The end is near...

Final Destination: São Paulo. The biggest city in South America. Number 5 (some say nr. 3) on the list of biggest cities in the world. 20 million people. Wow...it is a frightening number. We have been warned by numerous people about it´s dangers. We probably won´t make a lot of photos because of that. We are only here for 2 days and we are staying with a very kind person we´ve met in Arraial d´Ajuda when he was there with his kids on holiday. I am using his computer to write this as we speak...But as we arrived, driving into the city, the skyline filled with skyscrapers, at the busterminal, we did not feel hostility, as we did not feel this at lots of places where we have been warned. Everything went smooth as can be again...Tomorrow evening we will get a tour around town. I can tell you more about the grandeur (in size) then.

Paratí

After beautiful days at the big island we have one more stop before we get to our final destination. A very small coastal village with a very colonial atmosphere again. The center is on the Unesco list as many centers that I´ve seen, but still, each place does have its own charm. Very alike but still unique..The only thing which was a shame was the wheater. Raining cats and dogs...We stayed two days, hooked up with a Dutch girl, Nathalie, that we met on Ilha Grande and remembered from the beach in Trancoso, and tried to avoid the raindrops. Illustrations will be here soon as always. I´m getting slow at the end.... Forgive me..

Island in the stream..

Ilha Grande.
An island aproximately 2 hours by bus from Rio and 2 hours by boat. We had nothing but extremely positive comments on this place. There are no cars, nor ATM machines over there..We did not know exactly what to expect. First things we saw; lots of palmtrees again, mountains covered with rainforest, amazing beaches (again), a lot of boats. There is one main street, a sandy one, with nothing but pousadas (motels). All decorated quite refined, nice restaurants and a cosey candle light ambience. We stayed 3 days, got a bit of sun because the weather was amazing. Boattrip, exploring bounty beaches, you know, that kind a thing ;-) Horrible, but someone has to do it.....
We were actualy lucky, the weather had been very bad before and we arrived just for the festive weekend, when they dance forro (a very simple but nice dance) on the square, eat food from little tents. I like the acarajé (a fried boll with big fresh shrimps and different kind of Brasilian sauces in it). We stayed up very late for the first time and also had a few too many drinks for the very first time. Nothing to be ashamed of, just a tipsy wiggly walk back to the pousada. Which is allowed, the last week....

City of God - Cidade de Deus

Copacabana from sugerloaf he is watching...

favela and samba - right next to each other

a view to kill for

scared miriam on sugarloaf Embracing the city

Rio de Janeiro. The Carioca's (inhabitants of Rio) say: Deus e Brasilero - God is Brasilian. Probably because it is one of the best situated cities in the world. Who could have ever thought I would make it untill here. I, for one, did not. We arrived by night and we were lucky that we had a place to stay, because the Pan American games (Panamericana) are in Rio this year! These are the games that preceed the Olympics in a big city in an American (North, Middle or South) country. We had no idea :-)
Arriving by plane we were picked up by our taxi-driver, and he showed us a bit around in Copacabana, the most famous part of town. It is rather small...and not that noisy and loud as I expected. Amsterdam has much more people walking about, that hour of night..It looked nice, with the lights along the costline...And also in the daytime it amazed me as the days passed and we got to see more and more - All the songs about Rio are true, all the stories are true, it is truly a beautiful city. It has amazing beaches, it has rainforest (the biggest rainforest whitin a city), it has mountains with Christ watching your every step, it has numerous districts with each different aspects and nice specific features. It has a big lake in the middle of the town. We walked along the Copacabana beach, we walked on the famous Ipanema beachwalk. We went with a very old tram up the mountain to the "barrio Santa Teresa" where nowadays all the bohemians and artists live, a very nice part of town. You could see from the tram how the "favela's" (the slums) are built. There are special slum-tours even!! I found that weird but, they say, the money goes to the slums. I do not believe that that money really goes to the poor people, but instead it will go to the druglords, who own the slums...So no favela-tour for us. We even read about the fact that the beggars in Ipanema and Copacabana rent a place on these streets from the Rio-mob (2,000 Reales a month) and they rent babies so they get more money from the tourists that have no clue. I can not judge any of this, because I always had a roof and food, but it seems to horrible for words.
One day we got caught in a street fight! We were nicely walking along the beach, buying an ice-cream, when all of a sudden Ellen shouted, lets move, trouble...and people started to run, the police was hitting people with big sticks, coconuts were flying around. Ellen ran, I was pushed into the ice-stand by the owner, to keep me safe. The troublemakers were throwing coconuts at the police and to the police-van. Police in return drove with the van into the people and hit them over and over. It was quite scary...and then as sudden as it had started, it stopped. So we could still by the ice-cream.
We watched a football game in a bar, the final between Argentina and Brasil of all countries and we expected that hell would break loose with whatever outcome, but it was rather tame for such a football-mad country. I nearly shouted more than the people itself....Brasil won and it was too quiet for words...Used to the fame of winning I guess..
We went to Pão de A¢ucar (Sugarloaf), we went to the big Cordovaro, Christ the Redeemer Statue, which is 30m high and the arm width is 28m. It stands on a mountain in the middle of Rio, watching over the city. We saw the street where the Carnaval is celebrated in February. We saw the biggest football stadium in the world, Maracana. We did the lot and it was beautiful...

Me and us and happy traveling...

Me in the house of Juli and Fabi in Floripa

Me on the beach in Trancoso
Us eating fresh piña

Me by sand dunes in Florianpolis

Us eating delicious desserts in Colonia del Sacramento

See, sun and fun...

Time to go south again...After exotic Salvador, we had heard from a couple that we met along the way, Paul and Claire, that the villages of Arraial d´Ajuda and Transoco were nice to visit. Because we were flexibel in the sense that south can be reached through various routes, we had no problems going to beachvillages at all. We had some rain in Salvador (it was hot though 34C), so we did not mind seeing more sun.....And they were right about these towns. You do not get them more pittoresque then this. Safe environment, friendly people. The beaches are famous for their beauty and surprisingly they are not crowed and overloaded with people. It is low season, but still, when it is 28 C and you have some time to spare.....I have been surprised all the time by the low number of people anywhere we have been. Is that what living in Holland does? We stayed in a very basic but lovely hostel, Banana Republic, that was situated in the jungle. The whole cost-line of Brasil used to be just jungle, but those trees are fabricated into (our) garden-sets and other pieces of exclusive furniture... I have (and so does Ellen) over 25 mosquitoe-bites proving our stay in bushy places. The owner, Julio (on the photo with us), was ever so friendly and used to live a very recluse life after being a business man in Saõ Paulo. From a city of 11 million people to living 10 years on a farm by the sea. Two years completely by himself and 8 with 2 families that helped him work the farm. And now he has this hostel where he lives and still has the farm where he lives. There is almost always a story behind a person... We had a great and relaxing time over there and we felt like we needed it. Why.......RIO is next.......To be continued

I can gently smile..

Salvador de Bahia, or Bahia de Salvador. That is were we have been already. I am a bit behind on the blog.
I have writers-block. I can't write anymore about where we are and what there is to do and how such and so. I am saturated with images, towns, places, beaches, nature, I simply can't take any more in. I can only say how I feel after all this time, crossing half a continent in changing climate circumstances, different timezones. And I feel fine, because I can smile about it all.
We are in Arraial d'Ajuda already for 4 days, today we went to Trancoso, and I just can't inhale it all, let alone tell you about it. Every inch of it was so nice and beautiful (you will see the photo's soon) and I haven't even started to share Salvador with you. I am lying in bed at night thinking what information to give this time. So here it is: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador I hope you can match the photo's with the text from wikipedia, that will be more accurate than my story anyway ;-)

Today in Trancoso, we bought some fresh ananas from an old woman who's skin looked like weathered leather. I took a photo of her and she gently touched my arm, and that touched me. This is how I feel.

In Brasil it is the first time that I do not speak the language, it is getting better every day, but still it makes me vulnerable, I realized. And more...Brazilian people do things different than we....things take longer, much much longer, especially in the north. They do not seem to understand me, neither do I know what they mean, but mostly we get there in the end. And I smile and they smile. It means patience all the time. And they are friendly, and they stay friendly. So, I am patient and I stay patient, and I smile. Even after a 2 hour conversation on the phone, trying to reserve a flight, I smile. Even if the drink was not how it was suppose to be, I smile. Because I feel fine with it. I can't really get annoyed because they stay friendly and extremely helpful. So I am grateful for them showing me patience, and smile again....Yes, this is how I feel, like smiling.