Brazilian vacation

I was really looking forward to this. As much as I like Viçosa I wanted to see something more than just Viçosa and surroundings. The past 2 weeks I traveled with my parents. It was very nice to see them again, of course I missed them. And maybe my mam missed me even more! We met each other at the airport of Rio de Janeiro, from where our journey together began.

Room with a view!

I started my journey in Viçosa after a relax beginning of the day, I had the bus to Rio de Janeiro from 10 o'clock. While my parents were already a few hours in the air. The bus took very long, about 8 hours. At first I didn't really know what to expect from Rio de Janeiro city. I knew it is an enormous city with 7 million inhabitants and during working hours another 5 million people enter the city!! I thought about the safety in such a big city and of course about the favelas. When the bus entered the city it passes a lot of favelas and other poor neighborhoods. Along the road people were living or sleeping in improvised shelters. Walking only in shorts with their body fully tattooed, they appear as real typical favela inhabitants. But the favelas up the hills with their narrow alleys and room build upon room with cheap concrete bricks were the real favelas. Exactly as I imagined they would be like. They were located behind the industrial companies and the urbanization changed without noticing while driving more to the center of the city. Arriving at the airport, I just needed to wait until my parents arrived. With a welcomes music group of Arabian or Indian origin. There they are! My parents! After almost 4 months without them. We went straight to our hotel with a private taxi bus. My parents were very tired from traveling, also due to the 5 hour time difference. So they went to bed right away, while I didn't feel tired yet...

A new day, a fresh start, in... Rio de Janeiro! With Copacabana beach just 2 minutes walking from our hotel. That morning we had a tour through Rio by Bike planned with a Dutch guide. Starting at the Copacabana beach and from there going to "Red Beach" where we drunk coconut water directly out of the coconut and with a good view to "Pão de Açúcar". Then we headed to Botafogo which is a neighbourhood. From Botafogo we went to Lagoa (another neighbourhood) with a huge lake. With Ipanema beach as the last stop and ending the tour again where the tour started.

Copacabana!

Red Beach with on the left Pão de Açúcar

Lagoa

Ipanema

After the tour we went lunching at one of those restaurants where you pay per kilo (self-service restaurant). It was quite funny to see how my parents reacted to this way of eating. They were very positive and enthusiastic about it. Now they don't want to eat by a different way anymore... After the lunch we went to "Escadaria Selaron" by using the metro. The colorful stairs of Lipa. It was I nice location with many different artistic little tiles. 

But the sun was already going down and I was advised to see the sunset from "Pedra do Arpoador" at Ipanema beach. So we needed to hurry to there before full sunset. We arrived on time, and the hurry was worth the effort. The sunset was magnificent! With the Ipanema beach in front of you and behind the Copacabana, a city soo big on the right and the endless Atlantic ocean on the left.

Our second day in Rio de Janeiro was again an unexpected busy day. A new world was really opening for me. For the first time and something I didn't expect I would ever do, entering a favela. By a touring guide and in a jeep we went to the biggest favela of Rio de Janeiro, Rochina. Rochina counts approximately 200.000 - 300.000 inhabitants, the same as Eindhoven! Those numbers are unimaginable for the Dutch readers. In Rochina we were explained how the favelas were created and how they were managed. Most of the inhabitants came from the north of Brazil with hope to find a better life in the cities of south Brazil. While waiting and/or searching the government didn't offer them shelter and the people went to the hills around the cities. There they build their houses, first from wood now from concrete. Typical of the favela houses is they build room upon room for every generation within the family, so the family can stick together. 
And all of the public services as we know, like water, electricity but also garbage collection are free for them. Electricity is tapped from the official power grid and the richer neighborhoods often near the favela pay for it. Other services are executed by the government, but this is just since the games. Rochina even has its own mayor who's elected every 4 years from one of the favela inhabitants. Our guide told us that of course Rochina is one of the more safe favelas but there are ones you can't go at all. There is even one were gangs recruit children below 16 years. They are by law untouchable, whatever crime they do (yes, including murder), they won't be sentenced. This creates dangerous favelas. However, the experience of walking through this well organized favela (which for me still is a real favela with some really poor people and living situations) was really interesting and makes you think differently about problems. Brazil does that sometimes with you...

Left down in the corner you can see a garbage collection point.

Building of the mayor.

Talking about a room with a view, photo taken from a balcony in the favela.

Look at all those electricity cables, they all made this themselves...

That same day but in the afternoon we went by using an Uber to Pão de Açúcar (sugar loaf). Uber is proven to be really useful, trustful and cheap in Brazil so far. By gondola we went up, from there you have a marvelous great view of the city. Then you see how big it is, how far the city stretches... pfff. This goes beyond words to describe, for this a foto.

Our last day in Rio de Janeiro has arrived. But there was plenty of time to still do something. So... stairs check, favelas check, pão de açúcar check, beaches check... hmmm which one is missing??? Aaah Christ the Redeemer, let's go there even though it's cloudy. We found a great guide who spoke English very well and he showed us not only the Christ statue but also some viewpoints over the city. After visiting the Christ statue, we entered the national park there and saw some monkeys too!

What a view again...!

Christ! Hello? Where are you?

Heheh, there he is!

Monkeys in the national park Corcovado

Chinese view

And then soon after it was time to continue our travel to the Pantanal!

The Pantanal, a region where you can find more different animals than in the Amazon. The Amazon is the richest in biodiversity while the Pantanal is the richest in animal breeds. The Pantanal is breathtakingly wide! We had many safaris, every time we went into the nature we go with a old tractor. 

And a tractor is what we needed, the land was very wet sometimes and a lot of torque was needed. One time we almost got stuck in the mud. Other times there was so much mud we drove around it through bushes. With the good guide Claudio who spook good English and was really proud of its nature and country we learn a lot of the place. The tractor was always driven by Adriano a real pantanero/cowboy. With a big knife he clears the road and he spots most of the wildlife and tracks for us.

Other times we went into the small forests (cherrado forrest like) on foot. There we tried some small coconuts, you could drink the water in it. And when they are older there is coconut flesh to eat (but really dry). In the forest we saw tracks of a puma and a jaguar. Also I walked almost into a dangerous spider web! In the Pantanal itself we have seen many animals and there are so many birds. I will name a few:

• Packs of capibaras,

• Alligators,

• Tocans,
• Ibisses,
• Emus,
• Wild pig's,
• Birds of preys like caracara and hawks,

Caracara

• Anteaters,
• Amarillos,
• Hummingbirds,
• And my dad even saw a ara!
• And many more.

One time we went by horse into they Pantanal! It was such a cool experience, felt like a cowboy riding with one hand and with my specially for the Pantanal bought Australian UFV hat. My horse was Alecrim, named to his colour. And he was a bit louco, sometimes he walked straight through bushes, but when I better knew how to move him around it went good. After all its a long time for me since I last sat on a horse.

The Pantanal is great, you only need to pay with a lot of blood to the mosquitos. When we went fishing for piranhas we got bitten so many times... now I have a personal Andes on my arms and hands. But the piranhas were cool to see up close. While fishing we got company of a big alligator. Adriano, me and my mom fed him some piranhas too! And Claudio with his many animal amigos showed us the fish eagle catching some piranhas out of the water.

As I said, the Pantanal it surprised, amazed and enchanted us all. The stars you can see at night there, no light pollution. They were special to me, I will never forget them. True beauty is hard to catch on camera but also hard or impossible to remove from your memory. 💖

After 3,5 days at the ranch Baia Grande and with more then 80 mosquito bites (I just stopped counting them after 80...) it was time for us to go to Paraty!

Paraty had a Portuguese colonization feeling, the same as Ouro Preto it was only located near the sea. We stayed there at a pousada, which felt like a fancy hostel. We visited the historic center many times, went to the nearby beach one time and for the rest we kept it calm and relaxed. The pousada was our oasis of relaxation. And mom & dad were such a big fans of the local kilo restaurant that we went there every meal (breakfast excluded).

Historic center

Our last location to visit was Ilha Grande, a big (grande) island (ilha) located southwest of Rio de Janeiro. No cars are allowed and it is mainly covered with a tropical forest. It was magnificent, we went to tropical beaches where the forest meets the sea. We drank a lot op caipirinhas at places you only see in movies. Ate and drank at restaurants (Lua e mar) where the sea reaches to your feet.  By boat we went to lagoons (Lagoa Verde & Lagoa Azul) where you can snorkel. And we walked a jungle trail to a waterfall, afterwards we took a taxi boat from the nearby beach Feiticeira back to our village Vila do Abraão. It was a wonderful, tropical and adventurous island. Unfortunately there were no good self-service restaurants that my parents loved.

The garden of the pousada where we stayed

Lagoa Verde

Lagoa Azul

Praia do Amor 💕

After this wonderful travel it was time to go back to Viçosa. After saying goodbye to my parents my travel to Viçosa started. It was long and tiring ride (6,5 hour), couldn't sleep and back in my apartment it was very cold and couldn't sleep again. Viçosa temperature has changed in those 2 weeks and I really need to acclimatize again. About this more in my next post!