Brazil - part I

After nearly 4 months in Spanish speaking countries Le Roux and I were starting to understand the jist of conversations and could read signs and menus so it was a little frustrating when we entered Brazil and realised that Portuguese is sufficiently different from Spanish to mean that we were struggling to understand anything other than “hola” and numbers.  When listening to Portuguese I think it sounds like a cross between Spanish, French and Polish – a bizarre mix!  It took a while to get out of the habit of saying “gracias” and switch to “obrigada” instead and for a while I was saying “obrigado” which is the male word till someone kindly corrected me!

Iguazu

The border crossing between Argentina and Brazil at Iguazu was very straight forward given many tourists cross it each day to visit both sides of the waterfalls.  Our only issue was struggling on and off 3 local buses with all of our luggage (6 heavy bags!! Must cull more stuff!) to get from our campsite in Puerto Iguazu (Argentina) to the Brazilian side of the waterfalls.  Our next challenge was to fit all the bags into lockers at the entrance to the national park for the day – after dismantling Le Roux’s backpack into a few pieces and with a bit of pushing and shoving we finally managed to fit everything into 3 lockers and headed off into the park.  We were starving by this point and ordered a toasted cheese and ham sandwich from the cafe, however, there was nothing toasted about it as it was cheap white bread with rubber cheese and a sliver of ham, that had been microwaved!  A food low point.

So we tried a different cafe and after an expensive (but very average) burger and fries for lunch, albeit with an amazing view of Devil’s Throat, we set off down the trail to view the waterfalls.  The Argentinean side gives you the close up view whereas the Brazilian side gives you an appreciation of the scale of Iguazu falls as you can see a lot more waterfalls at the same time.  One of the trails goes out over the water and allows you to get closer to a group of falls although this involves getting absolutely soaked!  

As we wandered around being wowed by the spectacular scenery, lots of butterflies were flitting round and some even landed on us.  We didn’t see any more coatis but we did see an unknown large rodent and an armadillo, as well as a hummingbird and a woodpecker.  Having taken far more photos than necessary as I was so impressed by the beauty of the falls, we headed across the road from the park to the bird sanctuary.  We only had an hour before we had to get the bus back into Foz du Iguazu in order to catch our overnight bus to Florianopolis, so we raced around taking photos like Japanese tourists.

We would have loved to stay longer at the bird sanctuary as it was pretty big with a huge range of interesting birds.  We were able to walk through some of the cages and we loved the toucan enclosure as they flew very close to us and one of them even sat on the walkway and allowed Le Roux to tickle it!  We also saw a pair of toucans fighting with their beaks – so funny to watch.  At the end we got to hold one of the parrots which did a little dance on our arms.  I won’t list all the birds we saw as I don’t know all the names and the photos are probably more interesting anyway!

Florianopolis – Pantano do Sul

Having reluctantly left the bird sanctuary we caught the overnight bus to Florianopolis, followed by 2 local buses, and we turned up at lunchtime the next day in Pantano do Sul, a little fishing village at the southern end of Ilha Santa Catarina.  We almost lost Le Roux’s clothes as we accidentally left a bag at the last bus stop whilst getting directions to our hostel from a local.  Luckily the bag was still there when Le Roux ran back in bit of a panic.  Lesson to self – always count bags to make sure all present and correct!

This village was to be our base for the next 9 days as we’d decided to have a relaxing holiday within our trip to recharge our batteries before the next leg of our trip through Brazil.  Our rustic little hostel was located right on the beach and our room had windows on 3 sides as well as a balcony with a sea view – a great place for us to laze around for Christmas.  Our landlady, Olga, and her two daughters, Sophia and Alicia made us feel very welcome, despite the language barrier - poor Felicia, Olga’s friend who helped her run the hostel, had to step in to translate all the time.  One evening Olga offered to cook us some traditional Brazilian dishes, so Le Roux and I joined the family for dinner and had “feijoada” a dish of black beans, smoked pork and stock – delicious, and another dry dish of cabbage and flour – not my favourite, with rice and salad.  Le Roux entertained us all with his baboon and TV aerial story, which makes me laugh every time I hear it!

Also staying at the hostel was a group of seven Portuguese medical students, a Brazilian family of four and four 18 year old English lads.  Unfortunately the Portuguese group were not around for Christmas as they were heading to Sau Paulo to stay with a friend – a shame as they were a really nice bunch.  The Brazilian family became more friendly after a few days but only 2 of them spoke English which made it a bit tricky.  The English lads had only just started travelling and given their age were a little green and slightly lacking in common sense, and their cooking skills left a lot to be desired.  After watching them eat mushy pasta with sauce for 4 meals in a row, I took pity on them and offered to cook Christmas dinner for them if they bought the food – they leapt at the offer!

Christmas in Brazil is celebrated on the evening of 24^th December so Olga cooked us and some others at the hostel a Christmas dinner of gammon, rice and salad and both her daughters made desserts.  Dinner was supposed to be turkey but somehow Olga got confused and put the gammon joint in the oven instead of the turkey?!?!  It didn’t matter though as the gammon was far tastier than the turkey would have been.

On Christmas day itself Le Roux and I cooked French toast for breakfast made from panetone, with fresh fruit, juice and coffee – delicious!  The day didn’t start well though as I went to get the panetone from our shelf in the kitchen and the bottom of the box was open and out fell a half eaten panetone – some horrible people at the hostel must have stolen and eaten it a few days before – GRRRRR.  We’d decided to have a steak BBQ for Christmas dinner with sauté potatoes and corn on the cob, with prawn cocktail to start and chocolate mousse for dessert.  After a late brekkie we decided to have the BBQ at 5ish, however, the weather was not playing ball and just as we were about to start, it started raining heavily!  Le Roux had to rig up a shelter in the tree above the BBQ and he ended up cooking in his swimming shorts.  Other people in the hostel joined us for the BBQ and everyone brought along something so we got to try some more Brazilian dishes, such as “manioc” (known as yucca elsewhere).  Our steak was pretty chewy and disappointing so I’ve now vowed not to eat steak outside Argentina as nothing comes close, but the sauté potatoes were pretty damn good, if I do say so myself!

I had expected to be wowed by hords of beautiful Brazilian men and women but instead I mainly find myself offended as most people seem to be considerably overweight and wear clothes that are 3 sizes too small.  On the beach is the worst as there have been many sightings of speedos on older men with massive beer guts and hairy backs, and large ladies with rolls of fat and cellulite wearing thong bikinis.  Not many women have the arse to carry these off so I wish most would not try!!  It’s not surprising that so many people are overweight as apart from the locally grown fruit, it is very hard to find healthy food. 

We’d chosen to stay in a fishing village as Le Roux has not had any fishing opportunities for nearly 4 months and was having severe withdrawal symptoms.  In order to find out about fishing options we tried talking to some of the local shopkeepers but this was challenging given they spoke no English and our Portuguese is non-existent!  Google translate came in very handy and eventually Le Roux got the information he needed.  Through Olga he organised to go out with one of the local fishermen in his boat and managed to catch a grouper and lots of squid, as well as another unknown but tasty fish.  Also, most nights he went fishing from the rocks in the bay and caught espada – a long skinny silver fish with sharp teeth.  Having eaten espada for a few meals in a row, Le Roux had to start giving away the fish he caught as I’d run out of different ways to cook it and was craving something different!

As we were in the village for 9 days we got to know some of the locals, especially through the crazy fishing conversations, and we were greeted by them as we wandered around town – we had a lot of odd interactions with neither side really understanding the other, but they were very friendly.

We really didn’t do very much each day, with a swim and walk on the beach being as active as it got, apart from on Christmas Eve when we hiked over a hill through dense forest, slipping and sliding on boulders for an hour, to reach a bay with a lovely sandy beach and a lagoon.  As you can only reach it on foot or by boat there were hardly any people on it, making for a nice relaxing swim in the warm lagoon.

We had a great Christmas by the sea, despite the torrential rain at times, and we left Pantano do Sul feeling rested and ready for the next part of our trip.

Bonito

Our next destination was Bonito which was a taxi, 2 flights and a 4 hour bus ride away!  We had arranged to meet the Tucan gang here as we were going to shadow their route to Rio.  It was great to be reunited with our friends and catch up on their adventures, which included a harrowing incident in which one of the wheels came off the truck while they were driving along!  We also played a lot of cards having had withdrawal symptons since we left them in Santiago - you just can’t play as good games with only 2 people!

Bonito is a small town on the edge of the Pantanal which is known for its snorkelling (and possibly it’s animal phone booths!).  However, all the excursions were very expensive and given we’ve done some amazing snorkelling in other places before, we decided not to bother.  The others reported that it was ok, but not many fish so I’m glad we didn’t waste our money.  The campsite we stayed at had a swimming spot on the river so we swam and snorkelled there for free instead, messing around on the logs in the water and climbing up the little waterfalls.

The campsite in Bonito was definitely one of the better ones we’ve stayed at and given it is now holiday season for the locals it was full of groups of Brazilian families and friends.  When they go camping it seems that they pretty much bring their whole house, including big chest freezers!!  The people next to us actually came in a lorry which was overflowing with stuff.  The Brazilians also love their music – they fill their car boots with serious speakers and blast out their terrible cheesy pop music for all to hear, whether they want to or not.  They also seem to love playing music loudly on their tinny mobiles over whatever other music is already playing – the “be considerate to others signs” we have on our buses and trains definitely need bringing in here!

Pantanal

From Bonito we headed into the Pantanal and for this short 5 hour journey we joined the Tucan gang on Trevor the Truck (the broken chassis had been fixed and he’d been driven over by Eddie from Cusco to Buenos Aires to take over from Doris who was now broken after the wheel incident).  We stayed on a fazienda (a farm) for 3 days which was an hour’s drive from the main road in a 4x4 truck down a bumpy, sandy track with many rickety bridges over ponds and rivers.  We saw lots of birds and other wildlife along the way such as caimans and an anaconda – we were very lucky to see the snake crossing the road!  Despite it theoretically being wet season there has not been the usual amount of rain so the pools and rivers are almost dry still.

On the farm we all slept in hammocks in a dorm – I wasn’t convinced I’d get much sleep in a hammock (especially with a few snorers and sleep talkers in the room!) but it was more comfortable than I’d expected, in fact as good as my camping mat.  At night time lots of bugs, frogs and other things appeared.  The frogs were especially noisy, along with the scratching of the bats and the buzzing of the moths and mosquitoes.  On our first night quite a few of the girls screamed on entering the toilets or showers as there were little frogs and geckos on the walls and big frogs hiding behind the bins and sometimes small birds in the roof.  There was even a sighting of a tarantula between our dorm and the bathroom!  On the way back to the dorm in the dark I accidentally stepped on a large frog – not sure which of us was more surprised!

During the days we went for a jungle walk and a horse ride around the 3,000 hectare estate, as well as going for a boat ride along the river and piranha fishing in a lake.  We saw more wildlife, including howler monkeys which make such a racket, capybaras, wild pigs and many different types of birds.  My favourite activity was the fishing – a little scary at first as we were told to go deeper into the lake with our bamboo rod and line (no reel) as we’d have more luck further out, but given we knew there were caimans and anacondas as well as the piranhas in the water, it was not sounding like a good idea.  However, I eventually plucked up the courage to enter the water up to my waist and surprisingly after a few nibbles I actually managed to hook a piranha rather than just letting them eat my bait!  Most of the group caught at least one fish – either a piranha or a snake fish, but poor Mike didn’t and Matt got very grumpy as he didn’t succeed until the last moment.  Hannah was very relieved when he finally got one!  We ate the fried fish the next day for lunch – nice tasting but very bony and not much flesh.  

The horse ride was a little eventful as poor Anna fainted off her horse probably due to a combination of heat and hangover, and later on some of the horses were scared by what we think was a jaguar in the bushes – unfortunately we didn’t get to see it.  Le Roux’s horse was somewhat feisty and kept trying to kick the other horses if they came alongside and my horse took off as we got nearer to home and he definitely wasn’t going to stop for me however hard I pulled on the reins!

When we weren’t out wildlife spotting, we lazed around in the many hammocks or played cards in the shade as it was really hot in between the downpours – around 40C!  One afternoon the friendly parakeet came and sat on Le Roux’s hammock and started nibbling his feet!

It was New Year’s Eve and James’ birthday (1^st Jan) while we were on the farm so all the girls got dressed up for the night even though it was a low key affair with just our group and the farm workers.  After a dinner of spit roasted lamb, we had a bonfire and then a party in the restaurant using travel speakers and ipods - a good night, even though it rained on us around the fire!  Le Roux and I were drinking the local spirit – cacacha – a cross between rum and tequila, made from sugar cane.  It is the base for the famed Brazilian cocktail “caiprinhas”, which are a bit strong for my liking. 

The farm raises sheep for meat – a different breed to our sheep as they don’t have the thick wool coats, and so we ate lamb for every meal during our stay.  Even though it is my favourite meat, I’d certainly had enough by the end.


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