20 juni 2019: Floripa

From the bush we decided to check out some more European roots in South Brasil - starting with a brief visit to this convent located beautifully on a mountain top. We just walked around it as it was early in the morning. But guess what, we bumped into a pregnant lady with her hubby doing a 'baby bump shoot' in the convent's garden. You see this everywhere in Brasil - the bump goes bare and they drape little baby clothes on the bump and take lots of photos. Even before baby's are born they are now displayed on social media....I'll keep my further thoughts to myself :-)

We arrived in Blumenau, one of the cities also started by German colonists (like Curitiba). Of course we needed to check out Villa Germanica, the biggest venue for the Oktoberfest here in South Brasil. Apparently a very big happening as the halls were the fest is hosted were massive. Next door a brewery and a 'village' of German buildings filled with souvenir shops where they sell anything from 'lederhosen', 'schone madel' wigs and lots of t shirts with the German flag. Obviously we skipped those (sorry Birgit).

Also quite a few restaurants and a large pub so we decided to do what all Brasilians do on Saturday; have a big lunch in a restaurant - accompanied this time by live Oktober fest type German music, she even threw some good jodelahitis in there! Hans and his liter of schopp as they call it here. I opted to taste the vinhocerveca, a mix of red wine and beer and it was actually pretty nice. Not that at home I would ever consider mixing a nice red with beer - then it's better to do as the Belgians do mix sweet dark beer with blond beer.

This was very tasty with a German/Swiss touch; a crispy bread filled with very juicy fall of the bone meat - topped up with Raclette cheese from the grill. After checking into a pousada a bit out of the centre we took an Uber to go and check out the historical hart of Blumenau and Saturday nightlife. Well......the historic centre exists of the council building which is a large German fachwerk house and along the normal looking shopping street you see a few more historic houses but that's it. Not much going on but hey remembering it's Brasil and not Germany it's still good fun. The only nightlife we could find was a fund raiser market for the church next to the very modern cathedral - and the other option was a massive mall where everyone at 8pm was shopping and eating in a massive foodcourt. The nice sushi made up for some of the disappointment before we uber-ed back to the pousada.

Back to the coast and the beach! It was so nice to drive towards the beach again, Florionopolis and the Isla de San Catarina where we found the cutest little cottage on Matadeiro beach next to the village of Amarcao.

We had to park the car in a parking lot in the village, take our back packs with food and clothes and walk about 10 minutes to the tiny community on the beach where the 'bach' was. The couple who rented the cottage were lovely and he came out to meet us and walk with us to the house to show us the ropes, also carrying one of our backpacks.

With a beach like this and awesome weather, you don't need much that's for sure. Our E-books, swimsuits, mozzie spray and gin for our g&t's and we're good :-). Loved this swing for adults on the beach, I want one in Te Horo!

We just fell in love with this little beach community right away and after two nights decided that the four nights we booked should be doubled. Around 26 degrees with a sea breeze and nice ocean temperatures for swimming - I read 4 books. How good it is to have a holiday in a holiday!

After two days of reading we decided to do the much recommended walk from 'our' beach to the next beach and lagoon which turned out to be a steep 2 hour climb through the forest and alongside huge cliffs with with wonderful views. Once we arrived at the praia Langoinha do Leste we went for a swim right away, bliss!

After a nice swim and sammies break we continued with the second walk at the end of the beach another very steep climb, just over one hour this time to arrive in the most southern fishing village of the island, Pantano do Sul.

All in all a good and very hot work out topped off with a ice cold beer with these views of the beach. A busy gathering of fishermen coming and going, repairing their nets and chatting. Colourful boats everywhere and the end of the day sunlight.

The bar on the beach was kitted out with thousands of little bits of paper where visitors had recorded their best wishes, hopes and dreams. Very nice touch and no......we were tired we didn't ask for a piece of paper..

This very colourful insect - family of the grasshopper probably - lived next to the front door of the cottage - just beautiful.

Sunset is at 5pm, very early but here it's autumn too like at home. The handful of people and surfers that were there go home and all goes quiet. Apparently in summer it's a very different story and checking the number of home owners that have parkings on their properties it's perfect for us to be here 'off season'.

The flowers around the front door (including passion fruit flowers and fruits ready to eat) were frequented by kolibri's (bejia flor in Portuguese) and butterflies (borboletas), just lovely to watch. On Sunday afternoon we enjoyed the live music at the Surf Bar accompanied by nice food and of course carparinhas - how mellow can you get! Made us decide we could stay for 2 more nights - we just didn't want to leave.

To walk of some of calories of those carparinhas and g&t's we decided we'd do the walk again but this time starting from Pantano do Sul. At 9 am we were on the bus and 20 minutes later we were walking uphill again. Earlier and more rested than the first time the walk felt easier. Still hot so had another nice break with a swim at the beach after the first hill. Here you see the beach and the hills we had to scale first.

On the second hill towards 'our' beach we spotted four seals frolicking around and fighting for the best sun baking spot on the rocks.

Finally Hans decided to actually get up at 7 am and walk to the beach to watch that sunrise - in autumn it's a bit cloudy but still nice.

A few pics of the cottage to remember our stay here -we may go back sometime!

Back over the bridge with our backpacks - bye bye Matadeiro beach.

We took the scenic route towards the mountains from Floripa and traveled through lots of little villages that have these surprisingly big colonial buildings on display. To us it's still a bit unusual, tropical forest, lots of banana palm trees and then these building and very colourful very tidy houses and yards - European heritage.

The last bit of the journey to Uribici was very steep and a very poor narrow road as you can see in the clip. We also didn't see much!  Arrived in Uribici which claims to be the coldest town in Brazil at the end of the day. And indeed it was a whole lot colder than on the coast, probably only around 10 degrees after sunset, a 10 degree drop compared to our nights on the beach. For dinner I had crepes at a local cafe. Made by the very nice Israelian owner of a cool hostel where we went earlier in the afternoon along our route. We planned to stay there but found out that we would be the only guests and he would be in town all night baking crepes! We didn't want to be stuck at the hostel in the dark with just the two of us so decided to stay in town but still come and check out his crepes. They were very nice too - never found out how an Israelian became a crepes chef in Brasil, but he must have picked it up in Belgium where he also lived for a while.

From Urubici we were off to visit canyons, in this part of the Brasilian mountain ranges there are lots of them. We decided to change the route a  little bit to check out a very famous viewpoint and road first the Serro de Rio do Rastro. From there to the Ronda Canyon and further through fazenda country to the next canyon.

We had to drive over a bit of private land and asked at the first canyon if that was possible. Well, you need the authorisation of the owner the first guard said. We asked the second guard who told us just say you have authorisation from Jorge when you get the checkpoint at the private land. So we did, the guard nodded 'ok' when we mentioned our friend Jorge, wrote down our name and off we went. What a system eh, but it does keep three people in a job.

Lovely drive with heaps and heaps of my favorite tree, the Brazilian variation of the Auracancia tree. Nice lunch at a little rio, waving to all the locals looking at us curiously. The final stop of the day from the nice Pousada Tio Tinho we found to spend the night; canyon Montenegro. Very impressive and beautiful. Because the canyon is 1450m high, it's completely green, covered in trees and shrubs. Very different from the bare canyons in Peru at 4000m. Peace and quiet. On our return we sat next to the fire chatting as best as we could in our Spanlighs Portuguese mix with a Brasilian couple who'd come down on their motorcycle from Sao Paulo. The dinner was a real treat with local fish and meats and if anyone working in a bar in NZ saw how they pour a glass of wine here they'd laugh out loud; 2.5 glass in one. Our next stop is one more national park and another canyon and then back to the coast to Porto Allegre to catch our flight to Holland in a few days. Tchau for now!

8 juni 2019: Klompendans (clog dance)

And there we were again, at the borrocharia (tire repair shop), 6th flat tire in 30.000 km. After a nice drive over a rippio (off road) road the rear right tire started to deflate itself. The cause was pretty unbelievable. It was the missing end of the huge nail the Toyota garage had found in our rear right tire. They swore to us they didn't find any other problem and that it was a bad joke from the people who put the tire on. Probably by hitting a stone it had finally wiggled itself so much air was able to get past it.

The local tire repair man quickly found the head of the nail (was a bit disguised as a pebble), but it matched the nail I kept as a souvenir perfectly. Question of course is, who keeps losing all these nails? Is this like doctors talking their patients into an illness so they keep coming back? 😉 Does the local tire repairman tell his son after school to jump on his bicycle and distribute some nails in the area? "Come on son, grab the bag of nails and remember, not around the house, but in a circle of ten kilometers!"

Anyway, we were soon on our way again and visited a nice park with a beautiful canyon. As it was weekend we had to crawl over the selfie taking Brasilians again. It seems to be the main goal in life here, get your picture taken anywhere and anytime. The background is hardly important.

We came a bit unprepared so we did not know you could take a spectacular bath here. Considering the all the cameras nearby skinny dipping was not an option here.

So we moved on to Castorlandia. It won't surprise you if we tell you we immediately felt at home. This scene is like my home village Bathmen in the Netherlands.

We were greeted by a the sound of a Dutch street organ, the kind you can still see in Amsterdam and welcomed in Dutch by a nice local. The mill was a museum where the history of the local Dutch community was explained. Like in the previous and next village they were quite successful in dairy and soya. They started out as cheese makers of course.

I was very happy to discover a Dutch shop in the mill an managed to get my hands on 3 rolls of 'Topdrop'. Way too expensive according to my treasurer of course, but my taste buds told me it was well worth the money!

Next to the Dutch shop we discovered a 'bruin cafe' (literally translated a brown cafe, but it means a cosy cafe) were we scored a real coffee with appelgebak (Dutch apple cake). Not to worry, we're not homesick, yet.... We drove a bit through the neighbourhood and enjoyed all the nice really well maintained gardens and beautiful houses with lots of flowers in the garden and behind the windows. All so Dutch. Even the street names were Dutch.

The biggest surprise was this industrial complex of which the whole front of the industrial buildings were made like a street in 'good ol' Amsterdam'. What a brilliant idea. Instead of looking at nasty boring grey walls you create a very nice view. OK, the fence is a it out of touch.

We drove on to Carambei to find a Dutch open air museum. Don't you think my crocs are almost like the original clogs Jane? Jane is not a big fan of crocs, but I'm starting a real hype here in South America!

How about this for tiny homes. We're thinking of decorating our front paddock with a few of these.

Oh my, they even had a restaurant with some Dutch and Indonesian treats. I so enjoyed my Amstel with little 'kroketten' and later on 'bitterballen'. There was one omission though, they brought us sweet and sour sauce to go with our Dutch delicatesse. I had to explain to him that this Dutch treat can only be accompanied by mustard. They were clearly amused to see how we enjoyed this feast. Unfortunately we couldn't stay for the 'blauwe hap' (Indonesian meal) the next day.

We did spend the night in hotel 'de Klomp' (the clog), where unfortunately, nobody spoke Dutch.

After checking in we hit the town to see how the locals enjoy themselves. We found a restaurant with live music. Nienke did not allow me to use the translator to order food as her Portuguese by now was very reasonable. Thanks to that she got me a kilogram of raw meat (I'm not kidding you) and we were lucky she did order it for only the one person. Nienkes ragout turned out to be some kind of soup. Luckily they did understand the order for some nice beers to go with the live music. By then all the locals had gone to bed in order to be up early for church we guess.

Next day we left to visit another nature park. There were 2 SS like creatures armed with guns and impressive bellies, the 'policia ambiente' (the environmental police). Had an office with fancy computers, 2 horses and motorbikes. And the whole day they were doing.... nothing, which seems to be the main activity of police in SA. We were not allowed to visit the park on our own. So we were stuffed in an old bus and driven to the sinkholes (massive craters formed in sandstone rock). The elevator into the sinkhole was the most interesting thing of that trip as it was antique and had stopped functioning in 2002. They are still working on a repair plan. We walked 'en groupe' around the sinkholes which were perfectly hidden for us by lush vegetation. Each sinkhole had a small platform from where you could see part of the sinkhole. Nienke did not allow me to kindly bring up the idea of a suspension bridge. The walking speed with this group of Brasilians with cameras is that of a group of teenage girls walking through a street of clothes and shoe stores.

The other half of the park was far  more interesting. Again, we were not allowed to walk alone. After about 800 meter three quarters of the group quit the tour and jumped on a waiting bus. The rest of the tour was partly in the shadow (and therefore not good for selfies) and ascending (too much effort).

Unfortunately it did not speed up the tour and we spend another tantalising hour waiting for photo 4253 to 4476.

The weather was (still) good and the views not too bad, but in the end we spend almost 6 hours in the park. On our own we would thoroughly have investigated the park and enjoyed ourselves in maybe 1 hour.

So we drove on to Curitiba (pronounced Curitsjiba) where the weather suddenly changed drastically. We went to a water concert in the Opera de Arame, but this is not exactly what we envisioned with a water concert. Nice building though, built of tubes in 75 days (in the video you only see the stage).

It kept bucketing down for 8 days straight. Luckily the house we rented had Netflix  so we were able to watch a few movies. Cuddling up under some blankets as the house was not blessed with a heater. Curitiba does host the Oscar Niemeyer museum, A Brasilian architect and artist responsible for many stunning buildings all over the world.

The museum also housed an exposition about Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei. Apart from his very interesting life story (accompanied by many photos) there was quite a display of his often very confrontational and painful art. For instance about the humanitarian disaster in the Mediterranean sea ,a huge rubber boat full of adults and children.

And some of his famous phrases printed on the walls. So true. At this point, on advise of my wife, I will reftrain myself from starting about mr. T.

A view of part of the amazing museum itself .

We haven't been to a zoo for years. Not something you do without kids. Our iOverlander app told us the zoo in Curitiba housed some South American animals so we gave it a go and it turned out to be very interesting. Many of the animals we were supposed to have seen (but did not) in the parks we had visited were on display here. In cages way too small of course. We saw the jaguar, the ant eater, the giant otter the puma and several rare birds. Nice for a few hours in between massive rain showers. Finally the rain passed and we moved on to Murumbi national park for some physical activity again. Not many photos this time, but we managed to make a short video clip of our attempts to climb the highest mountain in Morumbi national park.

We did not even to manage to get to the halfway point as the path became very steep and way to slippery after all the rain. When it became too dangerous we turned around and did another track instead to a nice viewpoint where we had a chat with first a Brasilian tour guide and then a nice Canadian guy. On our way back we found the Canadian sitting on a rock in the middle of a river playing the mouth organ. We've got that thing in the car,must remember to bring it in next time to start practising.

Found a nice pittoresk scene in Paranagua where we finally saw the sea again. The town is a collection of decaying colonial buildings. Still a nice atmosphere and a nice museum in a Jesuit monastery. And we had a great Chinese meal here. Driving on along the coast we noticed again that Brasilians take care of nature,you seldomly see waste lying around. There is no dumping and people are sweeping their yards and sidewalks. You do see some poor people as well, living in roadside huts, covered in plastic

Spend the night walking along the beach in Matinhos thinking of our lovely son Tristan who would have turned 21 on June the 5th. We have very fond memories of that lively little man. So sad we have to miss out on all the fun of a young men getting older in life.

While walking along the beach we think we got a wink from our hero in the form of a small rainbow.

This last clip is from our last climb in a park full of (14) waterfalls near Corupa. Amazing. Now we're of to Florianopolis for a small holiday within a holiday. Ciao.