São Paulo
Last night we ate in the Vista restaurant, a short taxi ride from Colin and Ana’s lovely apartment. The restaurant was on the top floor, with a roof terrace bar which was clearly popular with those wanting to hang out in the hope of attracting a potential partner. On our way up in the lift the mirror was in serious use by some of the lift occupants primping and preening for the long night ahead!
We ordered cocktails, and when they arrived we took a walk around the terrace, looking over the bright lights of the city. It’s hard to get an impression of a city as big as São Paulo in such a short visit, but at least we were able to enjoy the extensive views. Back to the table, then, for what turned out to be a superb meal. Many of the flavours here in Brazil have been completely new to us, and one day a chef will import them all into the UK and make a small fortune.
We paused on the way our for a quick picture with a giant stuffed cat in the foyer, part of an art installation. It purrs too, at least when it hasn’t been switched off.
São Paulo to Itatiaia
Today we had to get ourselves organised for the journey back into the rainforest. We’ve had such a busy few days that frankly I think we would all have liked to sleep for most of the day. The house cat, Bagpuss (he has a Brazilian name too: Jujuba) tried manfully to wake us all up. Eventually we managed to emerge and went out to buy food and wine. The neighbourhood is an elegant one, and the shops were well equipped with fine wines, cheeses, fresh meat and vegetables. We even spotted (and purchased) some burrata, something we can’t yet achieve at Tesco in Skipton.
We said farewell to Bagpuss, crammed everything into a taxi (just!) and headed off to the bus station.
Unfortunately, despite it being Saturday, the traffic conspired against us and we ended up missing our chosen bus by about a minute. Fortunately it was only a two hour wait for the next one, and after a couple of beers the time seemed to pass quickly.
The bus was very comfortable and well equipped. There are few train lines in Brazil, so bus travel is often the best option. The journey took about four hours, including a half-hour stop where (after arriving in a major downpour) we had our evening meal. After returning to the bus we had only an hour or so remaining in our journey to Resende.
Not content with having almost completely filled our earlier taxi we now shopped for the remaining items we needed at a huge supermarket near the bus station. Colin had persuaded a taxi driver to take us to our destination high up in the Itatiaia National Park, and he gamely assisted us in cramming food, beer, water and all our other purchases into any spare nook or cranny of the taxi.
After about fifteen minutes on the main road we turned off and entered the national park. Victor’s house is somewhere beyond the ten kilometre mark on the single road that winds steeply uphill through the park. It was completely dark, of course, so we could only see the trees and not the forest, but our sense of excitement grew. Colin lived here for a long time before moving to São Paulo, and loves returning here. We had heard so much about it, and couldn’t wait to see it in the daylight. Colin and Victor have been solid friends for many years, and Victor has been kind enough to host our visit too. He isn’t here yet – we expect to meet him tomorrow.
Our poor taxi driver, though. He manoeuvred his overburdened vehicle carefully up the road, which became unmetalled and potholed a couple of kilometres before our destination. It was still steep too, and he struggled to maintain momentum until, a few hundred metres before our journey’s end, he couldn’t make it any further. Clare and I got out, which lightened the car sufficiently for him to complete the journey (well, it has been a long trip!), while we followed behind using an iPhone to light the way. “Watch out for the snakes”, said Colin. Thanks for the warning, I think! Our short walk was memorable – it was completely dark apart from an incredible display of stars, and the only sounds were of insects. Or possibly snakes. Or perhaps jaguars!
We unloaded the car and carried the bags inside, soon discovering that we had no electricity. This being a relatively common scenario, we had stocked up on candles at the supermarket, so we unpacked by candlelight. Part-way through this process the power came back on. The unpacking process took about an hour, after which we retired to the patio (!) with a bottle of Brazilian Tempranillo and relaxed. In the background we could hear the roar of the nearby waterfalls, replenished by the torrential rain we encountered en-route. Later on, Colin took a picture of this enormous moth:
Itatiaia – day one
We opened the shutters to a warm and sunny day, pleased to see the view over Victor’s garden, which slopes steeply down away from the house.
The grass had been freshly mown and butterflies flitted over. We breakfasted in our room (well, Victor’s room actually, it was very kind of him to lend it to us) before decamping out to the small patio with our coffee and the binoculars we acquired in Santiago. The lawn area is entirely surrounded by the forest, the canopy quite high above. As in Novo Airão, it took us a while to “get our eyes in” and start spotting the local fauna. In fact it wasn’t really until Colin emerged that, with his help, we started to spot the visitors.
Colin loaded the hummingbird feeder with sugary water, and sure enough we soon had visitors – firstly a bananaquit, and then a beautiful small green Esmerelda hummingbird.
It was mesmerising to watch it hovering around the feeder, stock-still in the air, flitting in to feed and then backing off to a ‘pausing’ branch on a nearby tree before repeating the process. To our right, on a tall palm tree which Victor has named Napoleão, after his golden Labrador (sadly no longer), a hermit hummingbird appeared – much larger than the one by the feeder.
Then, suddenly, we heard a rustle in a down-slope açai tree, and spotted a brightly-coloured toucan, feeding itself on the berries.
Clare disappeared for a shower, only to reappear shortly afterwards, reporting that we appeared to have run out of water. We tried for a while to establish the nature of the problem, but decided to await Victor’s superior knowledge. I managed to shave using a tiny amount of water, but we felt pretty grubby after yesterday’s journey, so we decided to bathe in a small waterfall nearby after lunch.
So after stocking up on the essentials for our journey we headed off, initially descending the road on which we arrived yesterday. After a while Colin located the start of a trail he knew would lead to the waterfall, and we struck off into the forest, keeping a sharp eye out for snakes. The trail was narrow and windy, the path underfoot soft and slippery in places. We climbed over the occasional tree and boulder, making good progress, but realising too that the footwear we had was pathetically inadequate for the conditions. Obviously we hadn’t been able to bring our walking boots – the extra weight and bulk of them would have been a real problem on our long trip. Instead we had purchased some lightweight walking shoes, which up until now had served us well. Here, though, we were slipping fairly frequently as we made our way along the trail.
Colin pointed out some of the flora along the way, huge versions of plants we see only in pots at home. He also showed us some of the houses along the way (although they were few and far between). Apparently there are strong indications that one of the houses here was the post-WW2 hiding place of Josef Goebbels, and other nazis were known to be in the area.
Descending the side of a valley we arrived at the Piturendaba waterfall. It was a gorgeous spot, with a series of pools descending from a moderately high waterfall. We knew we had to be wary of the sudden flash floods which can occur here after heavy rainfall up in the mountains, so when we swam we stayed close to the water’s edge in case of the need for a quick exit. It was glorious though, perhaps a little cold, but completely refreshing.
Time to return, then, and we took a slightly different route, heading off up the trail that leads to the “Tres Picos”. We passed a spot where Colin has previously filmed the “dancing” of some blue manakins. He showed us the film later – their mating dance is fascinating. A female sits towards the end of the branch while four or five males dance rhythmically along the branch, each forfeiting his place at the head of the “queue” when reaching the female, then rejoining at the back. It’s a really curious phenomenon.
We didn’t see any blue manakins today, but shortly after joining the trail we did see a single capuchin monkey, high in the canopy, leaping from branch to branch with great agility. We deployed one of the bananas we had brought with us. Spotting the chunk of banana in Colin’s hand the monkey descended the tree before reaching out with delicacy to take the banana. This process was then repeated but with me holding some banana instead, after which the monkey climbed high into the canopy, apparently seeking the rest of his group to continue their journey.
Shortly after this we were filing along the narrow trail when we spotted an enormous Caligo butterfly. These are the largest butterflies in the Brazilian rainforest. It flitted about over our heads, settling briefly on Clare’s hat. Sensing an opportunity, we got our cameras ready, before Colin held out his arm. The butterfly landed halfway up his forearm and remained there for a couple of minutes. We were able to get really close in and take some photographs of this wonderful butterfly.
By now it was becoming darker. We emerged from the trail near the old abandoned hotel (nicknamed “Hotel Shining” by Colin, after the horror film!). It was an eerie sight – it was only closed thirteen years ago, but nature has reclaimed much of it. The huge swimming pool lies almost empty, fed by a constant trickle of water. The nearby tennis courts and football pitch were overgrown. Evidence of the hotel’s former glories was everywhere, including a fringed cocktail-bar style table which looked uncannily like those at our hotel in Bora Bora. Further down the road was the hotel itself, utterly abandoned. We walked in the near-dark to the former reception area, where some cunning person had positioned an old manikin, designed to scare passers-by. It worked!
Our journey almost complete, we descended in near darkness until we saw the lights of Victor’s house. Clearly he had arrived! It was a real pleasure to meet him – he is a huge character, immensely welcoming. We all sat outside, Victor playing his acoustic guitar. He has taught himself musical theory over the last eighteen months and come up with an ingenious device, sort of like a slide-rule, to determine the appropriate notes for each chord. Along with all this he has a huge artistic talent.
We’d acquired a whole leg of lamb in São Paulo, for a barbecue tonight. Before leaving the world of the internet I’d watched a video of how to butterfly a leg of lamb, a task I now set about. It’s harder than it looks! Nevertheless I managed slowly to extract the bone and open out the lamb leg, before studding the fat with rosemary and garlic. Rain was threatening, but we lit the barbecue out front and sat drinking beer and red wine until it had warmed up, enjoying recollections of the day. We enjoyed a “starter” of spicy Calabrian sausage, then put the lamb leg on the barbecue, later adding some sliced peppers and zucchini. After about forty minutes we tucked in. Not bad at all, even if I do say so myself!
And so to bed.
Itatiaia – day two
Rain was falling this morning when we awoke. Not torrential, but steady, rainforest rain. Outside on the terrace two jacù patrolled the grounds, hoping for a banana from the kitchen. Hummingbirds still hovered around the feeder. We relaxed, drinking coffee, awaiting a lull in the weather, which didn’t come until after lunch.
Our original plans to strike out up the mountain with Colin, had to be abandoned. Simply put, our footwear was unsuitable for the forest trails, particularly after a night of heavy rain, which had turned the trails into treacherously slippery paths. So after a delicious lunch of cheese, salami and ciabatta we headed downhill towards the national park museum. En-route we spotted a single capuchin monkey, unimpressed by our offering of a banana. From the side of the trail there were pungent mammalian odours, almost certainly from the wild boars which roam the hillside. A tiny transparent-winged butterfly was visible at the side of the main road.
The museum was rebuilt recently. Inside we saw beautiful depictions of the local wildlife, and some amazing pictures, captured with camera traps, of jaguars, wild boar, pumas, snakes and armadillos. What a rich range of wildlife is found within this national park – some endangered species, for sure, but also a huge variety of birds, insects and mammals. Unlike those of New Zealand, the animals here are richly coloured, vibrantly so in some cases. Also inside the museum is a three-dimensional model of the entire national park, which was useful in determining our relationship with the surrounding countryside.
We walked down to Lago Azul, where a rickety bridge over the Campo Belo river gave us views up and downstream. Here, some time ago, Colin encountered a pit viper at close quarters, and had the alertness of mind to step back, slowly, before the viper attempted to strike. A lucky escape, perhaps.
We set off back up the road – a stiff climb in humid conditions, and we were all overheated and out of breath by the time we arrived back at Victor’s house. After we had cooled down we collectively cooked a Persian meal from Colin’s friend Yasmin’s book. A great team effort! Meanwhile a brightly coloured cicada had entered the house. Clare managed to catch it in her hands, and once it had calmed down we were able to take some pictures.
We retired to bed and dozed, to the sound of Victor gently playing the guitar and singing to himself. I think it would be fair to say that he and Colin were a bit, well shall we say ‘baked’! Just as we were falling asleep they burst into falsetto harmony, provoking fits of giggles from the two of us. On interrogating them later, we discovered that the song in question is called “Trem das Onze” – the train at eleven!
Itatiaia – day three.
Originally we had planned a long walk today, into the virgin rainforest. Our footwear being wholly inadequate, though (especially as the trails are wet and slippery), we’ve decided that discretion really is the better part of valour. Instead, we planned to visit Victor’s neighbour and Colin’s friend Tatiana, to see her art studio.
We were drinking coffee in bed, the shutters open, when Colin alerted us to the presence of birds on the patio, including a Brazilian tanager, a very rare visitor. I raced to the window with my camera. I could see the bright scarlet bird clearly, but by the time I had my camera ready it had flown off. Curses! We decided we’d better get up and sit out on the patio (in our dressing gowns!) and we were glad we did as the rainforest provided visitor after visitor. We managed to take some slow-motion video of the emerald hummingbird, and two seven-coloured tanagers ate bananas from the nearby block of wood, set up to attract them.
A whole family of jacù were after the bananas too, and with some persistence. We distracted them by lobbing pieces of banana into the middle distance while we watched the other visitors.
The hermit hummingbird paid a return visit, and a squirrel ran down a nearby tree. Overhead, soaring high in the clouds, were three monkey-eating eagles.
As if that weren’t enough, after lunch I spotted the dark shape of a capuchin monkey, crashing around in the trees. It settled on a branch, and I thought that was the end of the story. Shortly afterwards, to our delight, the whole group arrived, leaping across the gaps between the trees and heading in our direction. Colin had the alertness of mind to shut all the windows (the monkeys can cause chaos). He held out a piece of banana and the first in a succession of monkeys dropped down from the tree and gently took it from his hand.
Clare decided to have a go, holding a piece of banana in her left hand, having left the remainder of the fruit on a table behind her back. A monkey came right up to her, looked straight into her eyes, made as if to take the chunk of banana and then performed a swift feint, darting behind her to take the entire remainder of the banana. We all fell about laughing at the intelligence and audacity of this move.
This continued for twenty minutes or more, and there was no limit to their explorations. One cunningly stole the hummingbird feeder, retired to the roof and scooped out all the sugary water before flinging the feeder back to the ground.
At least one monkey managed to find the refuse bags behind the house and tear them open – we only became aware of this when an empty yoghurt pot was hurled at our feet.
They were amazing, though, with characterful faces, and they were fearless, one climbing up Clare’s T-shirt to retrieve a banana chunk gently from her hand.
At one point they became alarmed, perhaps at a snake, and raced to the top of the nearest trees for a few minutes, before returning. What a display they put on for us.
We walked up the hill to Tati’s studio and timed it well, she was just about to leave. Her studio looks out over the top of the rainforest canopy, with glass walls on all sides – a stunning location for an artist. She has an amazing talent – her pictures (painted with acrylic paints) are somewhere along the border between abstract and real life, and combine all of the rainforest elements in a distinctive way. She’s a warm and gregarious person, fortunately with a good command of English. It was wonderful to meet her, particularly as we had heard so much of her prior to our visit.
In the evening we again set up a barbecue in front of Victor’s house, but soon had to move it around the back, under shelter, as light rain was falling. No matter – we had a really good evening of excellent food, conversation and perhaps slightly too much wine. Victor and Colin serenaded us with some Brazilian classics, and the most surreal version of The Jackson Five’s “I Want You Back” that I shall ever hear.
Itatiaia to Rio de Janeiro.
We were still somewhat weary this morning on waking – perhaps we stayed up a little too late last night. We packed our remaining gear and said a thank you and fond farewell to Victor, who has been an amazingly generous host. Our taxi driver, André, arrived and we set off for Rio, pausing at “The Last Farewell” viewpoint to take photographs back up the valley, and then in Itatiaia briefly to withdraw some more money.
The journey was hilly and twisty to start with. Colin gave a running commentary while Clare slept on the back seat. As we neared Rio we passed through some of the poorest neighbourhoods, with extensive favelas on both sides of the road. Then, in the distance, we spotted the outline of Sugar Loaf Mountain, followed, shortly afterwards, by the Christ the Redeemer statue. Soon we were running parallel to the bay coast, and arrived at our hotel in Rio’s Flamengo district.
We headed straight out for lunch, snack-sized, with some delicious empanadas and pastella, accompanied by a moderate amount of beer. It was just what we needed and we felt more fortified for the afternoon ahead. Hopping in a taxi we set off for Sugar Loaf Mountain.
Here we took advantage of two cable cars (built, inevitably, by the Swiss, who seem to be the world specialists in cable cars) to reach the top, pausing halfway to admire the views.
As we transferred between the two cable cars we spotted some tiny marmoset monkeys up in the trees – much smaller than the capuchins we saw at Itatiaia.
When we reached the top the views were breathtaking. Rio is a geographical phenomenon – a jumble of bays, beaches and soft-peaked mountains, with buildings tucked in between, and favelas climbing into the valleys. Unlike São Paulo, the poorer districts mingle side-by-side with the more prosperous ones.
We could see the Christ statue, of course, and the bay to the west, but also, tantalisingly, the Copacabana beach to the east. The day was slightly cloudy, and this only added to the drama of our photographs. We spotted Flamengo beach too, close to our hotel.
After descending the mountain we took another taxi – destination Ipanema. This iconic beach lies beyond Copacabana. At sunset each day, and particularly at weekends, the beach is a haven for those wishing to admire the sunset whilst imbibing cocktails. Today was slightly different though. The devastating floods prior to our arrival had a major impact in all areas of Rio, and there were many fewer people (and fewer open bars) as a result.
No matter, it is a stunning location. We sat in deckchairs, sipping caipirinhas and admiring the cloudy sunset. Perhaps not an absolutely classic sunset, but certainly a dramatic one.
By now we were flagging somewhat, to be honest. A shower back at the hotel helped, before we headed for a restaurant in the Botafogo district. Our choice was excellent, perhaps somewhat better than our stamina. Back to the hotel then, for a long nights sleep.
Rio de Janeiro to Madrid.
Partially restored we breakfasted at the hotel. Our plan for the day was to visit the Christ statue, a process involving a funicular railway. When we got there we discovered that the floods had affected that option too – the next train journey available was after our flight check-in time, and the road up to the summit was blocked by fallen trees. Clearly the statue will have to wait until our next visit.
Our back-up plan was to take the ferry across to Niterói, a prosperous suburb of Rio which promised fabulous views back across the bay. A journey of about twenty minutes took us across the bay, and we took a simple lunch near the ferry terminal before a taxi journey north alongside the sparkling water. Our destination was the Oscar Niemeyer building known colloquially as the UFO. This spectacular building also gave us a strikingly good views back across to the city centre.
We only really had time remaining for the return journey via ferry and taxi to the hotel, to collect our baggage and to head for the airport. Colin accompanied us – his plan being to return to Victor’s house on the bus. Flood disruption and rush-hour traffic made it a fairly slow journey, but we did have time for a final beer together before heading through to the departure lounge. Colin has worked so hard to make sure we had an amazing time in Brazil, and the result has been a visit we will never forget. It already seems such a long time since our first day, travelling up the Rio Negro by boat.
We’ve loved Brazil. Inevitably we were only able to see a tiny fraction of the country, but what we did see was incredible. Our three days in the Rio Negro and Amazonas area were a particular highlight, but the whole visit has made a huge impact on us. What memories we will bring home.
I am writing this on the Iberia flight to Madrid. It’s a ten hour flight, and we hope to get a decent amount of sleep before arriving back in Europe, delighted still to be in the European Union, and hoping that will always remain the case. We arrive mid-morning tomorrow, and will have two and a half days there before flying back to Manchester on Monday. Our journey is nearing completion – just time for some tapas!