We had a long flight in front of us, nearly 10 hours, but with great service onboard, good books and some flight-size bottles of red wine, we suddenly found ourselves flying over the largest city we ever saw - Sao Paolo. It was amazing! The landscape was only city, city, city and city, as far as our eyes could reach. The sun rised in the horizon and the red shine of sunlight reflected millions of windows. No heavy skies, and definitely no tornado – this morning.
We looked down through the window wondering what waited on us down there, in between the houses of the large and dangerous city of Sao Paolo and on the villages we could see in the horizon.
Curious and excited we safely landed at Sao Paolo airport and got actually ALL of our baggage! A relief! After the baggage-case in New York we take nothing for granted.
We got our rent-a-car after one and an half hour. The employees at the rent-a-car company did all very carefully and detailed. But after some time, we suddenly drove out on the highway, heading for Rio de Janeiro.
Around us the landscape was so very different from what we have seen before. Free horses walked around on the hillside eating grass, and on the fields around we could see lots of very characteristic brown cluds – which we found out later was something called “cupim”. A cupim is housed by thousands of small wood-eating ants. (We unfortunately had many of them, not only couchsurfing, but also coucheating under our couch in Angra dos Reis. The table next to our bed collapsed because of the wood-eating ants!) We passed several of small, poor villages – many of them belonged to the category of the characteristic “favela”, which is a small village up in the hillside consisting of colorful houses very close to each other. Along the road we also passed a lot of poor people selling fruit, potato-chips and other things.
It is a lot of poverty in Brazil wherever you turn, and it was heartbreaking to see some of the villages beeing in extremely bad condition and having eyecontact with small children on around 7 years or younger carrying their siblings on their hips, begging for money.
After about five hours we could see the “favelas” appear more frequently. We were soon in Rio de Janeiro! All of a sudden, above the hills on Corcovado on our right hand side, Christ the Redeemer stood proudly in the sunset.
At Hotel Martinique on Copacabana we were nicely welcomed by a very helpful and caring staff. The day after we walked along Copacabana and enjoyed the sun, and of course a couple of Pina Coladas.
Later that evening Bjørn Christian found a nice village on the Internet, Angra dos Reis, to spend the next two weeks. We wanted to find a place quiet near the beach outside Rio. It is spectacular to be in Rio and experience the town for a couple of days, but we also wanted to travel to the coast and see more of the country. And so we did. We came to Angra and settled down in a little, cosy studio-apartment near the sea. From the terrace of the apartment we got a great view over the Angra Bay. We spent long hours out there. In the evenings we could see the dark skies part in two by purple lightening, followed by rumbling thunder.
Angra dos Reis means “the King`s Bay” and is about three hours driving from Rio down southeast. Angra dos Reis has 100 000 inhabitants. We found Agra charming, but to get the right paradise-feeling you definitely have to visit by boat some of the 365 islands Angra dos Reis can offer.
In addition to lovely island, Angra apparently used to have a "Christmas Land" many years ago. On our way to Rio one day, we suddenly saw this park a few miles outside Angra. It was kind of sad to look at it, it was so silent and empty. In our minds we imagined children running around with laughter and christmas-joy. Now the Santa with fading red color seemed a little melancholic and tired. And soon he would belong to the past and in an old ladys heart somewhere - along with other childhood memories. What happend to it? Why wasn`t it still running?
One day we joined an arranged tour on a stunning sailing boat, Aracaty, and explored the islands. We snorkled in the Blue Lagoon Bay and ate lunch at Isla Grande. This is a must do if you come to Angra!
On a rainy Monday we went to the town of Paraty. This town has become very popular tourist area the recent years. After the discovery of the world's richest gold mines in 1696 in the mountains of Minas Gerais, Paraty became an export port for gold to Rio de Janeiro.
We walked down the cobblestone-paved streets, which cover the most of the center of the town. Here no trucks or cars are allowed to drive. Only foot traffic or bicycles. Horses and carts are a very common sight in Paraty and are frequently used all around the city. Thanks to its World Heritage status Paraty has been able to maintain many of its historic buildings. Much of the architecture of the city has not changed for 250 years or more.
In Paraty we fell in love with Elton Brazils art, a local artist. We bought two colorful and unic pictures of the typical brazilian "Favelas", which we shipped home to Norway.
We enjoyed walking through the rainy streets of Paraty at night. The white houses with the colourful doors and windows make you want to find new streets to discover. In the streets we saw young loving couples on the old doorsteps, and mature people flirting through the windows. On every corner and square people were socializing in a manner typical of a small Latin American village were everyone knows everyone. And we were the turists.
Most of the days spent in Angra dos Reis were quite hectic. We worked long hours with writing articles and blog, organize camera equipment, contacting interesting people in Brazil to meet and interview, taking pictures etc. A lot of things to catch up with!
Bjørn Christian managed to get an appointment in Rio with Odd Isaksen - CEO of the shipping company Brazil Ship. We got an interesting interview with him, amongst others about the Brazilian culture and how he consider being a Norwegian in Brazil.
He also told us about an unic Brazilian school - “Bola pra frente”, which the World Champions in soccer (1994) Jorghino and Bebeto started in 2000 for poor children. (Web-site: http://www.bolaprafrente.org.br/inicio.asp) He told us the Norwegian Ministry with Erik Solheim and representations from the Royal family, Prinsesse Ragnhild and her husband, were coming to consecrate a schoolbuilding which the Norwegian Government had donated. We found this very interesting, and would love to be a part of it! After a few conversations with positive persons by the Norwegian Embassy in Rio, we got an invitation to participate.
It was a great experience to have the opportunity to meet Erik Solheim, Jorghino and Bebeto. I cannot say I am, or have been much into soccer. But I do know that in the minute I saw Jorghino I recognized him from the TV-screen. (Not so bad?) And I guess I was a very lucky woman to get a kiss from him and Bebeto on the cheek. Afterall, world champion or not - I have to say I rather appreciate having kisses from Bjørn Christian.
Most off all – meeting with the hopeful and joyful children made the day unforgettable for us. We fell in love with them completely! Now they got hope for the future, in spite of their demanding situations - because of two big-hearted soccer players. This day made a big impression on both of us.
Suddenly the day had come when we had to leave Angra dos Reis. On Couchsurfing we got in contact with Virgilio Galvao – an half Italian/half Brazilian guy, who was positive to host us in Sao Paolo for the two last nights of our stay in Brazil.
Virgilio turned out to be a very friendly and hospitable guy, and he took us for sightseeing around in Sao Paulo.
He also introduced us to many of his fantastic friends – a lot of them were CS-member too!
This is from the first night out clubbing at a placed called Geni where we had some drinks and we enjoyed singing and dancing (samba!) along with a very fascinating soul-singer. I had to give her a hug afterwards, she brought sunshine to our hearts – and soul!
We had heard many rumors and dreadful stories of “dangerous Brazil”, but we fortunately left Brazil November 12th without experiencing any dangerous or frightening situations.
When you travel the world, you need moments of silence and room for reflection. Each day is a new educational journey in itself - full of impressions, meetings with new people and new unexpected situations to handle. You simply get a little overloaded with information sometimes, and it takes time to sort out and adapt.
To travel the world doesn`t mean having a vacation. It means hard work with planning, organizing, accounting, learning, fixing, handling, documenting, and you need to pay attention to everything around you - each and every minute...
We look back on two fantastic weeks in Brazil, and we would very much like to come back one day. Back to the children in "Bola pra frente", the "favelas", the helpful people with the strange portugese accent, the fascinating change in the weather with the purple lightening, the smiling poor children with their hopeful eyes, beautiful Paraty and the paradise-like island outside Angra.
OBRIGADO!
