bit of summing up on brazil

As if to prove I also enjoyed the Pantanal, I am happy to say I can publish ANOTHER top-bird-name-I-have-spotted list. And this time ther are 10!

10: plumbeous ibis
9: bare faced currassow
8: white-rumped monjita
7: chaco chacalaca
6: chestnut-eared aracari
5: helmeted manakin
4: blue-throated piping guan
3: pale-legged hornero
2: campo flicker
1: shiny cowbird

I am also extremely pleased to report that we found the anti-Pantanal in terms of naturey places to be hung over. Hello 'Bonito'- the place so 'bonito' they named it 'Bonito'! a perfect way to get over a night on the caipirinhas (ah, how we'll miss Brazil) is to go out into the steaming hot savannah (as before) BUT THEN climb into a cool, crystal clear river with a snorkel and shorty wetsuit and allow yourself to be gently pulled downstream, listening to the tropical birds in the forest around whilst looking at big, colourful, smiley fishes. Even better than Neurofen and a McDonalds.

incidentally...

Top 5 Brazilian place names and their meanings:

5: Bonito (beautiful)
4: Recife (reef)
3: Minas Gerais (general mines)
2: Tiradentes (pulling teeth)
1: Rio de Janeiro (January river)

I shall reflect further on this country over the coming weeks and treat you to my musings. For now, though, sitting in our final Rodaviaria (bus station, and I never got the pronunciation right), with a bottle of '51 cachaca in my bag and havaiana flip flops on my feet, I can safely say I have loved out time in Brazil. it is a shame to spend our last night on a bus but we will have a little coda on the Brazilian side of Iguacu falls after meeting La Barr and La Big Sister Plumridge on the Argentinian side, so all is good.

STOP PRESS: we have just Ben told our bus is over 90 minutes late. Tsssk- naughty South America!

Jaguar in the Pantanal

Our adventure in the Pantanal started well. On the drive from the city of Cuiaba into the wilderness we had to swerve to avoid hitting a spider. No joking: a brown, hairy bird-eating spider that could be seen from 50 yards away, and was as big as my head. Joe was considerably rattled, and only reluctantly left the safety of the car to inspect said insect.

I have to admit to feeling slightly apprehensive before our little safari. I had spent a lot of money booking us into a remote bird-watchers' hotel and had paid for a guide for the full 4 days - quite an extravagance given our budget, so I was really hoping it would be good. For those that don't know, the Pantanal is the world's biggest wetland, pretty much in the centre of Brazil, and home to crazy creatures such as jaguars and things that look like foxes on stilts. It was something I'd been really looking forward to. And it didn't disappoint - in fact I think it's the most amazing place I've ever been.

To get a sense of how remote our hotel was, the drive from Cuiaba took about five hours, much of which was on a dirt road with railway-sleeper type bridges over patches of marsh and lily pads. We came at the end of the dry season, but by January time the whole road looks like it's floating on a vast lake. Even by the side of the road we saw toucans, hawks, capybara (big ginger guineapigs) and caiman.  And so began four heavenly days. My binoculars worked overtime. There was life everywhere you looked, and just walking about and peering into bushes revealed something unexpected and beautiful.

In total we saw 90 species of bird, and our guide never minded me bugging him with endless questions or notes I'd made from his Portuguese bird book. We spent many happy hours under trees just looking up at owls or a woodpecker moving around the canopy. One of my particular highlights was getting up to see the sunrise and watching two hyacinth macaws flying overhead in the stillness. Understandably for a place full of wildlife it's also full of mosquitoes - which aren't scared to go straight for the face - and ticks - which burrow into the legs. It's also, as Joe says, unbearably hot in the middle of the day - which makes putting on all your clothes to ward off insects seem like hard work. But I've never been to a place like it. Our hotel was right on a waterway, covered with luminous green foliage and pale blue water hyacinths. Capybaras and ibis wandered around. Scary old Finnish birdwatchers dragged £8000 telescopes to the top of scaffolding towers to capture barred ant shrikes mating, or something.

For me, some of the best parts were just watching wildlife near our hotel - tiny black and white birds calling in little ponds, incredible prehistoric looking storks in the grassland, and a huge Guinness-type toucan at a bird feeder right outside our room. But the trips out were incredible. We had a mixture of walking safaris, trips on boats, and one in a high-sided jeep. On each occasion it was just Joe and I, our lovely guide, and an amazing old Brazilian cowboy who lived on the ranch. He became a particular favourite, with his happy ways, toothless grin and big paunch. He had a way of smiling and giggling to himself in very nasal-sounding Portuguese, while wielding an enormous machete close to Joe's head. 

Without boring everyone senseless I will just describe one particular incident which will stay with us forever. We were on a little boat cruising down the river, discussing the difference between striated, capped and little blue herons while Joe dozed and cursed the heat. We had been feeding kingfishers and hawks by throwing fish into the water. (Our cowboy would put a bit of meat on the end of a small bamboo rod and line, and within 30 seconds another piranha would take the bait. He would then stuff a water hyacinth bulb down the half-dead fish's throat - mumbling happily to himself - and lob it in.) But I digress. We had stopped to look at a giant potoo (my favourite bird, a nocturnal grey chap with huge eyes, who spends the day pretending to be a branch) and when I turned round there was a jaguar there. Not 20 metres away, nonchalantly walking down the opposite riverbank. We followed her for about an hour. She was hunting, and as she walked down the riverbank we heard jays sounding the alarm, and capybara taking to the water. She was so beautiful and huge and sleek, with a glossy coat in perfect patterns. We saw her swim out before us, all streamlined with her tail in the air. Then she reached a family of giant otters: aggressive types, about four-foot long with big sharp teeth. She crouched and tried to attack one, and suddenly all seven turned on her, rearing out of the water and screaming while she bared her teeth and growled. This standoff went on for about a minute, with water churning and deafening cries before the jaguar backed off. Amazing. 

Other highlights of the trip included seeing a tapir and lots of nightjars on the night safari, seeing a giant anteater from a distance, as well as various monkeys, deer, a tortoise, a raccoon and something Joe swears was a puma. My favourites were the birds, something Joe didn't quite share my enthusiasm for. One or two of the plumper, more tasty-looking ones he called 'Christmassy'. And he made himself laugh out loud with a 'it caiman went' joke. 

The final moment that will stick in my mind was on the car journey back. The guide asked if I'd like to stop in one of the lodges to buy a copy of the bird book. But when we found one it was expensive, so I said no and we drove on. Ten minutes later as we'd stopped to look at yet another bird, he scribbled something in the front of his guide and handed it to us. So now we have a much-loved copy with his notes in it. A lovely gesture, and one which made me cry. 

Rio, Brasilia, and on

With pleasing symmetry I am again in a very happy place writing this, due to lovely experiences, high anticipation of what is to come and another wrigley-family notice- congratulations to mela for somehow persuading the lovely Helen to marry him. Congrats to both. Am intrigued to see what etty can come up with before my next post.

Rio is my new favourite place. I don't know how my expectations weren't higher but how lovely to have them utterly exceeded? The zona sul and centre, anyway, is probably the richest urban environment I have ever come across. Everywhere has either mountain, lagoon or sea, or a combination. Christo Redentor is an incredibly serene and beautiful presence throughout the city. Ipanema and Copacabana beaches have their own distinctive paving patterns which cariocas use as signifiers of local pride. It is all green and bright and it has great food and caipirinhas.

Inevitably this all leads to regret- at not staying longer, not seeing a favela, not getting to a football match. But we did so much: seeing the streets turn green and violet when fiuminense won the league; eating feijoada and kind-of-sambaing in a Sunday night club; enjoying views and beers in Santa Theresa. I hope I'll go back one day. I left my beard there so I have to.

Brasilia was a bit different. Since the government closed down all cheap accommodation it was only ever going to be a flying visit, in on a night bus and back out the same evening, having ticked as many Niemeyer boxes as I could. It  was pretty much exactly as expected and conformed to my opinions on 60s modernism. Crisp, white buildings don't stay crisp and white for long and show up wear and tear very clearly. I don't like shapey architecture anyway. It is boring. And if it is going to be a 'pure form' it had better be perfect or it will look rubbish (I find it normally isn't, and does). There is no acknowledgement of the very unpure vagaries of the construction process, and an almost sinister denial of the effect of contact with those who use it. The same can be said of a city plan of dictatorial symmetry and unconnected walkways. Even the central grand promenade ends abruptly at a 4 lane highway- it is after all a city shaped like a plane and designed for cars, designed for the ages but so soon an architectural relic.

The best buildings were two rectangular ministries (justice and foreign affairs if you want to ggogle them) where the accommodation was within pretty ordinary curtain walling set behind raw, unpainted, sculptural concrete arcades. Telling, also, that it is really the landscape design around them by Burle Marx (see Hester's last post) which 'lifts' them.

Urgh. Ok enough architect pseuding. Soz.

We went from there to the Pantanal, and as it is her New Favourite Place in the World, I'll let Hes blog about that one, but would like to say just this first:

It could be argued that the Pantanal is the most uncomfortably humid, insect ridden hell hole on God's earth. This thought rang true on many occasions, when I almost hoped one of the larger creatures would bite me to offer relief from the smaller ones.

But with that off my chest, it is also utterly incredible. The density, variety and colour of wildlife is awesome. It just doesn't stop, wherever you look. And Hes will detail one heart-stopping event which will stay with me for the rest of my life. It felt like the climax of a David Attenborough documentary and (choosing words carefully to try to avoid hyperbole) I felt privileged to witness it.

Over to Hes...

Rio and the perils of snorkelling

I can only second joe's enthusiasm about Brazil. I'm totally overwhelmed by how beautiful the place is. Three days in Rio and I want to live here - if  I could remember more of the Portuguese I was supposed to have studied...

Had an amazing birthday yesterday:  a visit to the Sitio Roberto Burle Marx just west of town, which are lush tropical gardens and a very cool house full of weird and wonderful artefacts from around the world. While we were waiting to go in we sat and watched two hummingbirds building a nest. And that evening I watched Skyfall AND ate cauliflower cheese. It doesn't get much better than that.

Have spent today watching toucans and marvelling at the botanical gardens. Joe has understandably had it up to here with birds and plants and has gone off to Sugarloaf mountain (or, I suspect, a bar on the beach)

The most amazing part about Brazil for me is just the natural abundance and richness, which you can see even in the cities: pavements are made with huge blocks of stone shot with minerals, furniture and even shutters from stunning hardwood, fruit juice sellers have more flavours than you can be bothered to read, and the trees have flowers on them! Huge shocking pink, red and yellow flowers in the canopies. Wow. Even the swallows are bigger here, and some of the butterflies are the size of bats. Fortunately I haven't seen any of the nasty eight-legged fauna. Us Europeans may have pillaged all the gold and most of the diamonds, but the country is just a natural splendour, and the people we've encountered have a happy, chilled out attitude.

Other good things include roadside caipirinha sellers (who err on the generous side with the Good Stuff), stunning old churches which are like gaudy, over-the-top Italian ones, and sponge cake for breakfast! (A revelation) I think the language also sounds really cool, in a way Spanish and French doesn't. And of course there is the sheer joy of moving through warm, tropical air rather than festering under 2 jumpers and a raincoat.

We have found some idiosyncrasies. Pavements run out, or end in walls too big to climb. A snack is always fried thing, generally fashioned in part of tasteless manioc flour. You have to pay a tax of up to £3 to leave a bus station, and in bakeries you pay in one place then order at another - removing your God-given right to just point to tasty things you want. And of course we have seen very little of the poverty here, so can only speak as ill-informed tourists. 

Speaking of ill-informed tourists, Joe is being wonderful, and proving an ideal travelling companion. This is in part because of his own idiosyncrasies: I find he has brought more hankies than pairs of pants, his beard is going progressively more ginger, and he recently sustained an amusing arse-injury from a half hour snorkelling expedition. But I am too mean, and I am sure he will get his revenge in the next post.

All good here

Joe again:

I am in bed in a lovely hostel in rio about to write almost exhaustively good things about what has happened since the last post. And my sister had a baby yesterday- daisy- who is beautiful. All is good.

After idyllic morro we ventured further down the coast to itacare and had a very pleasant couple of days drinking beer on the beach and snorkelling over coral reefs. We then returned to salvador- crossing back by the ferry at night, a lovely way to reach the city- and spent a night in a great little hostel, where we spent much of the next day grazing at the breakfast spread and umming and ahhing about where-to-next; we had planned to head directly to brasilia and on to the pantanal, but hadn't found the exact right eye-wateringly-expensive location to look at giant otters, jaguars and the like. So instead we took a night bus towards Belo Horizonte, having had a lovely day wandering around town again, seeing incredibly ornate churches we hadn't seen before and the best moqueca (fish stew) yet.

From Belo Horizonte we went directly to Ouro Preto, a very pretty colonial mining town in Minas Gerais. It was lovely to settle down for a few nights and see all the baroquery at out own pace- apart from its famous churches the town is incredibly pretty and nice to wander around. I also discovered that the horrible gloopy chicken-cheese egg-balls we had encountered at bus stations were in fact delicious deep fried chicken and catupiry cheese parcels when done right, as from the bar-snacks counter at the local lively bar, where I got p*ssed, naturally.

From Ouro Preto we went, in the pouring rain, to Tiradentes, another much smaller colonial mining town with a reputation for its restaurants. It was good to put the walking boots back on after a few sedentary weeks and head out into the forests around the village in search of monkeys (none seen). We got soaked, so that evening went for a nice expensive meal. I am not normally a pudding man, but we had dried guava, rolled in cashews and deep fried, served with creamy cheese and guava ice cream. It was incredible. Stupidly, we had two caipirinhas each before dinner so by the time we had had a post dinner beer I was, of course, p*ssed.

Which was ok, as Today, in the continued pouring rain, all we had to do was sit on a bus through Minas Gerais to the coast. This part of the country is much more my cup of tea- rolling green hills and forests- like Derbyshire but with more Monkey Puzzles- becoming a proper mountain ridge north of rio. So much so that at the top the were views of peaks popping through the clouds which reminded me of being on top of a piste in the alps. Such rainfall must be unusual- on the way down we passed one flipped vehicle after another. And we just popped out for steak, chips and Brazilian black beans- delicious. Having thought the food here was rubbish I am beginning to reconsider.

So imagine me lying here, smug, a bit fat with steak and dozy with beer, with have four and a half days in rio to look forward to. Then a day in brasilia, doing my architectural tourist's duties, then four days at the perfect eye-wateringly-expensive pantanal lodge before more scuba diving in bonito and on to Iguazu falls. I am quite happy, even though it is rainy. Apologies. And lots of love x.

Braziliaiaia

By Joao

We steamed through northern brazil a bit- one night each in manaus, belem and fortaleza before decellerating in salvador. Belem seemed nice but we were happy to push on after just a few hours. We were a little sad to skip some of the north coast beaches but will reserve this sort of lounging for the end of the trip, and hopefully cheaper places in Columbia. Fortaleza was a happy little place where hes discovered a taste for street caipirinhas, a taste which became lust by the time we hit salvador. three glasses of the stuff saw me in a reggae bar and her in bed the whole next day; she missed several splendid examples of baroque and rococo architecture and sculpture in the historic centre. She was gutted. I also wandered around the pelourinho area quite a lot which was pretty touristy but had some incredible paintings, too, pretty inspiring. Salvador is a lovely city, all in all.

We are now in morro de st Paulo, a beautiful town on an idyllic island to the south. This is our third night and I am feeling very relaxed. It is touristy, a bit clubby, even Balearic, but I think we needed that and I love it. Even though the whole town is like a seaside theme park it is clearly home to lots of natives too, whose kids kick footballs around in the town square or go for a swim of an evening. It reminded me of summer-holiday-evenings down the playing fields and made me think that we Brits would be a slightly less grumpy lot if we had grown up with such activities all year round.

This is just one of the trivial and hardly-ground-breaking musings which this little pause in backpackerdom has allowed. Here are some more (without apologies, I am not making you read this):

The 'backpack' in 'backpacking' is really a style thing, not a necessity. After all, the first thing you do is dump your stuff in a hostel before exploring or trekking*. The next time I go 'backpacking' I am doing it with an executive wheeley suitcase.

* this is not just laziness; a backpack is like a sign saying 'pester me, I am a moneyed European with little grasp of your currency or language'

People Drink Loads Everywhere. South America appears to be on a permanent stag do. They start on the 600ml bottles at 10am, like it is some kind of challenge, then carry on through the day. You can't get a coffee for all the beer. I can't do it. The mistake of the British is to think it is uncouth to drink before the evening, and hence pack it all in to a few hours. We should get on it earlier. I recommend a strong caipirinha at 4pm.

Lager is acceptable and even pleasant in hot countries.

Banana-flavoured things do really taste of banana. I had thought that all the nesquick stuff tasted of something yellow and nice but which didn't really correspond to the taste of an actual banana. In the past few weeks I have eaten bananas that do in fact taste like nesquick banana milkshake.

More nuggets coming soon.