Cataratas do Iguacu

That's right! Iguacu, not Iguazu, because we are on the Brazilian side! Pictures really do speak a thousand words and sometimes words just aren't enough. Have a gander!


Our first view of the Iguacu Falls, a natural world wonder.



A humble quati minding his own business.



Somewhere over the rainbow...



Gazing towards the Garganta do Diabo (Devil's Throat).


Up close and personal.



Finishing off with a great panorama.

A gente vai para Paraguay!

This translates as 'we are going to Paraguay!' and if you can make a rhyme as classy as that, then why not?! Our flight from Recife to Foz de Iguaçu came with a connection in São Paulo, which made way for a long sleepless night. Being creative with time, we occupied ourselves with a couple of salgados and coconut cakes, and we succeeded in fighting the sandman’s temptation of sleep! With a couple of hours dozing on and off during flight time we managed to get through from being awake from seven-thirty in the morning the day before until a short siesta kicked in at about half past six in the afternoon. We’ll sleep well tonight, that’s for sure! But let’s not forget what happened between the time of our arrival in Foz de Iguaçu and our early evening snooze.
We embarked on a short bus journey to the town centre in search of the cheapest possible hostel. A friendly lady who conjured up a marvellous ‘morango’ milkshake (strawberry) gave us directions to a modest hostel away from the main street, which turned out to be miles better value and had hardly any foreigners. After negotiating our check-in and check-out times we decided that the day was not young enough to venture out to what most people see when they come to this town, so we decided to pop to Paraguay for the afternoon.
From where we are today, the Ciudad del Este is only about thirty minutes away on the bus and it seems to be a very popular destination for the Brazilian people, if only to buy cheap electrical goods. However, we hear that it’s wise to test the product before leaving the shop to make sure that it actually works. The journey there would have probably lasted only fifteen minutes if it wasn’t for the heaving traffic. The bus ride was enjoyable all the same and got really interesting as we saw more and more Paraguayan registration plates and mixed ethnicities during our crossing of the Parana River over the large bridge. After being informed that the bridge is dangerous to cross on foot we remained bus-borne until we reached the crowded market on the other side. We were in Paraguay! Many rainbow-coloured parasols were sheltering grateful Guarani market traders from the intense sun and by comparison with Brazil, the motor madness was much more chaotic. In fact many taxi employees have wised up to this and now the motorbike taxi industry is flourishing just as much as the conventional four-wheel taxi transportation. It was interesting that Portuguese was still being widely spoken but as we wandered much deeper into the market, sounds of Spanish and Guarani became dominant. We squeezed through a mish-mash of people and narrow market stands, most of which were selling cheap sandals, counterfeit watches, undergarments and sports clothes to reach the other side where we made the spontaneous decision of taking a taxi to the Salto del Monday!
Our taxi driver was very amusing and kept us on our toes as we have not yet started going ahead with our good intentions to learn Spanish. He was speaking Spanish to us and we spoke Portuguese back. The best thing was though, that we could understand each other, but when Jon asked him to speak some Guarani in order to get a feel for things, it all went far over our heads. Still, it was great fun trying! The old local buses here are fantastic: painted in a jaunty way to lift the mood of both travellers and passers-by. As we drove out of the city, the whole atmosphere changed abruptly: tiny bungalows, dirty old workshops, non-tarmacked roads, some cobbled, some just unpaved. This was the real Paraguay!
No sooner as we arrived to the Salto del Monday it started to chuck it down with cats and dogs, leaving us completely drenched within the first minute of being outside. The Salto de Monday is a wonderful waterfall located nine kilometres from the Ciudad del Este and the sound of the light brown water crashing onto more water and rocks from these great heights was unbelievably relaxing and filled our brains with endorphins there and then. It fills us with excitement when we hear that what tomorrow has in store for us is supposed to be even more breathtaking, but if you haven’t guessed already, you’ll just have to wait and see!
We lunched very lightly with a small mixed buffet that spoiled us for choice. From this first impression, it seems as though the Paraguayans eat very well! We had a mixture of black beans, curried gnocchi, savoury cakes made entirely of corn, rice (both plain and curried) and a special red beef stew that was almost goulash-like. It was an achievement in itself being able to concentrate on the scrumptiousness of the magnificent feast in front of us as the mixture of people around us was even more fascinating! Who would have thought that we would have been dining where three different languages were being spoken, well, four if you’re including our English!
It was fairly late by the time we had finished our further browsing time in the market and had returned to base in Foz de Iguaçu, so our appetites had to be satisfied yet again. Well, since we had just been to another country, we felt that a celebratory meal was called for. What better than the ‘rodizio de pizza’ just round the corner from our hostel? This entails being seated at the restaurant to chow down on some tasty pizzas, which are brought around non-stop by the waiters and waitresses, and come in all kinds of flavours, from fairly ordinary to outrageously whacky! I hasten to add that I would be awful at that job as there would be no pizza left between taking it out of the oven and passing it the paying customer. Here is a list of the to-die-for toppings that we chomped in order: chicken heart, garlic, ham and spinach, fish stroganoff, chicken and cheese, pepperoni, (very salty) beef and tomato as well as ham and chilli. Oh! And for afters, more pizza followed but the topping were a little different: white chocolate and strawberry, coconut and condensed milk (maybe there was white chocolate in this one too), milk chocolate and coconut, milk chocolate solo and one that resembled a toffee crisp chocolate bar with chocolate pebble dashed with small biscuit balls. It was a great day all round apart from the painful waddle home after the all-you-can-eat pizza frenzy! We might just forget eating now for a few days.

Recife and Olinda

Just how do you pronounce the mighty city of Recife? We’ve heard so many versions, mainly from the mouths of non-Portuguese speakers. So Charlie Flesch, our new Brazilian biologist friend was able to oblige with the correct pronunciation, complete with authentic accent: Hair-sea-fee. Got that? Ok, let’s move on. We’re in the state of Pernambuco, a narrow wedge of land which is renowned throughout the vast country of Brazil for its amazing carnival and its infectious Forró music. And there’s one other thing which makes this place so special: it was the home of Dom Helder Câmara, one of the most practically influential liberation theologians of the Latin American continent.
Olinda is so called as a result the Portuguese navigator who discovered the fantastic viewpoint overlooking the wonderful scenery of old Recife exclaimed “Oh! Linda!”. This literally translates to ‘Oh! Beautiful’, which were probably sighed out with all his alveolar capacity as he finished his grand hike up to the peak of the mini-mountain on which the small city sits today. It truly deserves its UNESCO Heritage Site status as it is a huge cauldron of old Portuguese-style churches, cobbled streets and brightly coloured buildings. It later became evident that people living there can paint their houses any colour they like and it’s almost like each of the fluorescent dwellings were trying to outshine their neighbours. There’s Frêvo here, there’s Umbanda and Candomblé and Capoeira: just like Salvador, and the brightly painted buildings look the same too. But here it’s much less frenetic, more peaceful, even more beautiful. And the carnival mannequins are huge! We popped briefly into the Museu do Arte Sacra to take a quick look at some relics from the colonial period just to get into the mood.
We stopped by a luring art gallery, where the artists demonstrated such versatility in their work styles. The two artists practiced oil paints, acrylics, clay modelling, watercolours and probably many other styles all hidden behind layers and layers of exhibits. The man, Senhor Calazans was both flattered and eager to deny any plagiarism when Simon likened his painting of Amazon warriors (the mythical women rather than from the mighty river) to Picasso’s ‘Demoiselles d’Avignon’; he was also proud of his painting of the Apocalypse, with an angel top left, Satan bottom right, and the globe being judged in the centre; we were also startled by his fisherman carrying red fish with a yoke, which was coincidentally reminiscent of Jon’s pastel version of a boy running down the lane with fish in Teknaf, Bangladesh. It is definitely inspirational art, and perhaps we will start getting involved in craft when we get home! When the woman in the shop had finished explaining the works of her ‘aquarela’ (watercolour), Jon started to sing a famous Brazilian song called, believe it or not, ‘aquarela’: Numa folha qualquer eu desenho um sol amarelo… She was over the moon and joined in.
Around Olinda we encountered many statues of St Francis with numerous birds, and as throughout this region of Brazil, countless images, bas-reliefs and statues of São Jorge Guerrero: St George in full warrior mode, slaying the dragon. The devotion to him here is something to do with the syncretic cults, and Simon seems to remember that he is the ‘cover’ for a deity in Candomblé, but can’t quite remember his name… In the Praça da Sé there’s a bar called Preto Velho, named after the old slave character in Umbanda, and in numerous craft workshops we encountered the Carnival figure of a Caboclo with a spear, again something more than just a mere legend.
Our friends who came along, including Donald, Dave and Cecilia, and equally ourselves were all impressed with the place and could have easily spent much more time here, but we had to check out parts of Recife too, so we headed for a Rodizio de Churrasco in Boa Viagem, where we could eat to our hearts content if we wanted. None of us did, however, so three beers went down and a Caipirinha whilst we watched the various meats being dished out. Jon and Cecilia took charge of the situation, both displaying consummate tact, diplomacy and hood humour! We only needed a small snack but it was very much all or nothing; so we only had the option to pay thirty-five Brazilian reais for all we could eat or to leave. We left and proceeded to the Casa Cultura: artisans’ shops in the cells of a converted three-storey, three-winged prison to enjoy some ‘salgados’ (small, savoury pastries/breads with various fillings) and pitanga milkshakes. Pitanga is a fruit found in Brazil, which doesn’t translate into English because we don’t have it at home but it tastes like an acidic raspberry.
We enjoyed views of both new and old parts of Recife and clusters of favelas were noticeable on riverbanks. There were even some being kept above river water on stilts. The blend of old and new, rich and poor, branco e preto is just what makes this part of Brazil so invigorating! To do full justice to Pernambuco, Recife and Olinda would take at least a week. There’s music to tantalise the ear, fruit to tickle the taste buds, ceramics, sculptures and carvings to furnish entire houses without fear of repetition: Hopefully there will be a window in the diary for 2012/3 to make a hop over the Atlantic…

Feliz Natal!

Well we’ve made it to the state of Rio Grande do Norte, to the far eastern tip of Brazil, jutting out into the Atlantic and just a short hop over to Senegal! Here in the city of Natal there is an historic, colonial core with some brightly painted and well-preserved churches. We stumbled upon an oasis of calm in a Franciscan monastery, exploring the small church and secluded cloisters, and then on to the Metropolitan cathedral, a concrete barn thrown up in a hurry and on a tight budget, where the roof didn’t quite meet up with the walls: in this heat, it’s not such a problem. We checked out two shopping malls, the first totally modern, massive and smart with fierce air-conditioning; the second more laid back with expensive fast food joints.
Meanwhile, back in the old part of the city, on the higher ground and known as the Cidade Alta, we halted on a street corner at a tiny café for a quick pit stop: salgados (fried savouries such as empanadas and pasteis) fresh pineapple juice and an avocado vitamina. One of our goals was to locate a Terreiro do Candomblé, but the address was far out of town and time was against us. But round the next corner was some consolation, for down an atmospheric side-street we found the Casa do Orixas, a small shop devoted to statues of saints, religious artefacts and all the paraphernalia associated with the cult of Umbanda. Here the statues were of dancers, old slaves and nestling on a lower shelf was Exu. But isn’t he a Candomblé deity rather than Umbanda? Syncretic cults can be confusing, and it’s not really possible to do anything more than just scratch the surface. But at least we’ve managed to make contact!
Wandering lost through narrow streets proved to be a great decision to round the day off as little did we know that we were shortly wandering alongside notorious favela territories, where the inhabitants gave us a mixture of looks; some smiling beside others that were dubiously straight-faced. To see the favelas close up was intriguing! Narrow paths winding up through no-go dwellings which locals had built from the basic bricks that they could find, the vast majority being terracotta except from the few houses that brightened up the scene with their brilliantly bright paint colour schemes. We were sure to stop and overlook the river where the fishermen were balancing on the thin, broken concrete ledges of the harbour side, forcibly hauling in their nets using all reserve muscle power. The multicoloured fishing boats with their unique names painted on their sides and rims tended to bob gently as a gentle breeze created weak rippling movements on the water’s surface.

Fortaleza

We’ve arrived in a city of 2.4 million people; the capital of the Brazilian state of
Ceará. As first impressions go, it was quite breathtaking to see the golden coastline hugged by rather futuristic high-rise blocks. Once on the ground it was a completely different story and from this aspect we became aware of the deceptive beach front and the underlying real life that many of the locals enjoy simultaneously with endurance. As it was Sunday when we arrived in Fortaleza, the city was comparatively silent by Brazilian standards and everybody seemed to have headed out of town to enjoy the idealistic lifestyle of a beach bum.
The local bus ride into the city centre was bewildering! We saw beauty and happiness in the street children, some of who were playing futebol whilst others were ‘soltando pipa’ (flying single-stringed kites). When Jon was living in the Zona Norte of Rio de Janeiro, he became involved in the joyful pipa game. Onto the roof of his house he climbed to set up for the contest, taking in an unforgettable view of the local Carioca neighbourhoods and favelas at the same time but also trying to spy out other peoples’ kites with whom he would play. To start playing, one has to fly their kite and if they are the only one doing so, somebody is guaranteed to eagerly join them within seconds. Once there are one or more kites high overhead, the aim of the game is to cut each others kite strings. The one remaining with their kite still flying is the winner (though some cheaters roll their cords in glass shards to give them that extra boost).
After disembarking the bus we admired an aqua blue and brilliant white colonial building before wandering up to the Mercado Central to admire some local handicrafts and re-hydrate. Curios stray cats and optimistic dogs scoured through clusters of rubbish that seemed to appear every so often along the way and we were always sure to cross to the opposite side of the street for fear of potential rabies transmission. The occasional street child looked at us imploringly, and the level of malnourishment was startling: perhaps even worse than the children we came across in Bangladesh. The market itself had many cheap t-shirts with humorous phrases printed on, plenty of clay figurines holding drums or accordions to illustrate the Forró music culture, and finely detailed wooden carvings of religious scenes, wildlife, architecture, you name it! We could have easily blown our life savings in that place but with a little discipline and willpower, we wandered across to the Cathedral without looking back. It was rather plain and was all white apart from the numerous beautiful stained glass windows and the crucifix which was illuminated with electric-blue lights from behind. Attentive church-goers watched as the bishop of Fortaleza was enthusiastically running the service, and a couple of needy street children walked by with open palms. Then it was off to a small street market with cobblestones covered with sand, plenty of beachwear for sale, and a coconut vendor who was able to quench our thirst handsomely!
The district of Iracema is slightly down-at-heel, and so we moved onwards via a supermarket, where we bought a variety of local chilled drinks, to a beach-side bar for ice-cold Chopp and chicken hearts. Yes, chicken hearts, and they were extremely tasty! Sundays in central Fortaleza are slightly tricky: our visit to the Centro Cultural Dragão do Mar proved to be fruitless as everything was closed! So what to do…hang on, this is Brazil, so off to the beach! The local buses are fantastic, and the journey past favellas and tiny streets with colourfully painted houses with red-tiled roofs and ad-hoc games of futebol captured the mood perfectly. The Praia do Futuro was packed: many thousands of people doing one of the things that Brazilians do best of all! This is the life! Had we been hungry here, vendors plied their trade in lollipops of cheese to whack upon their tiny, portable barbeques, almost like thuribles containing hot charcoal and swinging from a chain.
Meanwhile, back on the trail, we hit the Meireles strip just as the sun was setting. This can be best described as a cross between Miami beach and Benidorm. Past the tiny fishing beach, off which jangada fishing boats with their curved masts were anchored and accessible only from the tiny rowing boats piled up on the beach, and on to the large craft fair which commences each day at dusk. Fortaleza was gradually springing into life, and the promenade became highly animated with passers-by, street artists and circus acts. Suitably fortified with a fat tapioca, condensed milk and coconut delicacy from two elderly women pushing a street-vendor’s cart, we pushed onwards along the strip, taking in the vacation atmosphere of this massive resort, and enjoying the balmy, tropical evening.

Santarem and Alter do Chão

The city of Santarem is sited at the confluence of two mighty rivers: the Amazon and the Tapajós. The Amazon water is dense and muddy, laden with alluvial deposits and vegetable matter, whilst the Tapajós runs almost clear, and appears much darker to the eye. Just to the east of Santarem it’s possible to see the Ilha Grande do Tapartu and the place where the two rivers meet, flowing side-by-side for many miles, but refusing to mingle! Our goal is to travel further upstream of the Tapajós to the small village of Alter do Chão in search of a little slice of fluvial paradise. But will we find it?
Pink river dolphins were a great start to the nature of the Amazon. The numbers of this freshwater dolphin species have unfortunately been diminishing and they are such beautiful creatures. As the name suggests, they really are pink and most have grey markings on them too.
We made a visit to the large blue cathedral of Santarem founded by the Jesuits, and then straight to the fish market to check out some amazing varieties of Amazon river fish, one of which seems to have eyes decorating its tail fins! This may possibly be to deter predators. For one, these eyes appear much larger than the fish’s real eyes and an attacking predator may be fooled into thinking it’s much larger than it actually is and therefore may have consequences to pay should it decide to move in for the kill. Another reason that’s just as likely is that these spots are actually to mimic an animal’s head, thus disguising it as a tail. As predators are likely to attack the head/body regions, the advantage to this would be to grant the fish one final chance to escape. A small tear in the tail is certainly better than a wound to the head. In this case, these adaptations didn’t seem to outsmart the fishermen. The food hall within the market provides a few aromas to savour and salivate over.
As the noon heat began to scorch, we decided to crack on with things. We waited patiently for our bus to stop on Avenida Rui Barbosa. The time flew as we were also busy taking in the daily grind and awing over the ‘sorvete’ stands. So many ice-creams in so many flavours. Oh Yeah! Must keep an eye out for the bus! It was sometimes very unclear where some of the buses were headed for, be it small writing or no writing! A couple of times Jon held his arm out to flag down a bus and shouted “Isto onibus vai para Alter do Chão?”, but on both occasions they were going elsewhere. Moments after a bus approached speedily with “Alter do Chão” written boldly across the sign on the front. This was it! We were starting our hour long journey to a small oasis within the thick of the tropical rainforest. The journey was a little hair-raising as the driver seemed to be ignoring the speed limit signs and dust flew in through the windows when the good quality road transformed itself to a red dirt track. Travelling past the dense topical rainforest gave us the rare opportunity to compare it with our experiences in the Taman Negara of Malaysia and the slice of the Lowacherra rainforest we visited in Bangladesh.
We paid our bus fare at the end of the journey, exiting through a turnstile just like at a football ground and clambering down from the bus onto an intersection of the village laden with bars, cafes, small restaurants, pousadas and gift shops. All seemed to be closed for siesta time, and perhaps made this village seem rather more touristy than we had been led to expect. But the main praça revealed the magnificent vista of the river and the inviting Ilha do Amor, with its pristine white sandy beaches and glistening, blue water. The praça also contained plenty of small stalls which looked like they could spring into life at dusk, as well as a pretty colonial church.
We headed down a sandy dirt-track road, past the vultures waddling around, in search of our intended lodgings for the night: the Albergue do Floresta. Through a gateway in a fence made entirely from dried palm fronds, we entered into a small haven of tranquillity away from the bustle of village life, a world of brightly coloured hammocks and tiny blue wooden cabins, where only the chirp of a few insects could be heard. They assured us that there were no mosquitoes here, and that nets were unnecessary. So we bagged a hammock each and decided to swing around for a good few minutes to get used to this new, tropical method of relaxing, chilling, and later (much later…) sleeping.
Right then, let’s explore around the praça of Alter do Chão! We settle down for a quick pit stop of Frango Empanado (large chunks of chicken breast deep-fried in breadcrumbs) which arrive together with lashings of mayonaise jazzed up with plenty of ketchup, and an orange coloured Brazilian chilli sauce which, when poured liberally over the chicken, makes it sing in the mouth! Back down at the water’s edge, the time came to cool off with a small ice-lolly (picolé) before we paddled over to the waterside bar. Well actually, it’s more IN the water than beside it. You could easily swim right up to your table! Here we cool down once more with an amazingly flavoured refrigerated soft drink called Guarana.
By early evening we had managed to find an almost deserted beach to enjoy an astonishing sunset over the Rio Tapajós. The sun descended as a massive flaming ball, even penetrating through the cloud cover as it began to dip beneath the horizon of virgin rainforest miles away beyond the still river. The water in Amazonia right now is at a very low level, so the beaches stretch quite some distance and the floating pontoons stand marooned on the sand. Later in the year it will be a very different story. We start to explore once more around the centre of the village, ultimately seeking food but stumbling upon some amazing shops specialising in colourful local handicrafts, from brightly painted wooden macaws, to small latex armadillos amidst countless tribal spears, blowpipes and drums. Fantastic!
We opt for food local-style, not gringo style; you should know us by now from the last two years worth of blogs! A small stall with a roadside barbeque of magnificent skewers of roast chicken on the churrasquinho proves to be exactly the right choice. These kebabs can then be sprinkled liberally with crunchy corn-flower (farinha) and plenty of chilli sauce. This might just be the best BBQ chicken we’ve ever tasted! They asked us to try some passion fruit juice (maracuja) to wash it down with, and it would have been silly not to accept! And yes, mais dois se faz favor! Just a few paces away is a terrific ice-cream stall with a bewildering array of flavours to choose from. Jon finds tapioca ice-cream, which has a lush, rich flavour and an astonishing texture from the little pearls of tapioca hidden in each lick. The passion fruit ice cream was equally delectable, too!

The night in the hammock was quite frankly magical! All the insects of the forest had struck up their nocturnal symphony, which would continue until dawn. There would seem to be an infinite number of positions you can adopt when lying in your hammock, and it was fun trying out as many as possible until sleep would eventually intervene, but then at various points throughout the night you would re-adjust and then nod off again. A soothing tropical rain shower had helped lower the temperature around midnight, and whilst it was still pitch-black at 6 am, a rooster made sure that we stirred to great the coming day. Breakfast started for us along the river front with a fried tapioca pancake laden with condensed milk and coconut, progressing to a table at a tiny café on the square with a batida de abacate (avocado milkshake), a café preto and a cafezinho. As we chilled out here for a while we admired the bird life. One delightful specimen that caught our eyes had a shimmering mustard yellow belly and head, and was gliding through the air showing off its black wing and tail feathers. It was the size of a small blackbird but it’s ego was the size of an albatross!

This is what Brazil is all about; the friendly people, the awesome food and the spectacular wildlife.

Sailing up the Amazon

The sea was blue, the tropical Atlantic, as we travelled Southwest from French Guiana along the Brazilian seaboard. And then it was green, and perhaps grey, as the storm clouds gathered, as is the norm during the afternoons. But then something rather strange happened: the water started to change colour, and it gradually became quite a murky brown. As the shadows started to lengthen, we spied a procession of tiny white boats with green sails: a family flotilla of Brazilian fishing boats! As night drew on the water became calmer and much browner, becoming just like milky-white coffee. The scent of tropical rainforest humidity wafted on the night airs, as cicadas and bioluminescent insects flew round our heads, and up above the stars twinkled in the spacious firmament. We had crossed over the ‘bar’…
By morning it all became clear: we were slowly penetrating the heart of the Floresta Amazonica, past Macapa and along mangrove swamps, loose water hyacinths, floating grasses and magnificently tall, towering trees with the occasional cluster of vultures circling above. But as if this wasn’t quite enough, we were shortly to be greeted by friendly natives on their shallow, carved wooden rowing boats, waving excitedly at us. They had emerged from tiny river tributaries that had small, wooden huts (just like the Malaysian kampongs we discovered last year). We took no notice of a ghostly cloud of what appeared to be a thick mist which approached us from behind, give or take the twenty minutes of its stealthy approach. We were soon enjoying a thorough drenching of cool tropical rain, a soothing respite from the intense equatorial heat of noon. We also became acquainted with a hawk moth, many large beetles and a bee which landed on Jon’s arm, but resisted the temptation to sting him!