Dear Friends and Family,
Not sure if you have noticed, but we are a bit behind schedule with our blog...I am sure you are all suspended on the edges of your seat awaiting our next installment. Alas, here it is. A couple reasons have caused this delay. One, Noah arrived this past weekend, and we have had much ground to cover during his time here. I mean that literally. We are currently at the end of the earth, or so it feels. We are in a town of 500 people called El Chalten in Southern Patagonia, surrounded by mountains and feeling the harshness of the environment. 40-60 mile an hour gusty winds are a normal state of affairs from October through March. However, the natural beauty inspires one to look past the weather and focus on the ruggedness of the Andes and the spectacular sights and sounds of magnificient glaciers. But I digress, I am supposed to be reporting on Buenos Aires.
The other reason for our delay was a nasty stomach bug that I acquired somewhere along the way. It was bound to happen given my body´s sensitivity to such things. All took good care, even the emergency room where I wound up one night due to the cramping in my stomach which I was convinced was my appendix bursting, ha ha. Get this...a slight difference between the US and Argentina. The doctor saw me, was very thorough and helpful, gave me a shot (anti-spasmodic, which helped), and then, they didn´t charge me for the visit..nothing....Can you imagine? Meanwhile, Ajay and I heard two women giving birth in the next room, or maybe it was a woman giving birth to two babies. The nurse tried to explain, but it was late and our Spanish is far from perfect. Either way, I have a new found respect for all you moms out there :-).
I am feeling better now (thanks for your concern), so it is time to comment on the other city that never sleeps: Buenos Aires. If you took certain parts of New York, London, Paris, and Chicago and mixed them together, then added a little Santa Fe, New Mexico (arts, Spanish influence) and set such a city in South America with the policitical, revolutionary, activist environment so uniquely known to this part of the world, you would envision Buenos Aires. It is a very large city of 3 million in the city proper and 10 million with the surrounding area. Distinct neighborhoods dominant the city center, each with its own strength, challenge, and unique personality. There is an obvious emphasis on art, culture, history, design, music, and cuisine. There are people from all over the world who live here. The people who live here are called Los Portenos. They speak there own version of Spanish where the y sound (and ll) are pronounced as a cross between a j and a z...very passionate, and difficult to understand at first.
Ajay and I were in BA for 8 nights and rented an apartment. We were in a neighborhood called Recoleta that is very close to the city center and that people often compare to the Upper West Side in New York. The neighborhood boasts some of the city´s most luxurious residences, hotels and shops. Also, many of the finest art museums and cultural venues were in this area. Our apartment was on the 11th floor with a wonderful view of the city and sunsets, which happen around 10 pm here! Our building was typical of most in the hood, small marble lobby, door man, etc. Our apartment was very cute with all the comforts of home. It was a refreshing break from guest houses during our 5th week of travel. It was truly an amazing location to explore the city. We mostly walked (miles each day) and took taxi´s which were extremely affordable, unlike NYC.
The first day of our arrival, we went to an arts market (a true arts market without the ¨crap¨that Ajay refers to) in a park a block from our apartment. I was so grateful that I saved most of my shopping until BA. Wow. The market also offered live performances. We saw a quartet with electronic violins, kind of a classical mixed with Devotchka sound, if you will. We bought their cd for 5 bucks and listen to it when we can. We also saw a capoeira comedy troupe. We couldn´t understand half of what they were saying but it was a beautiful sunny day, sitting on the lawn of the park, and their body language alone was hysterical. What a wonderful introduction to the city?!
I can`t remember exactly what we did each day that followed. But I do remember overall. The city of BA offers so many museums full of art and history. Throughout the week, we went to the Museo de Arto Latinoamericano de BA, the Visual Art Museum, the Xul Shuler museum, the Eva Peron (Evita), the Benito Quinquuela Martin Museum, and several other art galleries and exhibitions including at the Cultural Center in our neighborhood. We had the gift of time and were so grateful to be able to leisurely saunter through these spaces contemplating the works, reading the history, and absorbing the culture.
Tango is another incredible cultural resource here in BA, where the dance was born. There is tango on what seems every street corner. Ajay and I took a lesson, it is quite a difficult dance! One night, we dressed up and went out to Bar Sur, which was one of the original tango bars back in the day when men and women would go to their neighborhood milonga (dance) to talk politics and news of the day, and tango. In Bar Sur, there were maybe 15 tables total crowded around a very intimate dance floor where we watched two different couples, a tango orchestra (piano, violin and accordian), and singer perform for FIVE hours straight! We also ordered a ¨cheese¨ board (of which I only ate the meat and bread), a common bar food in this part of the world. It was a lovely, special night out with my hubby.
Other highlights of our time in the city included eating in some lovely intimate gourmet restaurants both in our neighborhood and in Palermo (akin to NYC´s Greenwich Village). We could have a high quality dinner including appetizer, wine, dessert for maybe $20 a person...ridiculous. The service and food were remarkable.
Then there was the shopping...I will leave that for you all to view when I return with my BA leather collection (I know the cows are destroying the rainforests and killing our planet. It was a bit of an ethical dilemma having just been to the Amazon and seeing the deforestation by the cattle industry. I really should behave better).
Lastly, I will mention the neighborhood of La Boca, because it deserves mention. This is the port area of the city where all of the houses are brightly colored b-c in the old days folks would use left over paint from the ships to paint their homes. It is an impoverished part of the city, but has a character of its own and was worth checking out. The other notable part of this hood is that the La Boca Juniors stadium is located there. This is BA´s soccer team on which Maradona got his start. The area of the city blasts their theme song and displays statutes of Maradona in front of stores. It is pretty classic!
Needless to say, Ajay and I LOVED Buenos Aires. I could go on and on describing the jewels in that city, just as one could go on and on discovering them...(like the book store, voted 2nd best in the world, that is housed in an old opera house / theater with the stage as a coffee shop and the political protest that marched through the cultural center on the free museum night). We of course kept fantasizing about living there, but the air pollution alone is enough of a deterrant at this point.
Hope you are all well. The next chapter will be written when we head to Bariloche, after Noah heads back to the US around the 28th of October. Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!!
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
That´s a lot of water!! --- Iguassu and Curitiba
Buenos Dias!
We are now in Buenos Aires and can start speaking Spanish!! This is actually excellent news because at least we can communicate a bit. In Brazil, we were on little islands of our own without knowing Portuguese. Anyway, this post will cover Curitiba and Iguassu Falls and Gina is writing another one about our overall observations about Brazil, so you will get two posts for the price of one.
Curitiba
This is a city that is south of Sao Paulo just about 100 kms inland from the water and is at about 3000 feet in altitude. Its well-known in the world because it has acclaim as one of the best planned cities in the West, which is actually true (i never trust those proclaimations!) There are parks every few blocks, public transportation everwhere, pedestrian streets, and public art on most corners in the city. The city has a beautiful historic district with a Sunday arts fair that covers most of the historic district. I have learned that they use the term "Art Fair" pretty loosely as there is a lot of crap that is sold under the guise of art, although one can never get too much of beer cans turned into clocks. Anyway, Curitiba is not the normal stop on the tourist trips in Brazil, but we thought it could be fun to see how a real city in Brazil acts and it would be good to be in a place with CNN to watch the election (yahoo!!!)
We spent a lot of time doing some of the touristy things around town and saw a really unusual museum called the Oscar Neimeyer museum. Imagine a normal builiding, but in front of it is a pond with a 5 story tower coming out of it. At the top of the tower is a giant glass room shaped like an eye --- that was the museum. A little creepy, but very striking and a great place to display contemporary art. On the other end of town, their contemporary art museum is a bit odd also as you just walk in the open doors. No real security. No bag check. No admission. Just walk into a gallery and see some off-the-wall art from the state of Paraná. Some of the art was beyond offbeat and indecipherable, but there was some other pieces that were pretty amazing.
And dont worry....we did have our share of misadventures in the well-planned city. Despite the abundance of maps and buses, we managed to go on a death march for italian food even though it is available on every corner of the city. There is a zone of the city where a lot of the original Italians immigrated and there are supposed to be lots of old buildings and amazing food. So, we looked at the map, saw it was no farther than the distance we walked earlier in the day, convinced ourselves this was a good idea and set off. We walked for a bit and really enjoyed the early evening. People were coming home from work or were off to the gym and we were keeping a brisk pace off to ItalyLand! After a few hills and a mile or two, we thought we should be getting close as our trusty Tourist Map indicated. Now, it is important to say that this isnt a real map but a tourist map, meaning that there are big cartoons of the key tourist locations superimposed on the map where one should go. Also, I get the feeling that they only showed a few of the roads and didnt pay attention to silly details like scale. Soon we realized that the map underestimated the distance we needed to travel. After another mile we got to the big Italian gates that show the entrance to the area and were joyful. Soon we realized this was still pretty far from where we need to go, so we started to make little deals with ourselves. One more hill and we will be able to see our goal. Well, after a few hills we decided to catch the bus.
Ten minutes on the bus and we reached our destination and there really wasnt much there. One very large Italian restaurant and a few pizza places. We laughed a bit and decided to try the large Italian restaurant. We have a routine when we enter a restaurante to first ask for a menu, compare notes on what we understand, and then either enter or leave. This restaurant had no menu. They said they serve traditional style. You just sit and food comes. We thought we understood the price (which was reasonable) so we took our seats and waited. Immediately 5-6 small dishes come out with potato salad, two types of chicken wings, gizzards (or something like it), salad, and one or two other items. We thought to ourselves, "We did good!". Then the food started coming. The waiter arrived with some spaggheti and put a portion on our plates. Pretty mediocre. Next came gnocchi. Really oily. Next came ravioli. Pretty mediocre. And so on, and so on. We looked around and there were lots of families and little playground in the back. At that point we realized that we walked 3-4 miles and took a bus to go to the Brazilian equivalent of Sizzler meets Olive Garden!
Luckily we found a few really good places to eat in town, so it was not such a catastrophe. We stumbled upon great some great Natural Foods places, which are like salad bars with more food and are very, very good. We also found a unique spot in the historic district that looks a lot like a beer cellar, but has phenomenal pizzas and pasta. We ate there on election night so we could be ready for a long night of watching. Brazil is 3 hours ahead of the east coast, so the earliest results didnt come in until after 10 (thank you Kentucky). CNN International was showing our good friend Wolf and the Situation Room, but they went to local commercials and there were only 3. So by the end of the night we had all of the commercials memorized. Anyway at around 2:00, Obama was declared the winner and it was well after 3:00 before the end of his acceptance speech. Perhaps it was that we were tired and exhausted, but Gina and I teared up more than once watching the victory. The next day we took a flight to Iguassu for the next phase of our trip.
Iguassu (or Iguazú)
The next day we boarded a plane to Foz de Iguassu, which is the Brazilian town closest to the falls. In the air, we got a brief glimpse of the falls when we saw a large amount of mist coming from an enormous hole in the rain forest. The next morning we took the bus to the falls and were amazed. You start to walk down a footpath towards the falls and when you turn a corner, they are there. It is unbelievable! Apparently when Eleanor Roosevelt went to the falls she immediately exclaimed, "Poor Niagra" and that is the truth. Igassu puts out 15 times the amount of water as Niagra and has over 270 waterfalls. Imagine an enormous canyon that bows out with a bend in a river, like we have a lot of places in Colorado. Now put a waterfall through every place in the canyon. Then take the Mississippi River and put it on top of the canyon, increase its speed, and let it come crushing through. That will give you a brief insight into Iguassu. Gina and I said over and over again that we had never seen anything like it and no pictures can really do it justice.
The Brazilian side doesnt really have much of the falls, but great panaromas so you can see the breadth of the falls. It does have a walkway that allows you to get close to the Boca del Diablo (mouth of the devil), which is a waterfall in which water comes from 3 sides and crashes together. The platform is a major soaking spot and you can really only see one side of the waterfall, but is still an amazing flow of water.
The Argentian side has most of the waterfalls, lots of trails going over and under the falls, and most of the Gargantua del Diablo. When we first arrived in Argentina (after a quick border crossing in a taxi), we went straight there. You get off a train and then walk on steel catwalks that cross seemingly endless rivers. Those catwalks go for about a quarter mile until you see mist rising from beyond the rivers. When you get close, you see that the river was flowing but then the earth seems to have fallend down and in the middle is the enormous waterfall. Water flows from all sides and then slams together throughout the fall. It is amazing and terrifying at the same time. At the intersections of these collisions, huge explosions of water erupt from the surface and then, through all that mist, a rainbow is formed. We sat for a while and watched this waterfall with true amazement. You can try to look at pictures but unless you are there and you can see the falls, hear the crashing, feel the vibrations, and absorb the entire scene, it is impossible to understand. What is truly amazing is the infrastructure around the falls that allows you to discretely get within a few feet of the drop. When you look down, your feet are mere inches from the water and that gives amazing perspective.
The next day in Argentina we explored the trails throught the rest of the falls. There are hundreds of falls, but the trails take you to at least a dozen. You first hike above them, then below them and get to see each from a variety of angles. You also start to appreciate how enormous this is. Everywhere you turn this is a waterfall. Across every clearing, there is a waterfall. Its scary and inspiring.
We did a longer hike later in the day and then went to recover back at our hotel. We explored the city of Puerto Iguazú and had a large meal, which gave us our first exposure to the Argentine parilla, which is a mixed grill of lots and lots of meat. This seems to be a theme here.
Anyway, we woke up, flew to Buenos Aires and are now in this beautiful city. Our apartment is great, the weather is nice, and all is well. Im sure we will have more tales to tell before we leave here.
We are now in Buenos Aires and can start speaking Spanish!! This is actually excellent news because at least we can communicate a bit. In Brazil, we were on little islands of our own without knowing Portuguese. Anyway, this post will cover Curitiba and Iguassu Falls and Gina is writing another one about our overall observations about Brazil, so you will get two posts for the price of one.
Curitiba
This is a city that is south of Sao Paulo just about 100 kms inland from the water and is at about 3000 feet in altitude. Its well-known in the world because it has acclaim as one of the best planned cities in the West, which is actually true (i never trust those proclaimations!) There are parks every few blocks, public transportation everwhere, pedestrian streets, and public art on most corners in the city. The city has a beautiful historic district with a Sunday arts fair that covers most of the historic district. I have learned that they use the term "Art Fair" pretty loosely as there is a lot of crap that is sold under the guise of art, although one can never get too much of beer cans turned into clocks. Anyway, Curitiba is not the normal stop on the tourist trips in Brazil, but we thought it could be fun to see how a real city in Brazil acts and it would be good to be in a place with CNN to watch the election (yahoo!!!)
We spent a lot of time doing some of the touristy things around town and saw a really unusual museum called the Oscar Neimeyer museum. Imagine a normal builiding, but in front of it is a pond with a 5 story tower coming out of it. At the top of the tower is a giant glass room shaped like an eye --- that was the museum. A little creepy, but very striking and a great place to display contemporary art. On the other end of town, their contemporary art museum is a bit odd also as you just walk in the open doors. No real security. No bag check. No admission. Just walk into a gallery and see some off-the-wall art from the state of Paraná. Some of the art was beyond offbeat and indecipherable, but there was some other pieces that were pretty amazing.
And dont worry....we did have our share of misadventures in the well-planned city. Despite the abundance of maps and buses, we managed to go on a death march for italian food even though it is available on every corner of the city. There is a zone of the city where a lot of the original Italians immigrated and there are supposed to be lots of old buildings and amazing food. So, we looked at the map, saw it was no farther than the distance we walked earlier in the day, convinced ourselves this was a good idea and set off. We walked for a bit and really enjoyed the early evening. People were coming home from work or were off to the gym and we were keeping a brisk pace off to ItalyLand! After a few hills and a mile or two, we thought we should be getting close as our trusty Tourist Map indicated. Now, it is important to say that this isnt a real map but a tourist map, meaning that there are big cartoons of the key tourist locations superimposed on the map where one should go. Also, I get the feeling that they only showed a few of the roads and didnt pay attention to silly details like scale. Soon we realized that the map underestimated the distance we needed to travel. After another mile we got to the big Italian gates that show the entrance to the area and were joyful. Soon we realized this was still pretty far from where we need to go, so we started to make little deals with ourselves. One more hill and we will be able to see our goal. Well, after a few hills we decided to catch the bus.
Ten minutes on the bus and we reached our destination and there really wasnt much there. One very large Italian restaurant and a few pizza places. We laughed a bit and decided to try the large Italian restaurant. We have a routine when we enter a restaurante to first ask for a menu, compare notes on what we understand, and then either enter or leave. This restaurant had no menu. They said they serve traditional style. You just sit and food comes. We thought we understood the price (which was reasonable) so we took our seats and waited. Immediately 5-6 small dishes come out with potato salad, two types of chicken wings, gizzards (or something like it), salad, and one or two other items. We thought to ourselves, "We did good!". Then the food started coming. The waiter arrived with some spaggheti and put a portion on our plates. Pretty mediocre. Next came gnocchi. Really oily. Next came ravioli. Pretty mediocre. And so on, and so on. We looked around and there were lots of families and little playground in the back. At that point we realized that we walked 3-4 miles and took a bus to go to the Brazilian equivalent of Sizzler meets Olive Garden!
Luckily we found a few really good places to eat in town, so it was not such a catastrophe. We stumbled upon great some great Natural Foods places, which are like salad bars with more food and are very, very good. We also found a unique spot in the historic district that looks a lot like a beer cellar, but has phenomenal pizzas and pasta. We ate there on election night so we could be ready for a long night of watching. Brazil is 3 hours ahead of the east coast, so the earliest results didnt come in until after 10 (thank you Kentucky). CNN International was showing our good friend Wolf and the Situation Room, but they went to local commercials and there were only 3. So by the end of the night we had all of the commercials memorized. Anyway at around 2:00, Obama was declared the winner and it was well after 3:00 before the end of his acceptance speech. Perhaps it was that we were tired and exhausted, but Gina and I teared up more than once watching the victory. The next day we took a flight to Iguassu for the next phase of our trip.
Iguassu (or Iguazú)
The next day we boarded a plane to Foz de Iguassu, which is the Brazilian town closest to the falls. In the air, we got a brief glimpse of the falls when we saw a large amount of mist coming from an enormous hole in the rain forest. The next morning we took the bus to the falls and were amazed. You start to walk down a footpath towards the falls and when you turn a corner, they are there. It is unbelievable! Apparently when Eleanor Roosevelt went to the falls she immediately exclaimed, "Poor Niagra" and that is the truth. Igassu puts out 15 times the amount of water as Niagra and has over 270 waterfalls. Imagine an enormous canyon that bows out with a bend in a river, like we have a lot of places in Colorado. Now put a waterfall through every place in the canyon. Then take the Mississippi River and put it on top of the canyon, increase its speed, and let it come crushing through. That will give you a brief insight into Iguassu. Gina and I said over and over again that we had never seen anything like it and no pictures can really do it justice.
The Brazilian side doesnt really have much of the falls, but great panaromas so you can see the breadth of the falls. It does have a walkway that allows you to get close to the Boca del Diablo (mouth of the devil), which is a waterfall in which water comes from 3 sides and crashes together. The platform is a major soaking spot and you can really only see one side of the waterfall, but is still an amazing flow of water.
The Argentian side has most of the waterfalls, lots of trails going over and under the falls, and most of the Gargantua del Diablo. When we first arrived in Argentina (after a quick border crossing in a taxi), we went straight there. You get off a train and then walk on steel catwalks that cross seemingly endless rivers. Those catwalks go for about a quarter mile until you see mist rising from beyond the rivers. When you get close, you see that the river was flowing but then the earth seems to have fallend down and in the middle is the enormous waterfall. Water flows from all sides and then slams together throughout the fall. It is amazing and terrifying at the same time. At the intersections of these collisions, huge explosions of water erupt from the surface and then, through all that mist, a rainbow is formed. We sat for a while and watched this waterfall with true amazement. You can try to look at pictures but unless you are there and you can see the falls, hear the crashing, feel the vibrations, and absorb the entire scene, it is impossible to understand. What is truly amazing is the infrastructure around the falls that allows you to discretely get within a few feet of the drop. When you look down, your feet are mere inches from the water and that gives amazing perspective.
The next day in Argentina we explored the trails throught the rest of the falls. There are hundreds of falls, but the trails take you to at least a dozen. You first hike above them, then below them and get to see each from a variety of angles. You also start to appreciate how enormous this is. Everywhere you turn this is a waterfall. Across every clearing, there is a waterfall. Its scary and inspiring.
We did a longer hike later in the day and then went to recover back at our hotel. We explored the city of Puerto Iguazú and had a large meal, which gave us our first exposure to the Argentine parilla, which is a mixed grill of lots and lots of meat. This seems to be a theme here.
Anyway, we woke up, flew to Buenos Aires and are now in this beautiful city. Our apartment is great, the weather is nice, and all is well. Im sure we will have more tales to tell before we leave here.
Have your cake and eat it too! Reflections on Traveling in Brazil.
Ajay and I are now in Buenos Aires after spending 4 weeks traveling in Brazil. We both felt that there were details to share about traveling in Brazil that we didn´t incorporate into our other blogs...so a special edition. It will be most helpful to those of you considering a visit, but hopefully will be entertaining for those traveling vicariously. It was certainly entertaining for us!
Language
We learned very early on during our connection in the Sao Paulo airport where we arrived from the States that no one in Brazil speaks English. Now of course, we realized that we were in a different country with Portuguese being the primary language. However one would imagine with a tourist industry as vibrant as Brazil´s with the Amazon, Carnival and Rio, Salvador, Iguacu Falls, etc. that over time, folks would see it in their industry´s best interest to learn even a little. Not so...it was pretty evident when no one in the airport spoke any English, the bookstores only sold Port. books (of which we quickly bought a phrase book), and the announcements to major tourist destinations were only in Portuguese. Such as life! However, we were curious about this phenomenon. Typically, as you know, in major tourist destinations, folks tend to speak a little English just to help out the lost tourists. We learned that there are 200 million people who speak Port in the world, and a majority of them live in Brazil. It is an enormous country, kind of like the US. So, folks here really don´t need to speak any other languages. In fact, a majority of folks here don´t need to leave Brazil. They have beaches, mountains, wetlands, cities, country, etc. As for Ajay and I, we figured out the most important words like thank you, good morning, where is the bathroom, and how much does that cost. It worked.
Spring Weather in the Southern Hemisphere
We weren´t sure what to expect given we are in the Southern Hemisphere, and the seasons are opposite. Brazil is also such a huge country with so many different geographic regions, that the weather was anybody´s best guess. During our time in Brazil, we were in hot, humid, sunny areas like Salvador; moist, rainy, hot environments like the Amazon; cool, cloudy, rainy environments like Florianopolis; cool, dry and rainy moutain cities like Curitiba; and hot, rainy, moist regions like Iguacu Falls...The key to Spring down South is that October showers bring January flowers! The weather overall has been fairly pleasant, and we have adapted. The rain has not stopped us from enjoying our trip. The good news that there are many fewer tourists right now bc it is still low season partly due to the weather!
Food
It is quite obvious that Brazilians love life. There always seems to be a reason and time to stop and eat cake! Most importantly however, cake is served as a part of breakfast in Brazil. It is FABULOUS. It isn´t super sweet cake like wedding7birthday cake in the States , rather, it is just right...moist, sweet icing, small pieces...very yummy. Beer is the alcoholic beverage of choice. The beers are served very, very cold (according to Ajay) in 650 ml bottles with individual foam coolers (kind of like a beer koozie for a wine bottle). Ajay got a kick out of this. At any given time, it is common to see Brazilians sitting around in groups of two or four with small glasses sharing these large beers, once again, enjoying life. The juices were also very nice. One could buy fresh, tasty juices at any restaurant or with any meal. A nice option for those of us who don´t drink beer. The rest of the food in Brazil doesn´t deserve too much attention...it was pretty bad overall (lot of hamburgers, pizza, fish with bones, beef, fried food, ugh). Granted, we didn´t go to Rio where I am sure it is better.
Music and Culture
There is no better place if you love music than Brazil, and specifically Salvador. We couldn´t believe how accessible and affordable music and the arts (museums, theater, dance) seemed throughout Brazil. It appears to be part of the fabric of life much more so than in the US. We did see a lot of music during our time here but the theatre was lost on us due to the language. There are so many different types of music in this country it is quite amazing. Brazil basically ROCKS!
Fashion
As I mentioned before, it is obvious that Brazilians love life, and furthermore, that the men love women. Women also seem to take a lot of pride in their appearance and their style. Overall, it seems to be a sensual culture. I was mesmerized by it all. Let´s start with the bikini and lingere phenomenon. It is everywhere, and it is, shall we say, revealing? Then there are the jeans...super tight, spandex-like. And to my surprise, Brazilian women, in general, are not super thin, rather voluptuous. So, put two and two together, and you have well, I´ll let you draw your own conclusion. From my perspective, I am envious that women seem to feel good about themselves to wear a thong, for example, without the perfect body. There is definitely a level of acceptance here that we don´t have in the States.
Overall, Ajay and I both greatly enjoyed our time in Brazil. The country has so much to offer and is quite complex both geographically, politically, culturally, etc. To be honest, I wasn´t nearly as excited to travel in Brazil as I was to head to Argentina and Chile. To my surprise, I learned a ton, was never at a loss for things to do, and was constantly in awe of the culture and the natural environment...one really couldn´t ask for more! Okay, I am sure that I now sound like a travel brochure.
Disclaimer: For those of you who may be Brazilian or who are related to a Brazilian, please know that I have made some generalizations here that may or may not be true. They are solely based on our observations during our very limited stay, without knowing the language.
Language
We learned very early on during our connection in the Sao Paulo airport where we arrived from the States that no one in Brazil speaks English. Now of course, we realized that we were in a different country with Portuguese being the primary language. However one would imagine with a tourist industry as vibrant as Brazil´s with the Amazon, Carnival and Rio, Salvador, Iguacu Falls, etc. that over time, folks would see it in their industry´s best interest to learn even a little. Not so...it was pretty evident when no one in the airport spoke any English, the bookstores only sold Port. books (of which we quickly bought a phrase book), and the announcements to major tourist destinations were only in Portuguese. Such as life! However, we were curious about this phenomenon. Typically, as you know, in major tourist destinations, folks tend to speak a little English just to help out the lost tourists. We learned that there are 200 million people who speak Port in the world, and a majority of them live in Brazil. It is an enormous country, kind of like the US. So, folks here really don´t need to speak any other languages. In fact, a majority of folks here don´t need to leave Brazil. They have beaches, mountains, wetlands, cities, country, etc. As for Ajay and I, we figured out the most important words like thank you, good morning, where is the bathroom, and how much does that cost. It worked.
Spring Weather in the Southern Hemisphere
We weren´t sure what to expect given we are in the Southern Hemisphere, and the seasons are opposite. Brazil is also such a huge country with so many different geographic regions, that the weather was anybody´s best guess. During our time in Brazil, we were in hot, humid, sunny areas like Salvador; moist, rainy, hot environments like the Amazon; cool, cloudy, rainy environments like Florianopolis; cool, dry and rainy moutain cities like Curitiba; and hot, rainy, moist regions like Iguacu Falls...The key to Spring down South is that October showers bring January flowers! The weather overall has been fairly pleasant, and we have adapted. The rain has not stopped us from enjoying our trip. The good news that there are many fewer tourists right now bc it is still low season partly due to the weather!
Food
It is quite obvious that Brazilians love life. There always seems to be a reason and time to stop and eat cake! Most importantly however, cake is served as a part of breakfast in Brazil. It is FABULOUS. It isn´t super sweet cake like wedding7birthday cake in the States , rather, it is just right...moist, sweet icing, small pieces...very yummy. Beer is the alcoholic beverage of choice. The beers are served very, very cold (according to Ajay) in 650 ml bottles with individual foam coolers (kind of like a beer koozie for a wine bottle). Ajay got a kick out of this. At any given time, it is common to see Brazilians sitting around in groups of two or four with small glasses sharing these large beers, once again, enjoying life. The juices were also very nice. One could buy fresh, tasty juices at any restaurant or with any meal. A nice option for those of us who don´t drink beer. The rest of the food in Brazil doesn´t deserve too much attention...it was pretty bad overall (lot of hamburgers, pizza, fish with bones, beef, fried food, ugh). Granted, we didn´t go to Rio where I am sure it is better.
Music and Culture
There is no better place if you love music than Brazil, and specifically Salvador. We couldn´t believe how accessible and affordable music and the arts (museums, theater, dance) seemed throughout Brazil. It appears to be part of the fabric of life much more so than in the US. We did see a lot of music during our time here but the theatre was lost on us due to the language. There are so many different types of music in this country it is quite amazing. Brazil basically ROCKS!
Fashion
As I mentioned before, it is obvious that Brazilians love life, and furthermore, that the men love women. Women also seem to take a lot of pride in their appearance and their style. Overall, it seems to be a sensual culture. I was mesmerized by it all. Let´s start with the bikini and lingere phenomenon. It is everywhere, and it is, shall we say, revealing? Then there are the jeans...super tight, spandex-like. And to my surprise, Brazilian women, in general, are not super thin, rather voluptuous. So, put two and two together, and you have well, I´ll let you draw your own conclusion. From my perspective, I am envious that women seem to feel good about themselves to wear a thong, for example, without the perfect body. There is definitely a level of acceptance here that we don´t have in the States.
Overall, Ajay and I both greatly enjoyed our time in Brazil. The country has so much to offer and is quite complex both geographically, politically, culturally, etc. To be honest, I wasn´t nearly as excited to travel in Brazil as I was to head to Argentina and Chile. To my surprise, I learned a ton, was never at a loss for things to do, and was constantly in awe of the culture and the natural environment...one really couldn´t ask for more! Okay, I am sure that I now sound like a travel brochure.
Disclaimer: For those of you who may be Brazilian or who are related to a Brazilian, please know that I have made some generalizations here that may or may not be true. They are solely based on our observations during our very limited stay, without knowing the language.
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