brazil: part one and only.

so i got my brazilian visa in two hours, even though normally it takes a week in buenos aires and you need proof that you´re leaving brazil within the month and you´re supposed to have at least six months valid on your passport. skipped all that junk by getting it at the puerto iguazu border to the country. woo!

i entered brazil in need of a cash machine, and found seven in the grocery store near the terminal. without even looking up or asking for help or anything, a brazilian woman noticed that my credit card wasn´t working at ANY of the seven stations. she then proceeded to aid me in pushing each card in, translate error messages to spanish, and when we both knew i was out of luck, her and her friend took pity on me and not asked, but demanded , they drive me into town to a bank that would work! it was so very kind!! they took such initiative, the little angels! after the bank, they even drove me to the bus stop for the falls! i hugged the driver and would have hugged the other had she been out of the car. what a random act of kindness, what a good first impression of brazil, i hope i can pass on the favor.

THEN, while waiting for the bus, i asked a girl which bus i should get on, then i asked if they give change or do i need exact. she asked me what i had- i had a five reais bill- and then she gave me a bus ticket she had! i was so touched by it all. and she didn´t have to at all! i later found out you could give upwards of twenty reais and they would give you change. how unnecessarily sweet.

so that was all dandy and heart-warming, but really i should have never gone to the falls at foz do iguacu. i was sure i had seen all i wanted to see and that the brazilian side could not possibly be better than the argentinian (the same iquazu falls), but others´ opinions got the best of me and i visited anyway. everyone says it´s worthwhile to see the "overview" on the brazilian side, but i would have to disagree, personally. they had some fancier stuff than argentina, like a nice double-decker bus and an elevator and a watchtower, but they were just over-compensating for the lack of good falls. the entrance fee is preposterous and it´s nothing special once you´ve seen the falls from the other side. and that´s all i have to say.

i was off to florianopolis that night. i have no idea what it means in portugese but in spanish it might be a blend of flowers and metropolis, which is a strange, unnatural blend. it never sat well with me. and the actual experience didn´t sit much better. it rained and was cloudy for the three days i was there. mega disappointment- after icebergs and cities, i was sooo looking forward to sun and surf and chill. but i got almost no sun, very little surf, and far too much useless, bad-weather chilling. i just waited and waited for the sun. can´t win it all, i guess.

while waiting for the sun, i made some lame attempts to do stuff. visited beach and just... looked at it (too cold to swim). bought coconut yogurt. someone else ate it when i put it in the fridge. looked at a lake. climbed some sand dunes. bought a sarong thinking it would entice the sun to come out and make me sit on beach on said sarong.
the highlight was hiking to a lovely, secluded beach surrounded by mountains and getting about 1.5 hours of sun while there. something to get excited about. lotsa jellyfish on the sand scared me.

strangely, my hostel was filled with argentinians- not only those staying there, but all those working there, as well! i almost didn´t believe i was in brazil. strange. they actually kindof really excluded me, which is very rare for argentinians. while i was cooking, they did this techno rap thing with their voices and a guitar that was realy fucking hilarious, though. possibly the highlight of my day.

then off to ilha grande (pronounced grahn-jay, portugese is so funny). the bus was an hour late and so i missed the cheap ferry by ten minutes. not impressed. so i spent double or so getting a ferry over in which the captain hit on me hard and taught me some portugese under a perfect night sky. i continued to try to read ´the idiot´. in brazil, i just had to attempt to numb myself from the pain of spending so much money. it is reeeaaaaalllly expensive. it also explains my short, two.five-week stay. it´s also enormous (8/9 the size of the states), so i figured i will just return and finish up brazil when i have real money.

so in ilha grande i had just about the same luck in weather as florianopolis. but at least i had good company. every night was filled with good fun, every day was filled with hammocks and food, awaiting the precious sol. it´s a real shame because it´s supposed to have really beautiful beaches, but when it´s gross and cloudy the last thing you want to invest in is a trip to the beach. so three more wasted brazilian days. i later heard that the weather cleared the day after i left, of course. roi told me on that island that there´s a hebrew saying: if you eat alone, you die alone. it looks like i´m in trouble. the hostel had a dvd player, but just one movie, so we watched the incredibly gruesome and unbearably stupid "shottas" about five times, by default. TERRIBLE.


so a week in brazil and i have not fully enjoyed one beach. time to hit the city: worst. day. ever.

it started by missing the ferry by about 1.5 minutes, so the whole thing turned around for me, and then i find out it´s the expensive ferry i don´t want to take anyway, but i take it because i feel bad that it´s turning around for me.
then i went to the town that´s closer to rio de janeiro, but it´s the one that doesn´t have local transit to the city. so it costs me a ridiculous sum for a minibus with a bunch of tourists.

then everyone else gets dropped off at their respective areas, but since i didn´t have the actual address of mine, only the area, the guy won´t drop me anywhere near it, so he randomly drops me off the highway and i have to take a really expensive taxi to santa teresa. it´s a sunday, and this area is not extremely popular, so everything is closed, including the internet i was depending on in order to find the hostel address. so i wander the rainy, barren streets looking for someone to ask about the hostel. finally i find someone fixing a telephone pole. i ask him if he, by chance, has a telephone book. he mutters something in portugese, gestures wildly and disappears inside the house. (by the way, native spanish and portugese speakers can understand portugese and spanish, respectively, because it´s similar enough, but i found it nearly impossible to understand portugese, though luckily they could generally understand my spanish enough, so at least i could get MY point across.) he comes out with a woman, not a telephone book. she can speak spanish. hallelujah!i can understand someone! i ask her for the telephone book or if she´s heard of the hostel. i felt like an idiot because the hostel was called "the best hostel in rio", but my friend recommended it to me. she hasn´t heard of it, it´s not in the phone book, and says there´s nothing in that area under $20. i´m depressed. she tells me internet opens at 3. i´m happy. she offers me a room in the dirty apartment below for $20. i couldn´t understand a thing the homeowner was saying, but she seemed sweet. the room was filthy. i wait around in the rain and go to internet. find hostel. i´m happy it exists. nice lady (licia- the one who speaks spanish) finds the address in book (it´s in lapa, not santa teresa) and then actually stands with me in the pouring rain and waits for the old-school trolley thing to pass by and tells the driver where to drop me off. that was really sweet of her- brazilians are really nice and helpful people, wouldn´t you agree?

the trolley-thing drops me off at the right spot, but gives me the wrong directions for where i´m to walk. there are no street signs, so i have no idea. after awhile i think i´m on wrong path and old lady who thinks i´m german (EVERYONE thinks i´m german!!) directs me back to where i was dropped, and down a different street. *sigh*. still raining. i go back and after getting lost again because a street that is on the map is not actually a street, but a set of STAIRS, i FINALLY find the hostel!

i find it and i enter to somewhat strange stares. hmmm. the owner, a nice english lady, gives me an awkward smile and delivers the news: this is actually no longer a hostel but more like a volunteer refuge. you´ve GOT to be kidding me. got to be. i laugh. a sad, pathetic, tired laugh. it´s all you can do. that or suicide. she says she´s in the middle of a meeting, but she´ll talk to me when she gets out- "sit, watch the movie, leave your backpack at reception". i assume she´s at least going to let me stay one night, sleep off this hellish day. i mean, it´s still a place to stay for random people. why not? it´s 5pm, so i have an hour to catch the two free sunday art museums (quite expensive when not sunday). i run up to the one. you just won´t believe it... it´s closed. shocking. i figure i can make it to the other one in time. it´s not where it is on the map, of course, so i waste time wandering, confused, and asking security guards for directions. aaaand... it´s closed. and the security guard told me this is a really dangerous area on sundays, i shouldn´t be walking alone. so i saunter back to the "hostel", paranoid of getting robbed, defeated and soaking. on the way, i check out sambavilla hostel because i know i´ll be kicked out after the night. it smells, but it´s nice.

back at "the best hostel in rio", the owner cheerfully tells me i cannot stay there, so sorry. i tell her that´s okay- if she had allowed me to stay, that would have meant that something went right that day, and that would simply be out of suite. it´s not like i was expecting anything to ensue properly by this point. i told her a tack had attacked (ha) the bottom of my shoe, but that i liked it because it makes me happy hearing the click click click. i even did a little tap dance for her. the absolute HILITE of my day was having a tack stuck to the bottom of my sandal. it later fell out, to my disappointment. i must say, considering the ridiculous day, i was still in surprisingly high spirits. felt good. i kindof felt that lazy, drunk "i just don´t care anymore" feeling.

so i went to aforementioned sambavilla and showered and felt much cleaner and drier and got along with people. my favorites of the night were cassandra, the insane canadian (who actually repeatedly told me she liked me because i made her look sane) who works at the hostel with an impressive and inspiring lot of self-confidence, and shay (pronounced shy) from israel, and jack and john from england ("all we need is a jim to be three great liquors", but i heard "all we need is a gym to be three great lickers"... oops). ate some nice dinner and then a brazilian folk band came to the bar (reception is a bar) and we watched dancers. two were phenomenal and shay and i stared in awe, and then they both asked us to dance! we told them we couldn´t possibly, oh no. then we did. turns out the chica is a dance teacher, so shay got free lessons. then they made us dance together and we were pathetic. but it was fun, anyway. lovely end to an abnormally piece-of-shit day.

the weather finally got better in rio! it didn´t rain my second day, and it was actually SUNNY the next day, and beyond! i was in rio for nine days, so, as with buenos aires, it´s all just a non-successive blur of days and nights, so i shall proceed in random order.

i took the trolley through santa teresa again, this time without my enormous backpack and with camera in hand. i was there as sun was just near-setting and it was quite lovely and peaceful. santa teresa is a more upper-class neighbourhood filled with beautiful, old, but modest, homes perched on mountainsides. also, at times you could have taken a photo of roadside gardens and thought you were in the jungle- oftentimes you´re surrounded on all sides by lush, exotic vegetation. i loved it. there is also a lot of amaaazing street art throughout lapa and santa teresa, and especially where the two areas meet. i would just walk the streets and take photos of the art and gaze in awe. it was lovely being surrounded by such creativity. also, apparently one of snoop dogg´s videos is filmed at these stairs in lapa. from what i remember, they have taken 15 years to do and they are still in the works. a local artist finds and oftentimes paints old ceramic tiles and has made these amazing, beautiful stairs- spectacular.

then, christ the redeemer- that enormous, minimalist, actually-quite-ugly christ that´s perched atop a mountain in rio that overlooks the whole of the city. i cannot BELIEVE that it´s a wonder of the world. that´s retarded. i should note, though, that while up-close the christ is nothing special, you always get a little excited when you have a view of it when you´re in the city- from far away it´s a little spectacular. so the christ itself was completely unimpressive for me, but the view- OH, the view! rio is by far the most beautiful city i have seen from above. it looks like a jungle scene if you just squint your eyes. hazy layers of mountains in the distance, beautiful sugarloaf mountains and windy coastline in the foreground, with a bay and a lake in the mix. i loved it. i went with shay, who couldn´t believe how i could possibly be so happy all the time. (as mentioned many blogs before, it´s generally my company that creates me- i think his under-energy and non-judgemental nature brought out my over-energy and real self).

i also went to the beach. a lot. everytime i went to, or even thought, of ipanema, mumbled words to bossanova "girl from ipanema" insisted on spewing from my mouth. i generally rotated between copacabana and ipanema. copa is dirtier and less classy and pretty, but more modest, with manageable waves. ipanema´s beach stole my swimsuit a few times (INTENSE waves) and its supposed mass of beautiful people must´ve been hiding everytime i made a visit. "where the hunnies at?" was a common question. i didn´t see that many beautiful people. it´s funny too because there are areas dedicated to different groups, if you really know what you´re doing- the gay area, the family area, the volleyball area, etc.

OH the juices in brazil! brazil has an amazing amount of exotic, rare fruit that i am pretty positive you cannot find anywhere else. and with fruit comes juice. chirimoya, acerola, acai, even cashew fruit! it was such a beautiful thing.

not such a beautiful thing was being robbed. again. fifth time. how could i POSSIBLY be such a target?! joakim tells me dogs don´t bite, i get bitten by a dog. dreadlocked bartender tells me no one gets robbed in lapa, i get robbed. lesson: don´t listen to people, people don´t know what they´re talking about. not that i really believed either one of them, but perhaps my guard was slightly lowered. testing irony. it´s kindof funny too, because i knew rio was dangerous, so as i was walking to the saara market, i was thinking about it. i had purposely left my camera and credit card and IDs at hostel and stuffed half my money in my bra. i thought to myself "really, the only thing i would get really upset about losing is my guatemalan bag..." and literally a few minutes later, i had one guy grab my shoulders from behind and another come round front and spit portugese at me. i understood enough to know what they wanted. and in rio, they WILL use force if necessary, so i wasn´t about to fight back. so i whimpered if i could just take my memory card- he was nice enough to agree to that. then he reached into my bag, grabbed my wallet, and my SPOON (oh no, my spoon!), and ran off with his sidekick. and i was right beside a stalled fuckin highway too, and no one helped me or said anything. that is the only time it has ever been face-to-face, and thus personal. and it didn´t feel good. i was shaking for a good hour afterwards. and i stole the spoon in mexico, so i spose i deserved that. at least i still have my guatemalan bag. i love that bag.

there is such an enormous division between the rich and the poor in rio- i have never seen a wider gap. this obviously creates problems. it´s one of the only places on this trip i´ve ever felt to be dangerous.

from what i understand, favela lords allow a certain amount of crime, and when it gets out of control, they... deal with it. think "city of god" (amazing portugese movie about rio´s favela´s (ridiculously poor outskirt neighbourhoods that often thrive in drugs and arms)). in lapa, which is not a favela, but one of the more sketchy neighbourhoods of central rio- especially near the lapa arches, which were separated from my hostel by a barely-used single lane and two bordering sidewalks, it was said one night that a favela lord was coming and someone was getting shot because there had been too much crime lately. there was an excitement in the air, an anticipation. it´s sick. but i liked that i was in a more real rio that had i stayed in ipanema or the like.

also, every thursday to saturday (and to a lesser degree every other day of the week) there are the famous lapa street parties, and my hostel was RIGHT in the thick of it- it was great. drink upstairs, move to the bar downstairs, then step outside and there´s an enormous crowd at the doorstep. party central. and the crowd staying at the hostel were great too, everyone got along lovely. we would play "hi jack" which is this ridiculous card/drinking game that i was very bad at and it became a large joke. down the street there was a stand of pastels (pronounced pash-tow, like you´re four years old) that inevitably became known to us as "pockets". six ingredients of your choice, surrounding by thin pastry and deep-dried before your eyes. deeeelicious. favourite nighttime activity: going for pockets.

there were a few nights when this amaaaazing, huge drum band class played at the bar around the corner. they made me incredibly happy- amazing beats and rhythms. love love loved it. we also had one night at a different club around the corner where they, compleeetely out of place, played really fantastic and random english music. from the beatles to sean paul, i was loving life- we were dancing MACHINES!

to leave was very sad. in nine days i became quite close to quite a few folks. but it had to be done (especially because paying $10 a night is NOT acceptable!). at the bus station, i met two guys who were waiting for their bus, as well. (duh). they had just come from the airport. from the states. they had just been deported! for marijuana posession. they had nothing but the shirts on their backs. it was a very interesting chat. they were really nice guys. one worked at starbucks. hm.

i went to bonito next, a town that translates to "lovely". straight-forward enough. bonito was slighty disappointing for cheap little me, though. i didn´t realize that all the things i had went there to do were so insanely expensive, along with food and lodging, as well.

so i rented a bike and made my way to the balneario municipal. bonito is known for its obscenely clear river waters. the balneario was just a local access area for one of those rivers. my oh my, was it spectacular. the river was quite narrow, maybe a few metres, and it was surrounded by lush, jungly flora. furthermore, not only was the water always within the beautiful variation between lime green and deep teal, while always clear as glass, but it was PACKED with fish. i rented a snorkel and goggles and sat on the platform at the river´s edge and deathly feared jumping into the mass of fish that, contrary to normal fish behaviour, came TOWARDS you instead of being scared of you. i thought maybe if i looked into the water with the goggles while still sitting on the platform, that that would ease me into it. no, that made it much, much worse. finally, after much anxiety and fear and deliberation, i splashed the water about frantically, to move them away, then quickly lowered a few steps and awkwardly flung myself in. as i thought would happen, i had a few initial seconds of intense fear as the fish seemed closer to me than they actually were (goggle-action), plus they kindof had piranha mouths, and then i was fine. i swam upstream and they all followed me- i was the spawning queen for a few moments. it was terrifying to look back and watch piranha-mouths all coming at you. then i´d stop at a wider part of the river and they´d circle me, go downstream, play like this for awhile. i loved it, and since it was a weekday i had the entire river almost to myself. just lovely. very peaceful. i drank a young coconut, then cycled back. on the way, i bought some beets. in rio i had recently been informed that you do not need to cook beets in order to eat them. my life is a lie! i thought they were like other roots, needed to be cooked! my mother always sliced and cooked them with some delicious saucy concoction! i had no idea! i loooovvvee beets, so i have since bought many beets and made shaved beets and carrots and pasta salad that makes me very happy and healthy. i had a nice social night with my beet salad and awoke early the next morning to make it to the bolivian border in time to buy a train ticket. that morning, at 6am, was sooo incredibly peaceful. still and quiet and lovely morning light. a toucan flock flew over my head and it was all very unreal.

i was sick of spending so much money in brazil, so i was quite excited for bolivia. i ended up joinging forces with a very shallow and immature, but funny, german, and an old, gay bolivian. interesting. we got a taxi to the train station and it was completely full. there was the slightest chance that we could wait and three spots would happen to open up. right. so we waited lots of horas... and wuddaya know? three spots fall gracefully into our posession. while waiting, the german commented numerous times on how ugly bolivians are. i think the place we were at did not have a proper representation of bolivians. i have found that they actually have quite an art to their faces. they can be quite beauitful.

but oh no! i have started bolivia! it needs to wait, i must hold myself back. and for now, leave you with random additions. now i´m only two countries behind, woohoo!
much love, shay.

- brazilian portugese sounds like... many things. when i was at iguazu falls in argentina, there were three people speaking behind me and i was playing the "guess that accent!" game with myself. i could not pinpoint it and the sound of that language actually made me laugh, it sounded really ridiculous. i turned around and asked them where they were from, having no clue. brazil. i was then terrified to enter because i certainly didn´t understand a thing they had been saying.
the portugese sounds like a retarded person speaking spanish. what jamaicans do to english, they do to spanish. it sounds like a strange mix of russian, french, german, with just a hint of español. it´s the funniest, strangest-sounding language i have ever heard, it makes me laugh. they do sound like they´re singing with their intonations, which is lovely. p.s. brazilian portugese is extremely different from portugal portugese, by the way.

- there are these things called tocidas in brazil that i was obsessed with. they were like tiny pita puffs. except that they were fried, not baked. it´s unfortunate. i want pita puffs mmm. i wonder if they still exist.

- i never got to see the brazilian martial art dance, capoeira. the only even remote evidence i saw of it were two homeless people in front of our hostel doing what i think may have been the dance. no idea. but that was the general consensus.