Rio de Janeiro (Seis)

We visited the Maracana Stadium which looked smaller than we had expected, and spent the next two hours having lunch at a Churrascaria. At Churrascarias, various kinds of meat are cooked on skewers. This is often served rodizio style where servers bring these skewers to your table and slice as much as you want, as often as you want, on to your plate. So, as you can imagine, we´ve gained some weight over the last two months.

Rio de Janeiro (Cinco)

We recovered from our late night/early morning by sleeping in till 2pm, then had lunch and made last minute alterations to our Carnaval costumes to ensure they wouldn´t fall off while we were parading. We left our hotel at 6.15pm and caught the metro to Centro before realising we had left two members of our group behind! One of the guides who had accompanied us returned to retrieve them, then we were on our way back to the Sambadrome. This time, we made our way to the holding area where floats and other performers were gathered, and squeezed through the gate.

Our samba school was first up, and it wasn´t long before fireworks heralded the start of the parade and our turn to samba down the track past the stands we had occupied the night before. The locals parading around Warren and myself were full of energy, and their enthusiasm kept us going during our 80 minute performance. We were able to experience first hand the spectacle we had previously witnessed, and appreciate the organisation involved. My two days at the Sambadrome have given me a great respect for the Cariocas who make Carnaval a success each year. If only we had something that united all communities this way.

Rio de Janeiro (Quatro)

`Everyone anticipates Carnival in Brazil; its a time to laugh, dance, sing and be whatever you want to be. Poor people, richly attired, are admired, filmed and applauded in their costumes as they parade ... . Inhibited people dance and sing frenetically to the samba rhythms belted out by the percussion group who maintain the cadence as thousands of members of each samba school undulate down the street.´ (excerpt from Rio This Month).

I´ve ´borrowed´ the exerpt above because I doubt my ability to describe Carnaval in a way that would do it justice. What we saw at the Sambadrome exceeded all my expectations: the floats were enormous, there were so many people involved, the choreography was masterful, and costumes magnificent. There was so much going on I found it difficult to focus for fear of missing out on something else. Some schools stood out with their innovativeness, but it was wonderful to feel the crowd respond to all the samba schools, and to respond with them. We left a little past 5am as the last school was parading to avoid getting caught in the crowd and traffic.

Rio de Janeiro (Três)

Rio´s iconic statue of Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer) is impressive up close at 125 ft and 1,145 tons, but I prefer gazing at it from afar. We´ve seen it from various vantage points and streets in Rio now. From rich as well as poor sectors within the city. For me it seems to connect them, and represent the hope all Cariocas have.

We walked around at night to soak up the smells and sounds (i.e. pee and percussion) of Carnaval. The streets surrounding our hotel are packed with Bloco parades and vendors selling everything from churros to costumes (including pacifiers and adult-sized diapers). We´ve seen quite a few Brazilian guys dressed as girls and babies. I guess Carnaval is a good time to express your fetishes, and a good opportunity to shop if you have any.

Rio de Janeiro (Dois)

We bid our Tucan tour group farewell. After as many as 65 days of travel with some members, we were pleased to do this as quickly and discreetly as possible before we snuck of to go tandem hangliding.

I loved hangliding as much as I loved sandboarding, and the two are quite similar in that they involve flinging yourself off a cliff of some sort (no, I don´t have any suicidal tendancies). We took off from Pedra Bonita, 520m above sea level, and soared over Tijuca Forest and the Atlantic Ocean. My instructor caught a few thermals, and we circled up before swooping down. I felt like a bird on a roller coaster ride. Warren was less enthused about his flight, and I suspect he preferred our lunch at the per kilo restaurant near our hotel.

Per kilo restaurants are a great concept. You select food from a buffet table of salads, desserts, meat and seafood (including sushi, crayfish!), but pay only for what you have chosen according to its weight. Warren´s per kilo meals have typically cost around AUD$7, and my main courses have cost around AUD$4. Desserts are weighed separately and I am almost ashamed to admit mine have usually cost as much as my mains. The desserts here are decadent as Brazilians love their sweets, and we´ve even seen per kilo ice cream parlours!

We checked into the luxurious Gunabara Hotel, and joined the Rio Rhythmics Tour group when they arrived in the evening. Our Carnaval costumes arrived that night. We tried them on and celebrated the fact that they were relatively light and allowed us to move freely. Tarcisio added to our relief when he recounted how one of the costumes used by RR students in the past had plastic poop on their shoulders (in keeping with that samba school´s theme).

Rio de Janeiro (Um)

The climate and flora here remind me of Singapore. The city would too, if litter and graffiti weren´t so prevalent. The latter is mostly mindless tagging, but some are quite artistic, adding colour and chaos to the mundane.

We shopped at Rio Sul shortly after our arrival, and found a few t-shirts for Warren, but nothing for me perhaps because Donna had bought all the nice stuff ; ) We had dinner with Donna, Tenny and Carolyn at a pizza rodizio - a kind of buffet where waiters bring all sorts of pizzas to your table and you select what you´d like to try. The strawberry and banana pizzas with chocolate were soooo yummy. This was Donna and Tenny´s last evening in Rio, and they had many stories to share. Some were cautionary tales, and we were warned that robbers occassionally form a picket line down the width of a beach, then run along it robbing people as they go. Tenny likened this to the Running of the Bulls!

After dinner, we walked over to Jaime Aroxa´s where Daniel (a Professor at the academy) was teaching a class with Jaime. We had met Daniel only briefly once before when he had conducted some forro workshops in Brisbane, so it was nice to see him again in his environment. Brazilian´s interact with each other with such warmth I hope Daniel and Carolyn will be able to infuse Brisbanites with this in addition to dance skills.

Parati

Parati´s cobblestoned streets are designed in such a way they´re washed by each high tide. However, since Parati has no sewage treatment plant, I assume sewage flows out to the surrounding sea (which tourists swim in) via its rivers ... and back onto its streets : P

We saw some boys playing capoeira in the streets ... more quickly and viciously than they do back home, and also watched a bateria practice for their Carnaval parade. There were kids as young as six or seven playing with precision, and granny dancing samba in the centre. Fantastic!

Parati´s colonial buildings are tastefully decorated, and we found a delightful bar with a live samba band. We danced some gafiera, and the lead musician approached us at the end of his set to tell us it had made him really happy to see us dance (he felt that it showed a real appreciation of his music). He couldn´t believe we were from Australia/Singapore either. He used to gig in São Paolo before moving to Parati, and said the club he played at used to have gaf lessons before the band came on, but said it´s been 17 years since he´s seen gafieira danced. We´re looking forward to more dancing in Rio, and to meeting Donna, Tenny, Carolyn and Daniel when we get there.

São Paolo

São Paolo is reputed to be the fastest growing city in the world, and its infinitude of buildings can be appreciated from the restaurant on the 41st floor of the Edificio Italia (São Paolo´s second tallest building). This privilege comes at a price of R$15pp, which they agreed to waive for our tour group if we each consumed at least R$20 worth of food/drink. Not being big drinkers, we tried to select food items which would amount to exactly R$20 (not much, as everything was grossly overpriced), but forgot about the cover charge, tax etc. so wound up paying more anyway. I would have felt much better about the bill if they had at least cleaned the windows so the view was not obscured, but hey.

Our hotel was located in the gay quarter, and were treated to a float of pink fairies (very buff guys wearing fairy wings and not much else) shortly after our arrival.

We went to a samba club on Sunday night and forro club on Monday night. Both had live music, but we especially enjoyed the forro club. It had a huge dance floor, and was soon full of dedicated forro dancers. It was a delight to watch different styles of forro being danced, to both contemporary and traditional forro. Some things must be universal though – we learnt that the ´better´dancers occupy the area around the stage here too! We were lucky enough to meet a local girl, Luciana who was extremely hospitable. She introduced us to her friends, forced the male ones to dance with me (including her partner who was a dance instructor) and danced with an extremely nervous Warren herself. I think we surprised them. We have found out that Brazilians in general think gringos can´t dance. I had told them I was Singaporean, but I guess that´s just a technicality ; )

(Photo: cow at a bus stop providing fresh milk for those who purchased tea or coffee!)

Curitiba

Curitiba is considered one of the best examples of urban planning world-wide, but if you want to know more about this, you´ll have to do your own research ; ) we traversed only the main shopping mall, and added to our already bursting luggage bags.

Iguaçu

I´d been dying to see Iguaçu Falls, and I wasn´t disappointed – they´re magnificent! We visited both the Brazilian and Argentinian sides over two days. You have to see them both to appreciate the sheer size of the falls, but the Argentinian side was has more cataracts , including Garganta del Diablo (the largest and most impressive cataract), and walkways from which to appreciate them. We did a helicopter ride over the falls which, at US$70 for seven minutes, was an absolute rip-off, and a jet boat ride under the falls which cost a lot less and was a lot more fun. We got absolutely drenched during the boat ride, but were prepared for this and wore only swimmers. I felt sorry for those who stayed dressed, though they would´ve dried quickly in the heat. It´s been so humid here, even I´ve been perspiring. It was 41 deg C today (even at 5pm) so it didn´t take us long to figure that the wet weather gear we were advised to wear twould only succeed in separating the wet stuff on the outside from the wet stuff on the inside.

I´ve attached some photos taken at a birdpark on the Brazilian side of the falls which had an extensive collection of exotic birds, most in walk-in aviaries. The macaws were very cheeky, and diligently relieved unwary visitors of their buttons.

Asunción

Asunción in Paraguay is famous for its duty free status, cheap electronics, and memorials to those who´ve died bravely in fruitless wars. We didn´t do a whole lot of sightseeing, but I did buy two more pairs of flip flops, bringing my total to five. Brazilians have taken flip flops to a whole new level - they even have flip flops with heels for those who can´t quite abandon couture!

Bonito

Bonito is a small, touristy town with a cosy bar that offers live music on weekends (and has the gall to impose a R$2 ´music tax´ on patrons for the privelege of listening).
We snorkelled along the crystal clear Rio Prata River, which felt like exploring an immense fishtank. We saw hundreds of freshwater fish, a caiman, underground springs bubbling through the sand below, and tiny monkeys in the branches above.

Our second excursion was to the Cave with the Blue Lake. We descended approximately 300 steep and slimy steps, admiring limestone formations, to water so blue you´d swear they´d dropped a bottle of Harpic in it.

Our third excursion involved tubing down yet another river, over several waterfalls. I fell out of my tube at all the waterfalls bar one : ( Our guides made the still stretches exciting by dumping people out of their tubes into the water, and the experience was worth the many mozzie bites we endured.

Warren and I also visited a Boa Constrictor project. When Warren told the director I liked snakes, he made it kiss me. I´ve held several snakes around my neck in the past, but never had one slither it´s tongue across my lips till now. I´m glad this was before the snake got fed too. A Brazilian TV crew happened to be there making a documentary, so we all got to witness one kill and swallow a live rat. Poor, brave rat. It didn´t seem to have a clue, and actually faced the snake quite calmly before it died.

We went to a party at midnight, hoping they´d play some Brazilian music, but it was full of teenagers and ´doof doof´music. We were told a live band would play later, but didn´t want to stay out too late as we had two excursions the next day, so we left shortly after 1am.

Pantanal

(Pics: boa constrictor one of our guides wrestled from a river; my first catch (piri putanga); piranha; and Capivara, the world´s largest rodent)

Brazil is fantastic! Brazilians are playful, friendly, and have a sense of humour (traits we hadn´t often encountered up to this point). Everybody here seems to know everbody else, and call out to them with great enthusiasm as they drive past. If they happen to walk past someone they know, then a looong conversation follows (this might explain why TTC tends to waffle ; ) Road rage was the norm in Ecuador, Peru and Boliva, but here they actually wave their thanks when you give way. I know these things seem trivial, but they make such a difference to the overall feel of a country and culture. Brazilian food is really yummy too. We´ve had fresh bread for the first time in months, and the desserts are delicious if a little strange (e.g. shredded cabbage in syrup? It was some sort of vegtable anyway).

The Pantanal is the worlds largest wetland area, and is thought to be íts most dense flora and fauna ecosystem. We spotted howler monkeys, a capivara (the world´s largest rodent which looks like a giant guinea pig and tastes quite gamey), several caiman (these look like small alligators, are very shy, and quite chewy). We went fishing, and I caught my very first fish within the first five minutes! It was the biggest catch of the day, and they cooked it as part of our dinner with a couple of piranha other members of our group had caught. I should clarify that we didn´t eat capivara and caiman or catch them while we were in the Pantanal as all wildlife here is protected - we tried them later in Bonito.