Brazil 2005 Day 6 – Brasília (2005-10-07 Friday)

Woke up after eight, tour was at nine. Rushed to get dressed, and hurried down for yummy café de manhã (breakfast). An interesting looking group of expensive, trendy dressed 20-something boys with lots of muscles were at breakfast, but we never figured out who they were. Two thirds of the way through breakfast, we were interrupted by a hotel guy, telling us that the tour was here.

The tour bus was a large van, with twelve seats behind the driver / tour guide. His name was Ricardo, and he was native to Brasília, but he had lived in several different countries, due to his father being in the military.

First we went to the fancy hotels and gated compounds to pick up a third tour member. Ricardo couldn’t find the person, so we went to the Palácio Alvorado, which was currently under renovation, but where the president would normally live. President JK only lived there for one year. There was a tour with a bunch of kids, and they were teasing the fancy guard (Swiss guard style), to make him move (which he didn’t).

Meanwhile, the guide had received a call with the correct hotel name, so we went back to get the third guy.

Once the final member of our tour was aboard, Ricardo started telling us some Brasília facts: around 2 million people (including the satellite cities), 1 million cars, 4 million cell phones.

We drove past some foreign embasies.

We learned about the plan of superquadras (super-blocks) (700 meters instead of the normal 400 meters for a regular quadra (city block)), which have schools, living quarters, commercial zones and churches, all by plan. Most superquadras have apartment or condo style housing, but some have houses. There are 40,000 people per superquadra. We drove around and looked at these areas.

We stopped at Brasília’s oldest church, which was built before the city. It was small and triangular shaped, very low key, but pretty cool. One of the sides of the triangle was open to the air.

We stopped at another large, block like church, with tall rectangular windows. The windows were regularly spaced, and made of little squares of blue shades of stained glass (representing the colors of the sky in Brasília), with a few purple shades. The name of the church was Santuario Dom Bosco (an Italian). The church was breathtaking. In one corner was a clear glass confessional, perhaps the world’s only one. There was no priest inside while we were there. There was a huge chandelier, and Ricardo knew the number of crystals in it, which was many tens of thousands.

Ricardo was a great tour guide. He’s one of the original generation of those native to Brasília, since its construction was completed in 1960. We were amused by how many facts he knew about Brasília, but in a way it made sense, because of how the whole city was built according to a strict plan, and the plan is well known by those who lived there. The city was founded on some quasi socialist values, and it was very interesting to meet someone who was raised there, and was proud of those ideals.

Then our tour went to the TV tower, which we had seen on our own the day before. By being there with Ricardo, we learned a few more buildings, like the federal bank, the convention center (which was the big blue and white decorated building that we had mistaken for the Native Art Museum the day before), sports stadium, and car race track (not Formula One, but stock cars).

Next we went to the Juscelino Kubitschek Memorial again. This time we spent the whole time at a computer kiosk, reading JK’s history. It turned out that he was orphaned at two, later joined a seminary to get an education, was eventually accepted to college to learn medicine, was in the military and went to France to study under a famous urologist. Some military friends became political, and gained powerful positions. They talked him into accepting a position in politics, and he gradually worked his way up until he was finally president. He was very popular, and spent lots of money on public works, the last great one of which was Brasília. It was a pretty interesting history, but it still felt like there were gaps. Why had the military coup occurred that drove him from office? The New York guy asked Ricardo about the reason for the coup, but Ricardo immediately got defensive, and didn’t want to talk about it. All he would say was, “It just happened.”

Next stop was the famous city cathedral, Catedral Metropolitano, supposedly shaped like praying hands. Xie couldn’t go inside, because she was wearing shorts. The entrance is a hole in the ground, with wide stairs going down. The tunnel quickly slopes upward, and you walk out into the dramatically lit sunlight through stained glass inside the church. Like much of Brasília, this magnificent building was a little run down. A number of the stained glass plates were broken or missing. There was a replica of the Pieta, and of the Shroud of Turin. The stained glass design was abstract, with large swaths of color that made no picture.

The tour ended for us at the Praça dos Tres Poderes (Square of the Three Powers). Ricardo said goodbye while pointing out the monuments and buildings: Congress, Supreme Court, Eternal Flame of Peace, Niemeyer birdhouse (full of pigeons), etc. We took photos of the Statue of Justice (who was blind, with a sword, but no scale), and walked toward the tall birdhouse. The square was made of white stone, especially designed to reflect the sun’s heat to our skin, and its bright light into our eyes. We longed to be like the pigeons, who could hide in the small shade under the benches.

We went out a walkway toward an interesting looking monument that we had already forgotten the name of. It turned out that you could go inside, where it was dark and cool. Nice. We signed the guest book, as with most museums or monuments. Downstairs there were large writings on the wall, something about Napoleon, confusing to translate. We went upstairs. Upstairs was another sparse room, with strange murals on one wall, depicting people being punished in different manners. The only other thing in the room was a large book with thick aluminum pages, which held sparse words and names. The exhibit was strange, and we didn’t understand it. Later we pieced together that it must have been about the founding of Brasil, because of the Napoleon bit.

We went back out into the extreme heat and bright. Minds in a daze, we vaguely wandered towards the Congressional building (which makes the cockpit of the plane that Brasília is designed to look like from the air). We saw some stairs leading to the cool underground, and were glad to find that they weren’t an illusion caused by heat. CM had the hope that it was an underground passage, leading toward congress, giving shade and safety from the aggresive autos. It turned out to be an exhibit on the architectural planning of Brasília. The main attraction was a big relief model of the whole city. The model looked like it was made of wood, and was broken up into segments that were a foot or two wide and maybe two or three feet long. It was really neat to see all of Brasília laid out like that. Xie wanted to take a whole bunch of photos, and had just gotten started, when up walked a middle aged woman and a younger man. She introduced herself as Maria, with a title along the lines of “Head of Tourism of Brasília”. She introduced the guy as Ricardo, a member of the Tourism Police, who teaches English classes to the other Tourist cops. The Tourist Police turned out to be special cops, to deal with and assist tourists, and to translate for them in police situations.

Maria and Ricardo started talking to us (mainly Maria). They asked us where we were from and she spoke about her experiences hitchhiking through the United States, living in Europe (France, Spain), Argentina and so on. She said that she and Ricardo were recording stories about Brasília in English, so that Ricardo could later listen to, and extract special tourism related vocabulary to use in his classes. She invited us along to listen.

So, we learned the story of why Lúcio Costa won a contest for the design of Brasília that he didn’t enter. It seems that JK liked the architecture of this French architect, Le Corbusier, who apparently invented shopping malls, crossing of highways by one going underneath the other and condiminiums. Most people thought that his architecture was weird, so he got the nickname, “kinky” (implying kooky, we think). But Kubitschek liked his stuff, and when he set up the contest, he said that Brasília had to be designed in the style of Le Corbusier. There were a bunch of entries, and a bunch of judges, from different countries, including one from the U.S. The judges said that all of the entries sucked and Maria said that this was probably because none of them had studied with Le Corbusier. But Kubitschek wouldn’t let up on his requirement, and in desperation, he called his friend Lúcio Coscta and begged him to enter. Costa didn’t want to, because his wife had just died, so Kubitschek talked him into it. Because Costa was pissed, and because he only had twelve hours to put his proposal together, he wrote his design out by hand, in pencil, on twelve pages. At the beginning he said, “I don’t want to enter, and I don’t enter.” Unfortunately for him, his design was immediately accepted, even though he had been so rushed in putting it together.

Another story was the origin of Brasil, the country. Dom João was a Português official in charge of the colony where Brasil would be. When Napoleon was attacking Portugal, João was called back to help defend. He left the charge of the colony to his son. Shortly after the father left, the son declared himself king, and declared the colony independent from Portugal. It was the only colony in the Americas to start life as a monarchy. To this day, the flag is almost exactly the same as it was originally, with the stars replacing his family symbol.

“Let me tell you something that you don’t know.”, began Maria’s next story. “Brasil is an island. Think about it.” Pre South America, Brasil had been part of what became Africa. It drifted over, across the Atlantic, trapping some oceanic animals on the way. The ones that were able to survive became things like small fresh water sharks or pink dolphins. “That is why we have so much water. Think about it. We don’t have snow, like Argentina. So, where does the water come from?” She explained that the water came up from the Atlantic, beneath the Island of Brasil.

Then she went on to tell about a big event in Brazilian foreign policy. She had been invited to a special dinner, with top Brazilian government officials, important government officials from Europe and “the richest Arabic men in the world”. This dinner was to celebrate a deal between Brazil and other countries, where Brazil would sell fresh water, to be shipped through a trans-Atlantic pipeline, to these countries. She was invited to tell stories for entertainment.

Maria also told us about an interesting restaurant, Oca da Tribo (Oca is an indigenous house, like a tipi). The restaurant was built by some famous architect, who used native styles in the art decorations. The food is a fusion of native styles. Maria and Ricardo also talked about the Portão District, full of bars and restaurants, on the other side of the lake, across the Pontão Bridge. They said that we’d love it, and that Friday (today) was a great day to visit. The taxi would cost R$10, “so don’t even think about it”, said Maria.

Maria and Ricardo had to meet someone at the Palácio Itamaraty, the foreign relations building. They arranged to walk with us instead of getting taken by the car. Maria loved telling stories, and having a bigger audience to tell them to.

The Palácio Itamaraty was pretty cool. It had Burl Marx water gardens all around. Maria explaned that the plants not only look nice, they keep the water clean. Fish keep the planters clean. Inside, it was quite cool; not air conditioned, but a natural cooling system. The breeze comes from the back of the building, which is all open air, no wall, with plants imported from the Amazon region, and a water base. Air flowed from there, out the open windows in the front. Looking up to the second floor from the first was neat, because you could see this cool architectural curve of the stairs up to the second story. The whole first floor and the second floor platform were empty, with no furniture or anything. Maria pointed out all of the marble and granite that were everywhere, and explained that, at the time that they were building, these stones were cheaper than ceramic, and that is why they are everywhere.

We went into a more closed area, where there were rooms for entertaining. The biggest room had paintings that depicted scenes of the lives of poor people in Brasil. Maria said that the idea was to remind the dignitaries, while they’re having their fancy meals and drinks, of the two parts of Brasil. The paintings say, “Think about this, because you are the ones with the power.” The same artist has a painting in the New York City UN Building, but he wasn’t allowed into the United States for the painting’s inaugaration, because he was a communist sympathizer. We thought that it was cool, and Xie tried to wonder if a similar painting would ever be displayed in the fancy entertaining rooms of government buildings in the U.S.

The other rooms had other cool art, furniture and architecture, like a door, angled so that light could get in, but people couldn’t see what was happening on the other side, and a room lined with blue silk, designed to catch the light in the morning. Other cool art pieces were a sculpture, brass and crystal, of a large flock of many types of birds, flying in the rain, and a tapestry, woven by Burl Marx, with representations of many Brasilian plants, which filled a long wall. There was a super pretty humming bird, with a long blue green tail, that a guard had to chase out of the building.

We went outside, so that Maria and Ricardo could meet their car. On the way out, Maria tried to play matchmaker between Ricardo and another young woman. We spent a bunch of time trying to find out the word for “matchmaker” in Portugese, a concept that was not easy to explain. While we were waiting for the car, we went to get some ice cream. There weren’t any vendors selling ice cream nearby, so we bought some super yummy abacaxi (pineapple), which the vendor cut up in front of us, while Maria flirted ostentaciously with him. We learned that Maria’s husband is a champion Jui Jitsu fighter. When their car came, we got their phone numbers and emails, and said goodbyes.

After that, we decided to visit the Palácio do Congresso (Congress), with the two bowls, one inverted, for the two houses. We crossed a large street (Eixo Monumental Sul (South Monumental Axis)) and made our way through the hot brightness. We walked up a long ramp and entered the building. Very quickly, a young woman approached us, determined that we spoke English, and explaned that Xie couldn’t enter the building while wearing shorts. She was very nice, and went twice to her superiors, to see if the rule applied to men only, or if there was another way that Xie could go in. Nope. We were super hot and tired, so we sat for a few minutes. CM went to see the museum, which was tiny, and had memorabilia for a few important congressmen, including some guy who was labeled the “Father of Divorce”.

We went back out, in search of coffee, food and rest, and escape from the heat. According to the pilot plan, we weren’t in the right district for any of those things. It’s pretty weird having everything segregated to separate districts when you just want something like a bottle of water, and you’re in the wrong one. We walked and walked. We passed the buildings that house the Ministries of Defense, Agriculture and so on, which are all housed in identical rectangular buildings, lining both sides of the Eixo. We did finally manage to get picolés (popsicles) from a vendor.

(Brasília, says CM, “whereas I’m part of the newage old schoolers, they’re old school newagers.”)

We were planning on going to the nearest commercial district, or the nearest superquadra (super-block). However, when we got to the road, we checked our map again, and realized that we’d have to go at least as far again, as the hot walk past the ministry buildings. We could see the cool, air conditioned mall, near our hotel, just a few blocks away, so we decided to go there for coffees. The first thing we did at the mall was to stop at Lojas Americanas (translation: American Stores), the Brasilian K-Mart, crowded and full of plastic crap, to get a guardachuva (umbrella). We also purchased some mini pillows and pillow cases, which turned out to be very useful on the long bus rides. When CM went to pay with a credit card, there was a confusing question from the cashier, that turned out to be whether we wanted one, two or three transactions for the total payment. We didn’t really understand the purpose of that choice. In other checkout news were three girls, with their moms, also in the checkout. The girls were buying some blonde, huge, plastic dolls, all three matching. The store wigged out poor Colin — “it’s the worst of America that they’re copying.”

We went to get some cafés, so that was good. But what was really exciting was that we decided to go to a gelateria, Italian style, and they had gelato that was really Italian. Why can’t Americans figure out how to make gelato? Why can Brasilians? They had iogurti (yogurt) flavored gelato, which is Xie’s favorite, and which she can never find in the US. They also had fruti de bosca (fruit of the forest). So very yummy.

After everything, we went back to the hotel, which wasn’t as far as it had seemed the first day. A guy approached us as we were leaving the mall, and started talking to us very quickly. Eventually we figured out that he was trying to sell us a camera.

We went back to the hotel briefly to look up the address to that interesting sounding restaurant, Oca da Tribo. We got in a taxi (there were always several waiting outside the hotel), and gave the driver the address. Xie and he repeated the address several times, to make sure that they understood each other. We were glad to see that the taxi had a meter, so that we wouldn’t have to haggle over the price. After about ten minutes in the taxi, he stopped at the address, and asked us if it was the right place. We couldn’t see the restaurant, and were confused. The driver got frustrated, said that it was the address, and pressured us out of the car. We paid R$10. We looked around, ended up finding the restaurant, but it was disappointingly closed.

We were frustrated and hungry, but we decided to go to the Portão district to eat, the party area that Maria and Ricardo were so excited for us to visit. This brought us to an interesting question, as we had never had to hail a taxi from a random location. Just then, a taxi drove by. CM raised his hand, so slightly, and the taxi immediately pulled over for us. It was a R$20 taxi ride to the Portão.

We got to the Portão, and started to wander around, to get a feel for the place. There were around a dozen bars and restaurants. The first place where we stopped was a fancy looking restaurant, and we read the menu. The prices were too fancy, even more than the Italian place in São Paulo, which we still felt burned from. We tried a different approach, and tried to get a table at the bar of a different restaurant, which was open to the air, with no ceiling or walls, but stood there for ten minutes, trying without luck to signal the waiter to get a table. Next we tried yet another open bar which was not as full, and further from the water, hoping that we’d have more luck. We managed to get a table, a second chair and menus. But it took quite a while of trying to signal the staff to take our order. Finally we ordered some beers and three things from the appetizer menu (because everything was very expensive). The beer took a few minutes to arrive, and the food about half an hour. The two fish appetizers turned out to be two kinds of tiny fish, battered and deep fried. The smaller ones were super fishy tasting. The third thing was some sort of bread. The appetizers came with tarter sauce, some other thick, orange colored sauce, and a dish of shrimp with tomato and onion. It tasted ok, but not great, and eating all of that fried food was hard on our empty tummies.

 

Brazil 2005 Day 5 – Brasília (Thursday, October 6)

Great view of the crescent moon on waking up. A perfect cup, open side facing up.

Got to the rodoviária (bus station) (later, we learned that it was a rodoferroviária (bus and train station)) at about 6am. We were 3 hours late. We were both super tired and confused, so we stopped for a coffee right at the station to try to figure things out. Coffee barely helped. We were trying to decide between tryting to haggle with a taxi driver and trying to figure out the city bus. Xie asked about the buses at the informações (information) stand. We had to stand there a while before the guy would answer our questions. He told us to wait for the bus to the rodoviária (another bus station – for local buses). He told us that it would be R$1.60 each. The bus got there and stopped his engine. The driver ushered us to the back door, apparently because we had luggage. By watching others embark, we learned that we should pay now. Normally, people enter the city buses from the front, pay the ticket taker, pass through the turnstile, and exit through the back door. They don’t mind being flexible about that, though.

Got to the rodoviária, and tried to figure out how to get to the Hotel Casablanca (not branca, as you might expect in Portuguese, so obviously named after the movie). We walked around a large shopping mall, which was closed because it was still early. We walked for what seemed like a long time, with all our luggage – probably 20 blocks (it could’ve been 10 if we knew the route).

Got to the hotel – what a relief! We checked in, and 2 guys carried our bags upstairs. The room was small, with 2 beds. 1 was queen-sized, and the other was twin. We decided to nap and try to get up in time to get some breakfast. Café de manhã was served until 10am.

When we woke, we were both still super tired and grumpy. It was 9:30, so we managed to drag ourselves out and get dressed. Café de manhã at this hotel was super yummy: mamão (papaya), short bananas, suco de laranja (orange) ou caju (cashew), fresh iogurte (yogurt), fresh cheese, sliced ham and cheese, scrambled eggs, with or without ham, various bread and biscuit choices, including Italian style o-shaped coconut cookies. As soon as you sat down, the garçon (there’s a card on the table with their names) brought out little teapots with hot coffee and hot milk, so you could mix café com leite.

We went back up to our room to plan the days events. We decided to go to the TV tower to get our bearings. We decided to take 1 camera and things in 1 backpack. On our way out, they asked for our key, as in the previous hotel. Xie asked about taking a bus to the monuments to the East. The woman thought for a second and said that it was too confusing, and that it was only a 25′ walk.

We walked to the TV Tower, which was only about 10′ away. First thing was to cross a 6-lane road (fortunately only 1-way) without a cross-walk. Below the TV Tower, there were many blue-tarp-covered stalls for selling things, but only a few were open. There were 2 elevators, and we took the one to the viewing platform. The view was excellent, and we could see many of the recognizable sights. There were a bunch of Japanese men in business suits, and a bunch of Brasileiros. We took a bunch of photos and discussed what we thought stuff was.

Then, we came down and tried the other elevator. It went to some sort of museum for R$3 por pessoa (per person). We paid and went up. It turned out to be a gem and mineral display – very cool! Many of the gems were from Minas Gerais (a nearby Brazilian state), and others were from all over the world. There were 20 display cases, each with a theme (usually a mineral type), with a description in Portuguese and English. When we were most of the way through, a guard came in to check on us. He asked us if we would like headsets, and which language. He came back with several headsets. Only one of the English ones worked, so he left us with that and one of the Portuguese ones. He was very nice, so we went through the whole exhibit again to show our gratitude. It didn’t take too long.

After that, we needed some coffee and food real bad. Fortunately, there seemed to be a café on the floor. But there was no one there. CM had to use the restroom, so he left Xie to figure it out. When he returned, Xie was talking to the same guard, who was behind the counter now (but not making coffee. Why? No coffee!). He had some other stuff to show us. He gave us 2 slim museum catalogs, printed on very nice paper – one on ceramics, and one on woodwork. Then he showed us some necklaces and bracelets that were apparently on sale. No, we didn’t want to buy them. Then he wanted us to look at the ceramics, which Xie thought were also for sale, but CM didn’t. They were the same pieces shown in the catalog. It was hard to understand this guard, with his heavy Mineiro accent.

By now, we were pretty hungry, and tired of this nice guy showing us stuff, so we thanked him one more time and took the elevator down.

At the bottom, we struggled with the decision of where to eat. There were a few stalls open with food, but we spotted another building with a covered area and a bunch of people sitting at tables, eating. We went down the hill to it and tried to figure out what to do. CM went to the counter and tried to order 2 plates. The guy and CM were both confused, but Xie figured out that he was asking here or to go. We sat down. Condiments at the table were salt, oil, farinha (manioc flour), and pepper vinegar. We had ended up ordering 1 plate, but CM decided that he didn’t want to share, so he ordered another, which confused the guy again. The guy made hand symbols of 2, then 1, then 2. The plate had rice and beans and meat, which was very barbequeued and tough, came on the side. A woman came by and served us some salad of spicy mustard greens and onion. The food was very yummy. 2 plates and 4 little bottled waters came to R$12. What a deal. Some people were playing a card game, a game that was rummy-like at casual glance. CM thought they might be gambling.

Then, we went off in search of other sites. We decided to walk west, to a museum of indiginous art. We walked towards a big, blue patterned building that we thought might be it. It wasn’t. We walked back toward some smaller round building that might be it. They weren’t.

It was hot. To get anywhere, you had to walk through these big expanses of savannah-esque lanscaping, i.e. sparse shade. Not a great situation for wandering.

Luckily, we found a guard outside of the round building, of whom we asked where the indigenous museum was. He told us that it was not too far, and joked that it was only 10 kilometers. He said it was by the JK memorial. On the Lonely Planet map, those 2 were nowhere near each other, so that was annoying. We started walking west. We walked through lots and lots of empty, planted savannah.

The environment in Brasília is dry and hot. Before the people came to settle it, it _was_ a savannah. They cleared most of it to make way for the city, but then they have these vast stretches of land, like the area in the middle of the Eixo Monumental (Monument Axis), that are just undeveloped, and instead they planted some grass and trees. The grass doesn’t survive so well. The soil is really more like clay, and it is full of metal. The color ranges from bright orange to brick red. In fact, they make a lot of bricks there. The dirt in São Paulo actually looks the same, but stuff there doesn’t have as much trouble growing in it. The trees they planted in Brasília are not the native trees, but fruit-bearing trees, in particular mango, and 2nd avocado. There are a lot of pretty flowers, too, and they employ a lot of waterers to keep them alive.

So this is what we walked through, for a long time. We saw some cool birds. A loud bird with a black chest pattern that started dive-bombing us when we got too close. Another biggish bird with brown and a black-and-white fan tail. We saw fallen mangoes, and these beautiful red seeds in a pod that had such hard shells that you couldn’t crack them.

CM asked some workers were the JK memorial was. They looked super confused. Finally, they figured it out. Eventually, we realized that CM didn’t say the letters well, and it probably sounded like the “GQ” memorial.

Finally, we arrived at another round building, which was the indigenous art museum. We went in and signed the guest book. The exhibit started with some beautiful headdresses and belts made of colorful feathers and dyed, woven cotton. Other things were small benches, carved like various animals, tools like manioc processing tube and baskets, many beautiful baskets with cool patterns, fish spears, decorated blankets and rugs. There were posters with maps showing where the tribes were located originally and now. The building was a Niemeyer design, circular with a center circular courtyard. The floor with exhibits was a gentle spiral ramp. The courtyard had a large concrete shade that was some organic shape.

We were very tired in the indigenous museum, and dreaded going back out into the hot sun. Finally, we dragged off to the JK across the street. Juciliano Kubitschek was the president who founded Brasília, and the people loved him. His tomb is in this museum. The museum had a café, and we got some espresso. CM had a 2nd. We saw some photos, his personal library, and went upstairs to look at tons of memoribilia. We learned some things (that he was a social democrat, that he went into exile for 10 years) and left with a bunch of questions (what was his early history? Why did he go into exile?).

Earlier, we had thought that we’d check out the city park on the way back, but now it was clear that we were too beat. We trudged back, wanting to catch a bus, but not knowing how (and nervous because of the hotel woman’s description of the buses being confusing). Trudging and walking, Xie and CM discussed things like politics, law and anarchy, and police.

As we were walking, we met a young man who was walking the same way, about the only other person out there crazy enough to be walking around the vast expanses of the Brasília savannah. His name was Victor. He was a B-Boy, did break dancing in a crew, which also had people who did graffiti and DJing. He heard us speaking English and almost passed by but stopped to talk to us to find the meanings of a few phrases from US songs: “I drive myself crazy”, “Drifting down memory lane”, “It’s gonna be me”. It was pretty fascinating to try to understand what he was saying and then explain the meanings of these phrases that we just take for granted in English, in our mediocre Portuguese. Think about it for a minute. How would you explain these phrases?

Conversation continued about various things: music, sports, music. We got him to take us to a CD store in the mall, hoping that he’d point out some music. Instead, he got one of the store people to help us. This guy showed us a bunch of CDs and opened most of them to put them on the store’s stereo so we could listen. Victor took off, saying some goodbyes to us. We picked out 5 CDs and bought them.

We went out into the mall and were quickly overwhelmed by fancy mall-ness. Many stores, sounds, and people, mostly dressed super sexy-show-off. We stopped at the Brahma (popular brand of beer in Brazil) place and learned a few things from the waitress. “Chopp” means “beer in a glass from tap”, while “cerveja” means “beer in a bottle”. The head on a beer is called “colarinho” (“little collar”). At these Brahma stands, they would add the colarinho on from a separate tap. After 2 choppes-without-colarinho each, we decided to head up to the food court for dinner. It was crappy, fried fast food. CM’s piece of meat; it was real meat, not regurgitated from a machine. We had picked the place out b/c it looked the most Brazilian.

We headed back to the hotel, which wasn’t too far, but we had to cross 2 big roads. At the hotel, we talked to the desk people, who talked us into buying a city tour for the next day. We showered and passed out into a well-earned sleep.

 

Brazil 2005 Day 4 – Rodoviária (SP to Brasília) (2005-10-05 Wednesday)

We were feeling pretty overwhelmed by São Paulo. The analogy we’ve been making is imagine visiting New York city (about the same size as São Paulo – wikipedia) without knowing anybody in it or speaking the language very well. Imagine that it’s the first place you go in the United States, and you just picked some random cheap hotel from the guidebook and are trying to find your way around. At this point, we were pretty glad to be leaving the big city for Brasília.

We woke later than we had hoped (around nine?). We didn’t know where café de manhã (breakfast) was, so Xie had to go down and ask. It is one of the hardest things to understand, when people are giving directions, and the desk person kept saying “desligado”. We didn’t understand what he meant, until later, when we discovered that the elevator wasn’t working, and that we had to drag our bags downstairs. It didn’t make sense in the context of breakfast, but in the context of the elevator, it immediately dawned on Xie that it meant “disconnected”/”out of order”.

We eventually found café de manhã in a back corner of the second story. It was basically classic Brazilian breakfast with café com leite (coffee with milk), bread, cheese, ham, butter and juice.

After eating, we checked out. R$90 (about $45), not bad for two nights at a hotel.

Right when we were getting ready to go, it started winding and raining. Vendors right outside the door started pulling out plastic coverings over their wares. We were just about to step out of the hotel, when it really started dumping. We stepped back inside, and waited. It poured pretty hard, but only for a few minutes. When it stopped a bit, we stepped out, and got lucky enough to hit a window long enough to make it to the metro station dryly. Taking the metro is pretty easy, but it is harder with luggage. We had to transfer once, and the first train that we got on tried to close its doors on Xie’s backpack (which was hanging off of CM’s pull-luggage). Everybody jumped in to help us, and we managed to pull it out of the doors together. Those doors were closed pretty tightly, though! It was way more crowded that the day before, and it was hard to find places to stand, and for our luggage. People stared a little, but were overall nice to us.

At the rodoviário (bus station), we had a hard time finding the bus company that the information person had recommended. Eventually we split up, to cover more ground, and CM tracked it down — Rápido Federal (Fast Federal). It was a little confusing getting our tickets, but not too bad. The next bus was at treze horas (1pm), and it was dez horas (10am), so we had a while.

(Over our prep and our trip, we kept getting confused and having arguments about whether the right term for bus station was “rodoviária” or “rodoviário”. We just couldn’t figure it out and kept changing our minds about it. Finally, and this might have been when, e saw both spellings in short succession and realized that they were synonymous. I think we even figured out why they both made sense with slightly different meanings, but I don’t remember that level of detail now. Maybe if there is anybody Brazilian or anybody who knows anybody Brazilian reading this, they can help out with this ;).)

We found a nice cafezinho ((little) coffee) stand, and spent the time there, getting cafés, cafezinhos and aguas sem gas (non-bubbly water), while we wrote in our journal. CM got a dumb Linux magazine, which contained a large glossy insert about Windows software. The time didn’t take long to pass. The sanitário (bathroom) there was R$1.

Thirty minutes before our bus, we went down to the gate. There was a funny sign saying not to wander around the platform area, but to just look at the signs to find your gate, and go directly to it. Xie ran back upstairs, to use the bathroom one more time, and bought some pão de queijo (cheese bread, her favorite), which we ate while waiting. Getting on the bus was slightly confusing, because there was a form that we had to fill out, and we were having trouble communicating with the workers.

Then, we were on the bus for a very long time. It was a very, very long time. Longer, por exemplo (for example), than the whole plane trips + layovers to get to Brasil. We left SP at 13:00, and got to Brasília at around 6:30 — almost sixteen hours.

At first there weren’t many people on board, so Xie sat up in her own seat. That was nice for looking out the window, and taking pictures, and having room, and sleeping. Later it got more crowded though, and at night there were enough people that there were no double seats free for lying down.

We saw some cool stuff out the windows. São Paulo villages, fields of unknown crops (some of it was probably maracujá (passion fruit)). Some of the villages were clearly favelas (slums). There was this interesting phenomenon of people sitting by the side of the highway. We couldn’t tell what they were doing there. They’d just be sitting, looking down, with a bag or two. Were they just hanging out? waiting for a ride from a friend? Was this the Brasilian way of hitchhiking? Não sabemos (we don’t know). We saw some Walmart signs along the road at one point.

We didn’t know whether the bus was going to stop between SP and Brasília, but in fact there were many stops. Rodoviária stops were funny — sometimes the name of the stop would be posted, sometimes the driver would announce it, but lots of times we just didn’t know where we were.

Twice, we stopped at a gas station / rest stop sort of thing, both times a place called Graal, which was a bit like the Autogrill in Italy. The first stop was ten minutes, and we got these funky scan cards with barcodes on them. When you bought something, they’d register it on the card. We got two pães de queijo (cheese breads) and some water. The second time we had twenty minutes, and got some of the buffet. The self service places had really good food, even this gas station. We were really glad to have a real plate of food.

Some of the things you can get at a self service are: rice, farofa (pan fried manioc flour with bits of garlic, egg, pork, or onion), feijão (meat and bean stew), stewed pork, stewed chicken, fried banans, squashy- zuchini like vegetables, salad mixtures (like onions and tomatoes, or coleslaw with sauerkraut), stewed carrots, fried meats, fried condiment greens, feijo (beans), fried manioc chunks, french fries (batata frita), stewed okra.

Through the night, the ride was long and uncomfortable. There were off and on thunder showers, and we saw lots of lightning (usually in the clouds, though some bolts went downwards), but we only sometimes could hear the thunder over the rumble of the bus. Some passengers talked loudly, laughing and joking through the night. At one bigger stop, one woman had to get her bag out of the under-bus storage, so that she’d have it ready for quick exiting at her stop, a little while later. Xie kept waking up when the bus would accelerate to pass someone, with the didactic feeling that the bus driver had fallen asleep, and that we were plunging off the road.

 

Brazil 2005 Day 3 – São Paulo (2005-10-04 Tuesday)

Woke up after 9; breakfast goes until 10. Got up and showered, but not fast enough. We left the hotel at about 10:30.

We had breakfast near the Praça da República. We had suco de acerola e de maracujá (passion fruit) com leite (with milk), também dez pães de queijo (also 10 cheese-bread rolls). Yum! We tried to make conversation with the nice barista woman, but we weren’t successful. People seemed nervous for some other reason, and reticent to talk with us.

Our goal: to visit the Muséu Brasileira da Escultura (Brazilian Museum of Culture), which was supposed to have exhibits of modern Brazilian artists. The museu was not convenient to the subway. We were going to take 3 subways to get almost 1/2-way there, but decided to instead just walk the whole way there. We had an interaction with a nice young Brasileiro, who stopped when we were looking at a map in Praça da República, to help us figure out our directions.

Before leaving, we walked around Praça da República, which was nice. We saw some birds and saw some vendors, who seemed to not really be set up, but hanging out and chatting with each other. We saw some homeless people.

We walked along a big street – Avenida da Consolação – for a long time. Crossing intersections was exciting. You always need to keep one eye on the traffic, so that you can avoid the turning cars – they won’t slow down for you.

We passed um cemetério (a cemetary). We stopped in to look around. There was a poster for avoiding the disease dengue, with tips like pouring extra water out of bromeliads. We walked around and looked at the graves. They were mausoleum style, mixed with ground burial style. The ground ones were raised-beds, presumably to avoid flooding. These were planted with succulents and flowers, usually in a nice pattern. The mausoleums were pretty ornate, and each had pretty decorations. Dates on tombs ranged from mid-late 19th century (3-digit years) to modern. Some tombs were too worn to read the inscriptions. It was quite nice in the cemetério, very pretty, crowded with unique and pretty graves, lots of birds, and very peaceful. We didn’t see any other visitors, only groundspeople. It was interesting that many graves had gardens planted all over them. Some newer graves had a sign with the name and phone number of the constructor.

Soon, we realized that we were in a much richer area of town. The piss smell was absent, people wore fancier clothes, cafes looked much nicer. We saw lots of clothes shops and CD/music stores.

After getting off the main street, we entered an Italian neighborhood. We stopped and got cafes, stopped in a CD store, wishing someone would tell us which music to get, and stopped and got more cafes. We stopped and got lunch at a little shop, advertizing a pastel de shitake (shitake pastry), but instead ordered saladas com quiche (salads with quiche). A nice woman explained all of the salads and quiches to us. The salads had fresh cheese in them and were really good. The quiches were kind of dry. The cafe was crowded, and it was fun to watch people walk by on the busy street.

We walked and walked, mostly on huge streets. When we got close to the museu, there was another museu, Museu da Imagem e do Som (Museum of Images and Sound). There was an area downstairs that you could look at for free, and we wandered around there. It was cool – old photographic and recording equipment. A cool portable record player, old movie projectors, rádio de plástico branco (white plastic radio). We could have seen the upstairs for R$10, but we were having trouble figuring out what was going on. It seemed like it was a surfboarding exhibit or something (filmes de surf (surf movies)). We moved on.

Museu Brasileira da Escultura had a big fence around it, and it was hard to tell if it was open. We went around, from the main street to Rua Alemanha (German Street). There was an entrance with a man in the booth. CM asked “Está museu?” (It is museum?) Xie asked “O museu está aberto?” (Is the museum open?) He waved us on. It was a strange concrete park designed by Burle Marx, mostly empty and kind of barren-feeling, with a couple of sparse sculptures. We went down a hall toward an entrance – a sign pointed to Sala de Exposição (Exhibition Room). A nice young woman asked us to sign in and asked us where we were from. She explained that two artists were being shown, one on each side of the room. The first was paintings with shaded lines and triangular shapes. Most of them were abstract. The other was color blobs, some with stenciled letters. We were about to leave, when 2 women asked us if we were brasileiros. No? Português? No… americanos. They spoke english pretty well. After a moment, they told us that they were the artists! They asked us where we were going, and after Xie said the Pantanal, they asked us if we would stay in Bonito. They were excited when we said yes. Then they wanted to tell us about an island in the north that we should visit next time. One of them took Xie’s email address, so that she could write and tell us about the island (which she later did). CM told the other artist which was his favorite painting, which made her laugh. She explained that the curator had tried to talk her out of displaying that particular painting, but she had insisted, saying that she really like it, and so it should go in the display. The artists names were Ana Zanetti & Bia Black.

After visiting the sanitário (bathroom) (In the sanitário, CM saw a sign that said “lixo no lixo”, meaning literally “trash in the trash”. This was a popular phrase in Brazil to tell people to throw away their trash), we moved on to another part of the museu. This part had an exhibit for posters of architectural designs for different parts of buildings – condos, hospitals, businesses, etc.. It was a huge display. We looked at a few of them.

Next, we decided to head to this big park that had several museums within it. The park was called Parque do Ibirapuera.

On the way, we ran into an art school that had an extensive exhibit on “the modern Dom Quixote of South America” or something. The art was very diverse and really good. It was also cool to look in on the art classes. The layout of the building and of the classrooms was very open. Interestingly, all of the computers were blue iMac G3s.

We were very tired by the time we made it to the parque, as we had walked a great distance. It was a large park with lots of paved paths and a central lake system. We saw pigeons, crazy geese, the largish yellow bird, thrushes, and birds that looked like black swans. We stopped twice for agua de côco (coconut water). We stopped a lot to rest.

The park had a nice view of São Paulo from the lake:

We finally got to one of the museus for which we were aiming (the first one was almost closed by the time we made it, so we skipped it). The museum we stopped at was MAC (Museu de Arte Contemporânea) (Contemporary Art Museum). It was a big building, with about 5 stories. The bottom several stories were completely empty, and apparently unused. We walked up a long ramp, with one switchback per story. At the top of the ramp was the entrance to the museu. The exhibit was drawings and paintings from Japanese who had witnessed the atomic bomb at Hiroshima. Drawings depicted things like many, many bodies in the river, destroyed buildings, people with clothes and flesh burned from them, piles of bodies being burnt afterwards, maggots in the wounds of survivors.

There was a cartoon (feature-length) of kids and a family during wartime in Hiroshima. People practically starving, pregnant mother, sick from malnutrition. Eventually, the bomb dropped, and the cartoon went from cute (I know it’s hard to believe, but the first part was really really cute) to horrifying. Depictions of people dying in various ways… Afterwards, the survivors struggling, still dying like crazy.

It was really interesting seeing an exhibit about Hiroshima that was neither American nor Japanese. None of the exhibit was couched in guilt or pride. It was all just a 3rd-parties expression of the horror of the humanity. It was hard to see.
On the way out of the museu, we stopped at the banheiros, 2nd public restroom we had seen with showers, decently clean. The museum had closed while we watched the movie, so the guard had to let us out.

We headed out of the park toward the nearest metro stop, walking along a huge, super-busy street. We got back to the first lake, and the fountain was lit up with pastel colors. It was a pretty neat show with the colors and water patterns changing. We realized that we had gone the wrong way, so we plotted a new course to a metro stop. We headed for smaller streets to be away from the traffic.

Along the way, we passed through an Italian neighborhood with a few restaurants. We decided to try Brazilian Italian food, for fun. We picked a fancy restaurant, quite a bit more expensive than typical São Paulo fare. The waiter sat us, Xie ordered a caipirinha (popular lime and sugar Brazilian drink, kind of like a mojito without the mint), and CM got a Bohemia beer. Menu had lots of choices. Finally we settled on Risotto de Funghi with a Chilean fungus and a “small” house salad. While waiting for food, we continued our conversation from the night before about differing incomes, privileges, standards of living, socialism, etc. The small salad came, and it was huge and had palm hearts in it. We both felt guilty, knowing that we wouldn’t finish the food, couldn’t practically take it with us, and that there were many, many hungry people in the city around us. The Risotto came. It was fairly yummy, but the Chilean mushrooms weren’t reconstituted well enough. They were definitely in the Boletaceae, but they were not porcini – we could tell from the flavor. We ate as much as we could, and then settled the bill, which came to R$100 (a little less than $50, and more than our 2-night stay in a 3-star hotel, and more than 6 times our dinner the night before, which was much tastier).

After dinner, we again made our way to the metro stop. We finally got to the stop, only to find it closed. We checked a 2nd entrance to be sure. We sighed and planned for the long walk back. CM lobbied for walking on the big streets this time, so that we could people-watch. Just as we had started, we noticed a 3rd entrance to the metro, and someone heading down the stairs. Huh? We looked, and a bunch more people headed down. We followed and found the train station to be pretty busy. At the bilheteria (ticket) window, we purchased 4 tickets for R$9. The turnstiles were typical – put the ticket in, and pass through. Down on the platform, we got a little confused. There was a map to the trains, which was easy enough to read, but it was hard to decide which side of the platform to board the train from. All of the signs seemed to be only about which exit to take to get to which street. Finally, Xie saw the signs that designated the train destinations.

The trains were nice and clean, and the only ones ever in the whole world on which could be understood the stop announcements. We had to transfer twice to get to the República stop. As soon as we were on the street, some woman started accosting us, asking for help, with many words spoken quickly. We pretended not to understand, at which point she said “mony, mony, mony” (money) repeatedly. She was dressed in decent clothes. We had to just turn our backs and walk away.

On the way back, we stopped to buy a couple of small bottles of water. One guy said R$1 each, but just as he was selling them to us, some other guy rushed up and insisted R$1.50 each. We felt ripped off and frustrated (not that it was too much money, but it’s annoying to have people try to take advantage of you), though the next day at the bus stop, we had to pay R$1.60.

 

Brazil 2005 Day 2 – Atlanta to São Paulo (2005-10-03 Monday)

Pretty sunrise over Brasil.

Landed; the plane seemed to clear out quicker than expected. The line to get our passports stamped was long, but the customs waved us through.

We stopped at a bank machine to get cash (2.21 reals/dollar + 6 reals convenience fee). Got bus tickets to Republica station. Xie “bored out of her mind” (probly because CM had hardly spoken for twenty hours straight).

Bus to Sampa (São Paulo) comfortable. Neat views of city, graphiti, shops, trucks carrying various stuffs, people working in shops and on the sides of roads, different trees. CM sleepy and occasionally sleeping. It was confusing to figure out where the bus was stopping (it was a direct bus to Praça da República (the historic center of Sampa).

Got off bus, got our checked bags. We started to walk around the corner. A guy with a taxi vest was following us, and trying to talk to us, while we walked away, and tried to ignore him. He caught up and tried to sell us a hotel. Xie said “temos um reservo” “we have a reservation”). He asked where, and we kinda figured it out (lookin at a map in our book). He tried to sell us a taxi there, for 5 reais. We turned him down, and started to walk through Praça da República.

We went to the informações (information) booth in the praça. Xie talked to the nice people, got a map, and figured out where our hotel was. A kid, around eight years old, was sleeping on the concrete ground outside of the booth; everyone ignored him. Xie thought that he was passed out from glue.

Someone squirted ketchup and mustard on us. Some guy in the middle of a very crowded crosswalk pointed out the ketchup and mustard, and tried to get us to cross the street with him, to get some napkins to clean it up. He was probably a nice guy, but we were getting wigged out, from having to navigate crowded sidewalks with our luggage, so we just carried on to the hotel. (After we got home to the U.S., we found stories of this scam, where one person would act helpful and distract tourists, while someone else grabbed their luggage and ran.)

The hotel (Hotel Joamar) didn’t have our reserva (reservation) on file, but it was still easy to get a room (207). The room was pretty decent, clean and with a private bathroom. We laid down and napped for a few hours, and then decided to talk a walking tour, laid out in our guidebook, of central Sampa.

Xie was hungry, and wanted a suco (juice) de acerola (a delicioius, tangy juice). We eyed a few lanchonetes (snack shops), and found one that looked decent, right across from the NS do Rosário dos Homens Pretos (Our Lady of the Black People’s Rosary). Unfortunately, they were out of suco de acerola, so Xie got a suco de maracujá (passion fruit) (yum), and CM got a suco de laranja (orange) (sour, but good). Later, we got a mixto quente — a grilled ham and cheese sandwich. Ordering went ok. There’s a distinction between a juice with gelo (ice), and one with agua (water), which confused us. There was an interesting character at bar, extremely drunk, trying to smoke a cigarette that was half saturated with some fluid. So drunk, he could barely keep his eyes open. Drinking a beer. He left. Later, someone who was clearly a regular walked up. He was given a coffee and a pastry, and he downed them quickly.

On to the walking tour. We saw the yellow-orange NS (Nossa Senhora) do Rosário do Homens Pretos church, with a statue of Mãe Preta (an advocate for the poor), suckling a white infant. Shortly after that, we lost the walking tour, and ended up on the other side of it, at the Teatro Municipal, an Italian looking grand building. We couldn’t really go inside most of the building. We followed the tour until after dark.

We stopped at an Italian styled coffee shop, and got an espresso. Then we stopped at an Italian styled coffee shop (right next door) for a cappuccino.

We visited a churchy area, with a catholic school, then stopped at a bookstore across the way, where we bought an English-Portugues dictionary, and Italian-Portugues dictionary, and a couple of kids’ books in Portugues.

We walked down to Praça da Sé. The main attraction was Catedral Metropolitana. It was very large inside, with vaulted arches and brick ceilings. Tall columns were made up of numerous thinner columns. There were two large mosaics that were two dimensionalish. There were big, beautiful wooden doors, and a wooden staircase that spiraled around a larger column. Bells went off as we exited the church. Big, exciting.

Outside, back in the praça, there were many homeless people, and a strong smell of piss. Two guys were filming a homeless guy, eating. It seemed like they were interviewing him. There were homeless beds all over the park. Tents were made by putting blankets over picnic tables. There were sculptures in the park, several pretty neat ones, and an incredible view of the catedral. We wanted to take photos, but we were too embarrassed to take out our expensive cameras in front of all the homeless people (as if our clothes weren’t embarrassing enough).

We sat down on a bench near the pond, to read our guide book and get our bearings. Motorcycle cops came slowly driving through the park, driving right down the stairs. In the subway station, below the park, we could see people walking, behind the waterfalls. All of the sudden, more than a dozen vendors were running through the park, with their tables wrapped up under their arms. About twenty seconds later, a number of cops with helmets, maybe six, came strolling through, walking in pairs. The vendors didn’t seem to scared; some were even grinning, or laughing. The cops didn’t seem too intent on catching them. We couldn’t figure out what type of vendors they were. There were other vendors below, presumably with appropriate licenses, or otherwise not illegal, and they weren’t running.

Homeless people pretty much didn’t beg, except for one or two cripples, in front of each church. There were many, many vendors: phone cards, cds and dvds, leather wallets. Magazine stands were more permanent than vendors, and featured 1/2 porn, and 1/2 news or other magazines. Many people wear sandwich board signs, or carry signs on a pole, and hand out flyers for phone cards, shoes, or gold jewelry. Many people with clipboards were also giving people surveys (hard to say what for; maybe political, maybe like scientology).

We took the Rua Boa Vista to the Largo de São Bento (saint of Japanese food?). There was a kind of cool station for the underground metro (subway) there. There was a big area that transitioned from ground level to underground, with shops, cafes and hangout areas. Very open. Weird bugs were flying around, looking like tiny moths.

We walked toward home, tired and hungry. We stopped in the “Shopping Center” to see if it had a movie theater. It turned out to be an interesting six or seven story punk rock mall, open air on all levels. Stores were selling music, clothes, tattoagem & body piercing, shoes or skateboards.

We were tired and hungry. We checked out a place that was suppposed to have famous sandwiches, but wasn’t looking so good. Instead we went to a yummy restaurante, where you could choose “self service” or churrascaria (kind of an all-you-can-eat BBQ of assorted meats) plus self service. A little discombobulated, we chose self service. The waiter took our bag to watch it, a little scary with passports, girlfriend and camera inside, but it was ok in the end. The food was delicious, especially the beans, stewed pork, pimenta forte (hot peppers) and farofa (condiment of toasted manioc flour with bacon, onion, egg). We split a big Brahma beer with dinner. We regretted not getting churrascaria style, like the guys sitting across from us. CM reports bathroom with extra strong piss smell.

 

Brazil 2005 Day 1 – Travel Seattle to Nowhere (2005-10-02 Sunday)

Plenty of time getting to airport. Everything went easy, and flight to Atlanta on time. Movie: stupid Bewitched.

Sat in Atlanta airport, drank a beer. The kitchen was closed; Xie couldn’t order a lobster bisque. Then we got on another plane for a ten hour flight to São Paulo. Movie was something about prison football comedy. With Adam Sandler (who Xie has a crush on (ha ha this is a very funny joke courtesy of journal author #1 Colin)). And Burt Reynolds. People talked in Portuguese on the plane. We saw a lightning storm over some island. The island had lights and cities on it. We slept some.

 

Intro to Brazil 2005

One of the things I thought this blog would be good for would be for telling travel stories. One of the most fun trips I’ve taken was when Colin and I went to Brazil almost 2 years ago now. We’re almost done typing in our stories from our written journal into text, but how much more fun when it’s a blog, and we can insert pictures, and other people can partake and stuff? I say significantly :).

So, I’ll start from the beginning and do them a little at a time. Here goes.