Week 24 – Belo Horizonte and Trancoso

Belo Horizonte, big Brazilian city in Minas Gerais, did not turn out to be much of redemption after Rio, as we hoped. It is just a big city with not much to offer to in terms of tourist attractions and same as Rio did not feel entirely safe. We stayed in the residential neighbourhood of Santa Teresa (apparently safe place as we were told by the owners of the hostel that was set behind cement and wired wall), short taxi ride to the bus station and also close to the metro and a shopping centre. We never managed to walk to either cause it required walking through the street with the idle boys hanging out that looked a bit too scary for my taste. Idle teenage boys in Brazil = trouble in my books! So both of our two days in Belo we spent on day trips out of the city; one to Inhotim, quite a unique place which is a complex of modern art galleries set in the wonderful botanical garden some 50 km away from Belo and on the day before the departure with the night bus we went with the local bus to Congonhas that houses one of the most prominent art work of Brazilian barque, a church with the sculptures of 12 apostles by Alejandrinho (same artist the featured in Ouro Preto churches). After 2 these two days in Belo we returned (finally) to the cost in southern Bahia to a very special and again somewhat unique beach resort Trancoso.

Inhotim – modern art & nature

It is definitely a place to go if like art and nature and if you end up in this part of Brazil. Only 2 hours ride on the public bus from the busy and tense city of Belo it offers a new take of displaying art. Huge botanical garden with the view of the surrounding mountains hosts some 20 if not small galleries, most dedicated to one or two artists. The art is really varied collection; photography of the troubled years of drugs, prostitution and extreme poverty in Salvador, some serious sound installations but also some joyful outdoor pieces like the kaleidoscope, swimming pool designed as the telephone book or ceramic letters spread around the lawn that you can use to write anything you want or my favourite of all Cosmococas by Brazilian artists from Rio that was arranged in 4 separate rooms in one you could rest on the hummocks, in another use the swimming pool, in next just lie down on mattress and in  the last two just jump on the soft surface  to the tunes of rock, pop and displays of slides of pop culture celebrities. The art is not heavy barely understandable modern art but really engaging and fun installations. We also so a short film presenting extinct languages ‘The last silent film’.  Very interesting! We spend the whole day wondering the gardens, not bored for a minute and did not even get to see it all.  Interesting thing about this place though was how much local employment it created. There were young gardeners, builders (they seem to keep building new galleries), guides, a few minders for each of the galleries, golf carts drivers for less able… I dare to think that there were more employees on site on than visitors, possible because it was a Tuesday and there are more guests on weekends. Anyway that can only be a good thing as again idle teenagers=trouble so it is better than they are spending time in the beautiful place rather than on the street.

Congonhas – Unesco World Heritage sites totally out of the way!

The Jesuits mission in the border areas of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil have a claim to be least visited Unesco Word Heritage sites and we clearly felt in San Ignacio but I also had the same feeling when we went from Belo to Conghonas. There is nothing in town itkself, it is just a mining town but on top of the hill it its only attraction, the baroque church and the sculpture of 12 apostles. On the Wednesday morning when we arrived after 2 hours bus trip from Belo we were 2 of 5 tourists visiting the place unless there were a few others hiding in the junk shops surrounding the square. I guess there might be more people around on some religious events. The sculptures are an acclaimed art, I thought it was beautiful but not sure if it is really worth the trouble of getting out of your way to see unless you are already in the area.

So these two days was our entire experience of the state of Minas Gerais and my writing would not be complete if I did not mention the food. Comida mineira is famous in Brazil and basically is a high calories intake in the form of mandioca, various styles and kinds of meets, potatos and kale and otherwise little vegetable. It is best eaten in the ‘por kilo’ restaurants where you pay based on the weight of food, which I guess a favourite way across brazil to eat out (certainly more fair pricing than a per person price in adopted in most churrascarias). I guess in the style of cooking to me it is comparable to the soul cooking in the southern USA. So before departing minas we over-ate at mineiro diner in Belo Horizonte in a very out of the way restaurant Xapati and again in the only restaurant around the church in Conghonas and with extra kilos we finally left for what’s best in Brazil: the beach

Trancoso – a gem in Bahia

We could not wait to get back to a tranquil beach resort and that’s what we found in Trancoso. While typing the blog in the hostel in Salvador I found out that Antonio Banders vacationed there last year trying to hide from the spotlight. It is a bit hard to get to as there are only few daily buses from either Eunapolis or Puerto Seguro via another and apparently more famous beach resort Arraial d’Ajuda but that only makes it better! The touristy part of town is centred around the big lawn or meadow with grazing horses called Quadrado or diminutively Quadradinho surrounded by mall colourful houses hosting either pousadas, expensive boutiques (selling stuff mostly from India surprisingly and some local crafts) and restaurants. Touristy it is but lovely too. The beach is a few minutes walking downhill from the square and it is very nice and unlike the beaches we visited before has a few establishment lending sunbeds and serving drinks that we took a full use of. I think I must have overdosed on agua de coco bem geladaJ At the end of our trip we lost some of our exploring spirit and we went to the same sun bed and the same agua de coco vendor every day! Also unlike other beaches we visited before the Trancoso beach is full of vendors of ethnic jewlery, coconut oil, cocadas, pasteis (fried cheese or meat pastries) or even grill that is cooked in the provisional oven made of the can. We were not brave enough to try it though! My favourite vendor on the beach was Manuel Do Abacaxi (Manuel Pineapple) who came every day with the horse two wheeler cart full of fresh pineapple and pilled and cut it ready to eat for you for 5 reals! And so we enjoyed our last days on Brazilian beaches sipping agua de coco, eating abacaxi before on Sunday night we boarded the night bus to Salvador for our last days in Brazil.

This week we also completed 2 last bus journeys of the whole trip: 960km (18h) from Belo Horizonte to Transco and 745km (14h) from Trancoso to Salvador. No more buses! All we have to do next week is visit Salvador historic town centre and hop on the taxi to the airport…

Week 23 – Rio de Janeiro (leaving), Teresopolis, Petropolis and Ouro Preto

Monday was our last day in Rio and exhausted from the tension of the city we did not do anything other than picking up my contact lenses at the optitions and going for a nice diner. We were very happy to leave it for the inland attractions. They are slightly off the beaten track as foreign tourists seem to rarely venture outside the beach resorts (and probably rightfully so). We went first to Teresopolis (a mountain town with the entrance to the Serra de Orgaos National Park), Petropolis (also a mountain city and former summer residence of the Brazilian monarchy) and then crossed the border to Minas Gerais state to Ouro Preto (a historic town and gold mining capital of colonial Brazil and home to its independence movement). Clearly foreign tourists are rare in these places so all the locals that we met along the way were trying to make sure that we visit all tourist attractions.

Teresopolis

The only reason to visit Terespolis is to get to the Serra dos Orgaos. If you have enough time you can hike for 3 days through the park between Terespolis and Petropolis but if not it offers enough decent day hiking too and that’s what we did. We spent the day in the park, the hiking was not too strenuous but picturesque indeed, especially the path called Cartao Postal (postcard trail) where you get the view of the peaks of Serra dos Orgaos. There were only 3 other people hiking in the park that day; French/ Turkish couple that appeared to have been slightly lost (later we met them again in Petropolis) and a solitary hiker from Rio who accompanied us all day and with whom we conversed about Brazil, Rio in particular and the upcoming World Cup and Olympics. Interestingly enough, he told us that the general public in Brazil is not that excited at all about these events because Brazil has other more important needs than hosting the games and the organizers do not seem to invest much in the lasting project but focus on the stadiums only. The town itself does not really offer much but we had a spare afternoon after arrival so we ventured through the streets and ended up in the city museum where the young hostess was determined to walk us through its exhibition dedicated to the history of Carnival and we had to learn about all Terespolis samba schools.  She was so excited telling us Carnival stories that clearly it did not matter to her that our understanding of Portuguese was limited and we did not dare to offend her by saying that we could have understood more if we read the explanations. All in all one and a half day in Terespolis was pleasant though not very exciting.

Petropolis

Petropolis bus station is out of town so we had to take a taxi to get to town. The taxi driver again oblivious to our limited understanding of Portuguese spoke all the way about all the places we have to visit and gave us a mini tour of town on the way to the hotel. On the way back the taxi driver was also enquiring to making sure if we have seen all attractions. Clearly another sign of how rare the foreign tourist must be in this town.

The major claim to fame of this town is a former summer residence of Brazilian kings that now hosts the museum with the royal family memorabilia. Interesting enough to visit and there is even information in English! The royals seemed to have spent all their lives posing for portraits as whole museum is filled with their paintings. The streets of Petropolis in the centre of town are full of period houses one of which is now summer retreat house for the Brazilian president. Even though Petropolis is mostly famous for the royalty, it also has the restored house of Santos Dumont, the inventor of the aircraft with the engine but also a guy who popularized the wrist watch and creator of the first hot water shower in Brazil (thank you Santos). He was very interesting character and the city has restored his residence; a small quirky house on the rock entirely designed by him, including the peculiar staircase that requires you to walk in the right / left foot order! We also stayed there in the very nice pousada (inn) that was dedicated to his life and inventions, not cheap but probably the best place we have stayed in Brazil.  

Ouro Preto

Ouro Preto was supposed to be our highlight of this week and the sightseeing in Brazil. The historic town is a UNESCO Word Heritage site. It boasts 17 (I think) Brazilian baroque churches featuring the work of the most acclaimed sculptor of that time Alejandrinho. The churches are indeed splendid and the town itself beautifully set among the mountains peaks around a historic square in the town centre. We were quite unlucky though with the weather though as it has rained almost all the time when we were there so the photos might not necessarily reflect how pretty the town was and it was not allowed to take any photos inside the buildings. We also visited one of the former gold mines, where our guide in addition to giving us the story of the mine and Chico Rei, enslaved African king who bought his and his tribe mates freedom and the mine, explained to us how Brazil is the best place on the planet: ‘Europe is terrorism, mafia and expensive place, Brazil is cheap, happy and has no problems only solutions’. Interesting opinion but how untrue, though one has to praise the guy’s rosy view of life. I guess it’s probably better that way in the country with extreme contrast between rich and poor and violence shaking the favelas!

With that preaching in mind on Sunday afternoon we left Ouro Preto to Belo Horizonte, its third or fourth largest city. Maybe here we’ll see the Brazil with no problems just solutions that we could not see in Rio.

Week 22 – Ilha Grande (continued) and Rio de Janeiro

After some hiking on and lounging on the beaches of Ilha Grande on Wednesday evening we arrived in Rio, which was supposed to be the highlight of the South American journey. While Ilha Grande was lovelier each day, Rio after charming welcome turned out worse day by day as we simply did not feel safe.

Ilha Grande – 102 beaches

We spent only 4 days in Ilha Grande and visited not more than 2% of the island. It is definitely a place where you could hang out for whole 2 weeks and go to a different beach every day, either hiking or by boat and not be bored at all or if you like to be bored on holidays you can pick your favourite beach and just hang out there every day too. They are all wonderful. One day we went on the short walk around the main village of Abraao passing by small waterfall with the natural bathing pond, aqueduct and ended on the Praia Preta (Black Beach) with a black sand of course. The next day we walked 8km to the main beach Praia Lopes Mendes but luckily the lady who sold us the ticket for the return by boat told us about the detour to the neighbouring beach Praia San Antonio, where for some time we were the only people on the soft white sun under the shade of the trees and swimming in the crystal clear water between some interesting rock formations. Praia Lopes Mendes was nice, very long but being the highlight of the island turned out to be slightly crowded but in any event the 8km walk to the beach was well rewarded. In any event Ilha Grande is wonderful place for holiday, the only thing that was lacking was wi-fi so we had to use internet cafes (aka locutorios) that were not that plentiful either, but hey it is a remote island, former prison and leper colony. Getting out of the island to Rio was also very easy with the tourist agency offering boat/minibus service door to door for a very reasonable price. 

Rio de Janeiro – Cidade Maravilhosa (Marvellous City) but only from outside

We arrived in Rio in the afternoon rain which was a regular weather pattern throughout the week and as we reached the beach of Copacabana a large rainbow appeared between the coast and outlying islands. We got the keys to our apartment that turned out to only half a block from Ipanema beach and 3 blocks from Copacabana in the neighbourhood Arpoador, a convenient location if you cannot decide your preference between Copacabana and Ipanema. Now I know the difference: Copacabana has nicer beach but Ipanema is a nicer neighbourhood. The apartment turned out to be cute and comfortable studio with a laundry machine (a very important feature for a long term travellers) though not very well equipped with cooking utensils so instead of staying in as planned we had to venture out for dinner. Without any plan, research, lonely planet suggestion etc. we found our way to the corner restaurant Garota de Ipanema, which is exactly the place where Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes wrote Garota de Ipanema or as we all know it The Girl from Ipanema. What a charming welcome indeed! As we were walking through Ipanema streets that afternoon, we immediately noticed that security is a real concern. Literally every building, residential or commercial is behind a metal or sometimes glass gate and has at least one security guard; it takes off a bit of charm from Cidade Maravilhosa.

The key to the visit in Rio is to plan when to visit the Christo Redentor and Pao de Azucar so that you do not end up there on the clouded day as the view from the top of both is really stunning and that’s when Rio is at its best, from the top of the mountain! We were lucky with our Sunday trip up Corcovado to Christo Redentor whenthe sky was blue, the sun was shining and for a good while we saw the full statue and the panorama of the city but later the Christo and the bay were covered in clouds and we left leaving the Christo and the crowds fighting for a photo spots behind. We were not that lucky with our Saturday afternoon on Pao de Azucar though the weather really changed while we spent 1 hour in the ticket queue but we still got some grey views of the bay and the city.

Rio looks really beautiful from the top: the beaches, surrounding mountains and the blue waters of the ocean & the bridge across the bay. From the top you can see how the small colourful houses of favelas on the hills come down to join white highrises of the richer class which makes the view beautiful and interesting but makes Rio as a city rather a sad place of very visible social division all under the arms of Christo Redentor.

As much as the view of Rio from the top is beautiful it is hard to say the same about streets of Rio. The centre, which is a commercial and historical centre of Rio dividing posh Zona Sul (south side with Ipanema and Copacabana) from Zona Norte (working class part of town home to the famous Maracana Stadium) is a mix of modern not necessarily beautiful buildings and some remaining colonial houses or churches, not necessarily well maintained. It is really busy during the working day but a no-go-zone after working hours or weekends again because of the security concern. Even as we trotted Lonely Planet designed walking tour we ended up on rather unwelcoming streets and we did not even venture to any favelas. The highlight in the centre is the Cathedral; a modern structure that from outside looks rather controversial like an up-side-down bucket but the lighting and the stain glass windows inside make it really and impressive construction.

The neighbourhoods that is supposed to be a heart of Rio’s art and music Lapa that everybody raves about, is simply shabby and as we walked through it during the day we decided that we’ll skip the evening visit as even in the daylight it was not very inviting; so no samba experience in Rio for us. What makes Lapa worth a visit is an interesting piece of art: stairs covered with colourful tiles from all over the world that are the living creation of the Chilean artist in Brazil. Parque Flamengo, that stretches along the coast and overlooks the Pao de Azucar would make a wonderful walk if it would not be a dangerous place, again the charm has been taken away from Rio by security concern. And such is Rio, marvellous from outside but not very pleasant inside.

One highlight of Rio worth mentioning that no travel guide or tourist information would warn the visitor about are the city buses. I do not think that any speed limits apply to them as they seem to be the fastest vehicles on the Rio streets and there are many of them cruising the city with at least one a minute frequency. So if you look at my photos and see a bus obstructing the view it simply means that there was no other way but to take a picture with the passing bus. I would never jaywalk in Rio fearing the speeding bus. In the bus one should always get a seat or hold firmly with both hands otherwise you’ll get flying to the satisfaction of pickpockets.  

We will be leaving Rio on Tuesday next week slightly disappointed… I hope that all the World Cup and Olympics visitors in few years will feel much better in this city.

Week 21 – Sao Paulo, Ubatuba, Paraty and arrival on Ilha Grande

This week was not only about the beach! We spent 2 days in Sao Paulo (maybe not giving justice to the 6 or 8 largest city in the world depending which list you use) and a small old Portuguese colonial town Paraty on the coast (or Parati as spelling varies as even the local seem to be unable to agree on one or the other) on the coast with only a little break on the way there in Ubatuba (what a name!) to mark our crossing of the Tropic of Capricorn. At the end of the week arrived on Ilha Grande, apparently a highlight of the Brazilian beach experience. In this blog I will try to talk a little bit about the people we met along the way and really great food that we had.

Sao Paulo – the Jewish mother and her polish specialities and the best chocolate cake in the world

Sao Paulo is humongous city but luckily for not that many tourists visiting it has an efficient subway system and not too many tourist attractions so we were able to see most of it in 2 days. The most striking thing about Sao Paulo to me was its cleanliness; much cleaner place than BA or Montevideo and certainly than NYC and the other one the mixing of old sometimes not very well maintained buildings with the modern and not necessarily pretty architechture. The first day we did the touristy walk (based on lonely planet directions) through the major attractions in the centre; old churches, cathedral, old colonial building, parks and financial district, where disappointingly the lift to the top of the tallest building with the city panorama was closed but instead we met Sao Paulo own Michael Jackson performing on the street accompanied by mimicking local bums. We augmented the lonely planet suggested path with a visit to Japanese district, home to the largest Japanese population outside of Japan for a delightful and pretty authentic Japanese lunch. We spent the afternoon in Avenida Paulista, Sao Paulo’s equivalent of 5^th Avenue lined with high rise buildings made even higher but telecom towers visible from everywhere (I guess Sao Paulo does not care as much about its skyline as NYC or London where you can barely see them at all) and finished in the shopping mall where I got my haircut at the chain and extremely expensive hairdresser (it was more than I ever paid in London!).

The second day was all about museums and my failed quest for finding some work of Vik Muniz, a Sao Paulo born artist featured in the wonderful documentary Wasteland about his project in the largest garbage dump in Rio. Two arts museums: Museo de Arte Moderna and Museo de Arte Contemporanea (Oscar Niemayer) are in the big but not easily navigable Parque Ibirapuera where the exhibitions were rather uninspiring but we finished the day in the main arts museum Museo de Arte de Sao Paulo where we were treated with a delightful exhibition ‘Romantism’ featuring all the impressionist classic, wonderful Brazilian photography featuring mostly Salvador and to Gavin’s delight a special exhibition of Roman art. Not bad museum score for one day! One has to remember that in tropics museums provide also much needed cooling space. In between the museums we treated ourselves with the long walk in the Sao Paulo’s posh central neighbourhood of Jardims and its Soho like street Rua Oscar Freire with very expensive shops and restaurants where we found this delight... a jewish café serving all the polish specialities. The moment I sat down I was embraced by the owner, a lovely older lady, and showed in person all the choices for the day: pierogi, kasha with minced meat (klops), mizeria (a cucumber, dill and sour cream salad) and all of it was lovely. The lunch finished with the long talk over coffee with her and her son about food and everything else and that was clearly the highlight of my Sao Paulo. To complete the list of our Sao Paulo culinary journey: we had pizza on the night of arrival, the second day ‘dined’ in the Sao Paulo’s Lebanese chain Habibs and had our last diner in the French restaurant in Villa Madalena, a hip hilly neighbourhood, not a bad score with the Japanese and Jewish/Polish lunch. The only thing that Sao Paulo was lacking was the American chains to provide for easy toilet access in the city so we were forced to pop in to a little café on Oscar Freira that advertised as ‘Best Chocolate Cake’ in the world and despite being absolutely full we bought one (in disbelieve that it actually could be true) just to use their facilities. To our surprise it turned out to be the world’s best chocolate cake or at least we could not remember having a better one, ever! They only had 3 kinds of cake: dark chocolate, classic and without sugar, all made of chocolate merengue and wonderfully light and creamy chocolate cream. Maybe that’s good for our weight that we only stayed in Sao Paulo for 2 days!

Parati – the German globetrotter chef, and the German fellow diners

In Parati we were back on the tourist path. Parati is an old and cute colonial town with the restored Portuguese coble streets and small cute (again) houses revived just to cater for tourists which basically means tacky and expensive trinket and clothing shops and restaurants of all kinds and the boats offering all kind of ‘passeos de barque’ to surrounding beaches and islands that are supposed to be some of the best in Brazil. Given that we were in Ubatuba before and heading to Ilha Grande we just focused on the town itself mostly strolling the streets, taking loads of photos, while the evening were spent on dining and in my case sipping caipirinhas. Caipirinha is Brazilian national drink (made of sugar cane alcohol cachaca) but Parati is where the drink originates from so we were saving our first taste of the Brazilian staple liquor till now. The first diner was in the restaurant run by French chef and his Portuguese wife where we had the French classic, croquet madame and crepe with meat filling both really good and unlike anything in Brazil in the edible size! The second night we followed lonely planet recommendation and decided to go to the restaurant run by the German chef and Japanese wife (ah these mixed nationality couples!). At first it was not inviting with the expensive menu and no guest other than a German couple occupying one of the two seats outside but after me exchanging a few greetings in German we decided it may end up an interesting evening and sat in the second and last table outside and ordered a sea food stew called Caldeirada (which I am told is actually Portuguese not Brazilian but it does not matter cause it was really good). The German couple turned out to be a good dining company and we chatted our way through the evening while caipirinhas were helping to animate the conversation. I found out that the guy was involved in designing and furnishing interiors of KPMG offices in eastern Germany, interesting connection with my previous employer and now retired and moved to Parati where he is building his new home (not a bad place to retire at all). The German chef joined our conversation as we were talking about our trip and when we told him that it took us from 2^nd January in Ushuaia to get to Parati on 9^th March he said that it was a rather slow pace! What a comment after we cut down Sao Paulo to 2 days only!

Ubatuba – Azul Marinho  

Most of the people would have headed straight from Sao Paulo to Parati but we were sort of lured to Ubatuba by funny name and a smiley face my sister drawn on that page in lonely planet that borrowed for the trip. Only when in town we discovered that a visit had an added benefit of marking our crossing of a Tropic of Capricorn! Ubatuba is a coastal province of Brazil full of wonderful beaches but if you rely on a public transport the best place to stop is the main town of the same name. The town had a really lovely promenade along the coast and appear to be as the bicycle capital of Brazil. Everybody biked, like in Amsterdam. Given our short stop here we only visited one of apparently 102 beaches (Praia Vermelha do Norde) and walked the promenade. We dedicated our only diner to the local specialty Azul Marinho. It is a stew of fish and bananas and some spices that has indeed a strangely bluish colour and tastes wonderfully subtle, definitely in my book the best fish soup I have ever had save the sea food stew in Parati, forget the French Bouillabaisse, or whatever the correct spelling is.

Ilha Grande – young polish doctors from Wroclaw & Brazilian strogonoff

Ilha Grande is supposed to be highlight of the Brazilian beaches. It has only one main village with few cars and beaches that are either accessible by some extensive hiking or by boat (hiking it is if you cheap or like it). It saved its remote character because of its history of being a prison island and a leper colony, a bit spooky past to allure tourist but it truly does! We arrived there on Saturday on the ferry boat that was almost full, and that being out of season! On the day of arrival we did not do much but on Sunday we set out what turned out to be 2 hours rather steep hike in a tropical heat on a road in the jungle to the beach called 2 Rios. The beach indeed has 2 rivers flowing to the ocean on each end which makes it a really pictureques setting. There were rather few people on the whole beach mostly congregated in the shades of the big trees in the middle or at both ends when rivers join the ocean. It was under the shaded tree when I heard to conversation in my native tongue by 3 guys and 1 girl that turned out to be young medics from Wroclaw. On the way back after emerging back on the road from the rather unmarked shortcut straight through the jungle we met them again and chatted about everything and nothing all the way back to the village in the tropical rain and thunders. After arriving in town we awarded ourselves with a diner in what tripadvisor.com claims as the nicest restaurant in the village. It was nice indeed but expensive so we settled for a dish at the lower end of the menu: strogonoff. The only thing it had in common with the classic receipt was beef and creamy tomato sauce but there were no mushrooms or cornichons. They were substituted with palmitos (or hearts of plams) which I think now is a Brazilian staple vegetable!

What a week! I think it deserved a little bit longer blog to sum up the locations, its delicacies and interesting encounters.

Week 20 – Curitiba and Ilha do Mel

We started the week by travelling from ugly Foz do Iguacu to Curitiba and what a redemption it was. Most of the tourist would have skipped this city and headed down south to the beach areas around Florianopolis (which was also our original plan) but because of a (invaluable) recommendation we decided to see this 3 million people city that featured in the CNN Future Cities as the modern, innovative and environentally friendly place. It is also very good connection to Ilha do Mel.

Curitiba turned out to be lovely place to spend a day; not very touristy but very interesting. The city and its major attractions are quite spread so here we behaved like good tourists and used the open top hop-in-hop-out bus to get around so we did not use its famous network and diverse fleet of public buses. (After we left Curitiba we read in the news that the Chinese announced that they plan to build the biggest bus in the word, claim that Curitiba refuted)

Curitiba & its tribute to the (polish) immigrants

At least half of the stops  of the tourist bus were at the memorials to various groups of immigrants: Italians, Spanish, Arabs, German, Ukrainian and yes Polish, too! The Polish site was in the John Paul II Park. Interestingly enough it was not a monument but 4 wooden village houses with the traditional polish interiors. We popped into one of them and were ready to head back to the bus when one of the maintenance ladies stopped us and said that we did not visited the most important house that was visited by John Paul II during his visit to Curitiba. She was really upset that we were about to skip it (I bet she was almost ready to drag us into it) so we had no choice but to go see it too. We had another obstacle on the way back to the bus: little restaurant called Krakowiak, where we had barszcz, pierogi & bigos for lunch, rather unexpected culinary encounter in this part of the world. Needless to say after spending so much time at the site of polish memorial we skipped all the other ones.

Curitiba & its architecture

The major architectural attraction in Curitiba is eye-shaped Modern Art Museum designed by Oscar Niemeyer (like almost all Brazil but no wonder; he is now 100 years old and apparently still working!). It’s hard to say if I liked it or not but certainly it is a bold and unique design. Given shortage of time, I thought we’d only see it from outside and move on but again we ended up inside, where we took a look at the Goya exhibition and surprisingly very interesting photo exhibition of Lithuanian photographer presenting life in Lithuania during communism.  Another architectural gem is the Opera de Arame, a see-through iron and glass construction set in the greenery of a hilly park; sort of blending itself into the green space. Truly unique! It did not seem to have an extensive programme of events, at least when we were there. Shame… Maybe not the architectural wonder but a central shopping mall converted from the old train station was quite impressive too.

Curitiba & Trem da Serra Verde

Couritiba’s major tourist attraction is the train ride through the Atlantic forest of Serra Verde. The train ride starts in Curitiba and on the week days go to Morretes, a little town in the middle of the mountains and on weekends it goes to Paranagua, a coastal town with boat connections to Ilha do Mel. Some tourists, as we discovered, used the train just as a day trip to Morretes and back same day to Curitiba (because there is nothing to do in Morretes). For us it was part of the journey to Ilha do Mel, and what a journey it was. The views of the Serra were spectacular and some of the bridges that we cross quite scary when you looked out too far out the window.

Ilha do Mel & the honey

Ilha do Mel (Honey Island) was our first encounter with the Brazilian beaches and we were wowed! Getting there is not easy though. It took us all day to get there from Curitiba, starting with the train to Morretes, bus to Paranagua and the happy boat ride to island with the islanders coming back from shopping. We guessed they were spending the money made during high season. March is already end of high season in Brazil so we and a handful of other tourists were among islanders demonstrating their shopping results. The boat is the only way of getting to the island, there is no ferry so there are no cars on the island at all. The local transport is the bicycle (though seemed rather hard to pedal through the sandy pathways) and wheel barrows and man-push carts for transporting larger cargo or lazy tourists suitcases. The island itself is just beaches around every corner; you can walk 5 minutes to the closest beach or if you feel like it get strolling for an hour to reach more remote spots. For us there was no need to look far for remoteness because there were so few tourists around except for Saturday were the number grew 100 fold. Still there was more than enough ‘beach space’ so the island did not feel crowded at all. If you do not feel like spending all day at the beach, there is a lighthouse, old Portugeese fort and a cave to visit and there are lots of opportunities for bird watching (which seems to become my new travel hobby).

The only bad news from Ilha do Mel is that I got a cold, not bad achievement in the tropics :-) I was suffering and thought that the best remedy would be a drink with honey and lemon and to my surprise none of the mercados on the island had any honey in stock. Finally, in one of the cafés we found waffles with honey so I asked if they could make me a honey lemon drink. The waitress proudly explained that their honey is really wonderful because it comes from Amazonas!

I am not sure where the name of the island comes from given its lack of honey, but it really does not matter. It is wonderful place! It was only our first Brazilian beach experience, more to come…  I have to think of some new ways of desrcibing the beaches before the blog gets to boring!

Week 19 – Missions: Encarnacion & San Ignacio and Iguazu: Puerto Iguazu & Foz do Iguaçu

This week was about hoping through the borders. We found ourselves in the spot where Argentina and Paraguay meet Brazil on the banks of the mighty river Parana and we’ve been to all three countries in one week. First we made Encarnacion, Paraguay a hub to visit the Jesuit Missions of Trinidade then hopped in the ‘international’ city bus accros the brige to Posadas in Argentina for an onward travel to San Ignacio to see the missions in Argentina. Both ruins are listed by Unesco as the World Heritage Sites. Then we moved on to see the famous falls first from Argentinian side, where we stayed in Puerto Iguazu and then to Foz do Iguaçu in Brazil, again just by simply taking a city bus. If we were the locals we would not even have to leave the bus but as foreigners we had to go through the passport stamping procedure so we had to disembark and catch the next bus coming through.  

One peculiar thing about this corner of the world is that it is one a centre of Polish immigrations in South America. The first thing we saw in Encarnacion was ‘Dembicki’ taxi stand at the bus station, then in Argentina we took a bus from Posadas to San Ignacio with the regional bus company Horianski where one of the small shops was called La Polaca and Foz do Iguaçu had a few small business with the clearly Polish last names. But chasing the traces of polish immigration was not the reason why we came here so here are a few words about the sights  

The Missions

What remains now from the Jesuit Missions in south America are just the ruins, they look nothing like the white washed buildings in the movie ‘The Mission’. The ones in Paraguay in the small village of Trinidade seemed to be most preserved but the local authorities did not do much to provide any information about them. In Jesus, the smaller complex of Jesuit ruins just 10 km away from Trinidade, young students give a tour but only in Spanish. It was good enough for me but if you do not speak Spanish, all you get from visiting the ruins is just looking at the remains of the walls. In San Ignacio in Argentina, even though less remained from the original Jesuit constructions, they made more effort to inform visitors with a self-guided tour with audio available in 4 languages, incl. English. In the evening, they even make a light a music show but we were deprived of this experience because of heavy tropical rain. Yes, it rains a lot in the rainforest! There is one additional advantage of visiting the missions. You can take a look at the rural life away from the cities or tourist hubs (the ruins of the Jesuit Missions are apparently least visited UNESCO world heritage sites!). Most tourist visit the sites as day trippers from somewhere else, but we decided to stay in the village of San Ignacio and walk there in the evening after the handful day trippers have left. It is so quiet and deserted. We were the only people in the only open restaurant but to our surprise they served us a great pizza, possibly the best we had so far on this trip, maybe with the exception of one we had in the rather posh chain in Rosario.

The Falls

They are no doubts spectacular, both from Argentinian and Brazilian. Seeing the falls from both sides is a must. Brazil offers more panoramic perspective through a short walk on the bank of the rivers while in Argentina you get very close to the falling water and there are plenty of walkways not only to Garganta del Diablo (main part) but also to other sections, including a small island. In Argentina we spent one full day and came back the next day for more! The only imperfection of the falls is that they are in the tropical forest J and it was overcast most of the time and on our first day in the falls in rained all afternoon. It is better to have the spare day as to increase your chances for a sunny day and sunny day = rainbows = good photos. On both sides there is a boat service that takes people into the waterfalls. We did it from the Argentinian side because it was cheaper and it was worth every peso. Very thrilling and wet experience!

As much as the falls are spectacular, the towns that serve as a hub for visiting them are not. Puerto Iguazu in Argentina is a small touristy town with decent infrastructure and a central bus station, nothing special just all right. Foz do Iguaçu is a really ugly big town, with loads of not very good looking hotels and main street with the biggest concentration of pharmacies, I have ever seen and a few shabby eateries. Maybe Foz is not as bad as Agra surroundings of Taj Mahal but very close in terms of contrast to its major attraction.

The Birds

In the national park in Argentina we were lured by Lonely Plant description and made a 7km walk to a secluded small waterfall through the jungle in the hope of seeing some wildlife, really hoping for a tucan not so much for a jaguar. Yet almost until the end of the trek all we have seen where giant ants. Small redemption came 0.5km before the end when we had a quick sighting of monkeys. So when we arrived on the Brazilian side we had to go to the bird park where you could walk among the birds from the region under the protective nets. We had a ‘conversation’ with one of the parrots who preferred us talking in English to a Brazilian tourist trying to catch its attention in Portuguese and we had a few laughs, I mean we were laughing and the parrot either was laughing along (I hope) or just imitating our sound. The best where the tucans though. One of them really like the red lid on our water bottle and followed Gavin’s back pack, posing for photos along the way:-).

The Dam

Itaipu Dam, some 10km away from Foz do Iguaçu used to be the biggest hydroelectric plant in the world until Chinese have built a bigger one but it still holds the world record in annual hydroenergy output and continues to ‘outproduce’ the Chinese one. By visiting the plant on the rainy day we took a break from seeing the falls. It is an impressive engineering feat and we took a more engaged tour than just a panoramic view, where we were taken to the turbines and control room to fully appreciate its power but the closer we got to the core of the plant itself I understood less and less and less… We also got a propaganda movie about the dam that was entirely and solely focused on the pros and did not mention any of the negative sides of fooding a huge area for the reservoir.

So this week we had the first glimpse into huge Brazil. The nature was wonderful but the town of Foz do Iguaçu was very disappointing but we are going to discover more in the weeks to come so hopefully it will get better.

Week 18 – Beaches in Rocha and Piriapolis

This week was a bit of a diversion from our original trip plan but we could not have done otherwise after all Uruguayans we met convinced us that our visit to their country would not be complete if we skipped their wonderful beaches. Not much convincing was required as we were travelling a lot through big cities and a week on the beach would us a much need rest for our battered feet!  The Uruguayan Atlantic cost is short and is has a handful of small beach resorts in the Province of Rocha and some beaches between Punta del Este (the summer party capital of Uruguay) and Montevideo on the estuary of Rio de la Plata, that is so humongous that it anyway looks like the sea (I think I already said that before). Given we had only one week we had to pick where to go. We knew that we will skip Punta del Este, as it is full, expensive and laud in the high season. So we picked Punta del Diablo, furthest west, Cabo Polonio for its remoteness, both located in Rocha and Piriapolis just to check out river beaches. So here is my report from the Uruguayan beach experience:

Punta Del Diablo – where the streets have no names

We arrived in Punta del Diablo after a 4 hours bus ride from Montevideo and checked in to our hostel, where we turned out to be the only guest… and  not surprisingly so as the hostel was really shabby and was 1km away from the beach, but it was free. Strange to be so far out from the beach in the beach resort but as we later found out the old small fishing village of Punta del Diablo grew uncontrollably in the last years and stretched it self in all sort of directions. They did not even manage to give names to its streets, though streets is an overstatement; these were mostly sandy roads through the dunes forest leading in all sort of uncoordinated directions. All what remained from the old fishing village were two decaying fisherman’s houses. As the owner told us the pescadores (fisherman) are now all about pescadolares. Most of the village is full of hats and houses for rent of varying quality. It had a small town centre with a few not very inviting restaurants and of course trinket vendors The other sign of the ex-fisherman village were a few working boats on the Playa Pescardores. We stayed on this central beach that afternoon but I felt slightly disappointed. The beach itself was all right but was completely packed and the road alongside it was full of traffic. To get some shade from the scorching sun we sat under one of the boats but were annoyed by the sand flies that were attracted to the smells from the boat. So not great I thought, and could not understand what all Uruguayans were on about…?

Punta del Diablo was ‘saved’ however the next day when the owner of our hostel gave us a lift to the slightly more remote beach Playa Grande. We arrived there after some 15min walk through the dunes. It was great long stretch of sand along the bay surrounded by the dunes and it was almost empty, at least compared to Playa Pescadores. Now I knew what the Uruguayans were all about. It was wonderful!

Cabo Polonio – where there are no streets

This was supposed to be the highlight of our Uruguay beach crawling week and it totally lived up if not exceeded our expectations. Amazing place! There is no road access to the village and everybody has to either walk 7km from the main road or take a 4x4 vehicle through the dunes. The place does not have electricity and everything is powered of solar and wind energy. The village of Cabo Polonio is simply a bunch of small houses on the rocky cape scattered around in no particular pattern, certainly not alongside any streets. There some paths to move around but you can also wonder around as you please. The seemingly never ending beaches stretch to the south and north with dunes and forest behind them. Oh and it has a lovely lighthouse and a colony of the sea lions on the rocks just outside the lighthouse. We thought we would not get to see them because Lonely Planet said they hang around all year except for February… but sure enough they were right there. They are really fun to watch even though their fur colour blends their lazy bodies with the rocks. We got to see a fight of two males fighting for dominance.

As it turned out the accommodation we booked was in the village itself but about 1km away on the southern beach, and there was nothing around. I say accommodation because it is hard to describe. It was basically a family home with some additional rooms for rent build around it. Given its remoteness (there was nothing else around) they also served food for the guests from its own family kitchen and all what they cooked (if they did not run out of supplies) was really lovely, not sophisticated, just really good home cooking including a salad made from home grown veggies. So not really a hotel but a bit more than b&b. The place was so remote that we were often alone on the beach, some occasional people on the beach walk would pass by or the transport vehicle, bringing day-tripers in and out from Cabo Polonio.

Piriapolis – metropolis with numbered streets

When we arrived in Piriapolis we left the dunes and cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean and changed for the sandy banks of Rio Parana that does not look a river at all! Immediately when we arrived it was different. The cooling breeze from the ocean was missing and it was very hot and humid. Luckily our accommodation was this time set far away from the beach on one of the hills surrounding the town so it had some more air than the town and the cost itself (except for it cost us a dreadful walk uphill in the heat). On the first day we went for Playa Grande, some 3km away from the centre mostly because we did not have enough power to walk one more km to Playa Hermosa. The we set out for a longer walk to Playa Hermosa that unfortunately did not live up to its name, although it was less crowded  (at some point we were almost alone but that might be becauase of the weather, it was not too sunny) than the more central beaches but sure not worth extra walking in the heat. So conclusion for Uruguay is when in doubt always go for Playa Grande!

Piriapolis itself is rather dull big resort town. It long town that stretches along the river banks but is certainly not big enough to run out of the names for its street, yet like in big metropolis they numbered its streets except for some in the centre. You could feel that its hay days from 1930 were over and all the cool action now moved to Punta del Este. The holidayers here were mostly young families and elderly couples. However its landmark building Hotel Argentino still remains impressive and the pedestrian walk way along the river has some charm

I thought that these three were the end of our beach experience for this week but then on Sunday morning we arrived in Encarnacion in Paraguay on river La Plata, where in 2010 a part of the town was flooded because of the new dam and the town created a beach on the newly established river bank just this summer and our hotel turned to be just few meters away from another beach! This time tired after overnight journey, we decided to skip the beach experience and almost 40C heat and stayed in the fully air-conditioned room typing this blog. Anyway, the beach was so crowded that it did not need additional two people.

Week 17 – Colonia, Montevideo and its Carnival

This week was the originally unplanned part of our trip. After we decided to skip awfully expensive carnival in Brazil we were looking for alternative carnival experience in South America and that’s how we found out about the Montevideo carnival that is included in the UNESCO’s list of Intangible cultural heritage.

Montevideo Carnival
Montevideo carnival spreads throughout January and February but its biggest event is the Desfile de Llamadas (a carnival parade) that is held Thursday and Friday night at the beginning of February. This year it was 9 and 10 which suited well our travel schedule, though when we arrived a day before there were no more tickets available for the sits along the street General Flores where the parade takes place. We could just wonder the street but we paid 600 Uruguayan Pesos (=£20) to stay the night at the terrace in private house overlooking the parade. It was dear but as we found out the next day worth the price. The house was based right at the beginning of the street and the parade itself where the comparsas were at its best right before approaching the televised part of the parade. Comparsas, the groups of Negros (back people) and Lubolos (white people pretending to be black) perform at the carnival according to the specific traditional order.

First go banners and banderas at least four but typically more:

 Then the moon (or moons) and the stars (at least two) that symbolises the night but apparently has also to do with the Islamic influence brought by the African slaves:

Then the dancers at least 15 and here surprisingly unlike what I have seen from the brasilian carnival it is not all about being young and beautiful. Anybody young and older, slim and not so slim can dance, which I thought makes the event very inclusive. Still very similarly to the brasilian carnival there is a lot on display:

Then mama vieja(s) (old woman) and gramilliero(s) (old man, a village witch with the suitcases full of healing herbs):

And then the condombe drummers (at least 36) proceeded by the baton twirler and sometimes another dancing couple (this time always young and beautiful):

It was very entertaining at first but it became a bit repetitive after the tenth one as they really follow the same order. All that changes is the colours. But with the rented terrace we could see it from the top, sit down a bit and pop in to the street and shake the body to the beat of the drums with the excited locals and what is invaluable at the street event like this was the use the bathroom!  The next day, on Friday we went for the second round of carnival that was supposed to be better with more professional comparsas including the winner from last year carnival but it was not that much fun. We were standing on the a very crowded street closer to the end of the parade where the comparsas appeared to be slightly tired. Also we could not see much constantly interrupted by the vendors selling mostly the same stuff:  espuma (the foam), polystyrene snow and illuminating gadgets. So we gave up rather early and left behind very excited crows.

Murgas and Parodistas

The other important part of the carnival is the tablados i.e. the neighbourhood outdoor scenes where local satirist (parodistas) and singing and acting groups (murgas) are performing. They also have a big competition for the murgas in Teatro Verano but again we could not get tickets so we bought cheap entrance to the Tablado in the Carnival museum, which was really good enough for us. We saw one group of parodistas that we could not really fully appreciate (or enjoy) considering my limited and Gavin’s no Spanish and one female only murga with some feminist theme. Even though I could not fully understand the lyrics of their songs, I thought it was a good performance, nice costumes with big fake red hair, good beat and singing and the female part of the audience seemed to have really appreciated their jokes. 

All in all I enjoyed this carnival experience and even though I do not know how it really compares to  the experience we would have had in Brazil I think Montevideo Carnival is really good inclusive popular art expressing common people’s creativity.

Montevideo

Montevideo is an average South American city full of beautiful tranquil plazas shaded by the trees. As you walk the streets you can see its glorious past from the twenties and thirties that seemed to have gone into slight decay. Its main square, Plaza Independencia, houses once the tallest building in Americas and around the corner is beautiful Teatro Solis. However, what distinguishes Montevideo is the Ramblas, promenade along the river Parana (that is so big that it looks like a sea) circumventing the city’s with sandy beaches filling up on the weekend, like the one in what grew to be our favourite Montevideo neighbourhood Positos.

Montevideo is also home to the stadium of the first Football World Cup in 1930! It is really old, all concrete stadium that also houses an interesting museum, if you interested in football of course! It displays loads of football memorabilia from early twenties to the recent days including the infamous ball used in the famous 2010 World Cup match between Uruguay and Ghana, when Suarez defended the Ghana’s goal with the hand. I watched that game and needless to say cheered for Ghana!

Montevideo seems to have one other peculiarity. There is no recycling required from the people, all is just general trash but then on the streets you see people on horse carts stopping at every garbage disposal bin and plundering through it and leaving the city at the end with the cart loaded with the valuable part of general city garbage. Could it be the more efficient way of recycling that what we know in Western Europe?

Colonia

On the way from Buenos Aires to Montevideo we took a stop in Colonia. We took the ferry from BA across the river Parana that takes only 1 hour but if you think that this is only a river crossing it is rather a long time. Did I already mention that river Parana actually looks like a sea? We had enough time to spend 2 nights in Colonia to get on time to Montevideo for Desfile de Lllamadas, and contrary to the Lonely Planet recommendation to make Colonia a day trip from BA, this longer stay gives just about enough time to really enjoy this small town that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  Its old town is the only place in South America that mixes the Spanish and Portuguese influences: flat roof Spanish houses mingle with tile covered sloping roofs of Portuguese ones all wonderfully decorated with flowery bushes; Spanish street  with the sidewalks cross Portuguese ones that have no sideways and water drainage in the middle. It is just charming place and even though it is one of the major Uruguays tourist destination, not really overflown with tourists and typically accompanying it junk vendors. What makes the difference between a day trip and staying the night in Colonia is the wonderful sunset. As the sun sets down it exposes the high rise buildings of Buenos Aires on the horizon and it just simply beautiful. As you look at the photos, remember this is not the sunset of the sea, it is the river!  

Mate

Finally in Colonia I tried the mate. We have already seen it all over Argentina but Uruguayans seem to have taken this drink to the next level of addiction. Mate is a very bitter dink made of herbs (yerba de Paraguay) that fills up a cup made of wood, leather silver or dried small pumpkins, called mate.  Then you put a special metal straw into it and start pouring small amounts of water so that the top of the herbs on one side of the cup remains dry and then you start sipping it and then pour gain small amount of water and start sipping it, and again and again. Uruguayans seem to be doing it all day long and everywhere, in the parks, just sitting in front stairs of the house on the street. Once we saw a men coming back from bakery with a bag full of bread holding and drinking mate, so even mate drinking cannot be paused for a short walk to the bakery. Most of the spectators brought their mate to the carnival too! And it is not easy because you not only have to carry the cup and the herbs but also the thermos with the properly boiled water, actually not boiled as for mate water is only heated a bit less than boiling level. Even the electric kettles have a separate button for heating up water for mate! What I certainly remember from Uruguay other than the sights would be people holding mate cups and thermoses everywhere they go!

Next week we are going to make another diversion from our original trip plan and spend a week hopping through beaches of eastern Uruguay; one on the River Parana that anyway looks like a sea and two on the Atlantic Ocean. I shall report if the mate is also drunk on the beach.