June in Rio de Janeiro

Tuesday, June 27th, 2006

Rio is officially my all time favorite from the big cities we’ve been to so far. Buenos Aires comes close with its tango and almost New York atmosphere, but Rio de Janeiro is a metropolitan intertwined with hills of jungle, framed by the ocean. I have never seen anything like this. The first thing we did is go up to Corcovado to see Christ the Redeemer, the all famous statue towering above Rios as its icon. The view from there is unbelievable, and we stayed at his heels till sunset only to see Rio change below us.

Tags: architecture
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Big Island, small problem

Saturday, June 24th, 2006

So we are walking on the main street of this little town on an island called Ilha Grande. We are tired and sweaty, but we finally know where we going to sleep tonight and that the place has a hot shower, so you could say we are sort of happy. A man approaches us with fliers in hand. “No,” I say smiling, “we have a place to stay, thank you.” “Oh, no,” the man replies, “I just wanted to tell you about this party we are having at our hostel tonight. The entrance is free and the drinks are cheap.” “Fine. What’s the name and the time?” While I write down his information, Shurik peeks from behind my shoulder and casually comments, “Oh, that’s in the hostel the Welsh couple from the Pantanal told us not to stay in.” “That is so rude!” the hostel guy acted insulted, but it just sounded like he was joking. “It’s probably my competition badmouthing me. My hostel has a 97% rating on the internet” whatever that means. We really didn’t want to get into this, so we agreed we’ll come to the party and went each to its own way.

That evening we kept our promise. Together with an Irish couple we met on the boat to the island, we came through the gate only to have the guy from this morning wag his finger at Shurik, “Oh no! Not this one! He’s not coming in!”

- What? But you invited us!
- I’m UNinviting HIM! He was rude to me!
- You must have misunderstood. Can I explain myself…
- DO YOU WANT TO FIGHT?

Tags: climbing, underwater
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Sao Jao and Tiradentes

Sunday, June 18th, 2006

One, a town full of colonial architecture (which, by now, I had enough of). The other, a small village packed with somewhat bizarre home accessories like a female bust for your window sill or these charming TP dispensers.

Tags: architecture, culture
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Crew, prepare the cabin for takeoff

Thursday, June 15th, 2006

“We all live in giant airplane, giant airplane…” That should be a theme song of residents of Brasilia, Brazil’s ultramodern, planned, built-from-scratch capital. The whole city is shaped like an airplane with government offices, public buildings, and monuments situated along the body, while 7km each wings are divided into hotel, commercial, and residential sectors. We stayed in a small hotel where the southern wing is attached to the fuselage.
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Tags: architecture
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Tranquilo

Wednesday, June 14th, 2006

Our last couple of days here has been a bit weird. Well, not weird-weird, but a bit unusual. First of all, we had a little miscommunication when we were leaving the Pantanal. Our bus tickets out were supposed to be included in the price, but the bus driver knew nothing of it, and so we had to pay again. Now, up to this point, it all sounds just like typical South America, and a “little miscommunication” means you aint’ seeing your money again. Nevertheless, we came back to Campo Grande to at least try to shame it out of Gil – the man who sold us the tour. At the bus station, where his office was, Shurik stayed with the bags, and I, in my battle mode, searched for Gil. I finally found him, but before I had the chance to open my mouth, he said: “I owe you money!” Confused, all I did was nod.

Tags: nature
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When Does a Fish Need an Umbrella

Saturday, June 10th, 2006

Bonito (”Pretty”), was on our way from the Pantanal back to Campo Grande. We weren’t planning to go, but it came with such glowing recommendations from everybody we met in the Pantanal, we could not resist. Snorkeling with hundreds of fresh water fish, underwater springs, and a huge, leafy crater where macaws come to spend the night. Come on! What could be better?

Hm, well… Better weather, for one! It was unfortunate, but the only day we spent in Bonito was a wet one. At first, it actually wasn’t raining, but it might have as well, since we spent the first part of the day drifting in “shorty” wetsuits down Rio Prata floating over underwater springs bubbling up in fountains of sand and surrounded by hundreds of fish that made me want to have an underwater housing for my camera. Another guy from our group actually had one, but he wasn’t very good in taking pictures with it.

Tags: underwater
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The Pantanal

Friday, June 9th, 2006

June 4 (getting there)
As the good book promised, the first wildlife we saw was cattle. But it looked like nothing ordinary to us. Well, they did look like cows, only very old, hunchbacked, albino, starved cows. We saw them on the way to our lodge and they literally flooded the road around the bus making it an island in a white sea of humps which strangely looked like waves.

Because of our last jungle expedition, I was ready to go and ask for my money back as soon as we got there. At first look, the “riverfront lodge” turned out to be nothing like in the pictures and had raggedy looking huts behind it. I hate to disappoint though, but at second look it turned out to be not even half as bad. Quite the opposite, actually. The little shacks of the fishermen and the people running the lodge were connected by a little maze of boardwalks and, as everything here, were on stilts so it all was very cute.

June 5
On our first day here we fished for piranha, which never gets old, and this time, I actually caught one. I was sitting on the riverbed waiting for the piranha to bite and thinking to myself. “We fish for piranha with dead cow, the piranha eats the meat, we eat the piranha, and the mosquitoes are eating us.” Nothing really deep here, just maybe time to reapply the bug repellent and eat lunch. The mosquitoes here, though, they are really no joke. One the plus side they are not malarial, so we don’t need to take our meds to be here. On the other hand, you know how the nurse tells you “This will not hurt at all, just like a mosquito bite”? Well, these mosquito bites hurt like needle pricks! Not to mention that these buggers have managed to bite me in the only place I didn’t have repellent on – my fingers and palms, so in the first two days of our stay I could barely close my hand.

Tags: fishing, horseback
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Paraguay for a second

Friday, June 2nd, 2006

On a practical note, we’ve visited Paraguay. There is nothing to see there, as far as we know, but Shurik has recently lost our GPS and Paraguay is famous for its low prices and unfortunately stolen or defective goods. We could not resist the temptation and decided to drop in for a few hours. The best way I can describe it is an ant line. On one side of the bridge, in one direction, a line of empty cars, empty bags, and empty hands. And on the other side, in the opposite direction, a line of every possible cargo imaginable with people underneath it. It’s like a huge conveyor belt where you get in, get loaded with stuff, and get out saddled like a mule.

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Brazil!!!

Thursday, June 1st, 2006

Oh my god! We are in a foreign country and don’t understand a thing everyone is saying. I know, I know. This is how it’s supposed to be, but we already got so accustomed to Spanish, it pains to give it all up just like that. It’s actually not that horrible – Portuguese and Spanish have a lot in common, but it’s also quite frustrating when you know it’s there, but you can’t find it. It sounds like Polish people speaking Spanish. I now understand why back in Cambridge people kept asking us if we were speaking Portuguese, when we were speaking Russian amongst ourselves.

Tags: nature
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