Warwick Heaney's blog

Biking Brazilian style

It's taken me quite a while, but I've finally got to know a few trails and bike people in São Paulo.  There's actually quite a big mountain biking scene here - with plenty of great trails through rolling hills and lush forest to keep exploring.

Apart from all of the trails in the guidebooks, I managed to get into a group of crazies who descend the range from São Paulo to Santos (the nearest city on the coast).  It's all asphalt, with some pretty long stretches of 3 lane highway, but who cares when you get to drop 700m along a roller-coaster like service road under and around the towering overpasses of the highway and lush jungle on your way down the range?!  At the end, you can hit the beach at the nearby Guaruja - warm water and cold beers to end the day.  And the best part... there's a bus that takes you, your bike and your 20 friends back up to the start!

 

Other trails I've done recently include Nazare Paulista and São Roque.  Nazare is a great big reservoir around which are some fairly steep ascents overlooking the rolling farmland and ever-constant lush green forests.  I definitely need to get into shape to make it up these hills in one hit!  São Roque has some great ascents (and descents) too - including a wine museum in the town to wind down at afterwards.

All-in-all there's a real wealth of things to do on the outskirts of São Paulo.  If you like peace and quiet (probably just about anybody who has spent some time in São Paulo) you just need to get in the car and head out on one of the lesser known highways - avoiding the rush to the beach of the other 20 million Paulistanos on the weekend!  No need for fear of heading into a favela as long as you don't follow shortest route on your GPS!

A great day at the Reef

We headed out on a Fantasea cruise out of Airley Beach today, bound for Hardy Reef, about 51 nautical miles offshore.  I've got to admit that even after taking a motion sickness pill before leaving in the morning, I still got queasy crossing the open channel between the Whitsunday Islands and the reef.

 

Out on the reef, the tour company has a permanent pontoon set up, with helipads, a sub and even a sun bathing section for those who reckon that the sun is worth the 2 hour trip out there and aren't so interested in one of the seven wonders of the world!

 

Kelly and I did a scuba dive - Kelly was on her first dive and I just tagged along.  But the highlight for me was my first sighting of a sea turtle.  I had to follow it out over the rope into the prohibited bit of water near the ship, as it headed underneath.  But it was well worth it!

 

Feliz Natal 2010 in Goias

 Kelly’s family celebrated Christmas this year in a tiny town in Goias, near the border with Minas Gerais.  It took a flight of one hour from Sao Paulo to Uberlandia and then another 2 ½ hours drive to get there.   But incredibly (or not so incredibly if you’re Brazilian) about 60 members of the family turned up for a party of 3 days.  Given the distances you’ve got to drive in Brazil I guess that it makes sense to stay a bit longer.

 First up it was beer and bbq – Brazilian style.  They cook the meat slowly over open coals or flame and then serve in small bite size pieces, ready to eat with fingers or toothpicks.  The beer is served ice cold – to help with the 30 deg temperatures and in small glasses so it doesn’t get warm.

 Then the real Christmas starts later in the evening of the 24^th Dec.  The passing from the 24^th to the 25^th is when Brazilians celebrate Christmas, so even after eating bbq all afternoon, you return back to get another helping of turkey, followed by generous helpings of deserts from Minais Gerais (doce de leite, cheeses and preserved fruits).

The 25^th is also a big day – with a big lunch and more drinking all day.  This year Kelly’s family decided to get someone dressed up as Santa Claus (papai Noel) and drive him around town on the back of a pickup truck to hand out presents to many underprivileged kids and other friends.  Very fun to see the reactions of kids on the streets as Santa Claus arrived in his pickup!

 

On our way back during the drive we stopped off at a few attractions.  The first was a waterfall on a tributary to the main river in the region.  It was pretty impressive and dangerous at the same time.  There was only a rusted old fence and about 30 meters separating the drop of 100m or so and the highway.  Second was a typical coffee plantation near Araguari, a region famous for coffee, but which exports pretty much all of the good stuff overseas.  Hmmm, I guess that I won’t be getting a good cuppa to wake me up after the 3 day Christmas party!

Cricket Brazilian style

Each year the Brazilian Cricket Association organises a tournament between the major cricket   playing cities – Brasilia, Curitiba and Sao Paulo.  Last year it was in Brasilia, this year in Rio de Janeiro.  What better place to have a game than on the beach at Niteroi.  You might be wondering why we didn’t set up on Copacabana or Ipanema.  Well, apart from the obvious need to beat off all of the pit boys (over-muscled gym junkies showing off their guns on the beaches of Rio) if we were to play there, the view is actually better in Niteroi.  It faces the main part of Rio de Janeiro, as it is on the other side of the bay.  So for our game on the beach we had a perfect backdrop of all of the major attractions of Rio – the Sugar loaf, Cristo etc.

 

 

 

We got a decent day’s cricket in on the beach – playing 6 a side, 6 over a side games.  I’d have to say that the bounce wasn’t all that great on the plastic and hessian pitch we rolled out over the sand.  If anyone has a better idea how to get a decent pitch on a beach I’m open to suggestions!

  

The next couple of days we played at the Rio de Janeiro cricket club, also in Niteroi.  Apart from the lack of a real pitch, this place was incredible.  It had a club house that must have been about a hundred years old , with enough space inside to hold a huge party.  Add to that the pool and tennis complex (at which a professional womens tournament was being held) and we were really impressed.  It turns out that the English brought two sports to Brazil all those years ago – soccer and cricket.  But only the former really survived in Brazil.  However, some of the infrastructure and history remains.  Part of the reason to play the tournament in Rio was to try to bring back the game to its starting place in Brazil.  I even managed to get Kelly and her friends interested and so they came down to watch.  So are you in the Brasilia girls team or not Helena?!

 

The second last night, we headed into Ipanema, as much to show Jonathon (one of our Sao Paulo players, from Guayana) around the city of Rio de Janeiro as to have a break from 3 days of cricket.  Catching the bus from Niteroi to Larajeiras made me realize just how far away it is.  But we made it, Jonathon got to drink more cachaca, we hit “Melt” in Ipanema and Jonathon got some adventure catching the first ferry home at 7am!

Florianopolis feriado 2010

Back to floripa!  With my colleague Benjamin raring to go down to the south of Brazil to meet some of his German ancestors, we made the most of the 4-day long weekend and got a plane down there.  There are more than enough of these extra long weekends in Brazil, with many companies opting to give the Monday off if it's a Tuesday holiday.  I'm not complaining!

The first night we did the obligatory bar to get into the holiday mood.  And for dinner we went to a pizza place called Pizza da Pedra - with awesome natural fired oven deep dish pizzas.  I highly recommend it.

First up during the daylight hours we took our go-anywhere Chevi Celta and made a circumnavigation of the island.  We were staying in Lagoa da Conceicao, a nice hip little town on a beautiful lagoon in the center of the island.  So it was really easy to get going up the west coast, see some of the great little towns on the way to the north, where we found Jurere International, the second home of party-going Paulistanos!  This place has some great beach bars and we found the one that was pumping.  It turned out to be good enough to just buy our caiperinhas on the beach outside and hang out on the deck just outside, where we could hear the music just fine, instead of paying the 250 bucks to cross to the other side of the small fence!

The second day we hit Praia Mole, a full-on surf beach on the west coast of Floripa.  It's a great place for keen surfers, of which I was not one on the day we were there.  There was some of the roughest surf I've seen in a long time that day and I only saw about 5 hardy souls brave the water to get out and have a surf.  On the way back at the end of the day we caught a massive traffic jam.  It's only about 10km back to Lagoa, but the road is horrible and everyone seems to be going to the same place at the end of the day!

The last day our little group split up as Benjamin had to return to Spain that day.  Kelly and I took a suggestion from a friend and headed south to a small fishing village called Ribeirao da Ilha,where we found a really peaceful spot with a great Oyster restaurant called Ostradamus.  On the way back to the airport I had the bright idea to go for a surf all the way on the other side of the island, with only hours to spare before our flight.  Needless to say, you don't need to be Murphy to know that the traffic we hit on the day before would almost make us miss our flight on the way back to the airport.  Hey, I must have left my brain behind in Sao Paulo for the weekend !

Nossa Senhora Aparecida

On the road between Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro is a cathedral in a town called Aparecida.  As the story goes, an image of the virgen mary appeared in the river in this town and subsequently various miracles occured there.  A church was built in the town and later on the largest cathedral in Brazil.  So Kelly, Juliano, Thiago and I decided to take a day trip out to visit it.

Apart from the normal parts of a cathedral that you might see everywhere else, there were a few notables.  It seemed that curing ailments, making wishes come true etc, is a major attraction of the cathedral.  If you go below the cathedral you can see a museum showing all of the miracles and wishes come true - with photos of people covering every square meter of the room.  Another activity is to melt a wax imitation of a body part in a special room to cure an illness.  You can go to a shop to buy any body part, made of wax - and I mean every body part!

The entire cathedral complex seemed close to a theme park - with a shopping mall, aquarium and mystery trail nearby.  All in all a good day out.

Bariloche 2010

After much deliberation, the decision was made to spend our week of holidays in the cold and ice of  Patagonia, Argentina.  It’s a brave decision when you’ve got so many beaches and resorts just a short trip away in Brazil.  But the call of the ski slopes was just too strong!

 First of all we had a wedding to attend in Rio.  So why not combine beaches and sun with our trip to the snow?  In the end, the wedding was about all we got to in Rio – with only a day before our flight down to Argentina.

 

When we landed in Bariloche, the first thing that we noticed was the cold wind.   Situated on Lake Nahuel Huapi, the winds from the Andes seem to whip down on the small town and keep people sufficiently hurried to get back indoors.  We took the hint and spent the first day getting equipped with warm clothing, buying chocolates and eating fondue.

 But there’s just no stopping you when you smell snow!  Off we went to Cerro Catedral, about 40mins drive from the town.  As it was the first time skiing in about 15 years for Kelly, we made sure that the gear was OK and did a few practice runs on the green slopes at the bottom of the hill.  So I filled the role of instructor for a few days!

   

 

 

 

 

 

In the end we spent 4 days skiing – even getting up to the middle heights – finding the green runs.  Look for a spot called La Hoyita if you’re ever there with a beginner – great views, protected from the wind and high up enough for good snow.  And at the end of the day it was great to come back to our hostel with fantastic views overlooking the lake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On our last day, we booked onto a cruise on the lake.  It stopped at Isla Victoria and las Arrayanes – a beautiful national park full of strange golden trees.  The cruise on the lake was spectacular too – very cold, with wind and all that, but then again, the water comes direct off the Andes!

World cup game in lanchonete

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Originally uploaded by wazindenmark

Watching the world cup - lunchtime in Sao Paulo gets extended indefinitely during world cup games with Brazil playing!

Moqueca

Just to share some Brazilian cousine with you quickly.  This was the dish served up at a recent party I went to in Riberão Preto, inland from São Paulo - which also happens to be one of the most common that you'll find in north-eastern Brazil.  It's made with shrimps, fish, coriander, tomatos, oil of dende (nut from the north-east of Brazil), with coconut milk... delicious!!

You might also notice a beer in the top of the photo - Skol - very light and always served freezing cold.  In my book it's not far off drinking ice water, which enables you to drink it all day.  All-in-all a good combination for getting stuffed full of food and beating the summer heat!

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Carnivall II, Rio de Janeiro

São Paulo – the group gets together.  Liam, Kate, Tom and I, in the next encounter after our north-queensland dive adventure a year or so before, met up in Sao Paulo and crammed into my tiny apartment, gearing up for the 5 days of carnival party to come in Rio.

 

 We loaded onto a bus with Kelly and headed to our Copacabana party pad, where Nitin was already settled in.  In one word, it was magnificent.  Huge, great location close to Ipanema and Copacabana beaches and on a quiet (for Rio standards) street, for those in-between times when you just wanted to relax.  We commenced the preparation of caiperinhas and the party began!

Carne – Tom, Liam and Kate got an introduction to the tradition of eating some great steak by the kilo or all-you-can-eat, in Brazil.  First we hit the ‘quilo’ restaurant, where you pick out whatever you want from a huge selection of salads, pastas, breads and, of course, bbq meats, to be weighed up and paid for by the kilo.  Then, it was off to ‘Porcao’ a few days later to sample arguably the best ‘churrascaria’ in Brazil.  It’s a magical place to an Australian, full of the very best cuts of meat, regularly brought to your table for you to select.  In fact, the waiters come around so often with every imaginable type of meat, that if you were to try every type, you would certainly bust something internally!

 

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Blocos are the street parties in Rio during carnival where a band will travel around the streets on a pre-defined route, with the masses following and partying all around.  We went out to see several, but somehow missed most of them – only seeing the dregs of the crowd after the bloco had passed, or the final destination as the band settled in to close out the party.  There are so many blocos happening all around Rio during the 4 or 5 days of carnival that the list fills about 20 pages of a booklet.  The music is often traditional samba, but can be a whole range of improvised and mixed stuff designed to get you dancing.

 

Finally, we hit the sambodromo, the heart of carnival in rio.  The sambodromo is a long piece of tarmac, much like a runway, or oversized catwalk, where the most elaborate parades you’ll ever see, with giant floats, dancers and enormous bands walk, dance, sing and gyrate.  It seems to be about 800m long, with about 5 samba schools parading over about 6 hours.  That’s over 1 hour per school, which incredibly, is the amount of time that the school repeats their prepared carnival song and fills this enormous stage!  Of course, you have all of the scantily-clad samba dancers at the fore as well!

 

After the carnival madness, we got a car and travelled down to Paraty, an old historical town a couple of hundred kilometers south of rio.  There we managed to get ourselves onto a party boat travelling around for a day, with live band, to beautiful clear water spots for drinking, swimming and churrasco.  From there, we met a few local backpackers/hostel staff, who went on to show us the local night life.  On their early morning return to our hostel, Kate and Liam ran into the little old man tasked with guarding the hostel from intruders.  Dead set sure of himself, he denied them entry and they had to get another hostel worker to come out and translate to get them in!

 

Tom and I continued down the coast after saying goodbye to Liam and Kate as they continued on their travels to Argentina.  We got to Ilhabela for a hike into the unknown, mosquito-infested central island, Maresias to see the raging surf and Camburi for a tranquil end to the trip.  If only we had more time!

 

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The last I heard, Tom was heading into the Pantanal jungle, in south-western Brazil.  If anyone reads this and knows that he’s OK – send a shout out!!