Click here for more photos of Brazil
Brazil
Click on photos below to see full size
Rio de Janeiro
We
had bid on a package from SkyAuction.com
that included airfare and six nights in the
Rio Othon Palace. Not
really a five-star hotel, but pretty decent. We extended our return to make
time for visits to Curitiba, Iguaçu Falls, and Buenos Aires. Our hotel is
located right on the beach, and we have a pretty good view from our room, if you
lean out the window a bit.
The most popular kind of restaurant is the Churrascaria. There are two versions of these restaurants. The first is fixed-price, all you can eat. After serving yourself at the buffet, they bring trays and skewers of roasted meats, sausages and sea foods to your table.
The second type is the Churrascaria do Kilo. You can still eat all you want, but each time you fill your plate they weigh it and add it to your tab. Pam said they should just weigh us as we arrive and charge us for the increase in our weight when we finish. We found several of these within a few blocks of our hotel and visited them frequently. We
learned that they charged different prices for the desserts, but still a
bargain.
Sunday we took the cable car to the top of Pão de Acúcar (Sugar loaf). This is one of the primary tourist attractions of Rio, with good reason. That great hunk of rock is really impressive. It is also apparently irresistible to the local rock climbers.
Seeing
the crazy rock climbers reminded us of Pam’s daughter Leslie. There are several
vertical rock walls on Sugar Loaf and the surrounding hills. Each had a few
climbers. If you look closely at the picture at the left, you will see a
climber resting in a crevice.
That afternoon we went to Ipanema for the Feria dos Hippies (Hippie Fair). We are pretty familiar with southern California swap meets, but this is a bit more exotic. Primarily because most of the sellers were offering craft items. We did our souvenir shopping for the trip (we thought). We found other bargains later that we couldn't resist, so our resolve weakened quickly. We found that there is a smaller version just a block from our hotel e
very
weeknight, located on the median of the broad avenue that runs along the beach.
One of the items I couldn’t resist was a lion’s head made from rope (hemp?). I
have never seen anything quite like it.
We also
bought some fabric (large scarves). When we examined them later in more detail,
we found tags that said they were “made in Honduras”. Oh well, they are still
beautiful.
Monday we hired a car for a trip to Corcovado and the Floresta de Tijuca, a rain forest and national park. The statue of Christ the Redeemer is atop the highest peak in the area and can be seen from everywhere in the city. Arranging for our tour was accomplished pretty much as we do most of our sightseeing – on the fly. We had done the usual amount of “window shopping” at the travel
agencies
around the hotel to see what was available (at what price). As we were walking
past a jewelery store on the block behind the hotel, the owner invited us in to
look at his selection of semi-precious stones (a big favorite in Brazil). We
explained we weren’t in the market just then, but we would surely come back with
a wheelbarrow to fill before we left Rio, and just then we planned to take a
tour to Corcovado. He said “Oh, don’t take one of the bus tours. I have a
friend who can take you in his car for the same price.” Although a little
skeptical, we arranged to meet his driver at the store the next day. We had
planned to take the tour on Sunday, but one of the ladies in the jewelery store
told us “the Floresta is closed on Sunday”. We thought she was talking about
some kind of flower garden, which wasn’t what we wanted to see anyway. As it
turned out, Floresta is Portuguese for forest and she was telling us the park is
closed on Sundays.
On Monday the
driver was waiting for us at the scheduled time with a very nice car. We
decided we weren’t being set up for a kidnapping or robbery, and spent the
afternoon exploring the park around the statue of “Christ the Redeemer” --
Corcovado.
The several hundred acres of rain forest that is the Floresta de Tijuca was at one time all coffee plantations. About a hundred years ago the city began to reforest the area so as to provide watershed for the growing populated area. The program was highly successful. There are now some 46 square miles of tropical rain forest, mostly accessible to the city by road or hiking trails.
We followed that with a tour of the beaches (we like Copacabana best). Tonight we get the local nightclub tour and then tomorrow we are off to Curitiba.
First impressions of Rio: everything is extremely clean and well-run. It would be a great place to live.
Curitiba
Most of the people in Brazil seem to travel by bus rather than by plane. The reason is pretty obvious to us – cost. Bus travel is about a tenth of the cost of airfare (or less). We planned to take a bus on three legs of our trip; from Rio to
Curitiba,
from Curitiba to Foz do Iguaçu, and from Foz do Iguaçu to Buenos Aires. The
total cost of these three trips was less than $100. The one way flight back from
Buenos Aires to Rio alone was about $170. While there are different grades of
bus, the best busses are used for the overnight trips. These are comparable to
first class
airline seating.
The trip from Rio to Curitiba was supposed to be about 12 hours (an overnight "leito" or sleeper bus). In the morning,
about 120 KM short of Curitiba, all traffic came to a complete stop because of
an accident. Three trucks had collided and one of them spilled chemicals across
the road. We sat in a parked bus for eight hours. Fortunately we had air
conditioning and comfortable seats.
We
snoozed, read our books and got acquainted with our fellow passengers. It was
interesting how everyone began to be able to speak a foreign language after a
few hours. The Brazilian passengers began to converse in English with me, in
Spanish with Pam, and I even began to make myself understood in the Portuguese I
studied 35 years ago. We were all great friends by the time we reached
Curitiba.
It was all part of the adventure. The passengers finally convinced the driver to try a detour and we were able to get by the accident scene. Two large trucks had collided. One was a tank truck and it had spilled its load across the highway. It looked as if they hadn't even started to clear the road when we looked down on the accident from the hillside road we were using as an unofficial detour.
We finally reached our hotel in Curitiba ready to have a shower and go for dinner. That's when we made o
ur
acquaintance with the electric water heater in the shower head. The shower had
a single water valve -- the shower head had a three position switch: hot, cold
and tepid. The exciting part was the green flash when you switched from cold to
hot. They hadn’t bothered to attach the ground wire.
Pam thought this was the worst hotel we had ever stayed in (I thought the Pensione Mara in Sorrento took that prize). It was clean, but in need of some care. The mattress was firm and lumpy and a few of the floor tiles were coming loose. However, they provided quite a good breakfast. When I looked it up on the internet again, I noticed it described as a backpacker’s hotel. I guess I missed that the first time!
Friday we rode the "hop on, hop off" tourist bus around Curitiba. We have always tried to do this in cities that provide this for
the tourists. It’s a good way to get an overview of the city, and then you can
go back to visit any place you find particularly interesting. On this bus you
could get off at any three stops. The bus ran every half-hour, which was just
about right. One of the highlights was their glass opera house.
They are
justifiably proud of this beautiful structure. Here is the inside view:
Brazil seems to have well developed public parks and buildings. We continue to be impressed with how clean and well-maintained everything is.
We went to a Churrascaria for dinner. That sign shows the price in Reais (R$3 = US$1), all you can eat. We passed this restaurant on our bus tour and decided to go back that evening. We arrived at 7 PM, having worked up a pretty good appetite . The place looked closed. We realized we were the first customers of the evening when we saw all
the waiters around one table having their dinners.
It was typical, with a nice salad bar, followed by grilled meats brought to the table. This
restaurant
featured a carved wooden block on your table, red on one side, green on the
other. Turn the green side up and they keep bringing the roasted meats, until
you turn the red side up. No language problem here!
Saturday another bus ride, only 8 hours, to Foz do Iguaçu. No problems this time, just a comfortable ride and an opportunity to view the countryside during the daytime. Actually, we almost missed the bus. I misunderstood the ticket seller when she told me the location of the
bus (what the heck, she was speaking Portuguese!). We arrived 45 minutes early
for the bus but didn’t learn until five minutes before departure time that we
were at the opposite end of the terminal. We got our exercise for the day, but
we made the bus on time. Pam expressed an opinion or two about guys asking for
directions. I pretty much ignored that one – I had heard it before! Foz do Iguaçu
We enjoyed three great days at Iguaçu. This is an area at the juncture of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. Each country has a city at the border: Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil; Ciudad del Este, Paraguay; and Puerto Iguazu, Argentina. Brazil and Argentina each have a share of the falls and have well developed tourist industries. Paraguay got short changed and the economy shows it.
We arrived at our hotel, the Hotel Baviera, and found it to be pretty much as we expected from the internet.
Operated by a German family, this small hotel provided a delightful contrast to the big tourist hotel where we stayed in Rio. The owner's son Ricardo served as our tour guide, which enabled us to bypass the long lines from the big tour buses.
Sunday we visited the Brazil side, which provides opportunities for panoramic views of the falls. We stayed for about three hours in the Brazilian park. The crowds we saw at the reception center didn’t seem so large when spread out over the miles of walkways around the falls.
Monday
we crossed the border to visit the Argentina side of the falls. It was much
larger and well organized for tourism, but seemed to have fewer visitors. This
was probably because it was a weekday. We started with a truck trip through the
rain forest, then boarded a boat for a trip to the bottom of the falls. It was a
damp trip, like stepping into a cold shower. We had with us a couple of rain
ponchos that we have been carrying for several trips without needing (we bought
them at Walmart for a dolla
r),
so we didn’t get quite as wet as some of the others.
They gave each of us a plastic bag for our shoes and camera, which helped. It still took us a while to dry off, not that it mattered much.
We
walked a couple of miles of catwalks and got some spectacular views from the
top. You really begin to get an appreciation for the size of these falls after
you have walked the catwalks for two or three hours. The main gorge, called the
Devil's Throat has to be seen to be appreciated. This will give you some idea of
what it's like:
Look to the Argentina section to hear more of our adventures.