Chaska in South America

Sorry for not updating this blog in such a long time!  Brazil has turned to be a pretty exciting, intense place, and spending time in an internet cafe has been one of the last things on my mind.  I’ve really fallen in love with this country and can definitely say that it may be one of the most beautiful places I’ve been.  The culture and people are wonderful, and I’m having such an incredible time.  After leaving the south of Brazil Matt and I moved up to Florianopolis.  Florianopolis is actually an island but is very close to the mainland and is connected by a large bridge.  We met a group of other travellers at a hostel that we stayed in in the island center and ended up all going to a small beach on the island called Barro do Lagoa that was absolutely wonderful.  A tiny beach town with a really fun atmosphere.  The “thing to do” there was to rent an apartment or house with friends and hang out for as long as you wanted.  The town was full of young travellers from all over, with a huge Chilean representation.  There were a total of 7 of us that had met at the hostel and so we rented two apartments together and it worked out to be a lot cheaper than staying in a hostel and also a lot more comfortable.  The 6 days that we spent there were amazing.  We spent both all day and all night on the beach.  Aside from being in an absolutely beautiful location, the nightlife was really good there too.  There were small beach bars and music on the beach all night long, and just a lot of really cool people to hang out with.  I’ve mentioned before that we continually run into people who we met in other locations along our travels and it happened again here.  We ran into several people who were at the same hostel as us in Mendoza, Argentina.  I had mentioned in my last post that we had met a lot of really cool people there, so it was really nice to run back into these people.  Florianopolis has something like 42 beaches that are all supposed to be just amazing, but somehow we ended up staying at this one tiny beach area the entire time.  Actually just before leaving, we were able to go out to one other beach called Campeche, and it too was wonderful…a lot less crowded than Barro do Lagoa and more of a place where locals went.  

Rio was Matt and my next destination after Florianopolis…as it was for just about every other traveller there.  The Rolling Stones were giving a free concert on the beach in Copacabana on the 18th, and EVERYONE was headed up there for it.  Matt and I, along with our new English friend Andy, took the 15 hour bus ride from Florianopolis to Rio and then again met up with some other friends once we were there.  We stayed in a really cool hostel in Rio in an area called Santa Teresa, which is quite a ways away from the super touristy beach areas.  Santa Teresa is a huge hill with amazing views of the city and and located close to the kind of grungy, bohemian neighborhood of Lapa.  I loved that we stayed here rather than the typical touristy locations of Copacabana or Ipanema.  We went out several times in Lapa and had the best time drinking caparinhas in the street with all the locals and dancing the night away at the local samba clubs.  Rio is an incredible city with so much life.  I really was impressed by it and think it may be one of my favorite cities now.  You hear so much about how dangerous it is and stuff, but I didn’t ever feel particularly unsafe while there.  Of course we were ultra cautious while there and never took out anything that we weren’t willing to lose.  Sadly I have no pictures of Rio since I never took my camera out with me, but I never felt unsafe since I never had anything on me that was valuable.  Matt did have a little experience in which he was robbed by a group of little kids (no older than 12), but he only had 7 reals on him, and the whole experience turned out to be more funny than terrifying.  The Rolling Stones concert was a crazy, chaotic experience and so much fun.  There were over a million people on the beach and it was an all day event even though the Stones didn’t play until 10 at night.  We were really far away from the stage, but we were able to watch the huge screens and heard the whole concert perfectly. We spent 5 nights total in Rio, and I definitely didn’t get much sleep while there. Pre-Carnival festivities are just as crazy and intense as Carnaval itself I think! I really would have liked to stay for Carnaval, but the prices shoot up to 3 or 4 times the normal prices during Carnaval, and Matt and my bank accounts are not doing so well at this stage in the trip. The other huge destination in Brazil for Carnaval is up north in Salvador, where many of our friends were headed after Rio, but again too far and too expensive for Matt and I. 

So, because of our financial situation, we are now in a small town about 5 hours south of Rio called Paraty.  Paraty is a cute little colonial style town that is set in the most beautiful location.  There are tons of small islands and amazing beaches nearby too.  Our friend Andy came with us to Paraty to stay for just 3 days before he headed back to Rio for Carnaval.  The three of us rented a small apartment together, and now that Andy is gone, Matt and I have the apartment until Carnaval is finished.  We’re in day three of Carnaval now.  It started Friday and ends on Tuesday.  The Carnaval here is nothing compared to Rio or Salvador, but the town is all decorated and there are festivities every night until 3am.  The crowd here is definitely a lot calmer than Rio, mostly older people and families.  I really would have loved to experience Carnaval in Rio or Salvador, but we’re enjoying ourselves here and really can’t complain…I mean we could be at home in the States working!  We have just a few more days in Brazil.  I really can’t believe how quickly our time here has gone by.  We leave from Sao Paulo next Wednesday for Venezuela, where we will spend a little over a week.  Well, here are a few photos from our time in Brazil.  I wish I had more, but as I said I didn’t take any in Rio.

 Here we are after just arriving to Barro do Lagoa…the weather was cloudy and rainy, but it was still really pretty.  These are the people we rented the apartments with.  From the left: Andy (England), Yohav and Liad (Israel), Kate (Australia), Matt, and me.

 This is the town.  It was a really laid back beach town…I loved it. 

 

This is a small, secluded beach in a another part of the town.  Andy is on the left side of me, Kate is on the right.

Here is view of the ocean while on a short hike to another part of the island.  It was absolutely beautiful.

Here are the four of us that stayed in the same apartment on our last night in Barro do Lagoa.

 

Here are a couple beach scenes from Barro de Lagoa, Florianopolis…

 

 

Actually, I do have just a couple photos that I took one day in Rio.  I forgot that I had them.  They’re not too exciting, but here they are…

 

The steps of Santa Teresa…some really cool mosaic steps that are supposedly very famous.  Lots of models pose on them for Vogue and stuff I was told.

 The Arches of Lapa.  They are a viaduct, on which a trolly car that goes up the hill of Santa Teresa passes over. 

 

Here are a bunch of photos taken over the past few days of Paraty and several of the nearby beaches that we’ve taken day trips to…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, that’s it for now I guess.  My next post will probably be after Venezuela.  We plan to spend as little time in Caracas as possible and head to a place called Merida, which is supposed to be a really cool backpackers destination…and much safer than Caracas.  Thank you Germain for all your tips on Venezuela…too bad you can’t be there!  As always, I hope you are all well, and I would love to hear from all of you! 

Last week Matt and I left Argentina for the last time on this journey…then again we’ve said that before and somehow kept going back! This time I’m fairly certain that we’re done with Argentina though. Argentina became so familiar and comfortable to us…it was like going home each time we returned. The last few cities in Argentina were great, as the rest of our experience in Argentina has been. We spent a few days in Mendoza, and despite the extreme heat, I found that I think Mendoza is one of my favorite cities I’ve visited in Argentina. It’s not very big, but it has a lot going on and is set in the most beautiful scenery. We stayed at a fairly large youth hostel there and met a lot of really cool people. Sometimes it’s nice to meet others who are in the same boat as us…having quit their jobs and taken off to see the world with no real plan for what will come next. I sometimes find myself thinking and worrying about the fact that I really don’t have any idea what I’m going to do when all this is finished…no, I still haven’t received the revelation about what my purpose in life is as I hoped I would on this trip! Meeting others who are in the exact same position as me makes me feel like it’s ok that I’m still searching, and I’m reminded of the reasons why I took this trip in the first place…to feel like I’m really living my life rather than wasting it on a job or situation in life that really doesn’t make me happy. So anyway, we met a lot of cool new friends in Mendoza and had a really nice time hanging out and hearing all their stories. Sleeping was more or less impossible because it was swealtering hot in the dorm rooms, so we didn’t do much sleeping. I even got talked into going out dancing till 8am one night…I haven’t done that in a really long time! There are so many great activities to do around Mendoza, and I really would have liked to do some, but somehow we ended up not doing any. Matt and I along with an Australian friend attempted to take a bike tour of some wineries one day and even rented bikes and got started on the ride to the wineries, but we had horrible luck and the bikes more or less fell apart on us before we even made it out of the city! It was seriously like a scene out of a movie, one bike after the other had something terribly wrong happen. Matt and I each got a flat tire and our friend, Jason, had his chain fall off just as we were getting on a busy highway with cars and semi-trucks racing by. We took the bikes falling apart as a sign, and we walked our bikes back to the shop and luckily got all our money refunded without any problems. Despite not really doing any of the normal Mendoza activities, I had a really nice time there and would love to go back in the future.
Since our goal was to make it to Brazil by the first week in February, we really needed to get moving east and try to get closer to that part of the continent. We left Mendoza on Monday night and took a 13 hour bus ride over to Santa Fe, which is not too far from the Uraguyan border. We stayed in Santa Fe for a night, but we found that there really wasn’t much going on there. The people were SO friendly there though and that really made an impression on us. After a night in Santa Fe, we went just across the river they have there and stayed a night in a town called Parana. Parana was absolutely adorable. The town is really small and right on the river Rio Parana. The people here were also incredibly friendly. There aren’t many foreign tourists who come to this region of the country, so people aren’t as used to seeing foreigners as in other larger cities. They were all very interested to know where we were from and why we were there, and everyone was very hospitable.
From Parana, we took a short bus ride to a border town called Guay…. I really can’t remember what the name is. We were just in the bus terminal for a few hours before we got on a bus that took us over the Uruguayan border into a town called Mercedes. We had spent just part of a day in Colonia, Uruguay when we lived in Buenos Aires, and I thought it was the cutest town I had ever seen. I thought that it was just a touristy town though, and I imagined the rest of Uruguay to be a lot less cute. Mercedes was just as cute as Colonia though! Maybe not as picturesque in a touristy sense, but it’s an adorable little town, and the people are even cuter! We arrived to the town at about 10 at night and were a little worried about walking around the city at night trying to find an ATM to get some Uruguayan money and finding a hostel…I have never felt safer though. There were children playing in the playgrounds and streets, old people sitting and chatting on the sidewalks and plazas, and everyone greeted us with a huge smile as we walked by. It’s so funny too, I had heard that the mate drinking tradition was even bigger in Uruguay than in Argentina, but I thought that was impossibe considering every Argentine I’ve met is mate crazy. It’s true though, I think Uruguayans drink even more mate than Argentinians. Immediately after arriving, I couldn’t help but notice that they even drink it on the go…walking down the street, driving in a car, or even riding on a moped or bike! You have to understand that drinking mate requires a thermos and a mate “cup” and “straw” so it’s not the most convenient beverage to drink while in transit.
After a night in Mercedes, we attempted to leave early in the morning the next day but found out that buses don’t travel very frequently in Uruguay and had to wait until 6 that evening to leave. Our goal was to get the Brazilian border as soon as possible, so we chose a town called Paysandu which was about half way there, hoping to stay one night there and leave the next morning for the Brazilian border…only again, we found that buses really don’t travel at convenient times in Uruguay. When we got to Paysandu, we found that the only buses that left for Rivera, the border city we needed to get to, left at either 4am or 5pm. The reason we were in such a hurry to get Brazil is that we would be staying with our friend Samantha who lives right on the Brazilian border, and we really wanted to be there by Saturday since it was the most convenient day for her. Samantha was one of Matt’s roommates in Madrid and she was wonderful enough to offer to have us stay at her house when we arrived to Brazil. So considering our options, Matt and I decided to be troopers and take the bus at 4am. Doing this meant that it really was pointless to get a hostel room, so we checked our bags in the luggage storage at the bus station and hit the town for a Friday night on the town.
We left Paysandu at 4am and arrived to Rivera at 9am, and Samantha and her boyfriend Duda came to the bus station to get us in her car. We were so exhuasted from having stayed up all night, and it was SO nice to not have to worry about finding ourselves a hostel or anything. As I’ve mentioned before, in order to go to Brazil, Matt and I went through so much trouble. We had to pay $100 and go through a big process to get our visas at the consulate in Buenos Aires and also had to get yellow fever shots when we were in Lima. We honestly thought getting through the border was going to be a huge ordeal…we couldn’t have been more wrong! We had our passports out and our vaccination card ready, thinking we were going to go through some really strict border and customs control like all the other borders we’ve crossed in South America, when Samantha says as we’re driving, “We just left Uruguay and now we’re in Brazil!” Rivera and Santana do Livramento, where Samantha lives, are basically the same city. There’s a plaza in between the two cities and half of the plaza is in Uruguay and half of it is in Brazil. One side of the street has all the shops and signs in Spanish, and the other side is all in Portugese. There is abosolutely no border control or customs point…it’s crazy. Just for formalities, later that day, Matt and I had them take us to the police station to get our passports stamped, but if they hadn’t taken us, we would have had no idea where to go or what to do.
Since we arrived to Brazil on Saturday, Matt and I have been living the good life! I really can’t tell you what an awesome time we’ve been having staying with Samantha and her family. They have a big, beautiful home and have been SO wonderful. We sleep in really late, hang out in their pool, and they feed us amazing food…it’s honestly like being on vacation from being backpackers. The day we arrived we went to two parties with Samantha and Duda. One was a birthday barbeque, or “churrasco”, for one of their friends and we had such a great time. All of Samantha’s friends were great…it’s definitely true what they say about Brazilians being happy fun people! Finally getting to why I titled this post such a strange thing, Matt and I have discovered that all Brazilians we’ve encountered so far seem to know one phrase in English and say it to us when they find out we’re American…”The book is on the table.” At the party, this phrase was said to us so many times and it kind of became a big joke. Isn’t it hilarious that that is the first phrase that is taught to them? Not “Hello, how are you” or “My name is…”, but “The book is on the table!”  After the birthday party we went to a big music festival here in Livramento and heard some great samba…so much fun, but we were exhausted by the time we got home at 5am!  Since we’ve arrived to Brazil we’ve been enjoying ourselves so much with Samantha, her friends, and her wonderful family.  Since we’re right on the border of Uruguay most people speak at least a little bit of Spanish, so we’ve been able to commucicate ok.  We’re headed  north tonight though to Florionopolis, which is about halfway to Rio from here.  There are supposed to be some AMAZING beaches there–I can’t wait!  We’ll see how we do with the tiny bit of Portugese we’ve been taught since we’ve been here!  Here are some photos from the past week and a half….just kidding.  Bootsnall has apparantly changed the setup of the blogsight and how to insert photos.  I had uploaded a ton of photos yesterday to insert today, but I can’t seem to find them right now.  I will try to add the photos by tomorrow! 

Ok, I’m going to attempt to add some photos now…let’s see how it goes.

Ok, I guess I figured it out, but I’m still playing with it, so if the pictures are out of proportion…sorry.  Anyway, this is the group of us that went dancing all night in Mendoza.  Here we are just after the sun came out on the terrace of the “boliche” (club.)  Helen (England), our Argentine friend whose name I forgot (I feel awful), Patricia (Belgium), and me. 

Here we are on our attemted bike ride to the wineries. Matt was on his second bike at this point (his first got a flat), Jason’s hands are filthy from having to fix his chain on the busy highway, and I just discovered that my tire popped…what a mess we were.

Here is a group of friends we made at the hostel.  All really cool, interesting people…for example Gavin (the one in blue with longish hair) is an ex-rugby player from England and Josh (the one in green), from Australia, is cycling the world over the next two years.

Here’s a picture of me as we were leaving Santa Fe.  I realized that I had no photos of myself with my huge backpack on.  And since I had just gotten my hair done that day, I thought it was a perfect opportunity! Girls, salons in Argentina are sooo much cheaper than in the States…it’s great. For less than half the price of a haircut in the U.S. I got my hair colored, deep conditioned,cut, and blowdryed and it was a really nice salon. I made Matt wait several hours for me because I just had to get it done one last time before leaving Argentina!  Within an hour it looked like crap again though because of the extreme heat and humidity…oh well.  Dad, I’m sure you’re shaking your head at this photo because of the size of my pack…I know, I know…I have way more than I need.

This is the Rio Parana in the town Parana.  As I said, this was a really cute town and I like it a lot.

I guess Matt felt inspired by my haircut and decided to his cut while in Mercedes.  His was even cheaper than mine, 30 Uruguayan pesos–about a dollar.  Originally the plan was to give him a mullet and we even had arranged it with our friend Jason in Mendoza who is a hair dresser, but we didn’t end up getting around to it…to bad.  As I think I’ve mentioned before, the mullet is very fashionable in these parts!

Here is a street in Mercedes.  Everybody seemed to ride mopeds here…young people, old people, business men and women.  We even saw several families of four on one moped!

Here we were right in the middle of Brazil and Uruguay.  The righe side of the view outside of the windshield is Brazil, the left side is Uruguay.

 Here we are in at Samantha’s house hanging out in the pool.  Samantha, her boyfried Duda, me, and Matt.  Don’t worry, Matt is working on getting rid of the farmer’s tan! 

Samantha’s dad, Jose Luis, making us a delicious churrasco!  Samantha’s parents were so wonderful and really made us feel welcome.  This was the day after we had the churrasco at the birthday party.  Jose Luis made us a THIRD churrasco the night before we left too…we were SO spoiled.

The family took us out to dinner one night and we had a great time.  We’re actually in Uruguay here…we went between Brazil and Uruguay all the time.  From the left: Duda, Rachel and Jose Luis (Samantha’s parents), Felipe and Anibal (two of Samantha’s good friends), Simoane (Samantha’s sister), Matt, me, and Samantha.

 Samantha and her mom Rachel drinking mate by the pool.  The south of Brazil is very similar to Uruguay and parts of Argentina.  They call themselves Gauchos in this region and therefore follow many gaucho traditions like drinking mate.  Duda, Samatha’s boyfriend (and a super cool guy!) taught us a lot about the their state Rio Grande Sul and told us that most people here feel more Gaucho pride than Brazilian pride.

Here we are on our last night with Samantha.  Matt and I are wearing rival soccer team shirts.  Jose Luis is a Colorado supporter and gave Matt his shirt, and Duda is a huge fan of the opposing team, Gremio, and gave me my shirt.  I have a capurihnia (not sure of spelling!), a typical Brazilian cocktail.

I know this is one of the longest posts ever…thanks to those of you that actually read this blog!  Matt and I made to Florianopolis this morning, after a 16 hour bus ride.  It’s beautiful, but it’s really cloudy and raining.  Hopefully it clears up tomorrow! 

     

 

 

 

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