Buenos Aires

I have been thinking about how to start this post -

Buenos Aires, the city that doesn´t let go . . .
This is turning into the Argentina show . . .
We should have just spent our five months in Buenos Aires . . .

As you might have guessed, we are back in Buenos Aires. It is the city that we cannot escape, both for its appeal and its location and transportation services. We decided to come back here because of the difficulty of travelling overland across Brasil and into Bolivia. It will be much easier to go back north through Argentina. We will miss the jungles of Brasil, but the trip will be less logistically challenging (we hope).

We flew back here from Salvador, Brasil, last night on a plane full of football (soccer) hooligans who yelled their cheers the entire flight (the team from Argentina won, so we feel a bit vindicated). The border control agents asked Melanie if she was on the flight with these jokers and then gave her a break for not having completed her entry form.

Some of our last days in Brasil were spent on an island of the coast of Salvador. The town we stayed in, Morro de Sao Paulo, was passed back and forth between the Dutch and the Portuguese in the 1600´s as a stepping stone to either protect (the Portuguese) or invade (the Dutch) Salvador. The Dutch built this fort -

which you are still able to explore in its original unrestored shape. A shot from the fort looking out across to the mainland -

This was the view from our balcony (the parrot is wooden) -

We didn't have a beach view, but this was one of the most relaxing places we have been to. A tiny four room pousada run by an Italian woman for dollars a day . . . you can't beat it. The setting in the jungle, along with the very laid back Brasilian lifestyle made it a highlight from our trip.

In addition to being a beach town, people also have to make a living in Morro. If you aren't in the hotel business, you fish or work by shipping goods around between the island and the mainland. Something in me finds it fascinating to see boats being build by hand on the beach like this one -

From Morro de Sao Paulo, we headed back to Salavdor for a day. This time we took the small boat back, which was a mistake because the weather decided to storm on the way back. Being on a small bouncy boat with a bunch of people who had probably spent the night drinking fruity cocktails on the beach was not too fun. But we made it in one piece.

Here is a view of the harbor (obviously not the day we came in, because it is sunny). The old center of Salvador is up on a hill and they built an elevator in the 1870's to take people up and down so they wouldn't have to climb the hill. Definitely worth the 3 cents -

And a picture of the harbor (once again because I like boats) -

After being on the beach for too long, we headed inland to a town called Lencois. The town is next to a national park and you go there pretty much to do one thing - hiking. The town is nestled in lush hills and was founded by gem miners in the 17th and 18th century. As in a lot of places in Brasil, you can´t go ten feet without someone offering a service - in this case, they were offering to guide you around the local trails. We took the advice of our pousada owner and went without guides for the first day. The trails around the town lead up the local river to waterfalls -

And some nice views -

The next day we hired a guide and took a hike into the park and up the canyon in the picture above to another waterfall. We hiked up the canyon along the river, hopping between boulders and across the stream to get to the ´Tranquility´ waterfall. I think this is because of the lack of people there, not the lack of noise (waterfalls are loud). I had a fun time jumping off the sandstone cliffs -

And to end today´s post, a picture of some of the local flora. Or, a pretty picture of a flower. Enjoy!

(note - will update map soon, if anyone is paying attention)

Salvador

Bom dia from Salvador!

We are in Slavador now, which is a beautiful, hot, and laid back city about in the middle of the coast of Brasil. It is chock full of colonial architecture, and there is plenty of steamy music to go along with the weather.

A little bit about the rest of our stay in Rio - we stayed for the first two nights in a region called Catete - which is the ´budget´ option for travellers. It is close to what they call the ´bohemian´ night scene. After seeing this, I can only describe it as thousands upon thousands of people out in the streets having a good time. Every place was packed to capacity, and even the gas stations were set up as make-shift night clubs. By looking at some of the people on the street, we should have been frightened, but we never felt threatened.

After Catete, we moved to Ipanema, which is in the south of Rio. If you remember the song ´Girl from Ipanema´, this is the beach that the song is about. We hit the beach there and enjoyed cool coconuts and the grilled cheese on a stick (a very popular snack option in Brasil) on the beach and watching the throng of people massed on the beach.

From Rio, we headed north to a small beach town call Arrial d´Ajuda, which is a short ferry ride from the larger city of Porto Seguro. We stayed in a nice hostel there, and the owner led us on a hike one afternoon to see the forest surrounding the town and then to an overlook of the beach which many people don´t get to see. We didn´t see any monkeys on the hike (Melanie was dissappointed about this), but we saw plenty of lizards, razor sharp grasses, and wierd looking fruits.

The beaches in Arrial are set up so that you would go sit at a table at a restaurant on the beach and order stuff - they were all about the same, so we chose ours based on our favorite crazy waiter named Carlos. He was truly a character. We had a favorite restaurant, too, where we had a favorite waitress who recognized us and treated us well.

Here are some pictures that we have been meaning to post for a while:

Melanie and our friend Anne on the hike to the beach in Florianopolis:

Our host family and Anne in Florianopolis:



Melanie at the waterfall in Penedo:

Recognize this? It´s the fruit from which chocolate is derived (cacau). It makes an excellent juice, too:

They were getting ready for Easter in the German-founded city of Bluemenau:

Overlooking the beach in Arrial d´Ajuda:

Rio de Janeiro

Bom dia from Rio.

We´re in Rio! No, we haven´t seen anyone with fruit in their hat . . . yet.

Back to some things that I was going to write about before my time ran out at the last place. They say if you like humidity and beer, head for the city of Blumenau (the city where my German came in handy). I think you know that I like beer, and as a person who grew up in Houston, the humidity didn´t bother me too much. So, we enjoyed the beer and the German-style breakfasts. After having travelled for a while in Argentina, anything more than toast and butter is more than welcome.

After Blumenau, we headed for the little city of Penedo, which is in the state of Sao Paulo. This is another community founded by immigrants to Brasil - Penedo was founded by Scandinavians, mostly Finnish and Swedish. We stayed at a pousada the was owned by an older gentleman who came to Brasil from Austria when he was one year old. This place was one of those places you hear about - an old house with an amazing verdant garden on the edge of an alpline-looking stream in the middle (well, the edge) of the rain forest. One of the better places we´ve stayed.

Penedo is on the edge of a national park that preserves some of the last remaining Atlantic rain forest, so this sounded like a place we would like to visit. We might even get to see some monkeys, we thought. Reality is a bit harder to deal with, though. Things are set up for people who have cars around this city (and many other places in Brasil), so we didn´t make it to the national park. We did get to hike up a very large hill close to the city and got a great view of the valley with the city, as well as some bumble bees that were the size of my thumb. We hiked to several waterfalls outside of the town.

On to Rio. Melanie asked me what pre-conceived visions I had in my head about Brasil. I told her that I didn´t have too many - mine were mostly about rainforests and mosquitoes. One thing that I really didn´t expect to find was - get ready for this - popcorn with bacon. That´s right, popcorn with pieces of bacon in it that you can get practically anywhere on the street. This is my kind of place.

Seriously, though we haven´t seen too much of it yet, Rio promises to be interesting - good interesting and bad interesting. On the one hand, you can feel the energy of this place when you are walking down the street, on the other hand you are walking down the street with multitudes of poor and indigent people. The buildings are beautiful, but almost every vertical surface has some sort of grafitti on it. We will be exploring today and I will write more about Rio in the next post. And, yes, we will be careful.

Tchau!

Penedo

Bom dia from Penedo, Brasil.

We finished up our week of Portuguese classes in Florianopolis (stay tuned for pictures next time we find a place that will let us post them), and we both speak more Portuguese than when we started. I will let you draw your own conclusions from that statement. Our week ended up on Saturday with a trip out to the end of the island and an hour and a half hike to one of the remoter beaches. It was spectacular! Just coming down the hill to see the crystal blue waves crashing on the beach was great - and there were no cars or anyone trying to sell you home-made jewelry.

While we´re on the subject of languages, I never thought that my German would come in handy while travelling in South America, but it did. The south of Brasil is full of immigrants from all corners of the world. After leaving Florianopolis after our week of language classes ended, we headed to the nearby town of Blumenau. Try to guess where the immigrants that founded this city were from - you guessed it - Germany! While we were hanging around in the bus station looking confused, a taxi driver came up to me and asked if I spoke German - I said a little, so we started talking away (with a little bit of difficulty on my part . . . ). I was shocked to see how easily it came back to me after years of not speaking it.

Prepaid internet time running out . . . will post more soon!