I was in a Club Med commercial

I was in a Club Med commerical. Seriously. OK not seriously but in my mind I was. Instead, I was on an insanely beautiful beach called Jericoacoara (it’s a mouthful, I know) in the northern state of Ceará about 5 hours west of the city of Fortaleza. I’ve been on the road for a little over a week and my first stop was Fortaleza. At first it was literally just a stop...landed, spent the night to rest and recharge and then booked out the next morning to Jericoacoara (from here on to be referred to as “Jeri”). It was fully inland, along the northeastern coast of Brasil, but the beachtown is so isolated by sand dunes and ecological preservations requiring an hour sandbuggy ride to get there that it might as well have been an island. The town is squeezed in between massive sand dunes and sparkling ocean. You turn your back to the water facing the dunes and you can easily feel like you’re in the Sahara desert. Not that I’ve been to the Sahara, but you know what I’m saying.

Because of the protection of the dunes and the local environment, Jeri is prohibited from having paved roads. All the streets are pure sand and the mode of transporation around town is either by foot, horse, or buggy. During low tide on the beach the water gets caught inland between the dunes and forms little lagoons for a few hours before eventually getting washed up again with the regular tide. So it was sometime while I was lazy swimming in the lagoon looking at the dunes, with a capoeira class going on in the distance, and a family frolicking in the waters behind me that I felt that I was a in a Club Med or Royal Carribean commercial. Might as well have been. The most stunning part of the town was sunset on the dune. Everyone hikes up there and camps out to watch the sun dip into the ocean horizon. Jeri is one of the windsurfing capitals of the world so there is a constant strong breeze blowing thru the town, including on top of the dunes. So the sand stung a bit as it blew in the wind but the view and atmosphere were worth it. And of course, with every picturesque view comes a market to make money. There were local Brazilians renting out snow/sand boards to go sliding down the dunes. At night everyone congregates by the beach jiving to the music pumping from the bars but drinking from the portable drink carts that make caipirinhas and the like for R$3 (equal to about $1.30).

I am continually impressed by the efficiency of transportation around this country. When traveling to new cities, different as they may be, the schematic is always the same: each city has a central bus station for arriving and departing inter city routes. That station connects to a smaller bus terminal that is the hub for local city routes. You go from one to the other, ask the locals which bus to take that puts you closest to the hotel or B&B that your travel books recommends, do a little street wandering, find the accomodation, book it, and you’re on the beach by mid-day. It’s a beautiful system.

As predicted, the northeast is blazing hot with little to no clouds in the sky. It’s a string of endless beaches with each city and town having a unique twist to it. The Portuguese spoken here is different than the southern part of the country where I have lived both last year and this. I’ll spare you the linguistic details but in a historical perspective, I read that the pronunciation and word usage in the northeast more closely resembles that of Portugal because of the greater colonial influence in this part of the country.

After Jeri we trekked back to Fortaleza and spent the day there touring the city with friends of some friends. Then hopped 8 hours southeast to Natal and a lively little beach town called Ponta Negra where we stayed for two days. I’m currently in the city of João Pessoa, in the northeast state of Paraíba. Yesterday I took a hike to the end of one of the beaches here and reached the eastern most point of the Americas and the closest point in South America to Africa. Tomorrow I take off for the historic beach city of Recife. More to come on the other trips after Jeri but I needed to start with first things first.

The other Brasil

School’s done, for the most part. I just have one more exam on Monday and then I stick a fork into the academic semester. But then the real fun starts. No sooner does the semester end than I set off for another trip. This is going to be a big one though. It’s the one I’ve been waiting for and what I anticipate to be one of the great trips of my many fortunate experiences. I’ll be heading up to the northeast of Brazil and making my way down the coast all the way to Rio de Janeiro for New Years. I will be gone for a little less than a month, traveling mainly solo, in a poorer region of the country, on a shoe-string budget, covering a distance roughly equal to that of New York to Florida, primarily on a bus, and ultimately landing me back in São Paulo just days before I fly home to the US on January 8. It’s my one-last hurrah in Brasil before riding off into the sunset, or rather, into the piercing cold and snow of the US northeast. It’s a mixed reaction, bitter sweet feeling going on. I’ve had December 9 circled on my calendar for a while now. It’s the day after my last final and the day that I’ve been planning on taking off for this grand trip in order to maximize the travel time. And come December 9 I’ll still have an entire month left in this beautiful country. But without a doubt the time will fly and this trip sadly marks the beginning of the end of my time in Brasil. What a way to go though. On Tuesday I fly up to Fortaleza, and then will work my way down to Rio hitting up the beach cities of Natal, Recife, Maceió, and Salvador along the way. Check out the route below:

Brasil is a very iconic country and the northeast region is no exception. Admit it, for those who haven’t been down here when you hear Brasil you think of Rio de Janeiro, Carnaval, samba, monkeys, anacondas, and the Amazon. I did. After that the next popular images would probably go something like: capoeira, favelas, and gun slinging flip flop wearing teenagers wreaking havoc in the streets like in the hit movie “City of God.” Again, before coming down here for the first time, I thought that. While the country is a little more complex than that, there is some truth to all the imagery, particularly the latter ones. They’re the popular images and icons for “the other” Brasil. The Brasil that is outside the skyscrapers of São Paulo and the clubs of Rio de Janeiro. Let’s face it, Brasil is a country of huge inequalities. We’re talking a country where 10% of the people have 50% of the country’s wealth and are mainly clustered in the south and southeast, while the poorest 10% receive about only 1% of total income. It’s no secret that most of that 10% is located in the northeast of the country. The northeast of Brasil is very much like the south of the US….generally poorer, home to the historic cash crop sugar industry, which led to a huge presence of slavery, and reflected today by the large black population living in the region. The inequality issue is a pretty deal in Brasil, at least in the policy circle, and Brasil is infamously known as one of the most unequal countries in the world with regards to income distribution. However, much to their credit, the government has taken many positive steps in the past few years to curb the inequality. But the issue persists.

Anyway, I am really intrigued to see the “other Brasil.” Last year I was living in the southern state of Paraná, considered to have one of the highest qualities of life in Brasil. And this year, of course, I’m in Sao Paulo – largest economy in Latin America, cosmopolitan & international city, and home of much of the country’s wealth. So I have read and studied all about the “other Brasil” that’s geographically only a plan ride away from São Paulo, but culturally a world apart. It should be an eye opening experience to see a part of the country with a more homogenous population, poorer standard of living, and with still very strong remnants of the legacy of slavery.

But it’s those differences and unique identity that lure so many travelers to the northeast. It’s the home of the Afro-Caribbean Brazilian culture, the reggae capital of the country, and the birthplace of capoeira – the artistic dance that mimics a fight between two participants mixing martial arts with traditional dance steps. And let’s not kid ourselves…the northeast has hundreds of miles of coastline, is stacked with sun-kissed beaches, 360 days of sun, and year round 85-90 degree weather. AaaAAhhAhhHHH!!! But my plan whenever I travel is to not expect, rather, just let things unfold. So I don’t want to get too caught up in anticipations and expectations.

Logistically, I will be on the road bouncing from hostel to hostel over the next 4 weeks so my opportunities for blog posts will be few and far between. This could even be my last blog post until I get back to São Paulo in early January. Then from there I might flood the blog with recap stories. But hopefully I’ll be able to sneak into an internet café somewhere along the way and throw a quick shout out in. OK, signing off for now. But I leave you with some random pics from the past couple weeks in São Paulo.

Me and the king (Pelé, not Lebron James)

Hall of the greats - Brazilian Soccer Museum

Paulista Avenue
Christmas performance on Paulista Avenue
Paulista Avenue Christmas decorations
Student lounge at my school
Outside my school

On a serious note

Happy belated Thanksgiving everyone! To add to the unfortunately growing list of global calamities – financial crisis, Congo, Zimbabwe, and most recently the terror attacks in India – I just want to draw attention a disaster that is going on in my current backyard of Brazil right now. The southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina has been hit by massive flooding that has left 100 dead at the moment (more than twice as much as the BBC article below reported) and over 78,000 without homes. The region had very heavy rains over the past week which ultimately led to the flooding. But in the larger picture, persistent and steady rains have soaked the region for much of the past two months. I heard somewhere that over the past 50-60 days in Santa Catarina it has rained for all but 4 of them. Santa Catarina is most famous amongst travelers for being the home state of Florianopolis, an island just off the mainland that has dozens of beautiful beaches. It’s a stomping grounds for travelers, Brazilian and foreigners, mainly during the summer months. Almost every weekend since I’ve been here there have been groups of exchange students in my program flocking to “Floripa” (and most likely they have gotten rained on). I have yet to go….perhaps sometime in early January, however. But anyway, I’m not sure if this news has reached the US. Perhaps if it has it was just a 15 second segment on CNN morning news. But it’s pretty big news here. For the most part, Brazil is very natural disaster-free. The US, I would say, gets pounded on more than Brazil. Brazil doesn’t get hurricanes, it doesn’t sit on any fault lines making it prone to earthquakes, there are no seasonal forest fires, and of course, no blizzards. Well, I just wanted to raise some awareness about sad and unfortunate news going on here which probably otherwise would not have reached the US.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=6338483

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7745133.stm

18 Million People Have it Wrong

Well referring to my last entry, the “somewhere” where I was headed turned out to be two beaches. The first was a beach town on the northern coast of São Paulo state called Ubatuba (sounds funny, I know). The second a small little place called Rio de Janeiro. Yeah, I couldn’t help it. I’m quasi-addicted to the place so I headed back for a second serving.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in Brasil. Over the past few weeks most of the main stores have whipped out their decorations and Christmas lights glitter Paulista Avenue, one of the main commercial streets in São Paulo. Thanksgiving obviously isn’t celebrated here so with an eye on the calendar it’s been weird to see Christmas décor so early in the season. Adding to the out of place effect is the warming weather heading closer to the end of the year. I haven’t spent Christmas in the Philippines since forever so this is my first time in recent memory to be living through the opposite season effect. So summertime is picking up here and with that comes rain, Brasil being no exception. There’s some form of rain in these parts of Brasil everyday, be it a torrential downpour or a passing shower. I was hesitant to go to the beach over this past long-weekend in the event that I’d catch the rain. But waiting for a rainless day this time of year won’t get you anywhere so you just gotta make the moves and keep your fingers crossed that you don’t get rained on. By and large, we lucked out. Ubatuba is about 4 hours away from São Paulo city and contains something in the range of 50+ beaches spread over 90 kilometers of coastline. I am convinced that in order to have a real beautiful beach you need to (1) not have to pay (applicable in most of the world except my great home state of New Jersey) and (2) a mountain setting somewhere in the background. The mountains add a great contrast to the water and with islands scattered in the distance, as is the case with Ubatuba and Rio, it feels like you’re in your own little swimming pool of an ocean.

I had a sliiiiiiight miscommunication with a friend of mine about where to meet (i.e. she went straight to Rio and I went to Ubatuba) so we only stayed one day in Ubatuba and then caught a red-eye bus Thursday night to Rio. It’s a shame because there are tons of great beaches to lounge out on in Ubatuba but I only caught one. Reason to return I guess. So by Friday morning I was back in Rio for another weekend swing in the Marvelous City. No matter how many times you go you will never be immune to the charm of the city. I stayed again in Ipanema and spent all day Friday on the sun-soaked beach under clear blue skies. As you arrive at the beach at Copacabana and Ipanema (the two trendier beaches where travelers typically flock to) you’re greeted on either side by obnoxiously beautiful mountains that crash down into the ocean – real breathtaking scenes that serve as reminders to anyone potentially getting complacent with Rio about just how scenic a place it is. Going from the concrete jungle of São Paulo to the beaches and mountains of Rio, my immediate reaction is that the 18 million people living in São Paulo just have it straight wrong!! Why they choose SP over Rio I am still trying to understand.

Ipanema

Nope, nothing going on here.

We headed again to the Lapa street party samba-fest on Friday night. The new cool travelers I met this time around were a trio of Swedish surfers, a Texan guy taking an extended leave from school, and Natalia – a Colombian woman going to grad school at Berkeley but currently on a year long fellowship to travel the world and research urbanization trends in China, Spain, Thailand, Brazil, and Colombia. Not a bad deal.

The arches of Lapa

On Saturday night we stuck with the samba theme but added a different twist to it. We went with a group, organized by our hostel, to a the Mangueira samba school located in one of Rio’s favelas (shantytowns/poor neighborhoods). By samba school I’m referring to the group of singers and dancers from the Mangueira favela who perform during Rio’s (in)famous Carnaval festival. As we approach Carnaval the schools start rehearsing their numbers at their schools for the benefit of anyone who shows up willing to party with them. And again by “school” I’m not talking an extracurricular dance camp that children go to after they finish their weeknight homework. It’s the favela folks; the poor community of Rio; the folks living on less than minimum wage in the hills overlooking the posh high rises where tourists like me stay and where Rio’s bold and beautiful live, who, despite their poverty, always have an energetic flare that bounces to the beat of their vivacious samba music. It’s a great scene and a lively atmosphere.

Samba band up top, dancers below

Next stop: ????

Quick entry because I’m about to head out for the night and then I’m jumping on a bus tomorrow to…..somewhere….not really sure where, but I’m itching to get out of Gotham and more especially because we have off from class tomorrow (Thursday). I forget the actual name of the holiday but in the most-politically-correct-way-possible-although-I-am sure-there-is-a-more-politically-correct-way-to-explain-it, tomorrow is Brazilian African American commemorative day. There is also a bank holiday for a commemorative day for native Indian Brazilians and European immigrant Brazilians. So I’m off tomorrow and normally don’t have class on Friday so signs are pointing to a long weekend out of town. I am thinking beach. Wouldn’t you? But the forecast for the beaches on the Sao Paulo northern shore this weekend are for rain. If all else fails, I might just head to Rio for more praia (beach) and samba in the streets of Lapa. Speaking of beach, last weekend I hit up a cute little beach town called Santos. It was a real quick, easy-access getaway from São Paulo, only about an hour away. Santos is also the largest port and logistics center in Brazil. Knowing how big and significant the port is, I wasn’t expecting much from Santos to be honest. In my worst case scenario projection was envisioning it to be a dirty beach full of the backwash and grime from the port. Maybe it was because I set the bar real low, but I thought the place was great! It was a clean, fun, vibrant, lively beach town. Its thriving beach atmosphere and décor reminded me a lot of Rio. As we know, there’s only one Rio, but Santos begged a comparison. I’ve thrown some pictures on here. I’ve also recently discovered the magic of Skype. I’ve always had it but used it mainly for instant messages, not to make calls. But for whatever reason I got hooked on to the call feature of it – both to other Skype members and to regular phones in the US – and have been trying to get in touch with people. If you use Skype, let me know so I can add you on and we can chat. Time is flying by here (I only have a little more than a month to go) and before I know it, it’ll be New Years. My salesman persuasion is chipping away at a few friends who are giving more and more serious thought to coming down for New Years. I’m not mentioning any names so as to not compromise privacy issues, but you know who you are so just do it!!!

Ate mais gente!

As Eleições

Like most of the world, Brasil breathed a collective sigh of relief when Obama won last Tuesday. The days and weeks leading up to the election people were of course asking me my thoughts and predictions. But on Election Day itself things were pretty tame. Having tracked the news and anticipated this day for a while, I, as well as many other Americans in my program, felt the buzz in the air. But on Election Day Tuesday and the day after when it was all said and done, it was business as usual in São Paulo. Meaning, it didn’t strike the same level of anticipation and excitement in Brazil as I thought it would. It was interesting to compare it with another momentous event that went on while living overseas. I was living in Spain when the US invaded Iraq in March 2003 and that caused a massive uproar in the streets. Every Spaniard had something to say and most of them took to the streets in protest by some form of another – whether it was egging posters of Bush or throwing a pig’s head into the window of Corte Ingles (a popular department store) To any IES people reading this, do you remember that?!?! Obviously they are different events….election, war….war, election….and I wasn’t expecting flying pig’s heads in Brasil. But there wasn’t the hype and level of interest that I had expected. The day of the election and the day after, it was more just a passing concern with Brazilians.

Something else to comment on, however, is that most Brazilians were very impressed with how easily and organized it is for Americans to vote by absentee ballot while living abroad. They look with tremendous respect at both the efficiency of the absentee ballot system and the voluntary desire of Americans to vote while living overseas. In Brasil, voting is mandatory. If you are living in the country you have to vote in your home district. There are exceptions however. For example, if you work or study in a different state then you can be excused. But if you don’t request an excuse and do not vote, you pay a fine. I am not sure how or even if absentee voting works with Brazilians. But in any case, 99.9% of Brazilians I talk to about the elections say that if voting were not mandatory, they would NOT vote. It’s an apparent disenchantment with corrupt politics and a mile thick bureaucracy which many feel leads to inefficiency and unproductivity. So in my case, seeing me voluntarily vote from abroad via an organized absentee system really impressed them.

I went with some friends to an Irish pub (i.e. gringo bar) that was showing election night coverage on CNN, full sound and all. Hanging out at Irish pubs in the heart of South America isn’t my favorite thing to do, but I needed a place with all access US style coverage. Naturally the U.S. expat community converged there for a night of red, white, and caipirinhas! A few other international students from my program – from Germany, Finland, France, Norway, and Germany – also tagged along. They were equally as interested in me and I found myself giving lessons in civics and the electoral college. It was a good reminder of what I knew, what I thought I knew, and what I still need to learn.

The good guy won, we all went crazy, hail to the chief, God bless America!

Sticking with the theme of civics, nationalism, and country, here’s a little trivia for you readers that of course can be looked up in .3 seconds on Google. But at least give it an honest guess before you Google….what is the only country in the world whose national anthem does not have words???

Desiree, LeeAnn, Agatha, Julia

Janne, Patrice, Yours truly

OOOOOOOOOOBama!!!

A funny thing happened on the way to the game....

I haven’t done a Portuguese Word of the Day in a while so I’m getting back into the swing of it with a very timely word. “Viralata = mutt.” To be quite honest, that was one of the first new words I learned on this trip. I think I was driving with my friend Gleidi from the airport the day I arrived in Brasil. There was a stray dog in the street that looked kind of funny and she said something along the lines of it being a "viralata" (mutt). I immediately thought to myself, “well gee that’s nice, I learned a new word. But when am I ever going to need to say the word ‘mutt’ in Portuguese??” Well, well, well. Just the other day I was watching highlights from Obama’s first press conference as President-elect. When talking about the nation’s next First-Dog he made a comment about himself being a mutt. The news was obviously in Portuguese so when the commentator said “viralata,” I had answered my own question: I needed to know the word “mutt” in Portuguese in order to understand a news report about the United States of America’s first black president. Exciting stuff for a Monday night…. I know!!!

OK next topic….continuing with the sports theme, on Sunday I went to see another one of São Paulo’s big soccer teams play – Palmeiras. They, like São Paulo, are in top contention to win the championship with only 4 or so matches left to play. The visiting team was Grêmio – from the southern city of Porto Alegre. One of my favorite soccer players, Ronaldinho – formerly of Barcelona, currently on AC Milan – played for Grêmio before making the standard move to Europe. So Grêmio is his alma matter and they too are very much alive in the championship race being in third place in the league. So this match was between two of the top3 teams in Brasil….a huge match!

The neighborhood very much had a Fenway Park feel to it. It was a medium-to-small sized stadium surrounded by a bunch of bars and restaurants flooded with people BBQ-ing, drinking, and partying in the streets. Although, come to think of it…they do that in a lot of normal streets in Brasil, not just outside soccer stadiums! Turns out that tickets were all sold out and only ones we could scalp were in the visitors section. However, the 30,000 home fans for Palmeiras didn’t even make half as much noise as the 300 visiting Grêmio fans. Instead, our section was a 90 minute non stop party of singing and dancing capped off even more when Grêmio won. So a funny thing happened on the way to and from the game. I went there looking to join in on the fun and craziness of one of São Paulo’s major teams….but ended up getting converted into a fan of the team from waaaay southern Brasil. Fair weather as I may be considering that in my last entry I dubbed myself a São Paulo fan….but I got love for Grêmio now!



Grêmio Fans: my new boys

Esportes

I went to the São Paulo soccer match on Sunday and have attached some pictures below. Great game amidst a real energetic atmosphere. I would say that there were more people at that game than the game I saw of the Brazilian national team in Rio a few weeks back. In fact I was really surprised with the near sellout crowd. Most of the games I see on TV are played in half empty stadiums at best. A Brazilian will tell you that tickets can be expensive for the average folk and that games are better watched in the comfort of home with friends and fam instead of trekking all the way to the stadium. Makes sense. But the national league is winding down with only 5 matches left and there are about 4 teams still in contention to win the championship (there are no playoffs….the team that finishes with the highest point total wins the league). São Paulo is one of them and since they are the reigning champs there’s a lot on the line for them, thus the packed house. I think I officially have a Brazilian soccer team: São Paulo. Last year I went to a game for Fluminense (one of Rio’s teams) and this year a bunch of my roommates are big time Atletico Mineiro fans (a team from the capital of the nearby state Minas Gerais). But I couldn’t connect with any of them. Now, having been to a game of São Paulo, living here, and being really impressed with the quality of play and overall atmosphere…I’m sold.

Earlier in the day there was the final race of the Formula 1 championship series. Most of you who follow my blog are well educated international trekkers who have lived or traveled abroad, particularly in Asia or Europe (Japan, Singapore, Barcelona, Italy, etc.) So you guys I’m sure are aware of the Formula 1 presence all over the world especially since races are held in places that I just named. I knew it was big all over the world but I had no idea of just how big it is all over the world. São Paulo hosted the final race on Sunday and people from all over the world flocked to this otherwise tiny city. Brazilian hero Felipe Massa won the race but lost the overall championship since the British dude who finished 5^th (Lee Hamilton) finished with enough total points to win it all. I had a funny, culturally aware moment when my whole apartment was watching – eyes glued to the TV – with 2 laps to go and everyone started going nuts, bursting out in cheers during what to me seemed as if nothing happened. I had no clue what was going on since I significantly lack an understanding of the sport. Turns out that one of the drivers strategically passed the British dude which set up the Brazilian to win the race and the overall championship. But on the very last turn the British guy pushed into 5^th place which gave him enough points to win the overall championship series. It was an interesting experience for me following the race. I’m a big sports guy and it piqued my interest in something new.

There's about 5,000 people under that flag

Riot police is always a good thing

Santa? Is that you??