Campo Grande, Aracatuba, Florianopilis, Sao Paulo, Porto Alegre, Brazil

We decided to rent a car and drive to the Pantanal (which both Mel and Lucy have written a lot about), which despite all the warnings and negative comments on various online forums (authored, obviously, by people who hadn’t driven in Brazil), was very straightforward.  We benefited from getting to see a bit more of the country, stopping at various towns and villages that didn’t get any tourists, let alone foreign tourists.  In most of these places we were greeted with lots of smiling ‘holas’ and handshakes, at others – like Aracatuba – we were asked by the hotel staff if we had made a wrong turn. 

  • The little people were surprised they had to leave their weapons outside the play area of a market in Campo Grande.
  • Lunch at a restaurant not found in any guide book.

We returned to Sao Paulo for a couple of nights, this time locating ourselves in a more gentrified area, particularly compared to our previous stay at the not-as-bad-as-it-looked-hotel.   We managed to see a couple of the things we missed from our first visit, including Batman Alley, the Museu do futebol (for Mary) and few thousand shops (for Mel). 

While we were in Sao Paulo, I also decided to get some treatment for my eye which had become increasingly sore over the previous couple of weeks.  I ultimately went to A&E (after Google sent me to a number of non-clinics in the local area) as I figured I’d eventually find someone who could take a look.  It turns out the adult experience is not as slick as that for children, which we had the pleasure of experiencing during our first visit to Sao Paulo for Mary.  I started at adult A&E, and after explaining my symptoms to the triage nurse, was directed to the hospital’s main reception.  At the main reception, after providing the same details, I was sent to a clinic reception, this time on the first floor.  At the first floor clinic reception, again through the medium of charades and PortuSpanglish, I conveyed my symptoms and incredibly, I was directed to yet another reception on the 2nd floor.  Either I didn’t understand the directions, or I went to the wrong place, but either way, this area of the hospital was closed.  I decided I’d just wander around and luckily, I managed to find the Ophthalmology department, largely thanks to the Portuguese spelling being very similar.   Following another performance of my now-perfect charades routine (and a £42 payment), I was allowed into a waiting room.  Before I’d had a chance to start Netflix on my phone, I was beckoned into a treatment room where I was greeted by 4 people dressed in lab coats.  The diet-English interrogation lasted nearly 40 minutes as all aspects of my medical history were discussed.  This was followed by a thorough set of diagnostic tests – vision, colour, and others including one where air was randomly blown into my eyes.  After another too-short-a-wait-to-enjoy-any-Netflix, I was finally invited to see a Doctor.  She informed me that I had an eye infection.  Which, of course, I knew.  As did half the hospital (including staff at all of the receptions).  I was prescribed a two-week course of antibiotic eye drops – success! (And yes, I had previously tried to buy these at the pharmacy directly, but apparently this is prohibited in Brazil).

And I was looking forward to explaining my symptoms all over again.

We left Sao Paulo on a night bus to Florianopolis which was pleasant, surprisingly so.  To Mel, at least.  I was supremely confident that it would be.  Or at least, that’s what I had asserted to Mel when booking it.  The seats reclined comfortably, we had ample leg room, and despite the air-conditioning blasting us with arctic-like winds, we all managed to sleep.  We even arrived on time. (That part I hadn’t expected.)

Florianopolis, the capital of Santa Catarina, is a good mix of metropolitan city and beach town.  The people and the atmosphere are very relaxed, and unlike most of Brazil, vehicles yield at pedestrian crossings.  We stayed in an apartment overlooking the Southern side of the lagoon and spent the first day wandering around our local area.  The owner of the café where we had brunch told us about a boat we could take from the nearby pier to the beaches on the other side of the island. 

The next morning we arrived at the pier, bought one-way tickets (we figured we could walk back), and hopped on the first boat we saw.  Except, the boat set off in the wrong direction!  Instead of heading East across the lagoon towards the beach, it headed North.  Looking around at the other passengers, it seemed that only we were surprised. Mel and I quietly acknowledged to ourselves that we should have made a few more enquiries before getting on the boat. Even one would have probably been sufficient.  While the little  people were disappointed when we informed them that we were most likely not going to the beach today, but they could look forward to a surprise at our new destination.  Mel and I didn’t mention we had no idea what that surprise might be. 

Lucy all smiles, ready for her new surprise. Mary, not so enthusiastic.

We quickly worked out that our boat was in fact the lagoon ferry and the only means of transport for people going between the mainland and the surrounding area.  We were comforted to overhear some people speaking in English, and they, unlike us, look relaxed, safe in the knowledge that they were travelling in the direction they had expected.  At approximately the 19th stop, the English-speaking people we’d been eavesdropping on, disembarked.  Given we had no other plans (or phone reception to give Google the opportunity to mislead us), we decided to follow them off the boat.

After lunch at a nearby restaurant, we went in search of the waterfall we’d overheard the English-speaking strangers discussing.  Mel led the expedition and on the way, forced us to trespass through a number of back yards.  Each time we apologised profusely to the concerned-looking residents as we backtracked.  We were surprised to find that the water fall was, well…. not.  Due to the dry summer, the “water fall” had evolved into a “water trickle”.  The basin at the bottom looked pretty uninviting to my eyes, but still, the little people wanted to go for a swim.  I made up an excuse about my eye infection, which the little people accepted, leaving Mel to take sole parenting duties for this activity.

  • The “water fall”
  • Lovely swimming conditions.
  • I found this picture on a tourist office a day or so later. This is what the water fall looked like in her prime.

Porto Alegre was our last stop in Brazil.  We would have liked to stay a bit longer in Brazil, but the logistics of getting to Buenos Aires in time to pick up Miss Adventure are driving our schedule for now.  My first impression (drawn from the bus station and the route to our nearby hostel – admittedly, not the best feature of most cities) of the city wasn’t favourable, but Porto Alegre grew on me.  We found some nice cafes and restaurants, a local handicraft market (i.e. with traders selling some pretty unique stuff), and we enjoyed an afternoon at the harbor along with, I think, pretty much all of the city’s residents. 

  • We accidentally gate crashed a ceremony at the local market.
  • These traders obviously don’t understand how it works, as both our little people walked away with “gifts”.

I’m not going to lie – Porto Alegre is not a tourist destination, and like some of the other towns we visited when driving to the Pantanal, we were treated with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion by locals.  But with not much to see and do, we stumbled upon the hub of social activity for Porto Alegre – the street adjacent to the old harbor.  There’s not a lot at the harbor, but the road adjacent to it is closed to traffic  (mostly) and people simply congregate.  There’s no real order to it – some people set-up on the median strips, others in the gutters, and some setup their picnic chairs in the middle of the street.  There were a few street traders selling drinks and eats, but for the most part, people were just sitting around sharing drinks (mostly tea!) with their family and friends while kids run around or ride bikes together.  It was good fun being part of it for a few hours.  We spotted a toothless man renting out tricycles that he had clearly made himself, so of course we hired a couple for our enthusiastic little people. 

Chow for now, Brazil. 

Nick, 5th February 2020

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