Sau Paulo, Trancoso, Pantanal

After a longer than desired sabbatical from the blogosphere, here we go again. Since my last post on 4^th November I spent until the 18^th November in Rio. The latter weeks in Rio were not as packed with new experiences as the first two, and somewhat explained my absence.  Since then I have not had regular access to the internet, and it is quite ironic that this post comes to you via satellite internet from the Pantanal in Western Brazil, a few hundred miles away from the nearest town. Given the slow connection I will not be posting pictures, although I now have quite the collection, and will add some once I have the opportunity.

The Pantanal

To be more specific, your correspondent sits in a hammock outside of his room in the dark at the working cattle ranch Barra Mansa, where he is the only guest given that it is low season. Marvin Gaye plays on his laptop, while the crickets and frogs sing along melodically. He has just finished his first day in the Pantanal, the world’s largest area of wetlands the size of France, and quite a day it was. Rising at 6am, the day began with a tugboat tour of the Rio Negro River, upon the banks of which the lodge is situated, with Carlos the native guide who speaks no English. The river is teaming with wildlife, from Caiman to Capybara (the world’s largest rodent), to 100s of different bird species and much much more including if you’re lucky the Jaguar, the holy grail of the Pantanal. The ambience, floating down the river, listening to the nature and taking in the tranquillity and remoteness of the surroundings was pretty spellbinding, all four hours of it. Midday lunch was followed by a good nap, and then a three-hour horse ride into the wetlands with Mancho one of the lodge cowboys fitted with jeans, leather chaps and cigarette in mouth – also an unforgettable experience. For this time of year the water level is surprisingly low, around two meters lower than usual. The weather has been dry and the cowboys are waiting for rain to freshen things up a bit, which given the thunderstorm outside seems to be arriving.

The last two weeks in Rio were spent consolidating my love for the city, experiencing a variety of nightlife, and meeting Cariocas while brushing up on my Portuguese, which is making slow progress, but progress nonetheless. Rio offers some very original nights out where emphasis is on dancing, music and fun and less of the big spending bottle spraying (although that can be found) that is more prevalent in Sao Paulo. A night in Casa Rosa (the pink house), previously a brothel at the foot of a favela was a night of particular note. Serving traditional favela food known as Fechoada (meat stew with cowboy beans and rice), and different rooms playing a variety of music, from Samba to Baila Funke to live western rock music, this really was a night to remember.

Unfortunately my last week in Rio did not provide the right wind conditions to finish my kite surfing course – I guess reliance on wind is the sport’s one downside. I managed to get in five hours of kiting and took one lesson in the water with the kite and the board, managing to get up out of the water but abruptly falling back in. Given the strong wind and my small kite of 6 meters, I should be able to get up with a 9-meter kite (bigger kite means more power and greater pull out of the water). Nevertheless, my instructor rose effortlessly out of the water with one fell swoop of the kite, and placing it in the 10 o’clock position cruised away, leaving me bobbing in the water to reflect on my inadequacy. I will finish my course when I’m back in Rio over the New Year period, weather permitting, and will practice what I have learnt in Florianopolis during christmas.

Sao Paulo

I left Rio on the 19^th November and spent the weekend in Sao Paulo, staying at Sacha’s apartment (the landlord in Rio), that he generously lent me while he and his roommates spent the weekend in Rio. The apartment was in the Vila Madalena area, a hilly more bohemian and atypical part of the city given its predominance of lower housing. The streets are lined with boutique clothes stores, coffee shops and restaurants, and at night the streets are packed with Paulistas (people from Sao Paulo) frequenting the multitude of bars. Friday evening I had dinner with one of the French roommates before he caught the midnight overnight bus to Rio, before venturing out solo to scope out the bars. Given that I am not a seasoned soloist, I envisioned a beer or two before hitting the sack. The night turned out to be one of the stranger nights of my Brazil experience, meeting a group of inviting Paulistas at a samba bar, dancing, eating at 5am, and then buying a collection of LP records from an old, but evidently well-seasoned salesmen – space in my bag had I not.

Sao Paulo’s allure surprised me having come from the seemingly unsurpassable attraction of Rio. The city certainly offers a different vibe to that of Rio, with a greater air of chic sophistication given its infamous world-class restaurant and club scene. The city is massive, with the metropolitan area home to 20 million people, and the largest population of Japanese outside of Japan at 2 million, hence the city’s reputation for excellent sushi. Monotonous white skyscrapers dominate the city, but near the centre some interesting architecture can be found. Saturday, rising with a kind reminder of the night before, I ventured towards avenida Paulista, the city’s most famous street to check out MASP’s (Museum of Art Sao Paulo) famous art collection, followed by a peruse around Jardims, the city’s ritzy shopping district, and a nice solo dinner that was much needed. Saturday night was comparable to Friday, but the Sunday reminder was not quite as forceful. Sunday I spent at a friend from Penn’s humble abode, and was invited to have lunch with his parents. Having tasted the bar scene on Friday and Saturday, on Sunday I was keen to experience a Sao Paulo club. I met up with a friend, Charles, who had arrived in Sao Paulo after a wedding, and with whom I would spend the next few days with his friends from Tufts Ilana and Alex in Charles’s house in Trancoso.

Trancoso

The 22^nd to the 25^th were spent in Trancoso in Bahia state with the three Tufts companions. It was nice to be back with familiar company, speaking a familiar language. We flew from Sao Paulo to Porto Seguro (where the Europeans first landed in the New World), and drove two hours south to Trancoso. Bahia state and its much-lauded capital, Salvador which I will visit at a later date, is known for its African influences, particularly in its cooking, music and dancing (Capoeira is practiced a lot), and Bahian natives have a darker skin colour than Cariocas or Paulistas. Charles’s house, is a fifteen minute drive from Trancoso in a beautiful new complex development set on the cliff tops that has attracted buyers from Paulistas and Europeans alike, with French accents as common as the frogs. The drive to Trancoso would take five minutes if it weren’t for the abysmal roads, that resemble something more likely to be seen on Eurosport’s motocross challenge – our Fiat midget performed admirably, although I was glad to have left earlier than the others and therefore not be responsible for its return to Hertz. The claim is that with such pockmarked roads, the large tourist buses cannot reach Trancoso, and therefore its charm is maintained. Charm it has in abundance.

The town itself is situated up on the cliff tops, overlooking some of Brazil’s best beaches (officially top ten in Brazil’s beach bible – yes I keep it in my bedside table and read it every night before going to bed). The centre of town is a car-free zone, and colourful boutique clothing and food stores surround the central grass square that is apparently home to two grazing horses. At the cliff-end of the square is a charming, small, all-white church, while at the town end, a small bar on wheels serving fresh Caipirinhas proudly displays a Bob Marley towel and plays Buffalo Soldier, and the chilled-out, hippy feel of the place is consolidated. But hippy prices these are not, with chic restaurants and shops charging Sao Paulo and London prices.

For the two days spent in Trancoso, one was spent in sunshine on a local beach, and the second we weathered strong rain to drive one hour for lunch on one of Brazil’s most famous beaches, Praia Espelho, and disappoint it did not despite the sun not being out. The first night, we dug deep into our pockets for dinner at a good fish restaurant where we met a group of Paulistas with whom we shared quite a memorable drink at the Bob Marley wheelie-bar afterwards, which included dancing and talking with (as far as I could) an old fisherman maybe in his sixties who was born in Trancoso and had lived there all his life. He told me that for him Trancoso was the capital of the world – and if I’d been smoking what he had, I’d probably have believed him!

Getting from Porto Seguro to the Pantanal was quite a journey that involved a 3am flight, two further connections and a six hour 4WD drive on a dirt road. But all well worth it.

Enough of slapping the mosquitoes while I frantically type this out. Tomorrow morning is another early one, when I will be riding over with Mancho by horse to the neighbouring ranch (by neighbouring that means half an hour car ride and two hours by horse power), where they are hosting a day party with a Churrasco and a tournament involving different games with cowboys and their horses. A standard Sunday for me.

Howdy.

BTW…

Rio: Cidade Maravilhosa

Sunday was Election Day, with the whole country obliged to vote. Considering that in Dilma, Brazilians had elected their first female President, I expected some sort of celebrations. But I noticed nothing until reading on the internet that Dilma had won, and even then the occasional car honk could perhaps have been taken as a salute to victory, but otherwise nada. The country is divided as to the result, with the rich disappointed and the poor allowing themselves to maintain their hope.

On Tuesday I ventured into Rocinha, South America’s largest favela or slum. I went with two friends, one a local carioca who does social work with the children. Because most favelas are built on the hills in Rio as originally illegal settlements, visitors and residents alike arrive at the bottom and take a motor taxi up the steep, narrow and winding streets. This was an experience in itself. Motor taxis are motorbikes driven by favella boys who make 2 Reais (just over a dollar) per drop-off (this may be different for locals who are unlikely to be able to afford that amount). Our particular drivers thought it would be funny to scare the shit out of the three of us, deciding to race up the hill through the favela, narrowly missing crashing into each other, oncoming cars, pedestrians, cats, dogs and chickens. The roads (if you can really call them that) are teeming with motorbikes and people, and ravaged by potholes and bumps. Clinging on to the back of the Honda (Hondas seemingly run the favela), I convinced myself to relax, trust that this guy had done it before, and enjoy the experience. 

The favelas occupy some of the most impressive views in Rio, and despite the enormous contrast with the wealth, glamour and vanity of Zona Sul (Ipanema, Copacabana, Leblon) from which they arise, they are functioning, standalone and self-sufficient towns. In some corners there is a pungent smell of sewerage, and in others a quick glance will reveal a man casually slinging a machine gun (drugs provide income for the favela and guns provide protection). Despite having calmed down over recent years, conflicts between police and drug gangs in the favelas are ongoing, with shootouts not unheard of. In the main square there are all kinds of goods being sold, and a hodgepodge of colours and ages walking the streets. Recently some colour has been brought to the otherwise mundane brick structures. Electricity wires hang overhead like knotted spaghetti, and house walls are often nonexistent, left open to the maze of alleyways that intricately connect the slum. While cramped and seemingly disordered, there seems to be a method to the madness. Evidently there is a desire for the favelas to rise out of their state of poverty with Brazil’s strong economic growth, but people don’t seem to be trampled upon by their walk of life. Dilma will continue to pursue the leftist policies of her predecessor Lula, who strongly supported the poor with novel policies, promising to significantly reduce poverty within her term. I was happy to come out of my little City of God experience in tact with camera and phone in hand, although the motor taxi driver did short change me and sped off before I could count it.

Living in Rio is like living on a movie set, a continuum of surreal and magnificent images. This last week I have managed to fit in quite a bit. A Portuguese lesson by a waterfall in the last remaining virgin rainforest around Rio (virgin in that it has not been previously cut down and grown back like the rest), followed by a bike ride around the lagoon. In the evening a football match between Brazil’s most followed teams Flamengo v. Corinthians. Despite the stadium being less than half full, no English game I’ve been to comes close to the atmosphere here. Chanting and singing is non-stop. Even when a goal is conceded, a quick pause for thought, a brief acknowledgement of concession, and then straight back into the swing of things before the ball is even at the centre spot.

Sport is an integral part of life here, every opportunity is spent on or around the beach, and on sunny weekends finding a spot is near impossible. The variety of sports played on the beach cannot be counted on two hands. Running here is easy given the distractions that pass you by, and I surprised myself with a 15km run to the end of Copa beach and back that was more pleasure than pain. Stopping off on my return for a cold coconut I briefly lingered to watch the floodlit beach football. Fancying my footie skills I thought maybe I’ll ask to give it ago – a few dazzling stepovers, flicks and shimmies later (some of which I could not do on grass let alone sand), I thought better of it and was on my way. I have had three kitesurfing lessons, and can now control the kite in the water. Next lesson, when wind permits, I’ll be using the board for the first time and getting up out of the water accompanied by a motorboat. Watching from shore the mixture of grace, power and manoeuvrability, I think addiction will fast set in. The sight of a launch off with a 12-metre kite connected 20-metres away, an effortless cruise across the broken waves and then cool as anything a tug on the bar, a catch of the wave, and a backflip grab, would beat even the most intricate of Michel's leveraged buyout financial models. The bus ride back from the surf beach to Zona Sul is about twenty minutes on a good day, and that too was an experience in itself. Policy here seems to be that if you can fit in the bus, you’re on the bus - there is no maximum limit and the driver will even drive with open doors if someone is brave enough to cling on from the outside. While pressed against the front windscreen and concentrating on not flying through it as the driver raced down the impressive sea front highway, I noticed a man from a favela wearing a pink cap with ‘TOMBOY’ embroidered on it - maybe they’re not so badass after all.

There are a lot of different options for going out, with some good clubs, bars and hidden samba spots. For the Halloween weekend I went to a very chilled out, hippie birthday party a friend of mine was throwing at his girlfriend’s place in Santa Teresa, a very different part of Rio set on a hill and with a colonial vibe to it. After, I went to a club that was having its opening night. One thing that is incredibly frustrating about going out is the ridiculously bureaucratic system they use for ordering and paying for drinks. Entering a club involves showing ID, entering it into the system and taking a digital photo. They then issue you a card or piece of paper that is swiped or ticked off every drink that is ordered. No cash is paid at the bar to ensure that the least amount of people have contact with the money. Instead, you queue to order your drink on credit never knowing exactly how much you have racked up. Losing the card makes the whole process infinitely more complicated, especially if someone finds it and charges drinks to you. At the end of the night when you finally just want to go home, you queue again to settle your bill at the single checkout point with everyone leaving at the same time, with the receipt finally providing your exit ticket. A caveman could have come up with something more efficient.

Despite the notorious crime rate and stories of muggings in Rio I have yet to feel threatened whilst here. People do still get mugged, some multiple times, at knife or gun point and mostly by favela residents. In general, to avoid such events, people are dressed casually with little emphasis on bling. Cops are still crooked and supposedly target foreigners, often planting drugs to coerce a bribe. An English guy I met took a bus up into Rosinha at 3am to buy some weed before heading home (stupid in itself) and was pulled over on leaving. Faced with the threat of arrest he offered a bribe, to which the two cops humbly obliged. ATMs close at midnight here to reduce the threat of late-night muggings, so he was taken to the petrol station to swipe his card for a petrol purchase, with $300 cash returned. After refusal to pay more, the cops accepted and friendly banter pursued, followed by them giving him back his weed........and everything else they had confiscated that night. So effectively, he ended up buying weed off the cops.

Food is decent here with the staple diet rice, beans and chicken, but generally standard affair is pretty greasy, with a lot of pastry and melted cheese. Meat is almost always good, although I have yet to visit a Churrascaria. There are good restaurants but often with absurdly cheeky prices that don't match the quality of the food. Rio is not a cheap place by any means, especially with the Brazilian Real so strong. Real estate is no exception with apartments on the Ipanema and Copa beachside avenues some of the most expensive properties in South America, with prices rocketing in the past 5 years. The new areas for investment are closer to the centre of town where development is still behind.

Sao Paolo didn't happen last weekend, but I'll be heading over there one of the next weekends. Sao Paolo and Rio are viewed as equivalent to New York and LA, one a concrete jungle with great nightlife and culture, the other a less stressed, outdoor beach lifestyle. In the meantime, to get a taste of what this city has to offer, the Rio campaign video for the 2016 Olympic games - Cidade Maravilhosa. Definitely could see myself living here, but temptations and excuses abound not to go to work.

BTW...