With Andy and Wendy back home in the states, Lizz and I had several days to kill in Niteroi before David Small and Sage Sipchen arrived from Middlebury at the beginning of February for Carnaval. We got a little taste of Carnaval before the real thing started. Lizz and I had gone to a bloco with Andy and Wendy their last day. A bloco is a street party/parade that follows a truck loaded with speakers and a huge samba band and dancers on top of the speakers. The truck drives down a street very slowly with thousands of people around and behind it dancing, drinking, singing and peeing. There is no shortage of food and especially beer, with vendors lining the streets and walking through the crowds selling Skol and Antartica, the PBR and High Life of Brazil. While Carnaval in Rio is more famous for its fancy balls and the Sambódromo (more on this in a bit), the Carnaval that most people in Rio actually celebrate is on the street...because it´s free. An environmental feature of the blocos (and every outdoor party in Brazil) is the collection of cans. When you are done with your beer, you can hold up your can or toss it on the ground and within five seconds someone comes running up with a huge bag of cans to collect the deposit. I once saw two people fighting over can. It´s a little sad having an underclass of people shuffling in between your legs, but Brazil can boast that it has an aluminum can recycling rate of 98%. During the rest of our time before Carnaval, Lizz and I toured around Rio some more, went to the beach and moved in to the apartment of some of her friends from school where we stayed for the duration of our time in Niteroi/Rio. The last day before Carnaval officially began, we went to another bloco in Rio where I had fifty reais (about 30 dollars) stolen from my pocket, the only trouble I´ve had my whole time down here.
The first morning of Carnaval, I caught a bus to pick up David at the airport, we dropped his stuff off at the apartment in Niteroi, had lunch and hopped on a boat to Rio. I thought the blocos we had been to were pretty wild and crazy, but they did not prepare me for what we saw once we got off the boat. Rio Branco, the busiest street in downtown rio, was impassable because of the wall of people. We pushed and fought our way down the street to meet up with some friends, but had to take a detour on a slightly more manageable side street. We had few more hours before picking Sage up at the airport, so we stayed downtown and went to a bloco. After picking up Sage, the four of us went to the Sambódromo for the night. The Sambódromo is a stadium designed by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer to look like a street for Samba schools to parade down and compete against each other during the four days of Carnaval. Each Samba school from the Rio area (a couple dozen in all) comes with thousands of dancers, drummers, singers and floats for their hour of glory. We stayed around to watch four samba schools which were all very impressive. I have never seen such elaborate costumes or floats, the best being the topless women wearing a bead or two down below. On our taxi ride through downtown back to the boat to Niteroi, the sidewalks and streets were lined with mountains of garbage (with not a single beer can in sight).
Over the four days of Carnaval, we divided our time pretty evenly: 12 hours at blocos and 12 hours sleeping. We´d wake up around three or four in the afternoon and come back between four and five the next morning. Lizz´s friends that we stayed with- Vanessa, Renan, Celhao and Ana Laura- were incredibly nice, fun and took us out with them every day to the best blocos with their friends. We become close friends with them despite the strong language barrier (Vanessa was the only one who spoke English) communicating with bits of Portuguese and English, and lots of hand gestures. Our last day of Carnaval we went to a gay bloco, which was (unhomophobically) the least enjoyable one. The bloco was packed so much you couldn´t move around and ended up getting shoved around a lot. Also, I couldn´t take my eyes off the ground. In Brazil, especially during Carnaval, making eye contact with someone means you want to make out with them, and every time I looked up there were twenty 250 pound shirtless body-builders staring me down begging me to look at them with a few moving in for the kill...I´d go hide behind Lizz.
After Carnaval, we stayed around during the resaca (literally means hangover and refers to the rest of the week following Carnaval) to rest up before making our way to Buenos Aires to rendezvouz with our good friend Jeremy Martin from Middlebury. David and Sage were able to see what Rio is normally like- we spent some time downtown, at the beach and at Rio´s famous Pao de Azucar (Sugarloaf), a massive semi-phallic rock jutting up out of the water over Rio. Coincidentally, if you forget the nasal pronunciation at the end of Pao like every gringo, it means dick. We preferred the name Sugardick. The resaca over, we hopped on a 3:40am flight south to Florianopolis (for the same price as a 25 hr bus ride), where Lizz is studying for the spring. She dropped off a big suitcase she didn´t want for travel around with, and we took advantage of our two nights there to explore the colorful city that´s on a beautiful island with 42 beaches. Lizz is going there to study? Hmm...
The next stop before Buenos Aires was Montevideo, Uruguay, which laid a 20 hour bus ride south of Florianopolis where I´ll be studying for the rest of the year. I met my host family and dropped a few things I didn´t want to travel with anymore (i.e. computer). I really liked my family and think they will be easy and fun to live with. We took a couple days to explore the city which was awesome, eat a lot of great steak and stay up late hanging out with people from all over the world from our hostel. There was a plaza or park on every other corner, and everyone goes about their day drinking yerba mate. It may be the national drink of Argentina, but in Uruguay mate is life. With life defined by mate, it goes at a very slow pace, and everyone seemed very laid back...not a bad place to spend a year in my opinion.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Sunday, February 24, 2008
The Wrath of Christ and Iguazu Falls: Jan 18-25
Andy and Wendy were delayed and arrived a day late in Rio, so we only had one day to tour the city with them before our first excursion. We took them around downtown for a couple hours before taking a train up to the top of Corcovado, the mountain home to Cristo Redentor, the 110 ft statue of JC. While 110 feet of Jesus is very impressive, the real treat is the gorgeous views of Rio, Bahia Guanabara and Niteroi across the water. We could see the rich neighborhoods of Copacobana and Ipanema that are bordered by the ocean, lakes, mountains and favelas. From such a high point, I could barely make out the end of the bay with more mountains beyond. Unfortunately, our lovely date with Cristo was cut short by a storm that reaked havoc on us. We took cover under a tent outside as it started to rain like I have never seen before. Stairs turned into rushing waterfalls and I stood in a few inches standing water under the tent. Gale force winds came out of nowhere snapping table umbrellas and tossing chairs around on an outdoor patio, and we had to take cover in a restaurant 30 feet away with a hundred other people. 30 feet was far enough that by the time I got inside I was soaked through and through. After the winds and rain let up an hour later, we tried to catch a train back down but the train was not running because trees were lying across the tracks. Taxis don't go to the top of the mountain (because it's such a long drive) unless you pay them to take you up and wait to take you back down while you get your pictures and souvenirs. We ended up paying a taxi driver to leave his group he was waiting for and take us down and then return for his group. The drive down showed the real destruction of the storm, with trees and branches everywhere that the taxi could barely squeeze through. The many tourist vans and buses didn't have a chance of getting down, and I have no idea how long it took for the hundreds of other people stranded up top. The taxi dropped us off at Angela Evancie's apartment, a friend from Middlebury living in Rio for two weeks. It was great to trade stories while we calmed down and grabbed dinner nearby.
The next day we went to Ilha Grande, a beautiful island a few hours south or Rio. The island is almost entirely undeveloped and cars are not allowed, as such to reach most of the beaches you have to take a boat or hike through the jungle. The downside was that it rained most of the time and we never saw any sun. Despite the weather, we still hiked through the jungle for three hours to the island's most famous beach for some body surfing and wine (Wendy insisted on it and Andy carried it). After two nights, we returned to Rio for an evening at a Samba club in Lapa (Rio's party neighborhood) and caught a flight to Foz do Iguacu, the Brazilian city nearby Iguazu Falls. Iguazu Falls is the largest waterfall system in the world with an average of 275 waterfalls where the Rio Parana splits into many sections and falls several hundred feet. The falls lie right on the border of Argentina and Brazil (Paraguay isn't far away), and you can only see one side a day. We spent our first day on the Brazil side, which has the better views of all the falls, and our second day on the Argentina side, where you get a lot closer to the falls. The falls are beyond words or pictures, but I will say they are something to be reckoned with. The sheer volume and roar of falling water is awesome, especially when you take a boat up to the foot of some of the waterfalls to get soaked. During our time at the falls, we also went to a cool bird park nearby where we held parrots and saw a lot of toucans, as well as ventured to Ciudad del Este in Paraguay, which lies a friendship bridge away from Brazil. A while back, Brazil and Paraguay decided to build this "Friendship Bridge" where you can cross back and forth between the countries without the hassle of customs or immigration (sadly this means no passport stamp as proof of my visit to Paraguay). Word has it that the bridge has made drug trafficking a lot easier. The only reasons to go to Ciudad del Este are to see a poor city lacking any type of organization or urban planning, to buy cheap stuff and to get Chinese Food. The Chinese restaurant was one of the only places that looked edible, and while no Panda Express, it far surpassed my expectations for Paraguayan Chinese food and the shrimp-filled wantons stayed down.
It was a great week traveling with Andy and Wendy, and they were both incredibly nice and generous, and great traveling companions. Seeing Iguazu Falls was a dream come true, and Lizz and I relished a week of nice hotels and delicious meals.
The next day we went to Ilha Grande, a beautiful island a few hours south or Rio. The island is almost entirely undeveloped and cars are not allowed, as such to reach most of the beaches you have to take a boat or hike through the jungle. The downside was that it rained most of the time and we never saw any sun. Despite the weather, we still hiked through the jungle for three hours to the island's most famous beach for some body surfing and wine (Wendy insisted on it and Andy carried it). After two nights, we returned to Rio for an evening at a Samba club in Lapa (Rio's party neighborhood) and caught a flight to Foz do Iguacu, the Brazilian city nearby Iguazu Falls. Iguazu Falls is the largest waterfall system in the world with an average of 275 waterfalls where the Rio Parana splits into many sections and falls several hundred feet. The falls lie right on the border of Argentina and Brazil (Paraguay isn't far away), and you can only see one side a day. We spent our first day on the Brazil side, which has the better views of all the falls, and our second day on the Argentina side, where you get a lot closer to the falls. The falls are beyond words or pictures, but I will say they are something to be reckoned with. The sheer volume and roar of falling water is awesome, especially when you take a boat up to the foot of some of the waterfalls to get soaked. During our time at the falls, we also went to a cool bird park nearby where we held parrots and saw a lot of toucans, as well as ventured to Ciudad del Este in Paraguay, which lies a friendship bridge away from Brazil. A while back, Brazil and Paraguay decided to build this "Friendship Bridge" where you can cross back and forth between the countries without the hassle of customs or immigration (sadly this means no passport stamp as proof of my visit to Paraguay). Word has it that the bridge has made drug trafficking a lot easier. The only reasons to go to Ciudad del Este are to see a poor city lacking any type of organization or urban planning, to buy cheap stuff and to get Chinese Food. The Chinese restaurant was one of the only places that looked edible, and while no Panda Express, it far surpassed my expectations for Paraguayan Chinese food and the shrimp-filled wantons stayed down.
It was a great week traveling with Andy and Wendy, and they were both incredibly nice and generous, and great traveling companions. Seeing Iguazu Falls was a dream come true, and Lizz and I relished a week of nice hotels and delicious meals.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Rio and the Northeast or Brazil: Jan 1-17
I realize I am writing about this a little bit after that fact, but I just finally got my blog up and running, so I´ll try and recap my experiences as best I can.
I left Portland, OR in the morning on New Years Eve, and after my most mellow and quiet New Years to date, arrived in Rio de Janeiro at eight in the morning on New Years Day. It was another thirty minutes to Lizz´s house in Niteroi, the city across the bay from Rio where she had been studying for the last semester. The taxi ride from the airport is not the best introduction to Brazil as you pass through some of the worst sections of the city, but it served as a reminder that I would not just be seeing beautiful women and beaches. The next five days Lizz and I spent in Rio and Niteroi where I really enjoyed meeting some of her friends and seeing where she had been living for the last six months. We toured it's historic center, browsed through enormous markets, walked through it's bohemian neighborhood and soaked up some vitamin d on it's sandy waterfronts. Rio is the most visually stunning city I´ve been to, as it´s nestled in and around enormous mountains, beaches, an enormous bay that goes inland for miles with a 10 mile bridge crossing it, and of course lots of beautiful women. To top it off, over 100 feet of Jesus looks over the city day and night from the dramatic mountain Corcovado.
Not all of Rio is beautiful and glorious though. Rio´s slums (favelas) are not technically a part of the city. Someone sees an undeveloped hill, builds a shantyhouse, and everyone else follows. Pretty soon, the houses are stacked on top of each other. This means of course most favelas do not have electricity, water and the worst, sewage disposal. Given that 40-60% of Rio´s population lives in favelas, you can only imagine where the shit goes. Rio's largest favela Rosinha has a population of about 150,000 people. It's a city within a city. While some of Rio's favelas are just poor slums, others are controlled by drug lords who provide security for the residents of the favela. One of Lizz's friends Celhao, who lived in a favela for a couple years of his life, described how the drug dealers have a agreements with the police where the police don't enter the favelas. At night, there are vendors on the street with a menu of drugs for sale.
After a good five days in the city and a night out in Lapa, one of Rio´s biggest night spots, Lizz and I caught a thirty-hour bus ride north to the colonial city of Salvador on the coast. Although Salvador is a large city of a couple million, it has a fairly compact historical center. Brazil has a lot more blacks than most other Latin American countries, as about 70% of all slaves that came to the western hemisphere came to Brazil to work it's vast plantations. Back in the day, Salvador was Brazil´s capital, most important city (it still has one of the largest harbors in the world) and the center of it´s slave trade. As a result, it is a very black city with a rich African heritage. In Salvador, we found a cheap inn on the edge of the historical center called the Pelourinho (Portuguese for whipping post) where we spent the next three days walking the streets lined with shops, cafes, bars, churches and museums. There´s also rarely a moment where you don´t either music and drums echoing through the streets. One of Salvador´s most impressive sights is the Igreja de Sao Francisco, a church with an interior coated with about a ton of gold leaf. The inside glows with gold and elaborate woodwork.
One of our nights in Salvador, we went to a Candomble ceremony. Candomble is a religion that is a fusion of Catholicism, as well as African and indigenous spiritualities that was practiced by slaves and is still very important today in the area. The ceremony took place at a small house on the edge of the city, and Lizz and I were in a room with about twenty other people. In the center of the room a circle of people danced around singing chants while others played drums. It's a very casual ceremony as people will smile, laugh and talk to each other at times, but at any moment a person in the room becomes possessed by an African or Indian spirit or god. As they convulse around with eyes rolled back, others rush to their side to keep them from falling and lead them to another room. The person later comes back dressed in the clothing of the spirit or god that has possessed them. Still possessed, they puff on a cigar and continue to participate in the ceremony. It was a very strange but fascinating ritual, but after a couple of hours of standing in the smoky room, we were ready to leave along with the other three in our group. Our guide said that the rituals would continue for several more hours.
On a slightly different note, I also tried out my new sunga (speedo), which are the thing to wear to the beaches in Brazil. Although great for beach activities like soccer or volleyball, it's not so great for Vermont winter thighs. Despite my rigorous application and reapplication or sunscreen, my thighs were a crimson red that night with a wicked burn line. The pain was so great I was not able to bring my sunga to the beach again for a while.
After Salvador, we caught a 12-hour bus ride north to Maceio, an uninteresting city with some of Brazil's best beaches. There's not much to do in the city, but we divided our time between the beaches in the city and a beach next to a coconut plantation outside the city that was incredible (board shorts for me this week). At our hostel in Maceio, we met some great people from Brazil, Buenos Aires and Sweden. After a few days in Maceio, we continued north to the twin coastal cities or Recife and Olinda with our new friends from Buenos Aires Maia and Lucy. The city of Recife was okay with some nice historical streets, but it was pretty dirty and a few hours was enough for me. Olinda on the other hand is Brazil's largest preserved historical city full with 35 churches and a lot more artists. We spent a day and a half walking through an infinite number of art galleries and along the cafe and mural lined streets. A day and a half was not enough for me here, but we had a flight to catch from Salvador to Rio, so we hopped on a 18 hour overnight bus to Salvador. We had another day in Salvador before we got back to Rio to meet up with Lizz's Dad Andy and his fiance Wendy who were flying in for a weeklong visit.
It was a great two weeks on the road and covered a lot of distance. Always on top of the details, Lizz calculated that we spent 60 hours on buses. While the bus rides were very tolerable, I was still grateful for a two hour flight back to Rio from Salvador as opposed to 30 hours on the bus. While Brazil had previously been the country that burned rainforests and cited as one of the world's top emerging economies, I was gaining a better perspective of just how large (larger than the 48 states) and diverse Brazil is.
I left Portland, OR in the morning on New Years Eve, and after my most mellow and quiet New Years to date, arrived in Rio de Janeiro at eight in the morning on New Years Day. It was another thirty minutes to Lizz´s house in Niteroi, the city across the bay from Rio where she had been studying for the last semester. The taxi ride from the airport is not the best introduction to Brazil as you pass through some of the worst sections of the city, but it served as a reminder that I would not just be seeing beautiful women and beaches. The next five days Lizz and I spent in Rio and Niteroi where I really enjoyed meeting some of her friends and seeing where she had been living for the last six months. We toured it's historic center, browsed through enormous markets, walked through it's bohemian neighborhood and soaked up some vitamin d on it's sandy waterfronts. Rio is the most visually stunning city I´ve been to, as it´s nestled in and around enormous mountains, beaches, an enormous bay that goes inland for miles with a 10 mile bridge crossing it, and of course lots of beautiful women. To top it off, over 100 feet of Jesus looks over the city day and night from the dramatic mountain Corcovado.
Not all of Rio is beautiful and glorious though. Rio´s slums (favelas) are not technically a part of the city. Someone sees an undeveloped hill, builds a shantyhouse, and everyone else follows. Pretty soon, the houses are stacked on top of each other. This means of course most favelas do not have electricity, water and the worst, sewage disposal. Given that 40-60% of Rio´s population lives in favelas, you can only imagine where the shit goes. Rio's largest favela Rosinha has a population of about 150,000 people. It's a city within a city. While some of Rio's favelas are just poor slums, others are controlled by drug lords who provide security for the residents of the favela. One of Lizz's friends Celhao, who lived in a favela for a couple years of his life, described how the drug dealers have a agreements with the police where the police don't enter the favelas. At night, there are vendors on the street with a menu of drugs for sale.
After a good five days in the city and a night out in Lapa, one of Rio´s biggest night spots, Lizz and I caught a thirty-hour bus ride north to the colonial city of Salvador on the coast. Although Salvador is a large city of a couple million, it has a fairly compact historical center. Brazil has a lot more blacks than most other Latin American countries, as about 70% of all slaves that came to the western hemisphere came to Brazil to work it's vast plantations. Back in the day, Salvador was Brazil´s capital, most important city (it still has one of the largest harbors in the world) and the center of it´s slave trade. As a result, it is a very black city with a rich African heritage. In Salvador, we found a cheap inn on the edge of the historical center called the Pelourinho (Portuguese for whipping post) where we spent the next three days walking the streets lined with shops, cafes, bars, churches and museums. There´s also rarely a moment where you don´t either music and drums echoing through the streets. One of Salvador´s most impressive sights is the Igreja de Sao Francisco, a church with an interior coated with about a ton of gold leaf. The inside glows with gold and elaborate woodwork.
One of our nights in Salvador, we went to a Candomble ceremony. Candomble is a religion that is a fusion of Catholicism, as well as African and indigenous spiritualities that was practiced by slaves and is still very important today in the area. The ceremony took place at a small house on the edge of the city, and Lizz and I were in a room with about twenty other people. In the center of the room a circle of people danced around singing chants while others played drums. It's a very casual ceremony as people will smile, laugh and talk to each other at times, but at any moment a person in the room becomes possessed by an African or Indian spirit or god. As they convulse around with eyes rolled back, others rush to their side to keep them from falling and lead them to another room. The person later comes back dressed in the clothing of the spirit or god that has possessed them. Still possessed, they puff on a cigar and continue to participate in the ceremony. It was a very strange but fascinating ritual, but after a couple of hours of standing in the smoky room, we were ready to leave along with the other three in our group. Our guide said that the rituals would continue for several more hours.
On a slightly different note, I also tried out my new sunga (speedo), which are the thing to wear to the beaches in Brazil. Although great for beach activities like soccer or volleyball, it's not so great for Vermont winter thighs. Despite my rigorous application and reapplication or sunscreen, my thighs were a crimson red that night with a wicked burn line. The pain was so great I was not able to bring my sunga to the beach again for a while.
After Salvador, we caught a 12-hour bus ride north to Maceio, an uninteresting city with some of Brazil's best beaches. There's not much to do in the city, but we divided our time between the beaches in the city and a beach next to a coconut plantation outside the city that was incredible (board shorts for me this week). At our hostel in Maceio, we met some great people from Brazil, Buenos Aires and Sweden. After a few days in Maceio, we continued north to the twin coastal cities or Recife and Olinda with our new friends from Buenos Aires Maia and Lucy. The city of Recife was okay with some nice historical streets, but it was pretty dirty and a few hours was enough for me. Olinda on the other hand is Brazil's largest preserved historical city full with 35 churches and a lot more artists. We spent a day and a half walking through an infinite number of art galleries and along the cafe and mural lined streets. A day and a half was not enough for me here, but we had a flight to catch from Salvador to Rio, so we hopped on a 18 hour overnight bus to Salvador. We had another day in Salvador before we got back to Rio to meet up with Lizz's Dad Andy and his fiance Wendy who were flying in for a weeklong visit.
It was a great two weeks on the road and covered a lot of distance. Always on top of the details, Lizz calculated that we spent 60 hours on buses. While the bus rides were very tolerable, I was still grateful for a two hour flight back to Rio from Salvador as opposed to 30 hours on the bus. While Brazil had previously been the country that burned rainforests and cited as one of the world's top emerging economies, I was gaining a better perspective of just how large (larger than the 48 states) and diverse Brazil is.
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