Brazil - Random Thoughts and Photos

It was a great trip and well worth all of the effort and preparation.  I do recommend visiting Brazil for many reasons…

 

Rio de Janeiro is one of the most photogenic cities in the world – spectacular vistas and unique, vantage points.  I love this photo that Tracy took of the sunrise over Copacabana beach.

The people are warm, friendly and will bend over backwards to demonstrate hospitality.  They laugh easily and love much.

The climate through the middle of Brazil is temperate year round.  Winters are very mild.

Over the next four years they will host three of the world’s biggest events

·         2013 World Youth Day with Pope Benedict

·         2014 World Cup

·         2016 Summer Olympics

Now the flip side…..

I would not classify Brazil as a poor country, but it is still developing and has many poor families living in hillside “favelas”.   Brazil is by far the most economically advanced and politically stable country in Latin America.  There is a wide gap between rich and poor with the inevitable crime.  You must be careful when traveling in Latin America.

As a developing country their infrastructure is also developing.  Sao Paulo state accounts for a large portion of Latin America’s industrial output and as such have the best infrastructure.  When you go a level deeper (even in Sao Paulo) you’ll roads, bridges, power grid and airports in need of investment and repair. 

Rio’s infrastructure is not only behind Sao Paulo but poses unique challenges to city planners and engineers; namely, an ocean coast and mountains in very close proximity.  These changes in elevation provide unique challenges for highways, mass transportation and for distribution of water/sewer utilities.  Imagine New Orleans with a couple of mountains placed within the city limits.

Rio has much work to do to be ready for the big events mentioned above.

You will need to slow down and adjust your expectations – everything just takes longer.  It’s not that people are slow or are not hardworking, quite the contrary.  It’s just when you have 20 million plus people living in close proximity, you are generally going to wait in line for most everything.  Gear it back a notch or two and you’ll be fine.

In North America we tend to be obsessed with efficiency – speed and quantity tend to trump quality; multi-tasking rules.  You will rarely see a Brasileiro multi-task anything.  It is one task at a time with their full attention devoted to that task.  It doesn’t matter if it’s eating dinner, having coffee, talking with a loved one or attending church.  To those in Brazil, if it’s worth doing; then it’s worth doing it well with their full attention.  I think that I will work at this a bit more on my return.

The best example I can provide to illustrate is the small retail shop where we purchased a Brasil futbol shirt.  This store was no larger than 200 square feet and had three sales clerks on hand.  One of the clerks very nicely gift-wrapped our present and placed in nicely in the shopping bag while another clerk politely operated the credit card terminal and handed us our sales receipt – very different.

This is one of the best articles that I’ve come across that details the geo-politics of Latin America.  Explains why many of the countries are mired in the last century.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/299154/what-s-wrong-argentina-matthew-shaffer#

These little suckers were hot – stickers in my tongue for ~15 minutes after tasting a drop of the oil.

 

Brazilian Cachaca and The Caipirinha

This cocktail is as simple as they come.  There are only three ingredients....


Lime
Sugar
Cachaca

If you don't have cachaca (pronounced ca-sha-sa) then substitute good quality vodka and make a caiporoska.

Slice the lime thinly and place in a cocktail glass with two heaping tablespoons of sugar.  Muddle the lime slices and sugar with the back of the spoon to release as much of the lime juice as possible.

Add the Cachaca (or vodka); I added about a shot and a half.  Fill glass with ice and give one last stir.  Enjoy!!

Happy Mothers Day!

Brazilian Cheese Bread - Pao de Queijo

My work assignment in Brazil is winding down.  Only a few more days before the overnight op return flight to Atlanta and then home to Rock Island.  There are many items we miss from home with our children and grandsons at the top of the list.  We're also missing.....

Chai Tea Latte's
Cooking
V8 juice
Mass in English
American breakfasts
Watching the Cardinals

There are also some items we'll miss from our time in Sao Paulo.  Mostly, the sweet, juicy, fresh pineapple for breakfast each morning and the Brazilian cheese puffs - known here as Pao de Queijo.  We'll work to replicate this recipe on our return assuming that we can find the tapioca flour in the Quad Cities.  They're light and tasty and served warm at breakfast.

http://www.food.com/recipe/pao-de-queijo-cheese-puffs-brazilian-68293

Soulard on Steroids - The Rio Market

My friends in St. Louis know the history of the Soulard Farmers Market.  It’s still a great place for fresh produce and farm-raised poultry and meat.  When we visit St. Louis it’s one of our favorite places to visit on Saturday mornings.  Our children even enjoy the Soulard visits. 

Today we caught a glimpse of the farmers market in Rio de Janeiro.  This one is located one block west of Copacabana beach and about two blocks north of our hotel.  I would love to tell you we planned it and knew it would be there; alas, we’re not that smart.  As we left Sunday morning Mass at Our Lady of Copacabana it was staring us in the face.  Four blocks of produce, fresh meat, fresh fish and shellfish, cheeses and street food - our kind of place.

The photos below tell the best story…

These were some of the tiniest, most colorful peppers I’ve seen.  They looked incredibly hot.

We did run across this unusual looking fruit.  You can see the lady in the back separating the edible part from the fruit.

A bit later we asked another man about the strange looking fruit.  He pronounced it “jaka” (sp?) and offered us a sample.  It reminded us of a sweet apple – dense and richly flavored.

How can you visit a market like this and not sample the street food?

In the background, the young man is grinding fresh sugar cane while the man in the foreground pours the fresh, sweet nectar into glasses.  We enjoyed it with our pastel de carne (fresh meat pie) for R$ 5.5 or about $3 USD – a great deal.

 

What a Day - Sao Paulo to Rio

First, the trip was not that bad.  A bit of traffic on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, but overall a very nice, scenic drive throurgh east central Brazil.  It took us about 5 1/2 hours of actual drive time from the western suburbs of Sao Paulo.  Once you leave Sao Paulo it quickly turns into rolling hills with lush green, tropical vegetation.  Around Sao Jose do Campos you begin to view the industrialized side of Sao Paulo state and the multitude of multi-national corporations - Nestle, Mars, Guardian Glass, Embraer and Volkswagen. 

The last half of the trip becomes mountainous with some very curvy switchbacks about 90 minutes from Rio.  Tracy took some great photos.  It was a memoroable drive.

Rio's infrastructure has some catching up to Sao Paulo.  It's also much smaller than Sao Paulo.  If we had not been to Sao Paulo first, then Rio would have seemed much larger.

As much as we enjoyed the drive the real surprises were yet to come.  Kudos to the JW Marriott on Copacabana.  They could not have been located any better.  Check out the photo from our hotel room.  It's located right in the middle of Copacabana beach on the east shore of Rio. 

We took a walk down the beach and enjoyed a couple of draft Brahma beers before returning to the hotel bar for dinner and drinks after sunset with two more surprises yet to come.

I love pizza - New York style, Chicago style stuffed  and our favorite - super, thin crust St. Louis style with Provel cheese.  Finding a pizza that leaves a lasting impression is not easy; they are all good.  However, the combination of ingredients on tonights pizza were unusual, memorable and one we'll work to replicate when we return home.  The magic toppings were prosciutto de parma, artichoke hearts and blue cheese over a thin crust with small amount of pizza sauce and mozzarella cheese - pizza kismet.

If that was not enough while we we were enjoying our drinks I thought I recognized a gentleman at the bar - an American no less.  The problem was that I could not completely recall his name.  Pretty sure that he was on ESPN and one of the originals - something Lee, Sunday mornings, Outside the Lines.  What was his name?  I picked up Tracy's iPad and did a quick search - Bob Ley.  We introduced ourselves; learned that he's doing a story on preparation for the 2014 World Cup and he graciously agreed to the photo below - 6000 miles from home.  It was quite a day.

We haven't even been to Corcavado with Cristo Redeemer or Sugarloaf Mountain yet.

Traveling with Technology - The Good and Not So Good

We have been aided greatly by modern technology on our latest trip.  We have used a number of gadgets and tools to take advantage of digital technology in our connected age.  When you don't speak the language, Technology is your friend.

Tracy has an iPad 2.  It has been invaluable to assist with our journey.  Google Earth and Google Translate have worked well.  Tracy showed the young girl at the hotel front desk the aerial view of the neighborhood to locate the Catholic church.  The directions we had previously received were incorrect and the few minutes spent with the young lady with an interactuve picture made the difference. 

We also loaded Skype onto the iPad before we left.  Skype has allowed us to stay in touch with friends and family - inexpensively.  We just have to have an internet connection which is no longer a problem.  It's been nice seeing our grandsons through video chat.  My mother-in-law has really got a kick out of her webcam and video chats with Tracy.

We're also using Facebook, Blogger.com, digital photos and my laptop to chronicle and share our experiences as well as stay in touch with news, sports and weather back home.  It was a pleasure to see the Blues advance in the playoffs and the Red Wings eliminated.  The Cardinals are off to a good start.

MapQuest has work to do to be relevant outside of the US.  We struggled to navigate their website to the correct cities and corresponding maps.   Specifically, in and around Sao Paulo were not very helpful.  We actually used two GPS systems in tandem to navigate our way to Campos do Jordao.  One was a TomTom that spoke English and the other was standard in the Honda Accord.  The Honda version does not have an English language file so the voice is Portuguese only.  The verdict - neither one delivered us to our destination without incident.  The Honda system locked up about 10 miles from our destination when we needed it most and the TomTom was not quite up-to-date.  Both systems would get us close but we had to use our instincts,  a couple of maps and local landmarks to reach our final destinations.

Brazil with a little bit of Argentina – Libertango

Truth be told I fell in love with Buenos Aires the first time I visited in 2002.  For me it was the European feel of the wide boulevards, café’s, preference for wine and the music of the tango.  The soulful, mournful tones with the accordion in the background drew me in.  The pace was a bit slower, meals longer and the emphasis was on relationships and good conversation around the table – my kind of lifestyle.  I have always said of the cities I visited, Buenos Aires was at the top of the list to take Tracy.

When we arrived in Campos on Saturday it was raining steadily and getting wet.  We needed a place for lunch and to dry off.  We basically popped into the first place we came to which was Famiglia Parmigana and we met “Little Jorge” Serodio, the owner and manager.  Little Jorge had lived in Orlando for 5 years with his family and was pleased to offer us service in English – yeehaw!  We enjoyed Beef Parmigana and Trout Parmigana for lunch.  As we spoke with Jorge we learned that his family also owned Libertango on the other side of the covered walkway.  They would gladly accept our dinner reservations for Saturday evening.

We were quickly greeted by Jorge, Sr and his other son – Chiago (likely just butchered the spelling).  We couldn’t help but be drawn in by their passion for food and hospitality.  They went out of their way to make us feel comfortable.  We enjoyed a 2008 Malbec from Argentina with our steaks, chimichurri and a side dish of mashed pumpkin and gorgonzola.  Our dessert was a crepe filled with dulce de leche and topped with fresh ice cream.  It was a memorable meal.

If there is a better combination of good beef, blue cheese and red wine I'd love to know what it is.