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Published: December 28th 2010
(M) As our last South American bus makes its way along a road winding between an extraordinarily beautiful coastline on one side and the endless expanse of lush green jungle on the other towards Sao Paulo, it seems an utterly suitable time to reflect on the three weeks we had in magnificent Brazil. Or should I say three short weeks, because it really does feel like this last part of our trip has flown by. Perhaps it’s because from the moment we arrived we have been captivated by everything Brazilian, and almost certainly it’s because the last three weeks of our trip have been three of our most enjoyable. And this after only having managed to make it to two different places...
We arrived with a vague plan that we would spend a few days in Rio and then head up and down the coast to several places before making our way to Sao Paolo, from where we fly back to Cape Town. But Rio had other plans for us and after spending ten days there we we still had to drag ourselves away kicking and screaming. I know I have previously spoken about my quest to find the most
Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro
as seen from the Sugar Loafbeautiful places on the planet. Well, as far as cities go, I have to say that Rio de Janeiro is most certainly one of them. A lot of people compare Rio with Cape Town in the context of vying for the crown of the world’s most beautiful city, and I have to say as we headed towards Rio on our 24 hour bus journey from Iguazu Falls, I was sceptical. But I can now safely say that I share their sentiment. The combination of pristine white beaches, dramatic granite mountains and lush dense jungle is breathtaking, and the energy of the place is quite exhilarating.
The fundamental difference is that Rio is big. It’s very big. So the beaches stretch as far as the eye can make out in both directions and that’s just Copacabana and Ipanema to Leblon. And when the sun comes out, the seemingly endless stretch of white becomes a hue of bright red and dark brown, adorned on almost every square inch with sun umbrellas, deck chairs and beautifully bronzed, bikini-clad bodies. Because if there’s one thing that’s to be said for the Brazilian people – they’re not shy! Strolling around the trendy streets and
shopping centres of Ipanema it’s not unusual to see men strutting around in small speedos or women sporting tiny Brazilian bikinis. And the great thing about it is that no matter how well (or not) we might think they pull off wearing these skimpy outfits, all of them wear them with absolute pride. And remarkably, even the more voluptuous of the women manage to carry off wearing them – somehow it just works. In Brazil, big bums are beautiful!
We spent the first three nights in a suburb called Santa Teresa, a great little spot on the side of the hill above Lapa, with the most incredible array of old colonial houses and exquisite little bars and restaurants. All you need to do is meander around the streets or take the decades-old yellow wooden trams up and down the steep cobbled streets to get a good feel for the place. Then walk down the mosaic steps into the heart of Lapa, Rio’s traditional Samba district, taking in the kaleidoscope of colourful tiles which are part of a project taken up thirty years ago by an excentric Chilean artist called Jorge Selaron, still ongoing to this day. Upon meeting him,
Mosaic steps
Lapa, Rio de Janeiro he took great pleasure in showing us pictures of all the famous people who had visited his steps from royal families to Snoop Dog.
This was the preferred route we took to get down into Lapa, which we visited more than once to take part in the lively street parties that happen every Friday and Saturday night. Put hundreds of Brazilians and gringos into pedestrianised streets lined with a plethora of bars and nightclubs, throw in some roaming Samba bands and several dozen street stalls selling the world’s strongest Caipirinhas at rock bottom prices, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for a pretty good time! The only problem is you can never only have one Caipirinha and with things only starting to get going at midnight, you can never guarantee getting in any quality sightseeing the next day. The great thing though, is that visiting Lapa on a Friday night IS sightseeing, because in Rio, people love to party, and party they do - spectacularly well - at any given opportunity. Why wouldn’t you love it?!
For most of our time in Rio, the weather was also pretty dull, so we weren’t too bothered by spending the mornings
(at least) recovering from the night before. In fact, for the ten days we were there, we had a grand total of two and a half sunny days – pretty disappointing for this time of year. But even the lousy weather couldn’t put a dampener on our stay, which to my mind speaks volumes! A lot of that no doubt had to do with the people that we met there. At our great little B&B in Santa Teresa we met Alex, a Londoner on a ten day holiday and Diogo, a Brazilian acquaintance of his who was showing him around the City. Diogo was an absolute saint, spending virtually the whole weekend taking us around the city, driving us to amazing beaches that we ordinarily would not have been able to see, and even hosting us for a light supper at his home with his amazing family. We also met two cheeky English girls in their early twenties who were a simply hilarious duo, a sort of next generation Ab-Fab, who were directly responsible for more than a little Caipirinha-induced debauchery.
Wanting to mix it up a bit, on day 4 we left Santa Teresa for Ipanema, the cool
Beach life
Ipanema, Rio de Janeiro and trendy part of the city where all of the beautiful people hang out, effectively what Copacabana used to be in its hayday. We stayed in a great little hostel called Bonita Ipanema, “Beautiful Ipanema”; Tom Jobim, the composer of “The Girl from Ipanema” wrote there and his family stills owns the building. W met another awesome English ex-pat there named Chris and his Argentinian best mate Gonzalo, aptly named “my brother from another mother” given the similarity in our appearance and his dashing good looks! We also met the loveliest Brazilian couple, Eduardo and Sandra, who we spent heaps of time with despite their very elementary broken English and our non-existent Portugese. But as always, where there is a will, there’s a way... In the end we stayed in Bonita Ipanema for an entire week. Given he was now living in Rio, Chris kindly showed us a lot of the ropes including taking us into a favela for a walk around. Favelas are Rio’s equivalent of South Africa’s townships, where most of the population of the city lives. The big difference though is that the favelas pretty much surround all of the city suburbs along the hillsides rather than
The Ipanema Family
with Chris and Gonzalo being tucked away behind makeshift concrete walls, so they are a constant visible reminder of the divide between rich and poor. The government has been systematically been taking over control of the favelas from the drug lords, and with the World Cup and Olympics heading Brazil’s way, there was a major movement by the specialist police forces to take over one of the remaining and most hard-core of the favelas just before we left Rio. It was a little disconcerting seeing several on-edge police with drawn automatic weapons driving around the streets at night and shielding behind their cars clearly ready to open fire on someone or something at any second. Nasty stuff, but a necessary evil for a city that is pretty much held captive by the drug gangs that run the city, police force included.
While some people argued it was a good time to get out, leaving Rio made us feel pretty depressed. It’s the kind of city that you want to stay in forever, and it has opened our eyes to the possibility of going back there for a much, much longer time at some stage. We paid the mandatory visit to the Christ and
went for sundowners on Sugarloaf (which was pretty spectacular) and took in the botanical gardens. But other than that we just hung out, on the beaches and in the beach-side bars, in the cafes and restaurants of Ipanema, Leblon and Santa Teresa, and on the streets of Lapa and Gloria. And it was awesome – a sort of laid-back, anything goes, happy, alive kind of awesome. Enough said.
From Rio we took a transfer to Ilha Grande, a huge island about two hours south of Rio, where we spent the neext eight days. Brazil being just such a vast country on its own, we decided that spending all our time in just two places was completely warranted. Firstly, we wanted to take it easy after our rather active South American adventure, and what better place to do that than Rio and Ilha Grande. Secondly, we know that we are going back. We have lots of unfinished business in Brazil, and when we have the time and resources to do it, we’ll be back with a vengeance and a much fuller itinerary, and already I can’t wait.
We spent the first four nights in Abraao, the main town on
Abraao
Ilha Grande main port the island, firstly in a hostel called Overnativa Green, and secondly in a little apartment which we found through our newly discovered tour-guide extraordinaire, Choco. While our room was great, the hostel should have been called a ‘hostile’ on the back of the icy reception we got from the manageress - she took a complete disliking to us (we suspect it may be because we spurned her infamous dinners and cooked for ourselves to help save a few pennies) and after three days we were happy to leave our room and seek alternative accommodation. And help would be at hand in the form of Choco and Caue, the dive masters and organisers extraordinaire who we met when they took us diving next to a little island just south of Ilha Grande on our second day – it was to be the beginning of a beautiful (and rather useful!) relationship.
The first of our two dives was a bit ordinary, and we were heading for an overall disappointing outing... but while resting between dives, Nina spotted some dolphins swimming near the boat, and in trademark Nina style, ensured that everyone within 50 nautical miles knew they were there! And after
Caue and Choco
Dive masters extraordinaire! very nearly having woken the dead, and anyone who might have been nodding off on the boat, there was suddenly a buzz of excitement. So quickly we suited up and headed for where they were for our second dive. After a brief early sighting at about 12 meters down, they disappeared and unfortunately we spent a lot of time looking for them. But once we surfaced and regrouped we spotted them again nearby, descended and had a good few minutes marvelling at them playing around as only dolphins can. There’s something quite mesmerising about seeing dolphins on the surface, but it’s something altogether magical watching them under the water, frolicking in their natural environment. They move with a ghost-like elegance that no other creature has, above or below the water, and anyone who is lucky enough to dive with them knows that it is simply one of the greatest joys of the sport. As if that wasn’t enough, once back on board we were treated to a display of acrobatics as they jumped high out of the water and swam alongside the boat playfully as they escourted us out of the bay - the perfect ending to a great dive.
Our camping spot
Paraiso, Ilha Grande While we waited for the weather to improve, we spent the next couple of days in a great little apartment arranged for by Choco, hanging out with the boys and exploring the island’s various beaches. Having initially wanted to camp on the other, more remote side of the island at a place called Aventureiro, on enquiry we discovered that tourists were temporarily not allowed there for ecological reasons. So, with the boat tours around the island being prohibitively expensive, we were confined to the area within hiking distance of Abraao. On Choco’s suggestion, and with the lure of a late night beach party on Praya das Palmas beach, we spent a night camping on a tiny adjacent beach in near isolation. However reeling from the disappointment of not getting to Aventureiro (supposedly the most beautiful spot on the island), this proved to be a poor substitute. And while the party itself was nothing to write home about, we did meet some pretty cool people, including an old South African hippie now living in Rio and his fabulous sidekick Johnny, a talented blues musician from the US. They happened to be staying at a pousada on the edge of the
beach run by a fabulous French and German couple – where we moved the following day and then stayed for the rest of our time on the island. We spent lazy days swimming, soaking up the only two days of sunshine we had on the island and playing backgammon, and in the evenings drinking caipirinhas, jamming to some amazing guitar playing and eating exceptional food – including a fresh fish braai after a successful spearfishing expidition by one of their friends. It was the ideal way to end our time on Brazil.
Our journey to Cape Town proved to be pretty uneventful other than spending a great stopover in Sao Paolo, where we walked around the streets of Villa Madalena, took in some amazing street art and perused some ultra funky shops which put anything in London to complete shame. Thankfully we were limited to spending the little cash I had left in my wallet, otherwise we might still be there paying off Nina’s credit card! But with at least her Christmas present in the bag and enough left over to get to the airport, we set out for our flight to South Africa, for a month of Cape
Town summer and Sarah and Neil’s wedding. Needless to say as soon as we stepped on to the plane, the excitement of what was about to come quickly dissolved any sadness we may have harboured of leaving Brazil. Besides, it was the prefect ending to a prefect three and a half incident-free months in South America, and the experience was utterly fulfilling in so many ways. And let’s face it, we’re not 20 any more and the idea of having some of life’s luxuries and living out of cupboards again for a month had no small amount of appeal. Cape Town, here we come.
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olivia
non-member comment
wow guys, sounds amazing... especially swimming with the dolphins underwater. was great to see you both in CT, glad we got to spend so much time together. can't wait for your next update!