Monday, July 31, 2006

So tired...

... of so many trips.
What better than relaxing with Ricardo ;-)

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Asunción - you call that your capital???

Impressions of the bus ride:
  • Plumas convencional bus is far better than the convencionals they use on the Rio-Sao Paulo axis. We even enjoyed air-conditioning and nevertheless were not frozen to death.
  • Met two nice guys on the bus, so time passed quickly. A Brazilian football-player and a German student (KuWi in Passau, what else). Our only common language was Spanish.
  • Almost looking forward to the trip back tomorrow. Well, almost. Looking more forward to who is waiting for me in Sao Paulo to procede to Rio ;-)
(First) impressions, considering that I am staying less than 48 hours:
  • Where are the skyscrapers?
  • It's hot! It is reeeally hot! And humid. Doesn`t make it any better.
  • A mosquito even tried to attack me tonight. It died in the intend. but normally they NEVER bite me.
  • 1,2 million habitants. they still call it a city (spoiled Sao Paulo metropole - girl)
  • My plan for today was the Lonely-Planet Walking tour to see all the important sights in Asunciòn. I was done after 2 hours! So, rest of the day: coffee in nice places, media-lunas in nice places, and everything for around 2.000 Guaranis (which turns out to be less than 30 Euro cents)
  • Found the best German Bakery in Latin America (as far as I know the continent): Michael Bock Bakery. They have just about everything you could possibly want in German bakery art. And not only the classics like apple strudel or schwarzwälderkirschtorte. No, they also offer simple Vollkornbrot. I´ll pay them another visiti tomorrow before hopping on the bus and take some bread to Rio.

Fotos... probably on monday. Weekend is reserved for Ricardo.

Sunday, July 23, 2006

my new room




So, this is my new room. It's about three times as big as my old one in Sao Paulo, so I have a lot of space to put my stuff into.

I don't know yet how to get everything to Germany later on, but I'll be worrying about that in about two months....

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Rio... now for good

Well, almost. I still have to go to Asunción to renew my visa next week. But that's another story.

Today, Anja left. At 12h00 with VARIG. Hopefully she'll arrive in Germany by tomorrow. Fortunatelly here international flight is with Lufthansa/VARIG, so it'll operate. I guess.

Anyway, after I left her at the airport today I cleaned the room thoroughly, then burned some incense sticks (in case of any negative energy left). Then put my stuff in. Four hours later I started to work on this blog. And that was everything I did today. Tomorrow I'll work on my emails and on Monday I'll be going to Paraguay.
Let you know about that later.

Sleep well! I will.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Itaúnas - more beach, more palm-trees, more coconut-water

Our last stop has been in Itaúnas. Going from Ilheus to São Mateu, from São Mateu to Conceição da Barra and from Conceiçao da Barra to Itaúnas. But it was worth the trip. A great ecological reserve with lots of beaches, great nature and well, a Forro-festival.
Well, the village is so tiny, they can actually design every single hotel on their map. And the supermarket and the mandatory church and the dunes.


On wednesday we went to the beach and walked along the waterfront until reaching a little river. There we had a coconut-water and went back. Five hours later we reached our hostel again. Later we discovered that we had walked up to Riacho Doce, 7 or 8 km up the beach. But it was just so nice walking on the beach with virtually NO ONE around. Great place.
But they sell no postcards.

Looks like desert, but actually these are the dunes. And we had three days of blistering sun with no rain in sight. After Bahia that was a nice change. After the dunes, we walked for 8 km. Saw about 6 persons in total. And that one here:
Don't know where this tree comes from, don't know why they put it here or if it came here alone. But it is big... and I still don't understand why they sell no postcards...
The owner of our hostel was an artist. That's his 'throne'. The king's throne to be specific. Machista!

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Ilheus






5 hours farther south. Unfortunatelly it is raining... came here yesterday, so I'll write something more as soon as something actually happends.

Oh, sth already did happen: the argentine owner of the Pousada we are staying in, actually opened a new room for us, because the whole town was full with congress visitors. So we are now staying in a tiny little room with no windows. But we only pay 3 Euros a night, so we can't really complain, can we?

Yes, it rained through our whole three days in Ilheus. And we obviously were the only young people who did NOT go to the Trivelas-Festival, taking place the same weekend. Five hours of music we didn´t even know the band. We walked past the festival site, so we know for sure that we missed nothing. THIS is the festival site after the festival.
But Ilheus is a really nice city. Tranquil, a nice ice-café. A great place to have espresso and a good place to have fruit salads. Everything a town needs. And not once did we feel threatend in any way.
OK, on sundays it get's a little bit tooooo quiet, if you don't know anybody and the beaches are not an option due to rain...


The town's cathedral:


and it's interior:

Oh, and then we passed this nice school. Please note the writing above the left and right windows: "lado masculino" (male side) and "lado feminio" (female side). Just in case you didn't know behind which window your girlfriend lives.

Cachoeira - interior of the Recôncavo

This stop was more eerie than relaxing.
Came there at 15h00 on thursday evening. Shocked about the pension we were supposed to stay in. No Candomblé sessions (and that is why we came here) until saturday night. But an 'almost pai-de-santo' (candomble priest, who has not opened own his temple yet), who did some reading for us out of his nutshells. Very interesting. Perhaps I'll tell you something about it in a private chit-chat.
Went away the next day at 14h00, because we didn't stand the 'nothing-to-do'-atmosphere and everyone staring at us as aliens... weird town.

And from above it looks so nice. On the farer side of the river Cachoeira you see the village Cachoeira. On this side is Sao Felix.


Probably we'll come back. But only when they are done with reconstructing the town. We weren't able to enter museums, the old railwaystation, the church or anything 'historically' important. They are trying to reform everything on the same time.
Well, at least the bus-station was ready already. Behind it you see the half-painted railway station. '
And this is the reason, why you should visit Cachoeira: the irmandade da boa morte (sisterhood of the good death). Only women can become members of the irmandade and most of them (or all?) are black. The reason: the irmandade was founded by former slaves, most old women who then tried to free other slaves through buying their freedom. Today the irmandade is the spiritual center of Candomblé in the region.

Morro de São Paulo - three days of tropical islands

Two days Salvador were definetly enough for us. So we practically ran away. Taking the ferry to Bom despacho (40 min), then the bus to Valenca (2h) and then a boat (40 min) to Morro de Sao Paulo. This is a little village on an island in front of Bahia. No cars, a lot of beach, sun, coconut-water, and need for sunprotector... what a great change.

Of course, Morro also has its church. And they are in urgent need for reformation. You seee the already repainted side-altar. The one in the middle still needs some work. Besides that, a really nice and tranquil church, for a change not filled up to the roof with gold.

Strolling along the bach we passed this tourist group. They painted each other with the mud drippng from the stone behind them. On the little foto you see how a afro-brazilian looks like when the mud dries. Almost spooky.
Anyway, one of the guys told us, that the mud was really good for our skin. We politely decided not to join the group. In my travel-book they tell s.th about radio-active materials on the coast.



Probably Morro could be considered a troplical island? I mean, it is mid-winter here and we still enjoyed temperatures around 30 degrees and didn't dare to leave the house without sun-protector. Some more evidence: papagayos in front of the supermarket, big insects on our way and monkeys in the hotel's front yard.


Another impression of the beach.

And then we passed by this cute little house. OK, take the cute, forget the little. I guess a big family could be happy here. We didn't enter the property, but if anyone of you is interested to rent the house for your summerholiday, the phonenumer is in the photo.

Sunday, July 09, 2006

End of the 'copa'

The World Cup is over.

From now on, I`ll be able to spent my weekend without the Globo-TV turned on.
And Globo will have to think about their program again. Because now they will have a lot of free time due to a lack of soccer games.

Some of you asked me, how Brazil coped with leaving the copa on such an early stage. Well, there were different strategies.
1) The denial strategy: everything is just left as before. Probably until 2010 when they try again?
2) The self-lamenting and explaining, which is not really visible, but makes part of every conversation I have had with Brazilian men in the meantime (bartenders, hotel-stuff, busdrivers, etc...)
3) The 'vingança' strategy. Check the photo for an impression. In the streets of Salvador they hang a doll with strong resemblance to Ronaldinho Gaucho. It's now pending above the street. Cute!

Salvador

After 14hours bus ride we came to Salvador. People tell wonders about it. It's so great, there are so many parties and Capoeira (afro-brazilian dance) and Candomble ceremonies (afro-brazilian religion) and more parties and well, tourists. Well. It is a nice town, at least the antique and preserved part. Yes, there are many parties, but I am really handicapped by not drinking nor smoking. So the guys for me basicly stay equally unatractive and intelectually challenged the whole night. And believe me, approaching strategies do NOT get better as night passes. But well, Anja and me are getting quite experienced in getting rid of guys. On the other hand, we have now seen all the churches. Even the big Bomfim-Church a little outside the center, so we are thinking about leaving a little earlier.

Salvador is the must-see destination in the state of Bahia and most tourist even start their vacation in Brazil in this city. A totally different mixture of people (many more descendents of black slaves than in SP for example) gives the city a distinct feeling. And of course the party district, Pelourinho, does provide a great base for the young crowd looking for Forró and Samba, wanting to learn Capoeira or experiment a Candomble ceremony. Anja and me managed to go to a Salsa party, tried to get away from the Capoeira teacher and weren't really interested in Candomblé, because we had scheduled that for later in Cachoeira. And after two days we already left, looking forward to a night's sleep withoug Reggae-Concert next door.
Oh, and the photos of course. This is the Lacerda-Elevater. Yes, a real elevater. As there are no more slaves to get things up from the lower city to the higher city they constructed an elevater. Costs 50cents (20 Euro cents) a ride.
And there are churches in Salvador. MANY churches. Sometimes even two ov them in the same place. Why not.


Inside this church (the right one), they host a very special statue of Jesus. It is taken out of it's sarcophag on Easter during a procession. The interesting thing about this Jesus: the blood which seems to be streaming out of his wounds is not only metaphorically very precious. In fact, every single drop is a ruby imported from India. All over the statue there are about 2000 little rubies. Must look impressive when the sun sparkles on them during the procession. In the dark room where he is stored away during the rest of the year, unfortunately, you only get a glimpse of it.

And this is how you can sell coffee, chips, bread, cigarettes and anything else a tourist might need in the streets in a really fashionable and practible way. Just stop the truck and buy what you need.
Oh, and that is at the most important church in Salvador. Perhaps even in Bahia: Nosso Senhor do Bomfim. When getting there you get (or you can buy) little ribbons. These ribbons you either tie around your arm, every one of the three knots standing for one wish and than wait for it to fall of on its own, or you tie them to the church (doors, handles, whatever). And it seems to work, jut see all these fotos of people who got their wish fullfilled. Actually, the arms and heads, and feed etc at the ceiling are the replica of healed body parts. A way to thank god for his help. We also saw diplomas, thank-you-letters, medical examinations etc. on the wall.


Photos - later

Thursday, July 06, 2006

A weekend in Rio and then: good bye Sao Paulo

Ricardo and Cesar came to visit me in Rio, before Anja and me took of for our "nordeste"-trip. We had a great time and fortunately after a week of rain in Rio, Ricardo and Cesar brought some sunshine with them. We even enjoyed a day at the beach... but well, nothing spectactular.

This is the four of us sitting in the Parque da Nossa Senhora da Paz. Don't worry, the blue shirt is also a Brazil-T-Shirt. Ricardo would NEVER survive a World-Cup game involving Brazil without it.


If we had known the result of that days game, probablz we wouldn't have left the park.
Brasil lost against France. It was HORRIBLE. We saw the game in a bar and after the french goal, the whole audience became reaaaaaly quiet. The rest of the day passed without party, without loud noises. Some of the buildings started to clean up there Brazilian Coloured banners and flags... a real sad scenario.

It was just not possible.



On sunday I went with the boys back to SP.
I just passed one night at the apartment, because I still had do solve some things in Sao Paulo. But when I came there, I found this nice post-it at the freezer. Seems like they did like me a little after all ;-)

"Missing Vale? Call now 21 2227-5007 and talk to the little German who made the best and weirdest cakes I ever tasted."

Recife / Olinda

Nice little town (Olinda) next to huge ugly city (Recife). We stayed in Olinda and explored Recife only on a daytip. Made a rather chaotic and depressed impression to me. I definetly preferred Olinda.

Well, cobbled steep streets. A lot of churches. Nice. Pitoresque. But somehow many of these colonial-time citys look just the same... of course, above, you see Olinda.



And that is Recife. You see, they didn't realize yet, that Brazil left the World Cup. Or they'll just leave it there until 2010. Next chance to get the 'hexa'.



Recife also has some nice parks. And no that day two nice girls to pose in front of one of them.


And now some history: churches in Recife and Olinda were build by slaves, just as anywhere in Brazil. Only that in this part of the country or there were so many slaves, or they were particularly unhappy with their situation or just creative in trying to find some revenge: the angels on the Portuguese tiles all look a little weird. Queer eyes, some even looking pregnant. That's how painters get their critics through ;-)


I am not sure, why this big eagle was stored at the "forte das cinco pontas", which by the way has only four angles, but OK. He did make a nice picture...