Bavarian feel, they even have an Oktoberfest, which sadly we were a bit to early for.
From Blumenau we passed through the city of Florianopolis, which is the gateway to the island of Ilha De Santa Catarina (also known as Floripa). This time we had checked that it was not a bank holiday weekend so felt fairly certain that, although this island was far more developed than the Ilah Do Mel, we would at least be able to find some decent accommodation and not too much hard partying. Thankfully we were right and after catching a bus to the east of the island, we struck lucky getting a room with balcony right next to the sea, at what was already a bargain rate, but turned out to be an even better bargain when the manager accidentally under charged us (who are we to argue with the manager?).
Our faith in Brazilian islands restored, we spent a few days exploring this part of the Floripa, before making our way to the far less populated south of the island. We
spent a few days visiting some spectacular deserted beaches and coming across a huge black hairy spider on a path over the cliffs, that we later identified as a Brazilian black tarantula (fortunately not aggressive, but you probably wouldn't want to annoy it). After meeting that furry fellow, Liz insisted that Ross walked in front for the rest of the day.
Having had a great time on the island, we continued further down the coast ending up in the small fishing town of Garopaba, where we found our best value accommodation to date, an entire small apartment for the usual price of a room. From here we caught a local bus down the coast to a bay where it is often possible to spot the Southern Right Whale making their way south to colder waters. Sadly, on this day, despite much scanning of the horizon from the cliff tops, we didn't see any whales. Never mind perhaps we will see them further south.
We left Garopaba on our second attempt. The first time the bus didn't turn up. Apparently it left from somewhere completely different from where we had been told by numerous people it left from (we
are pretty sure it was not a language issue on our part this time). Next stop was the town of Laguna, famous for being where dolphins help the local fishermen by driving the fish towards their nets and where we eventually turned up at the one hotel in existence in the town centre, which really took the hotel owner by surprise. We were pretty sure that if he had spoken any English he would not have been able to stop himself saying "what on earth are you doing here? No one ever comes here". The town was interesting for a quick stop over with a nice faded colonial centre. There were no restaurants open in the evening, but this is no problem for us now, as we have become experts in creating a hotel room dinner from whatever we can find that does not require any cooking in the supermarket.
The following day we were able to catch a series of buses that took us inland to one of Brazil's highest regions, the Serra Gaucha, famous in Brazil for receiving a dusting of snow in the winter months (quite a big thing here). We stopped in the small town
of Canela, where we enjoyed wandering around the Swiss inspired streets and visiting the nearby and far more exclusive town of Gramado (no place for scruffy budget backpackers like us). We also took a trip to the nearby Parque Estadual do Caracol to see another, far smaller but also impressive, waterfall and descend the 900 steps to the base and far more challenging climb back up again.
With time now pressing on we decided it was about time to leave Brazil and take a look at Uruguay. So we caught an early bus to the large city and busy regional transport hub of Porto Alegre, where we booked the last two seats available on the night bus leaving at ten o'clock. This gave us the rest of the day to take a look around Porto Alegre. We locked our bags up at the bus station and set off for the city centre. We couldn't quite believe we were still in the same country let alone same region. Walking through Porto Alegre was like being catapulted right back to some of the more grimier cities we had visited in Colombia. No more needs to be said apart from we were
glad to get back to the bus terminal and board the bus heading to our next country, Uruguay.
Things we've learnt in Brazil:
- The speedo is alive and well in Brazil.
- It's ok to ride a bike wearing nothing but a speedo in Rio. It's not ok to ride the subway wearing nothing but a speedo in Rio (please note that thankfully Ross didn't actually try either of these).
- The Brazilians are very friendly and patient with our terrible attempts at Portuguese.
- Most Brazilians will continue talking to you even if you say you don't speak Portuguese.
- Don't buy the really cheap wine. Just don't. (This is the only wine that Liz has not been able to drink.)
- Do buy the hot dogs from street vendors as they're pretty tasty (although if you are anything like Ross, make sure you wear a bib to eat them).
- Brazil loves buffets and turnstiles. Buffet restaurants with turnstiles are particularly popular.
- It can be difficult for the foreigner to work out how the turnstile buffet restaurant works. The process generally involves an electronic card or a
piece of paper that has to be handed to various different cashiers before you are allowed to eat and exit the establishment.
- The "pay by the kilo" buffet restaurant is a great option for the budget traveller, as long as you have some self control... We became experts in estimating the weight of a plate of food.
- The "all you can eat" buffet breakfasts generally include at least three different types of cake, sometimes even pizza, and do not require self control. In one hotel we had a choice of five different cakes. In order to get our money's worth, we decided we had to try them all.
- You should bring elasticated trousers with you to Brazil.
- Brazil is huge and we have only seen a very small part of it. We'd love to come back one day.
(Apologies for the length of this post, we did a lot. You are undoubtably either related to us or a very good friend if you have read this far!)
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Jeremyaroundtheworld
Jeremy Chiron
I read it all! We are now good friends! :-)
Brazil is fantastic! I'm amazed by how you managed to condense it all in one blog! I'm still writing about my cycling adventure with my Dad in Bahia (June 2014). Life is good! Where are you off to next?