My time here in Brazil has been many things: enriching and frustrating, inspiring and maddening. While there are things I will find in the future to look back fondly on, when my plane leaves the tarmac I will, in general, have little love lost. That being said, as I reflect on the last three years of life and travel, I will focus on the positive experiences that may seduce travelers to choose Brazil as a place worthy of visiting. 1. Colonial Towns- Brazil has a fascinating history of European settlers from a variety of nations attempting to lay claim to a part of the new world. Thanks mostly to the Dutch and Portuguese, there are a number of colonial towns still in a good condition along Brazil's coastlines as well as inland due to early mining and agriculture. I've had the pleasure of visiting Paraty in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Olinda in the state of Pernambuco, and Ouro Preto in the state of Minas Gerais. Each takes you back in time as you navigate hazardous cobble-stoned streets and slow down to wonder what is was like as one of the first inhabitants of this continent.
The picturesque town of Paraty.
While neighboring Olinda gets a lot more tourists, the old town of Recife,
which dates to the same time period, is worth a visit as well.
2. Rio - This city was easily one of my favorites in all of Brazil. I can't explain it other that to say I love the carioca spirit! If I had lived closer I would have been camped out at Posto 9 on Ipanema ever chance I got. Nevertheless, I did manage to visit four times in three years, a couple of those for a week! My advice for travelers: come once to do the touristy stuff - Pão de Açúcar, Christ the Redeemer (or skip this...ugh!), the Centro/Lapa district and Selaron Steps, and the Botanical Gardens - then come back again and beach until you can no longer beach.
Rio at Carnaval is just as spectacular as you would hope.
The energy of dancing until sunrise in the Sambadrome is contagious!
One of my favorite places in Rio, other than the beaches,
and a must-see for any tourist - the Botanical Gardens.
Ipanema beach at sunset...sigh
Paçoquita is a popular brand of paçoca. (Photo source)
3. Paçoca - You know the inside of a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup? It's that but without the chocolate and more peanutty-tasting. The bakery near my apartment, Riviera, sells homemade versions which are delicious and not as sweet.
I love these plain or as a topping on açai. Speaking of...
4. Açaí - This "super food" is pretty pricey outside of Brazil, but in the country it is easy to find and worth the cost. Made from a berry, and served frozen with guaraná mixed in, it is delicious on the beach with bananas, granola, and paçoca...or basically whatever you want: strawberries, condensed milk, chocolate syrup, honey, etc. They may eat it at health-food shops in L.A., but it Brazil it is treated like ice cream. I have no problem with that.
This delicious monstrosity from a trip to Guarujá is topped
with papaya, granola, condensed milk, and banana.
5. Inhotim - This massive outdoor sculpture garden slash
installation museum located in the middle of nowhere in Minas Gerais
about an hour from Belo Horizante is a must see. If you "don't get"
contemporary or modern art, Inhotim just might change your mind, but be
prepared for sore feet and a sensory overload by the end of the day
because you are part of the art here. Not to mention all of this takes
place in what amounts to a gorgeous botanical garden. I don't know why
this place isn't a bigger deal!
"Invenção da cor"
by Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica.
"Narcissus Garden"
by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama.
6. Oscar Niemeyer- The architect of the UN Building in New York, Niemeyer's designs are all over Brazil, especially dominating Brasília, which he helped plan from the ground up. A proud communist who did not believe in private ownership of the earth, one common thread of his work is that all ground floors are open to the public, many literally so. Niemeyer also does things with concrete that seem to defy gravity.
Brasilia's Museu Nacional H. Guimarães with the National Cathedral in the background, all designed by Niemeyer.
Niemeyer has several works in São Paulo's Memorial da América Latina,
including the Salão de Atos building.
7.A praia- Brazil knows how to do beaches. Whether in Rio, Recife, Ubatuba, or Guarujá, you find a spot, rent a few chairs, an umbrella, spread out your canga, and wait for the cerveja and açai vendors to stroll by. It's that simple. Don't forget your sunga!
Praia Trindade between Ubatuba and Paraty.
In preparing for my next adventure in Malaysia I received a preemptive email from the shipping company several months ago cautioning about the complications Brazilian customs often inflict. To quote: "As you are aware, Brazil is a very different and peculiar country when it comes to customs and other related formalities."
Happy 2013 from Rio de Janeiro! Better yet...feliz ano novo!
To say Rio is crazy during the end the year would be the understatement of the year. Many bucket-listers put a visit to Brazil's iconic city as a must-do. In honor of the experience and to ring in the New Year, I present 13 favorites from my week here:
1 - "Take You To Rio" In full-disclosure, I admit this song is terrible. Rhyming "Rio" with both "eagle" and "gazebo" may be one of the more ludicrous moments in songwriting history, not to mention the fact that Rio is known for neither eagles or gazebos. Regardless, this song, from the animated film Rio, is catchy and we may have played it in our rental apartment at least once a day. (I put this song first so that you can play it while reading.)
2 -RéveillonFrom the French word referring to a "long dinner", in Brazil it is appropriately used to describe New Year's Eve. Imagine throwing a party for around three million people (last official count, anyway). Rio does it successfully and with seeming ease every year, and that's not counting Carnival.
Streets and Avenues several blocks from the shore are closed as dusk approaches, people begin showing up to the Copacabana expanse of beach around dusk dressed in white, and all along the sand are huge stages set up with free concerts all night long until about 3am.
At midnight the masses direct their attention toward the bay where a spectacular fireworks display rings in the first minutes of the calendar change. Shortly afterwards people make their way a few more paces to the actual surf and hop or leap over the first seven waves as they come in. Other bring flowers and toss them into the Atlantic as a symbolic offering to Iemanjá, an indigenous sea goddess.
One of the pre-fireworks shows: Baby Consuelo do Brasil
Like a Brazilian cross between Lady Gaga and Cher?
Feliz ano novo!
Jumping over the first seven waves of the new year. When in Rome Rio...
3 -Underwear Since so many revelers are heading into the sea at midnight wearing white, it has become important to consider what color underwear one is sporting underneath. For this reason, Brazilians have determined that the wearing of certain colors serves as a sort of wish or destiny for your coming year.
I wore light blue: here comes some "tranquility and health" in 2013!
The iconic wave-like mosaic pattern of Copacabana.
4 - Jogging Copacapana I did not stay out late with the rest of the crazies for Reveillon. After the fireworks, we wandered the ocean-front drive until that distinct moment of the night when girls that spent hours getting ready go from "runway" to "rundown" and a rolled ankle in the wrong direction can lead to pavement cage-match brawl between 'roided out strangers. The line between show-stopper and shit-show in paper thin and sneaky; blink and its there. That's my 31 year old cue to call it a night.
My 31 year old morning cue, however, was to go for a run down the mostly cleared out Copacabana beach front, made famous for its unique mosaic pattern, which has come to be another symbol of Rio. Dodging the myriad orange-suited sanitation workers and a handful of marathon partiers - who looked more like they had just been dropped off my aliens in a strange new land than the sentient beings they likely were twelve hours before - I had a more or less clear path to enjoy the morning sun and the expansive sidewalks, starting out the year with some calm and cardio, much like my underwear foretold.
Not to be outdone, Ipanema has its own pattern, though not as famous.
5 -Morning-after Infrastructure While running I was supremely impressed by the coordinated efficiency with which the city's trash workers and favela citizens worked to return the streets to their prior shine. Choreographed as if by habit, there seemed to be an unspoken allowance that the sanitation workers acquiesced to those from the slums to collect heaping mounds of black garbage bags filled to the seams with aluminum cans and glass beer and champagne bottles, while they snaked slowly behind, like a trail of bright orange ants following the curbs, sweeping whatever else constituted un-beach-like debris.
I was impressed. By 9am you would have been hard-pressed to find physical evidence of the spectacle that took place the night before, save for the still-standing stages in the sand.
Ipanema's Posto 9
6 -Posto 9 Our go-to location along the Ipanema Beach. This is supposedly the beach to see and be seen. It is also the beach closest to the bar where, in the 1960's, bossa nova musicians Tom Jobim and Vinícius de Moraes penned the now world-famous "The Girl From Ipanema."
7 -Beach chairs & Umbrellas Every place around the globe known for its beaches has its own "beach culture." In Rio, aside from speedos and thongs on full display on and off the sand, it's umbrellas as far as the eye can see. During the peak of the day it appears as if you could walk from one end of the beach to the other across the tops of the thousands of multi-colored domes. All along the shore are tents renting folding beach chairs and umbrellas for as little as $5 USD a day. You may not get strange looks for having a G-string but you might if you're the one lounging flat on the sand on a beach towel!
Ipanema & Leblon Beaches in all their holiday glory.
Need a new bikini top? Vendors have you covered, literally.
WARNING: Gingers on the beach. May cause blindness.
8 - Açai à praia Açai is a delicious fruit popular in Brazil. It is made into a juice, often augmented with blended bananas or strawberries and topped with granola. It somehow becomes infinitely more tasty when consumed on the sand under the shade of an umbrella.
9 -Barraca do Uruguay SandwichesFood Network personality and chef Anthony Bourdain visited this sandwich shop smack in the middle of Ipanema Beach near Posto 9. (In the video below, skip ahead to the 5 minute mark.) Marked by the Uruguayan flag - because the stand's owner is named "Uruguay" and not because the sandwiches themselves have anything to do with the country in the least - if you are anywhere near this stand at lunch time and do not eat here, you should be deported.
What else do you need?
10 -Jardim Botânico With over 8,000 plant species, some birds and monkeys for good measure, Rio's botanical gardens have been around since 1808 in a beautiful and expansive location a short taxi ride from the beaches. A refreshing stroll beneath towering palm trees and winding paths, the gardens offer up a nice break from the heat and human density of the shore.
Clockwise top right: heron statue, red tree flowers, tiny monkey, waxy leaf
in the Japanese Garden, fountain, pitcher plants
11 -Pastels Deep-fried doughy pockets of goodness. The bakery on the corner, dangerously near our temporary abode, served up some of the best I've had since coming to Brazil.
12 -Centro walking tour Thanks to the Lonely Planet, we took a Saturday afternoon to do a self-guided walking tour of the historic Centro district of Rio. Many colonial and baroque churches and palaces dating to the 1700 and 1800's dot this neighborhood, mingling with modern buildings and skyscrapers.
Typical façades along Rua da Carioca in Centro.
One of the highlights was the very modern Catedral Metropolitana which, built in the 1970's, resembles a Mayan space ship. From the inside, however, four wide strips of stained glass line the sides at ninety degree angles beginning 60m above the circular pulpit; inside, due to this shape, the cathedral can sit about 20,000 worshippers.
Statue in silhouette at one of the cathedral doors.
Paço Imperial (Imperial Palace) built in 1743.
Looking across the Praça Floriano at the Theatro Municipal, built in 1905.
13 -Pão de AçúcarSome cities have skylines recognizable by their buildings' collective cut-out imprint on the blue/smoggy expanse above them. Rio is recognizable from a distance by its hills, specifically the Pão de Açúcar. We hit up the "Sugar Loaf," as the steeply mounded hill is known, first thing in the morning to avoid the mess of inevitable tourists we encountered at Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer) earlier in the week. (Also note that the mountaintop Jesus is not on this list, partially for that reason.)
Accessed by cable-car, from atop the Pão de Açúcar a view of Rio is laid out before you like none other, even from the aforementioned Christ statue. We could see Rio's main harbor, Copacabana and Leme Beaches, the Centro district, and the rollings hills that the city seems to be nestled into.
Obrigado, Rio!
Rio treated us well for Réveillon and I expect nothing less in February when I head back for Carnival, Rio's other big party...
