Category: travel

Brazil, September 2019

4 September I received an email from Aigle Azul (the French airline we are flying to Paris with) saying that our flights to Paris have been cancelled. I googled it and found that the airline has gone bankrupt! Oh Crap! So I wrote to Tripair (agent) to ask do we get a refund? Do we get another alternative flight booked? Etc. The cancellation email was very short with no explanation but there was a phone number in France to call for assistance. I am roaming with Vodafone and calls to anywhere from here is $5.79 per minute. So lets try to get a Brazilian SIM card and call with that. A call to our house owners says that the companies here in Brazil are Claro, TIM and VIVO, they are all at the Beiramar Shopping centre in the city. Sweet, a trip in the bus into the city! While we are there we should find a travel agent and see if they have any better priced replacement flights than what we can find in our initial search online. We are getting really good at the busses and understand the system now so into the city we go.

Found all 3 Telecom companies. Chose Claro as they are the main provider in Brazil. Took a ticket and waited. Got to a lovely young man who speaks very little English, but got through to him, we need a SIM and the ability to call France. OK no can do. Can get a SIM but calls are only to Brazil, but they could load it with calling ability to France but would cost $R20 per minute ($7.50NZD) no, better off with our roaming. Ok so no point in going to agent, we really need to hear from Tripair and/or talk to the airline first, you never know, they may book us onto another flight – not very likely but you never know. Plus it was pretty hard going at Claro with the language barrier and good old google translate! So we decide to leave the travel agent for now. So lets get some groceries, downstairs there is a lovely gourmet Mercado. Stuff it all into the backpack, lets find lunch and a beer, we need it!

After lunch I try to find my purse to get the money for the bus, not anywhere to be found. I traced my thoughts back to the Mercado and filling the backpack on a bench outside the store. OH Crap! MY drivers licence, credit card, EFTPOS card and around $R200. Straight back to the store, they cant understand a word, but still so friendly while shaking heads not knowing what we are saying. Chris spots a security guard and askes her, she understands that we have lost something and takes us to the balcao de informacoes and the two lovely girls there just look blankly at us. I pointed at Chris’s wallet and they reached forward and pulled out my purse! OMG such a relief. The security guard erupted in big smiles, so did the two behind the counter – we were all jumping up and down with excitement, Chris hugged the security guard, we just could not thank them enough! Obragado obrigado!! WOW can you imagine that? Someone picked it up and handed it in, everything still intact! Nothing missing. Such lovely people! Guess this would not have happened in Rio. So we go home, on the bus, no further ahead with the flight problem, but I do have my wallet!

Rio de Janeiro, August 2109

The people here in Brazil are so friendly, we are finding this everywhere we go. The hostel that we were staying at in Copacabana is up a very steep hill and perched on the edge of a Favela. The taxi driver commented as we started up the hill, “oh I don’t like to go up here!” but we walked up and down that hill every day and saw no trouble. There were 4 armed police in a car at the bottom of the hill every day though, so they are a good deterrent. Every day we would see the police up at the top by us at the little padaria (bakery), fully armed with machine guns, hanging around shooting the breeze with their colleagues, just a normal day being fully armed!

 My friend from Post, Bruno, put us in touch with Karla, a lovely Brazilian lady who lives in Rio. We met up with her and she took us to a local restaurant where we tried the local traditional Saturday meal of Feijoada. This is pork, all cuts, chops, loin, sausage etc cooked in a stew with black beans, served with rice, kale and orange segments. Karla ordered everything for us including a couple of other traditional dishes. One was made with what they called dried meat – it was just like corned beef, but in a creamy/cheesy sauce, really yummy. The other was Tapioca Dadinho, which looked a bit like crumbed camembert, little bite sized pieces of deliciousness!  We also had our first try of Cachaca in the cocktail form which was straight Cachaca with bashed fresh lime and lime juice. We did have a couple of those – pretty strong stuff. Cachaca is a sugar cane spirit. It was so good to have a local order for us, at this point we are still quite out of our depth when it comes to menus! It was a great experience and we would never have tried those things if it wasn’t for Karla.

Right, Cachaca under our belts, lets go to the Christ the Redeemer statue. The statue is built on top of Mount Corcovado, completed in 1931. 30m tall and 26m wide! He is so impressive! We went up by cog railway which was a trip in itself! So steep in places and the track almost passes through peoples houses then hangs over the edge, not for the faint hearted. Once up there it is a short walk to the base of the statue. Quite awe struck with the sight! The weather was not the best this day and we were so high up that the clouds were drifting past, this made it even more spectacular. So many people here! This was a Saturday so very busy, during the week they put mattresses down for people to lie on to take the photos, he is so tall it the only way to get him all in! The view from up here of Rio was outstanding too! The city is built on this amazing rocky terrain, totally fascinating and amazing.

Thank you Karla for the most fabulous day! One to absolutely remember!

#christtheredeemer #rio #cachaca #cogtrain #zerotohero #feijoada

Brazil, September 2019

September is spring time, just like NZ. We arrived in Rio 21 August and left Florianopolis on 23 September. We were told by a local that September is very fickle, cold, hot, rain, wind, calm – all of the above. We have had a couple of really hot days and a couple of days freezing cold, so we agree totally! Probably not the choicest month to visit the South of Brazil. Brazil is such an enormous country, we have talked to people from the North East and they say it is Summer all year round and looking on the map we can see why. 100’s and 100’s of miles north of here.  It has been hanging around the 20deg C mark most days, which isn’t too bad, but there has been a nasty Southerly wind which makes it feel colder. Jeans and the puffer jacket have been worn on many occasions – as have the bikini and sun dress. We have made the most of the colder wet days by travelling on the bus rather than walking or cycling and doing indoor things and as soon as it looks like it will be sunny we head to the beach. We have had a high of 26 and a high of 14, the lows are around 14 – 18. Rio was wet, it rained most days we were there, but we were very lucky and when we visited the Christ and Favela, we had breaks in the weather and even got blue sky and clear sky for the fantastic views.

#Rio #holiday #housesitting #beachday #paraty #florianopolis

Big trip from Brisbane to Brazil. They said 21 hours but it was a bit more than that. Brisbane-Sydney-Santiago-Rio de Janeiro. Flight delayed from Sydney so missed our connection to Rio. All good, Qantas gave is equiv $15 each for lunch and onto another flight 3 hours later. But as these knock-on effects happen we lost our taxi ride to the hotel in Rio. We tried sending an email from Santiago but to no avail, no taxi waiting for us in Rio. A man started talking to us to see if we needed a taxi and told us where the ATM was.  How to get yourself in the shit in Rio – watch this space. The man helped by trying to call the hotel for us – we had already tried and no answer. He said that sometimes, the taxis, they don’t come. The plane was an hour late landing and though we came through almost first, no taxi driver for us. So Chris goes to get cash. The man offered $R130 to take us to our hotel. We know it should not be more than $R100. So negotiate $R90. Right, off we go. We go into the car park – taxis usually have their own rank right?. We stop for him to pay parking, hhmmmm. We get on the road, no meter in the taxi, he knows we have just been to ATM, hmmmm. We watch the sign posts – Copacabana one way we drive the opposite, hmmmm , end up on some smaller roads then a huge tunnel. So I am thinking ok that’s my watch gone, and I wonder how much money Chris drew out? Chris is thinking oh crap, don’t know if I have the energy to take this guy out when he stops the car. OMG what a trip. All works out well, he finds our hotel and walks us to the door. We gave him $R100! So relieved to get here in one piece. 

How easy is it to get into Brazil!. Passport control, 2 words, stamp and friendly smile. Collect bags and line up thinking there is another official post to go through. No, we start walking in a line toward a couple of coppers who are looking and that’s it. I think there was a facial recognition camera watching too, but, how easy was that! Though we do think that Chris looks like a bomb manufacturer as he was stopped in Sydney and Santiago and swabbed down for bombs! I of course sailed through LOL!!

The Aquarela do Leme is up a steep windy hill right on the edge of a Favela. The hotel insists It is a safe neighbourhood. It is fascinating to have the poverty right beside us. The Favelas are up the hills and have the best views, typically Brazilians like to be on the beach, so the slum areas have been relegated to up the hills which have the most amazing views.