I was lucky to get to see a lot of Brazil so what follows is a quick recap:
Rio de Janeiro: For me, it's eh. Maybe I had high expectations of Rio but I just wasn't impressed, even after seeing it during carnaval. It's dirty and gritty and the "must-sees" like Sugarloaf and the Christo are expensive and really not that amazing. There are a lot of rundown buildings and trash....and maybe I didn't kno where to go, but the food wasn't so great either. I did love the friends I made in Rio (Lolo, Aldael, Diego, Tulio, etc...) but I'm definitely in no rush to get back to the city. Feeling lucky about meeting a great group of people... Feeling bitter about the numerous times I felt screwed over...
Salvador: There's something about Bahia that I just love! It's carnaval beats the pants off of Rio's carnaval, but the city is also just alive and beautiful in so many ways. The sunset I watched over the Porto do Barra in 2007 is still one of the best I've seen in Brazil and it absolutely makes sense why the Bahians applaud their sunset each day. The street food, too, is amazing! Best meat and cheese sticks ever! And thanks, Greg, for making it an awesome visit! Feeling lucky about the nice people who helped me during Carnaval and getting to spend time with Greg... Wish I hadn't had that rough start, but it definitely made for a good story (I hope) =)
Recife: I have no real feel for Recife because I ate and beached... but if those are things you are interested in, it's great! Are they the best beaches I've ever seen? No... The water is warm (and therefore not refreshing when its super hot outside) and the shark-attack potential at Boa Viagem is scary! But, for about $6 you can sit under an umbrella on a comfy chair and enjoy a big Brazilian beer. Not bad at all.
Belem: Definitely worth visiting if you care about trying new foods. You can get some amazing stuff for so cheap too! For 6 Reais ($4) I got an enormous piece of fried fish and then a second plate full of accompaniments: rice, beans, noodles, and vegetables at the Ver-o-Peso market. They also gave you free, cold, and I'm assuming purified water. Awesome! The friends I made here I also love and can't think of a better way to spend my Thursday night than sitting with them outside of a gas station, on plastic tables and chairs, sharing beers. I'm still not sure how dangerous the city is, but Belem also has some beautiful spots where you can see some really amazing wildlife. Also feeling very lucky about meeting people (Nathalia, Bruno, Franca) who, though they didn't know me, were so good to me when I was there.
Marajo: Loved Marajo! It was the first Brazilian city I visited on this trip that I just loved. The people were super friendly from the hostel owner to my Salvaterra mototaxista. Mototaxi is definitely my preferred method of travel. Maybe it's because I read someone's blog about visiting Marajo, but I had "Home on the Range" stuck in my head the whole time. "Oh give me a home, where the buffalos roam...." (In Marajo, there are more buffalos than people!) They taste good too! It tastes like mom's empal except with (buffalo) cheese on top.
Ilha Grande: Got crabs? Ilha Grande does! At night, they come up from the beach and are just everywhere. I got a few pictures of a crab who kept trying to do his sneaky sideways crawl into a restaurant. The host wasn't having any of it and kept kicking him out. =) Other than that though, I'm a little underwhelmed with Ilha Grande. Though I absolutely loved snorkeling with Theo and loved exploring beaches via high-powered speedboat, it was expensive, the food was boo, the people were just okay, and there were little buggies everywhere. One night, I got seven mosquito bites - 4 on my face - and while half asleep, I started conspiring as to how to get them to start biting Theo and stop biting me! I might be a bad girlfriend lol
Angra dos Reis: Only saw this town for about 10 minutes because the ferry from Ilha Grande docked here and from there it was straight to the bus station. But, from what I saw, it's a really pretty beach town that I'd love to come back to to explore.
Florianopolis: Love this place! The beaches are so beautiful and yet so different from one another. The food is great here too! And, the people are also incredibly nice! Right when we arrived, one guy tried to help us find a good, cheap place to rent a car. That didn't end up working out and we had to walk quite a ways back to the bus station, but another guy helped us carry our bags. It seemed like for him, it was ridiculous that we carry so much stuff if he, with available hands, could help. People were just really nice about everything, especially when helping us with our stick-shift disaster. Definitely want to come back andspend more time here.. and also Tucano House Hostel.. maybe not so awesome for location, but really awesome for everything else!
Foz do Iguacu: I think for being such a touristy attraction, the infrastructure is beyond terrible, but then again you may or may not have already read my rant about that :) I didn't end up seeing the Brazilian side, but everyone I heard from said that the Argentinean side is better! I really did enjoy the falls themselves, and in particular, the most amazing rainbows and butterflies ever! Inferior circuit on the Argentinean side is awesome, btw!
Sao Paolo: Surprisingly, love this city! Probably my favorite city in Brazil or at least tied with Florianopolis. Paulistas I had met while traveling didn't impress me, but I liked everyone I met in the city itself. Food was amazing and prices weren't bad either! You can do a lot of cool stuff for free in this city and there's not all this pressure to spend a lot of money like there is in Rio. It's not a city that has dedicated tourist stops, but I really liked that.
(New Stuff)
Bonito: AMAZING! Well, to be specific, the Recanto Ecologio Rio da Prata is amazing! After about a 40 minute hike, I got to the olho d'agua where a group of us started the most amazing snorkeling experience ever. The waters are crystal clear and they try to keep it that way by, for example, not letting people wear sunscreen or deet before going in. There were fish everywhere and when we'd stop long enough, the little ones would bite our lips and knees. (Kind of cool, but it also kind of creeped me out). I haven't done any Hawaii snorkeling or anything, and Bonito is definitely more off the beaten path than other touristy destinations, but I think it is so So worth seeing!
Pantanal: Great trip! The pantanal is incredibly beautiful, especially at sunset.
I did a three day, two night stay with the Lontra Pantanal Hotel and it was fantastic! After arriving, we started the day by going out piranha fishing! I didn't catch any piranhas but I got a pacu and a piraputanga. (No idea what the English equivalents are...) I loved this trip and and at one point, laughed so hard I cried. I've never fished before and there's this way you sling your pole so that the line flies nicely into the water... mine would do this pathetic little drop into the water and one of the times, it struck me as being just so funny. The guide told me I had to be quiet because otherwise, the piranhas won't come. This of course made me laugh harder. Then I started thinking about a story Theo told me about going fishing with his dad and dropping his pole in the water and I was a laughing mess for a good five minutes. :) After about three hours of fishing, we jumped in the river to swim with the piranhas and then ate the ones we caught for dinner. Awesome!
So, the pantanal is famous for wildlife and though I didn't see any jaguars or anacondas, I saw capybaras, otters, foxes, deer, black pigs, and a lot of birds. We were lucky during one of our boat safaris because there were about 10-15 tucans just sitting in a tree, giving us opportunities for photography. (Ha, I like that rhyme.) The tucans posed for us to each take about fifty pictures of them. During a night safari, although the hundreds of flies in our faces tried to obscure the view, we saw caimans (crocodiles) and if you'd pass the light over the water, you'd see pairs of red eyes staring at you :) We found a caiman jaw - our guide carved the teeth out and made me a really cool necklace. It was amazing actually, as his raw materials were a tooth and some leaves. I currently wear this really amazing creation on my ankle :)
The pantanal is a litle bit rough though, and you definitely have to have tolerance for bugs everywhere. The bugs would fly into our food and drinks at dinner and before going into our room for the night, you had to run to get the mosquitoes off you. There were also blood stains on the walls from where people got revenge on mosquitoes. I also had 100% deet and sunscreen on me 24/7 so my skin felt awful for the few days I was there. That said, definitely want to come back some day - maybe in the dry season when everything isn't flooded :)
So that was Brazil for me... I got to do and see a ton, contribute significantly to the Brazilian economy, and manage without major incident in a place where I encountered the biggest language barrier ever. According to my travel map (see below), I've been to 20% of the world and really, it's never been so hard as it was in Brazil! But, the highs were really high to match those low lows and the little victories were especially sweet. I'll be back someday, but for now, I'm quite happy to leave behind Portuguese, the expensive prices, and everyone and their mother asking me if I'm Japanese! Good last memory of Brazil though... two boys from Fortaleza gave me some money (like 40 cents lol)so that I could send one last postcard!
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