So I got back from Brazil Wednesday night. As I have told some of you, I absolutely loved Brazil and I want to go back as soon as possible. There is so much to say, so this is probably going to be a long post.
To start off I would like to say that I had a feeling that I would like Brazil. If it was one thing I missed about the people, then it was their kindness and helpfulness with everything. No where in my life have I encountered such a thing. They also have a great sense of humor. Anytime when I was unable to communicate with Brazilians in Portuguese, we usually joked about it and used hand motions to try and get across our point. Usually what followed after our hand-signaled conversation was laughter and smiles.
When I got to Brazil I landed in Sao Paolo, the largest city in Brazil and also the financial capital. It is also the largest city in South America with 10 million, which is larger than NYC. NYC has about 8 million people. Regardless I did not stay long in that big city because it is too hard to navigate for a foreigner.
Instead I went to Parati which is a small tourist town in the state of Rio de Janeiro. In order to get there we took a bus that took about 7 hours. This was the way we did all of our traveling from the cities we visited. Parati is a very small colonial town and is a very large spot for many tourists. It was very tranquil and calm. What most tourists do is go on boat tours and go to the small islands close by to see the beaches and the water. I ended up doing this and also a little snorkeling. Very beautiful, here is a picture of one of the small islands I saw:
After staying in Parati for a few days I went to Isla Grande (Ilha Grande-the name in Portuguese). It was a bit of a process to get to Ihla Grande though. First we took a bus from Parati to Angra (about 4 hours), then we took a boat about an hour boat ride from Angra to Ihla Grande.
Ihla Grande was just beautiful. It actually felt more like authentic Brazil and less like a tourist area. For one, cars were not allowed on the Island. Also most people could not speak English on the island. This was a notable difference from Parati which seemed touristier. The only downside of our time was the weather. It was mostly cloudy and rained the each day. Fortunately when we went on our hike through the island we saw some sun. Here is a picture of the island from the top of a high point:
When we finished our hike we toured some of the beaches. Ihla Grande had many beaches. The best was the last one that we visited. It had very blue water, but also white sand. I had never seen anything like it before. The following is a video of the beach while I sat down and just took in the beautiful site on the sand:
Following Parati we finally left for the city of Rio de Janeiro. I had been very excited for Rio because I had heard so much about the city, the beaches there, and the people, the host of the future World Cup and Olympics. However, I was very fortunate that I got to see other parts of Brazil before so I could compare the towns to the big city. Overall the Brazilian culture is very strong and many Brazilians are proud of their heritage and language.
Also it appeared to me that many Brazilians have a ton of energy and passion. My friends and I went to a soccer game in Rio at Maracana Stadium. You would have thought that the soccer game was the finals with the crowd’s energy, but the fans were just proud of their team. They had cheers, songs, dances, drums-it was like a big party at the stadium. And the stadium wasn’t even filled all the way.
You will also see in some of my pictures what looks like run down houses. These places are the favelas (shanty towns) or the poorest neighborhoods. In Brazil, at least 50 million people live in places like these. This would average to about 1 in 4 people in Brazil. Poverty is a large problem in Brazil because if you are poor in Brazil, you have it bad. However, if you are rich then you are living very comfortably. The distribution of wealth is one of the worst in the world. Also with the favelas in Rio, what has happened is that many areas where there was once free land are now full. To solve this, many of the poor build houses on top of one another. Furthermore, a majority of the people in these favelas are black or of darker skin. This is one of the sad realities of Brazil.
Although there is racism in Brazil, I believe they are very tolerant of different people since the country itself is such a mixture of cultures and people. For example, I was talking to an Argentine man who was working at Pan de Azucar (Sugarloaf Mountain-A small mountain with a lift where you can see all of Rio). He was born in Buenos Aires and was of Arabic and Italian ancestry, and his skin color was very near to mine. After talking to him for a bit, I asked him why he lived in Rio for 20 years instead of Buenos Aires. He told me that since he came to Brazil, he felt welcomed by all. For that reason he moved to Brazil, and eventually married a Brazilian woman. Furthermore, in Rio and Brazil he had a name, “Carlos”. However, in Buenos Aires and Argentina his name was “negro” or black. This was a powerful statement to me because this came from a native of Argentina, but it spoke to me of the very real racism that is so often denied in Argentina. Nevertheless, I could clearly feel the kindness of the people that he spoke of to me as I interacted with the people. Despite popular belief, at no point did I feel unsafe in Brazil.
In Brazil I never received stares from anyone. Many of the Brazilians believed that I was Brazilian, whereas in Buenos Aires I always received attention for the color of my skin. My friend on the other hand in Brazil received many stares for his blonde hair. Also when we went to a Brazilian flea market everyone called him Gringo (foreigner). This term isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but they acknowledged his status. However for me, I felt like I fit in, instead of being a curiosity to all like I was in Argentina. All of this I felt despite my lack of Portuguese which is crazy to me.
I can’t count the amount of times that I had Brazilians ask me in Portuguese if I could speak their language. It was very funny, but also I believe that I should learn Portuguese before I return to Brazil. Unlike in Argentina where I can speak Spanish and find out the thoughts of the people, I felt bad because I could not really talk to the people and see their experiences.
Also Portuguese is not Spanish. It has it’s similarities but it is different. Although written Spanish and Portuguese look very close, when verbalized it is very different. The language itself is very sing-songy like Italian but the pronunciation of words is very distinct. One example is the word student. In Spanish the word is estudiante, and in Portuguese it is estudante but it is pronounced es-too-di-an-ch (like ranch). So when I do learn it will be a little challenging, but it will be a good experience for me I am sure.
To conclude this post about Brazil I want to talk about Brazilian hospitality and the example I experienced. My friend and I met a Brazilian dude on vacation in Parati and we traveled with him until we arrived in Rio. He was a financial stock analyst in his hometown of Belo Horizante, about 8 hours from Rio. He was very helpful to us since he spoke Portuguese, Spanish, and English. I have to say that I am very grateful to him because he made navigating the towns a lot easier. Before he left Rio he invited us to stay with him and his parents in his home in Belo Horizante. So after my friend and I left Rio, we went to Belo Horizante and stayed with the guy and his parents. They were so good to us-the mother cooked us breakfast, lunch, and dinner and our new friend showed us his city. He was so proud of his city, which was very pretty and also more tranquil than Rio or Sao Paolo. It also seemed very residential to me.
And although his parents could not speak English we spoke broken Portuguese and we were somewhat successful in conversing. Now my question to many of you is this, would you open your house to someone you just met like this? Honestly, before this experience I don’t think I would-yet I think maybe some of that Brazilian kindness has rubbed off on me.
BUT ANYWAYS, I could go on and on about Brazil. I definitely have a lot more places to explore in Brazil. I hope you guys enjoyed reading though. Also here is a link to my album of Brazil: Album of Brazil
Also I realized that I have about a month left. Time flies right? Yeah, I can’t believe I am almost down with this experience here in South America. I will hopefully write about how I feel about that very soon. Until next time guys!
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