Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
HEY! holy crap, I did not realize that a month went by since the last time I updated. Sorry folks. AND I know that I said I would add some photos this time, BUT on the hike that I just did my camera got WET, and right now it doesn´t work. Great. I am going to attack it with a hair dryer when I get back to my friends house.
So, the last time I wrote anything I was in Uruguay. After writing I hung out in that cute little town playing fiddle on the banks of the river, with an artesian guy paying me in these weird littlçe wovern grass things as payment. Very weird, but also fun. Took the boat over to Buenos Aires again, then grabbed a 30 hour bu from Buenos Aires to a town in Brasil, Florianópolis. This town is spread over the mainland and also a big island, Santa Catarina. It is pretty much all beaches, hills, ocean, universities and lots of Argentinian tourists.
One of the tourists that I met was sitting next to me on the bus ride over. His name was Mario, and he was going to his guest cabin that he had in Floripa, along with his two friends and his nephew. Because I wasn´t sure what I was going to be doing that night, and the Portuguese class that I signed up for didn´t start untill the next day, he said that I was more than welcome to stay at his house for the night. Well, that night turned into a week and a half. Mario and his freinds Raul, Cristina and Pato were great, and after fgoing to my Portuguese school in the mornings we would usually go on little family adventures together, weather permitting. Brasil does have a lot of beaches, something it is known for, but in this time of year the weather can pour on you very very quickly. But a warm warm rain, something I rarely get to experience in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Anyways, I stayed on this island for a week and a half, and only saw maybe an eighth of the things that you can see: beaches, hikes, cool colonial parts of the old downtown... Very fun.
The last day there UI went for a hike with Pato to a hidden beach only accessable bny foot. We didn´t really realize how much of a hike it was, so I left the house barefoot. On the beach that was fine, but to get to the "hidden" beach I had to scramble up many many muddy riverbeds, forge through thickets and freak myself out about roots tht looked like snakes. Didn´t see any poisionous snakes (there) but lots of spiders that lookn like they got beat with the ugly stick. Muito Feas.
A sad goodbye to easy living Floripa, when I took another 30 hour bus to go to the capital of Brasil, Brasília. That town is, honestly, probablyu the strangest city I have ever been in. Rumor has it that the builder of the city was visited by aliens, whiuch told him to build a city in the shape of a gigantic bird, and make it the capital. The architect´s name is something like Narscberg (that isn´t it, but it is close) and he build the city to be very futuristic.... but for a 1960´s view. The whole city was made from nothing in about 3 years, and as you walk around you can see that everything has a sort of run down-1960´s futuristic feel to it, inside the main plan (the thing in the shape of a bird) Outisde of the plan it seems like any other city, weith the difference between there and the rest of Brasil being that most of the people who are here are here on official business. Very wealthy people there, all living in their "superquadras" super blocks that are all 6 story apartment buildings, iun the same pattern. Weird. also a pricy city in that there are no hostels, only pricy hotels for visiting dignitaries... Yep.
Fortunately for me I didn´t have to go to one of these hotels because a friend of mine from my college is living there for this year, teaching english at a high school. Hayden let me crash at his apartment for a week, during which I visited the School of the Nations (Escola dos Nações) a few times, playing a little fiddle for these high school kids.... I pretty sure they thought I was the strangest thing they had seen at the school... not many people play that kind of music here. I also talked a little bit about my bike trip, and just practiced english with them because Hayden teaches english class. Other than that I explored the city a little bit, went up the TV tower (the center of the bird, and the sort of market center where every Sunday they have a "hippy feria" is a television tower, weird huh?) and saw the city, went to a museum, walked across the "most beautiful bridge in the world" according to the 2003 world bridge association. Not kidding. Went to the catholic cathedral, another strange building built by this same architect. From the outside it looks like a boquet of flowers with the blooms cut off, you go down into it and there are three hbuge cement angels that look like they are going to fall on you on the inside, there is lots of stained glass and this weird relfection of water that you cant see, you can only see relfected. The bottom wall is curved, and if youy whisper on one side you can hear it in a certain spot on the other...... I cant really describe it, or anoy of teh other weird buioldings in Brasília, but it is a very surreal, rather barren and modern city.
Also in Brasili I had some phone interviews for summer work back home in Fairbanks Alaska. Haven´r heard back from either of the positions I applied for, but I´ll keep my fingers crossed.
Last Friday I took a plane from Brasília tro Salvador de Bahia, the Afro-Brazilian area of Brasil, where the Portuguese first asrrived, the first capital was, and what they call the root of Brasil is. The first person I met in Salvador was a rather irritating Aussie who told me that the area I was planning on stayiong was a place where people would kill me for my shoes. Great. I followed his advise, and slept that night in a hotel a bit outside the city, in an area not turistic in any way. It was a good feel for t5he middle class Bahai life, but I felt that if I walked a bit away from the main plaza the shoe-stealing factor was still kind of high. Stayed there two nights and then moved to the Pelhourinho area of Salvador. It ios the oldest part of the city, full of policemen, touristy shops and hordes of gringos. This was the place the aussie told me was horrible, but it was fine. The only way that IO actually got robbed was by a guide who took me around the city. I asked him several several SEVRERAL times if it was free to walk around with him, and he said yes. This might be naive, but I thought for real that he was paid by the city, but at the end of the really cool tour he wanted 50 bucks! Very unexpected, not going to lie, but I talked the price down a bit. There are lots of things to see in Salvador, not to be missed are the cherubs in the church with the moist gold leaf in all of Brasil: the slaves who built it sneakily added huge genetalia to some of them. Whoops! That same church is still a convent for Salestinian monks, and has pretty much everything the same from the 1800s when it was built.... I wish I could remember the name, sorry. Also the MUSI in this city is crazy: The birthplace of capoeira, and Brasilian martial arts/ dance that looks very cool, lots of bands and drummers, supposedly the best in Brazil. I went one night to a Olodum concert, which ios poissibly the most famous drum group in all of Brasil; the concert was full of people moving to this loud music and the singer, with a super-athletic dancer in the front showing off all these neat African moves, and a herd of locals and gringos (myself included) trying to follow along... Even though we never could be as good as this guy, it was soooo much fun to follw along and loose yourself in the loud Loud LOUD music.
Salvador was fun, but I was sort of getting sick of big cities, so I took a bus to Lençois, the little towen that I am at right now, which is the gateway yto the Chapada Diamantina National Park. Chapada means plateau, and the whole place is fuill of green hills and waterfalls, from the top seeing nothing but nature untill the horizon. A nice change from Brasília and Salvador. I arrived at 6:30 in the morning, and after some quick decisions and a little bargaining I jopind a grou8p of two guides and three other tourists who were going to hike to the tallest waterfall in Brasil, and then go down into the canyone it fell into for three days and two night. I usually like doing thinmgs by myself, but the only way to get into this national park (no marked trail system whatsoever) is to with a guide, so I why not? The guides were locals, named Flor (flower) and Elvis. Wow. Then there was a guy from Spain, a woman from Switzerland and another from São Paulo Brasil. It was a great hike and also a classroom too, because the lauguasge that we spoke for those three days wasz Portugues! I can understand most everything (except for jokes... humor doesn´t cross the language barrier unless you are drunk, at least for me) but my vocabulary is very limited. The guides cooked amazing food for every meal, honestly better food over that open flame that I could do in any klitchen, and tht is a fact. The seccond day we scrambled up the raging river to see the bottom of the waterfall, and by the time we came back down the river basin was completely dry! the speed with which the river changed was astonishing. On that day we also saw a poisionous coral snake (Flor did this this whole three day hike in either flip flops or barefoot, never with shoes) yikes! and lots of beautiful trees growing outn of the potable, if yellowish, river water. OUr camp was really close to a swimming hole, where I could float downstream a bit before paddling back. OH! and possibly the coolest thing is that we slept in a cave! At night,. with the candels reflecting off the rocks and stuff, it was very cozy. the first night I got pretty wet as I slept, and the second night my backpack got soaked, in the process making my camera not work! AGH! I have no idea how it happened, because noone else had wet thing sin the morning, and the first night it was fine. Ah well. We had to hike back out the same way we came in, because with the high water level we couldn´t safely go downstream, but it was still beautiful; ont he way out we could see for miles, the sun was shining, there were 100s of butterflies everywhere, the waterfall (Cashuera de Foço, smoky waterfall) is so high that the water pretty much turns completely to mist before is hits the ground. Got back around 7 at night, got a hostel, took a shower, had dinner with the hiking group, had lots of beer with the hiking group, and went to bed. The morning I woke up slowly, got a ticket out of this town for tonight at 11:30, and then came here.
The future: today I might walk to a swimming hole a bit out of town, Saturday I fly back to Brasilia where I will record a bit of fiddle on a freind´s CD (a random suprise, but it will be fun), the maybe volunteer at an orphanage closeby, the to Rio de Janiero, and the to São Paulo, and then go back home! I have amy tickets and everything, ready to visit family in Florida and Ohio before going back to Washington for a few weeks, and then back to Alaska for the saummer to work. I am haveing a great time here, and am going to try and leave with a tan (quasi impossible for me) but am getting ready to come back home.
I hope that everyone is doing well, and I will probably see some of you relatively soon (Mayish...)
And I apologize for the horrendous spelling. I could go back and correct it but dont care enough! Bye!
- comments