-Brazil is incredibly diverse in every way. The people, the land, the lifestyles. We were mainly in two places (the city of Rio de Janiero and the state of Bahia) which is probably the equivalent of going to NYC and then the outer banks of North Carolina in the US. You don't see most of it and you only get a small snapshot of what the country is all about. It should be noted that we took a 23-hour bus ride between these places.
-Brazilians are pretty friendly but not necessarily outgoing. We never really felt in danger and were smart about keeping our wallets as empty as possible and leaving shiny things at home. That said, we know a lot of travelers that got mugged, often because they were alone.
-Brazil's fruit situation is as good or better than any other country we've been to. AND, cashews are their go-to nut. How awesome is that?
-In Brazil you can buy and drink a beer anywhere you want: beach, street, public bus...More evidence that if the US just relaxed a little everything wouldn't come crumbling down.
-Portuguese is not Spanish. But, most of our communication was a combo of Portuguese, Spanish and English (Portuspanglish) and gesturing. The points usually got across. The phone was impossible.
-Men's and women's hostel experiences are often very different, usually characterized by largely divergent smells and sounds (read: farting and aggressive snoring).
-Caipirinhas, the Brazilian cocktail of choice, are amazing. And they can be made with so much more than just limes. They involve a sugar-cane rum called cachaca (that second c should have a cedilla and is pronounced with an sss sound: ka-sha-sa), fruit, sugar, and ice and they are always tasty.
There were two major phases of the trip: Rio de Janiero with sister Meg and Bahia with sister Meg, brother Andrew "the body", and at times Tim Urban (longtime friend of "the body") and Mauro Rossi (longtime friend of "the Meg").
RIO
We arrived at Rio after a ridiculously long day of weather-impacted travel. All I have to say about this is that if you come to South America, you should try to fly on LAN. They have the most comfortable planes and blow any other airline out of the sky. This day would have been much worse on an American Airlines plane or anyone else. I love you, LAN. Meg bore the brunt of the inconvenience caused by our travel delays as she had decided to patiently wait for 6 hours for us to arrive at the airport in Rio so we could travel to the hostel together. Her 6 hour wait turned into 12 hours and the Rio airport sucks.
Rio in the summer is the muggiest city I've ever been to. You are instantly damp and you will stay this way until you leave Brazil. So be it. This is what happens when you wear the same shirt for three days there:
Second, we got what we liked to call "The Steal of the Century" in terms of our accommodations. This is not because we arrived and said, "wow, this hostel is clean, spacious, cool, and the shower is not reached by tramping down a floor and across the common area" (the opposite of all of these was true). It is because every single hostel, hotel, b&b, etc in Rio TRIPLES their prices for New Year's. One bed in a 6 bed dorm cost upwards of $75 USD a night during this time and they all require a 3-4 night stay...shocking, upsetting, and such a racket. However, we booked our hostel through a third party travel agency that forgot to charge us this enormous mark-up. The long and short: we paid normal prices for our hostel when we absolutely should have been paying triple. The hostel acknowledged that this wasn't our fault and we got the steal of the century.
Here are some of the highlights from Rio:
-There are fresh fruit juice bars all over the place. They basically have a huge counter with about 3 feet of standing room around it and that is it. You walk up, order a ridiculously delicious passionfruit-coconut-banana juice (or some sort of snack), and the gratification is instantaneous.
-Americans have something to learn for the denizens of Rio. Copacabana was the ultimate "come as you are" beach culture and it was awesome. There are a lot of people being exactly themselves and not really concerned with what you are or what you think. Ipanema was a little more concerned with preening (which we concluded the men of Rio are FAR more into than the women), but not really.
-The beaches at Copacabana and Ipanema really are amazing. They are PACKED with people doing all sorts of things: tanning, swimming, playing futbal, volleyball, or foot-volley, lifting weights, preening, prancing, dancing, building sandcastles, eating, drinking, chopping coconuts with machetes... The beaches themselves are long and really lovely for city beaches, framed by cliffs and Miami-like strips of hotels, etc. This was the best people watching experience of my life. And in case you were wondering, it is extremely lame and abnormal to wear clothes and shoes. Speedos are the norm for all men and they are welcome to wear speedos in restaurants without any shoes on. One of our favorite restaurant looks was no shoes, speedo, and shirt that was so long that it covered the speedo, making someone look pants-less. Unfortunately, we did not document this.
Foot-Volley:
Not sure what sunscreen to wear? Easy! Just figure out your skin color, and consult the spf estimator. Justin's category roughly translates as: whitey mc-white-ster. When you get to the pictures from the end of the trip, I invite to come back to this picture to see just how tan Justin got.
-We took a tram ride up Santa Teresa and it was the most buck-wild urban transportation experience we've ever had. Very exciting. The guy giving the high-fives in the video is the driver's assistant. Note the hooting and hollering and look for the death-defying overpass bridge crossing in the beginning. That was VERY real.
-New Year's Eve in Copacabana was an amazing experience. An all night party on the beach with huge stages for live music and dancing, lots of swimming, making little shrines to the goddess of the ocean, drinking, eating and sweating. We don't have pictures because we thought it was probably a good idea to go super-minimal with what we were carrying around. It was estimated that 2 million people were on the Copacabana beach for New Year's Eve and I have no trouble believing this stat. We all agreed that the fireworks at midnight were the most jaw-dropping, awesome, you-will-never-be-able-to-enjoy-normal-fireworks-again experience. I cannot describe how amazing they were. Picture three pasty gringos just standing on the beach with their mouths dangling open. It should be also noted that if this event happened in the US there would be 17 different gates, checkpoints and searches you would have to endure before getting to the beach where there would be more gates, stupids tickets to buy, and things that would prevent you from doing what you wanted. There was nothing of this sort in Brazil and it was just fine.
-Pao de Azucar was a great way to get a glimpse of how Rio is laid out. It is an unbelievably beautiful city with it's harbors, peaks, colonial buildings, and palm trees. The gondola up to Pao de Azucar at sunset was really lovely.
We left Rio for Ilheus, Bahia on a bus. The trip was surprisingly comfortable and quite uneventful. It was actually a cool way to see a lot of the Brazilian countryside. We arrived in about 20 hours time and immediately jumped another bus to Itacare where we met up with Andrew and Tim. Mauro joined us the next day for about four days.
ITACARE:
Itacare is a small town that gives you access to a series of amazing beaches in the state of Bahia. In the last 5 years I think it has expanded substantially and how has a rather hilarious strip of restaurants, bars, acai stands (local fruit made into a italian ice type of thing with granola and banana--very refreshing), beach shops that become a pedestrian walk/circus at night. All this said, it has managed to remain quite low-key. Probably because all of the locals are surfers and beach bums and do not want to toil away any more than the vacationers do. Here's Andrew at the circus/main drag:
This is from the morning we left, but it gives a good idea of what Itacare the town looked like:
It was very hot and immediate alterations to my Rio shirt were necessary:
Highlights from Itacare:-Brazilian beach food is absolutely awesome. In no particular order: icy cold coconuts that are freshly macheted open so you can drink the coco water, they are then cracked open so you can eat the fresh coco pulp; sticks of salty provolone cheese that are grilled over a small charcoal flame and covered in oregano; chocolate bon bons (I know that sounds weird but who honestly doesn't want chocolate on the beach?); grilled whole fish; cashews; fresh fruit popsicles of coconut, banana, acai; really cold beer (Brazilians are expert coldness insulators, be it for big 40 oz beers or the natural insulation of a whole coconut). What Brazilians have figured out is that it stinks to have to lug coolers of food and drinks to the beach to avoid buying $5 waters and $9 slushies. So they patrol the beaches constantly trying to sell you cheap, delicious food where you sit. And they also know that is equally annoying to lug beach chairs, umbrellas, etc. These things are also made available to you for relatively cheap. Or, you can go budget in lounge in the shade of a palm tree all day.
Beach cheese and coconut!!
This is actually from our next destination but I thought I'd include it in the food section. This thing, the name of which is currently eluding me, was as good as it looks (and to me this looks really yummy):
-Surfing was really fun. After our first day on the cool-guy, awesome surfer beach of getting yelled at by the locals, we migrated to what we referred to as "the nerd beach." It was one beach down, just as beautiful and totally empty. The waves were not as cool-guy as the other beach, but we really aren't surfing cool-guys so this worked beautifully.
-We basically woke up, ate fruit and drank coffee, meandered with our boards to the nerd beach, snacked on beach food, meandered back for a shower, meandered out for dinner, and then meandered home to bed. Everyday. Also, euchre was played. To everyone's surprise, the Finn children did not immediately make the game so miserably competitive that Justin wanted to quit. This is a first.
-Half of the time we were on the circus/strip. Then, we moved over to a great hotel on the beach with amazing views where we all slept terribly for three nights. Hot and buggy. Oh well. Can't win them all.Hammocking at our first pousada:
View from the second pousada (yes, that slanted ceiling indicates an attic room):
Look at those glowing tans! I promise that everyone wore sunscreen and sat in the shade the whole time. Those of you who know me know that I wear spf 50 or 70. It was way too hot to want to be in the sun but swimming and surfing meant a certain level of exposure:
We moved on from Itacare to Praia do Forte via bus, ferry, then taxi. Praia do Forte is a much more organized, upscale beach town. Where Itacare was pretty seat-of-the-pants yet low key, Praia do Forte took it up about 10 notches in terms of fanciness. We all actually had a bit of culture shock upon arrival. The beaches were long and reef protected. It was also significantly safer feeling (and more expensive) than Itacare. Still beautiful.
Meg and I are fans of breaching from way back:
Visit to sea turtle reserve station:
View from some ruins of an old Portuguese castle:
Wow. Big.
Floating in a tranquil reef-protected pool:
Beach sitting:
Rival or kindred spirit?
We had three days in Praia do Forte in a great hostel before hopping a taxi, to a plane, to a bus, to a plane, to a taxi and now we are back in our apartment in Santiago, thinking about our trip to Patagonia in three days. We're a little worried we are getting kicked out of our Barbie's Dreamhouse Apartment because we got a cryptic email from our landlord wanting to come by and "discuss the apartment." We're worried that he is selling or wants to move back in. We'll keep you updated.
