On the road again, Brazil!!
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Jesper
20 Februari 2016 | Brazilië, Foz do Iguaçu
After slightly more than 3 1/2 years it's time to start blogging again. After 1 1/2 years of studying followed by an ultimately pleasant life in Dubai, it's time to go back to basics! This time not everything pre-booked, but just figuring out wherever and whenever I want to go;
1st stop; Brazil
I'm currently in a 17 hour bustrip from Puerto Iguazu in the northern part of Argentina to the capital, Buenos Aires, a nice opportunity to write down my experiences of the last 3 weeks.
On Sunday morning the 24th of January my flight departed Schiphol, Amsterdam airport to bring me to the other side of the Atlantic, more precisely, Salvador de Bahia, located on the central coast of Brazil.
After quite some problems at the airport, which included not being able to get money from any ATM, no internet connection fast enough to log-on to my online banking account, and thus not enough money to take a taxi to my pre-booked hostel in Pelhourinho, I ended up taking a bus to this old -relatively safe- center of the city. Well, thats what I thought. Half way there, the bus driver friendly requested me in Portuguese to leave the bus. With hands and feet I tried to explain him that I had no idea where to go, and whether there was any option he could just drop me at the place which the flashing bus-number and location on the front of his bus indicated. After some more Portuguese and a lot of pointing to a place 100 meter down the road I figured out that he drove me to another bus station from where on I had to try to find another bus.
As many of you might know I'm quite blond, tall and blue eyed. Some characteristics that are not that well-known in one of the most dangerous' cities in Brazil. on top of that it was already 9;30 pm and I was carrying roughly 25 kilograms of luggage with some fancy gadgets which are really wanted by a huge proportion of the locals. An easy-target Gringo on the loose!!
After some asking around and receiving numerous strange stares from plenty of Brazilians, I finally found another bus that at least brought me closer to the desired place. After being followed by a cracked-up prostitute and a drunk bodybuilder through a dark alley I finally made it to the Elevador Lacerda, which connects the dangerous part of the city with the safer -police guarded- parts of town. After searching for an additional hour, I made it to my hostel.
What an amazing start of this trip!
The settlement of Salvador was the start of continuous Portuguese occupation of Brazil, the city has been under Dutch rule for a couple of years before being kicked out again.
The next days it was time to start discovering this old Portuguese colonial city. "Pelourinho", the old city center filled with brightly colored houses and churches, with in the evenings amazing street parties and a lot of samba rehearsals in preparation for the upcoming Carnaval.
"Itaipava Arena Fonte Nova", crowned as the waterfall of goals, where a 2 meter high copy of one of the newspapers displays Robin van Persie under the headline;"o Holandes VINGADOR" ("The Dutch revenge") is pretty much staring the highlights of the history of the football temple.
And the beach neighborhood Barra, where quite some beaches, hostels, bars and several old forts are located.
After 4 days in the 3rd Biggest city in Brazil which literally means "Savior" it was time to grab all my belongings (which I fortunately enough still had) and move on to Brasilia. Brasilia is the in 1960 Inaugurated capital of the immense country, superseding Rio de Janeiro from this title. Beside some -for 1960- modern architecture this bird/ plane shaped city has not much to offer (expect a few job opportunities for professional painters, most of the white buildings lost their charms due to weather influences). With regard to the boredom of a capital the place reminded me a lot of Canberra (Australia), an also -from my point of view- failed planned city, where the architectural dream kills the human input and thus does not make the city a livable and lively place.
From the supposedly heart of the country, an overnight bus took me to Belo Horizonte (beautiful horizon). Located in the middle of the mountains, this American style city-plan-city was yet another attempt to try to bring people from the coast inland. Besides visiting "praça do papa" (pope square) which gave a magnificent view over the high rising city center, I mostly used this place as base to explore the close by Ouro Preto. This town name, meaning black gold, is one of the best preserved colonial Portuguese towns in Brazil, which was established after the discovery of gold in the region. After roaming around for a few hours I had enough of all the cultural activities and had to prepare myself for one of the events where Brazil is probably besides football most famous for!
CARNAVAL! This huge manifestation puts whole Brazil down in a week long moment of release, with nothing more important than partying, partying and even more partying. The prices of accommodation in Rio de Janeiro were already rising sky-high, and the only affordable places were to be found in dodgy places or in a place called Vidigal. Vidigal, a favella, where 3 1/2 years ago, when I was with uni in Brazil even Cariocas (Rio citizens) warned us from not going too close to that place. A bus took me to the start of the favella, where I had to explain with my Portuguese vocabulary so far reaching till; "cerveja porfavor", "eu nãu falo portguese" and "tudo bem" where I had to go. Surprisingly enough one of the guys responded in fluent English, gave me a helmet and drove me to my hostel which was a tough climb up one of the Dois Irmaos mountains. Here I was welcomed by one of the friendliest hostel owners I met, she told me I should definitely go to the top of the mountains where the slum is build on. After an exhausting climb I reached the top which had absolutely stunning views over the Rio de Janeiro bay, with pretty much all the city highlights in a panoramic view laid down in front of you.
Besides climbing this mountain several times, chilling at the probably most famous beach-strips the world, Copacabana and Ipanema, having the best steaks and caipirinhas at several places in the favella and attending several blocos (Whole streets or parks blocked off for Carnaval parties) I didn't do too much touristic stuff in rio.
My last evening in Rio I met up with Daniel (an old classmate from Nijenrode) and two of his friends on the Copacabana, after quite some beers it was time to go back to Vidigal to pack my stuff and leave for the airport. However on the walk back I saw some of the scariest things I've ever seen. I was already advised to stay in the some more crowded areas as some Cariocas think that your belongings should be theirs. At one moment while walking down the Ipanema boulevard, some 50 little kids appeared out of nowhere on the beach and started seriously beating up everyone that was in their reach, no mercy for no man or woman, stealing everything what they could get. This happened approximately 7 times on the way back to my hostel, fortunately I'm slightly faster in running than some of them unfortunate bastards on the road/ beach.
Kind of weird that the tourist areas which are perceived to be safe are so dangerous, and a slum where locals don't dare to come is so welcoming and safe.
Unfortunately after sleeping through my alarms (was planning to go for a 1 hour nap) I missed my flight to Iguaçu, and almost missed a second one I booked right after due to a greedy ATM-machine that wouldn't want to give me my debit-card back.
Eventually I made it to the Brazilian border town next to Paraguay and Argentina, close to where the world famous Iguaçu falls lay. This unquestionable unique natural phenomena consist of 275 separate falls with an approximate total length of 2.7 km and the highest fall of 80 meter, make any other waterfall you have ever seen look like a ripple. The Brazilian side is known for the grande overview one gets from the total falls, while the Argentinian side is more famous for the majestic feeling the falls give from up close.
But more about that in a while when I finished visiting the country of juicy stakes, the end of the world, tango, and of course our queen Maxima!
Adeus
Jesper
1st stop; Brazil
I'm currently in a 17 hour bustrip from Puerto Iguazu in the northern part of Argentina to the capital, Buenos Aires, a nice opportunity to write down my experiences of the last 3 weeks.
On Sunday morning the 24th of January my flight departed Schiphol, Amsterdam airport to bring me to the other side of the Atlantic, more precisely, Salvador de Bahia, located on the central coast of Brazil.
After quite some problems at the airport, which included not being able to get money from any ATM, no internet connection fast enough to log-on to my online banking account, and thus not enough money to take a taxi to my pre-booked hostel in Pelhourinho, I ended up taking a bus to this old -relatively safe- center of the city. Well, thats what I thought. Half way there, the bus driver friendly requested me in Portuguese to leave the bus. With hands and feet I tried to explain him that I had no idea where to go, and whether there was any option he could just drop me at the place which the flashing bus-number and location on the front of his bus indicated. After some more Portuguese and a lot of pointing to a place 100 meter down the road I figured out that he drove me to another bus station from where on I had to try to find another bus.
As many of you might know I'm quite blond, tall and blue eyed. Some characteristics that are not that well-known in one of the most dangerous' cities in Brazil. on top of that it was already 9;30 pm and I was carrying roughly 25 kilograms of luggage with some fancy gadgets which are really wanted by a huge proportion of the locals. An easy-target Gringo on the loose!!
After some asking around and receiving numerous strange stares from plenty of Brazilians, I finally found another bus that at least brought me closer to the desired place. After being followed by a cracked-up prostitute and a drunk bodybuilder through a dark alley I finally made it to the Elevador Lacerda, which connects the dangerous part of the city with the safer -police guarded- parts of town. After searching for an additional hour, I made it to my hostel.
What an amazing start of this trip!
The settlement of Salvador was the start of continuous Portuguese occupation of Brazil, the city has been under Dutch rule for a couple of years before being kicked out again.
The next days it was time to start discovering this old Portuguese colonial city. "Pelourinho", the old city center filled with brightly colored houses and churches, with in the evenings amazing street parties and a lot of samba rehearsals in preparation for the upcoming Carnaval.
"Itaipava Arena Fonte Nova", crowned as the waterfall of goals, where a 2 meter high copy of one of the newspapers displays Robin van Persie under the headline;"o Holandes VINGADOR" ("The Dutch revenge") is pretty much staring the highlights of the history of the football temple.
And the beach neighborhood Barra, where quite some beaches, hostels, bars and several old forts are located.
After 4 days in the 3rd Biggest city in Brazil which literally means "Savior" it was time to grab all my belongings (which I fortunately enough still had) and move on to Brasilia. Brasilia is the in 1960 Inaugurated capital of the immense country, superseding Rio de Janeiro from this title. Beside some -for 1960- modern architecture this bird/ plane shaped city has not much to offer (expect a few job opportunities for professional painters, most of the white buildings lost their charms due to weather influences). With regard to the boredom of a capital the place reminded me a lot of Canberra (Australia), an also -from my point of view- failed planned city, where the architectural dream kills the human input and thus does not make the city a livable and lively place.
From the supposedly heart of the country, an overnight bus took me to Belo Horizonte (beautiful horizon). Located in the middle of the mountains, this American style city-plan-city was yet another attempt to try to bring people from the coast inland. Besides visiting "praça do papa" (pope square) which gave a magnificent view over the high rising city center, I mostly used this place as base to explore the close by Ouro Preto. This town name, meaning black gold, is one of the best preserved colonial Portuguese towns in Brazil, which was established after the discovery of gold in the region. After roaming around for a few hours I had enough of all the cultural activities and had to prepare myself for one of the events where Brazil is probably besides football most famous for!
CARNAVAL! This huge manifestation puts whole Brazil down in a week long moment of release, with nothing more important than partying, partying and even more partying. The prices of accommodation in Rio de Janeiro were already rising sky-high, and the only affordable places were to be found in dodgy places or in a place called Vidigal. Vidigal, a favella, where 3 1/2 years ago, when I was with uni in Brazil even Cariocas (Rio citizens) warned us from not going too close to that place. A bus took me to the start of the favella, where I had to explain with my Portuguese vocabulary so far reaching till; "cerveja porfavor", "eu nãu falo portguese" and "tudo bem" where I had to go. Surprisingly enough one of the guys responded in fluent English, gave me a helmet and drove me to my hostel which was a tough climb up one of the Dois Irmaos mountains. Here I was welcomed by one of the friendliest hostel owners I met, she told me I should definitely go to the top of the mountains where the slum is build on. After an exhausting climb I reached the top which had absolutely stunning views over the Rio de Janeiro bay, with pretty much all the city highlights in a panoramic view laid down in front of you.
Besides climbing this mountain several times, chilling at the probably most famous beach-strips the world, Copacabana and Ipanema, having the best steaks and caipirinhas at several places in the favella and attending several blocos (Whole streets or parks blocked off for Carnaval parties) I didn't do too much touristic stuff in rio.
My last evening in Rio I met up with Daniel (an old classmate from Nijenrode) and two of his friends on the Copacabana, after quite some beers it was time to go back to Vidigal to pack my stuff and leave for the airport. However on the walk back I saw some of the scariest things I've ever seen. I was already advised to stay in the some more crowded areas as some Cariocas think that your belongings should be theirs. At one moment while walking down the Ipanema boulevard, some 50 little kids appeared out of nowhere on the beach and started seriously beating up everyone that was in their reach, no mercy for no man or woman, stealing everything what they could get. This happened approximately 7 times on the way back to my hostel, fortunately I'm slightly faster in running than some of them unfortunate bastards on the road/ beach.
Kind of weird that the tourist areas which are perceived to be safe are so dangerous, and a slum where locals don't dare to come is so welcoming and safe.
Unfortunately after sleeping through my alarms (was planning to go for a 1 hour nap) I missed my flight to Iguaçu, and almost missed a second one I booked right after due to a greedy ATM-machine that wouldn't want to give me my debit-card back.
Eventually I made it to the Brazilian border town next to Paraguay and Argentina, close to where the world famous Iguaçu falls lay. This unquestionable unique natural phenomena consist of 275 separate falls with an approximate total length of 2.7 km and the highest fall of 80 meter, make any other waterfall you have ever seen look like a ripple. The Brazilian side is known for the grande overview one gets from the total falls, while the Argentinian side is more famous for the majestic feeling the falls give from up close.
But more about that in a while when I finished visiting the country of juicy stakes, the end of the world, tango, and of course our queen Maxima!
Adeus
Jesper
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Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
