Brazil and Sao Paulo

There are a few theories amongst the two hundred million Brazilians as to the best place in Brazil.  None would argue, however, that Sao Paulo is the driver of the thriving business of Brazil. Locals like to compare the city to New York – um, no… but with a population of 21 million it’s certainly the largest city we've been in.

Cityscape Sao Paulo

It’s also the fastest growing city in the world and has 8 million cars – I swear we encountered most of them, yet there elegant parks and buildings.

Elegant gardens

Despite that, it’s also (like all of Brazil) very ethnically diverse, with (for example) the largest Japanese population outside Japan.  Unlike the more western countries of South America, there were few native inhabitants in Brazil when the Portuguese first arrived and consequently immigrants were encouraged to take up land grants and intermarry.  This included the estimated 4 million of slaves from West Africa.  This has led to a country that doesn't discriminate by skin colour – nearly everyone is a mix – but does on wealth. who were not formally freed until 1888.

The Portuguese originally founded Brazil in 1500 as a colony.  During the Napoleonic invasion of the Iberian Peninsula in the early 1800s, the Portuguese king (and 150,000 of his closest allies) actually moved the Kingdom to Brazil from 1808 to 1821 until after the conflict was resolved. 

So when the King returned to Portugal, he left his son Pedro I behind as Emperor from 1822 and Brazil remained part of the Portuguese Empire until the 1889, when the then emperor Pedro II conceded that independence was inevitable and handed over the reins to the military.  This is a very simplified version of events.

Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world (Australia’s the sixth) and is larger than the mainland USA.  Most of the population is concentrated in the south-east of the country with the north dominated by the Amazon basin.  It’s the largest Portuguese speaking country in the world and has an African population (by descent) second only to Nigeria!

Like Argentina, Brazil has a female President Dilma Rousseff (she’s of Bulgarian descent).  She seems well respected by all whether they vote for her or not.  The huge Petrobras corporation also has a female president who actually is a favela gal who came through the ranks the hard way.

The wealth disparity is shifting a bit – the middle class now represents over 46% of the population, the wealthy 15% and the poor 39%.  This disparity has led to the country’s relatively low record in literacy (functional illiteracy 21%) and education – the public schools often do not have good outcomes; their teachers are reportedly not well paid and those that can, teach in the better paid private schools.  This is more pronounced in the Northern regions of the country.

The best universities are, however state run and free – but are of course hard to get into, so if you have a public school education you are unlikely to be able to go.  Getting the picture?  A bit of a dichotomy they are trying to address by having a 20% quota for disadvantaged public school graduates in the public universities.

Back to Sao Paulo…  The port for the city is the forgettable (other than the football team) Santos, but the trip up to Sao Paulo’s elevation was stunning if not a little scary

Santos to Sao Paulo

 – but dotted with the delightfully prolific Manaca trees. 

Roadside Manaca trees

  The city is noted for its cuisine and we certainly had a great chuarassco lunch - that's meat on mega skewers.  There are elegant parks including one in the middle of the busy financial district that’s still original forest complete with spider monkeys.  The architecture is mixed and the graffiti original

Check out the graffiti, colonial Sao Paulo

Like other Brazilian cities we've encountered, architecture is a mix of Portuguese Colonial, early 20^th century and modern.  They’re never going to win the ‘Tidy Town’ competition, however they throb with life – and isn't that more important?

Punta del Este, Uruguay – Rich and Famous?

Uruguay is not the first place I’d think of as a home of the rich and famous, yet the seaside town of Punta del Este – the most easterly point of the country - is full of beautiful beaches, elegant neighbourhoods and smart shopping.  It's situated where the River Plate meets the Atlantic Ocean so it has both fresh and saltwater beaches.

One of the beaches

Hugh Hefner, the Bush family etc. have homes here; Antony Banderas holidays here and (sadly) Donald Trump is about to build one of his ‘towers’ here.

Flash houses

Coming soon - Trump Tower

But everyone’s welcome to share the safe beaches and restaurants and it’s a popular spot for families from both Uruguay and neighbouring Argentina regardless of their wealth – but if you want to spend mega bucks you can.  We didn't.

The most iconic symbol of Punta is La Mano – this sculpture was created in 1981-2 by Chilean artist Mario Irarrazabal for a beach sculpture festival and was so popular it was retained; it’s a favourite photo spot.

Paul 'Samson' at La Mano

This town is also the home of one of the 5 Ralli museums: free museums designed to focus on Latin American art, but also have travelling exhibitions – there was a Venetian display with Canalettos when we were there but also has a couple of much photographed Dali sculptures.

Dali sculpture Museo Ralli

Another local artist is Carlos Paez Vilaro who started building his Casapueblo beach house in 1958 and is now also a home to his art.

Casapueblo

And to top it off there's a very odd wavy bridge, Puente Leonel Viera built in 1965 much like a roller coaster at speed.  Yee-hah!

Wave Bridge, between La Barra and Punta, 

Good food, colour, great beaches?  No wonder it’s popular…. 

Bill's Grand Night Out

Well I've finally made the social circuit!!!  At a formal function I was introduced to the ship's senior crew and what can I say?

Me under the ice sculpture

Here I am with the ship's Captain, Stan De Lacombe from La Baule near St Nazaire in Brittany, France.  I thought after 1,300 episodes on France's TF1 in Primetime he'd know who I was, but sadly no - but he was happy (sort of) to welcome me to the Seven Seas Society.

I'm not sure Captain Stan knows what's going on

And here's me with the fantastic on-board entertainers

My Perth buddy, singer Cassandra between  two hunky dancers

And the gals

Two of the lovely female dancers

And best of all - the amazing Terry Breen who is our font of all knowledge - she also gave me some hints for my future dress ideas.

Me and my new mentor Terry - what a star!!!!

Can't wait for Rio. Weather forecast is GOOD!!!!

Iguazu Falls – Poor Niagara?

On sighting Iguazu Falls, US First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt reportedly declared “Poor Niagara”.  Now we haven’t been to Niagara Falls, but plenty of our fellow passengers have and I think they pretty much agree with her.

Iguazu from the upper trail

The people who had also been to Victoria Falls in Africa appreciated the difference and preferred Iguazu’s pristine yet accessible – to an extent – location.

View from our hotel

These falls on the border of Argentina, Brazil and a tiny bit of Paraguay are formed at the confluence of the Iguazu and Parana Rivers.  This area gets 2 metres of rain a year and upstream there’s even more and they’ve got to go somewhere - hence the falls.

Once named Santa Maria falls (Holy Mary was not the term I used when I caught sight of the main drop), they are now universally known as Iguazu and the derivation is from  the native Guarani Y (meaning water) and uasu (meaning big or thundering) – pronunciation of Ig’ wahzoo was stressed to us over and over by our guide.  Incidentally, another Guarani word is Piranha meaning ‘fish of the devil’.

Devil's Throat

We actually weren’t originally to do this tour – we thought staying in Buenos Aires would be great for a big city experience – but we were talked into it by an Argentinian by the name of Oscar Mendoza who we’d tried to hire as an ‘informed’ guide in BA.  Part of his erudite yet witty response stated:

 In my opinion you definitely will have made an unforgivable (though still rectifiable) mistake were you to skip a dash to the Iguazú Falls. I’ve been there several times, and I’ve also visited Niagara Falls in the US-Canada border, and, believe me, the only thing they have in common is that large volumes of water and a proof of the law of gravity.… I would by all means strongly recommend – indeed encourage – you to try and rearrange your schedule here so that it includes Iguazú Falls.

It went into much more detail, and was sufficiently convincing for us to do an about turn – and hey, guess what?  Oscar was right!

Main Falls vista

I can quote facts and figures about water volumes and compare various falls; suffice to say there is a lot of water and we were fortunate enough to stay within the National Park and therefore be the first in and the last out as, since gaining its new 7 Wonders of the Natural World title, despite its relative isolation, it’s a popular spot.

Monkeys on Comm Tower

Map of the falls

Now any photos I may care to add are never going to give you any concept of the scale, noise or power of the Falls – there’s 270 discreet named falls and the water was flowing at around 2,200 sqm per second at our visit, but it has been much higher – about 20,000 sqm/s in flood and in September 2006 it actually stopped due to a drought.

Paul and neighbour Roger - feel the power!

A number of movies have been filmed here most notably The Mission in 1986 and Moonraker in 1979.  Our guide Nouxa had recently spent some time helping film an instalment of the “Amazing Race’ here.

Twin Mary and Teresa falls - seen in 'The Mission'

The region is also a sanctuary for hundreds of different species of birds, butterflies and some rather cheeky animals.  To be honest, we really only touched the surface of the flora and fauna.

The colourful '88' butterfly

Coatis scavenging in packs

Like the silly people we are we joined a jet boat to run UNDER the falls- and let’s say having 2 million litres of water a second fall on you was quite an experience as was the boat ride weaving in and out and behind the curtain of water and nearby rapids.  Yee-ha!!!

A quick bite with Bill!

I just had to share this with you.

We went ashore in Punta Del Este the most easterly point of Uruguay (just Punta to the locals) by tender and had a good day out.

We stopped for lunch and had what you see in the photo.

It's called a chivito and is the Uruguay equivalent of the Aussie meat pie as a national food.  Delicious!

Chivito to die for!!!

Anyway it's nearly time for sleep, so until next time, ciao.

Bill

Don’t Cry For Me Buenos Aires

Europe in South America?  Many places claim to be the “Paris of the -------“; think the ‘Paris’ end of Collins St in Melbourne.

OK Buenos Aires, Argentina’s Capital and most populous city is not Paris, but is stylish and elegant in parts,

Streetscape central BA

colourful and lively in others, particularly in the La Boca (the mouth) port area where the Tango originated

La Boca - Maradonna, Peron, Gardel

and depressingly poor for 20-30% of the population.

Housing under the bridge central BA

It is the second largest city in South America (after Sao Paulo).  The city was once quite prosperous, however many people lost everything during the 1999 -2002 financial crisis and never recovered.

Argentina and the Rio de La Plata along which the city has grown are actually named not because of Argentinian silver or the colour of the river but because the early Spanish explorers thought the silver was local but it had actually come from neighbouring Bolivia and Paraguay.  Buenos Aires etymology seems to have a few theories as well but one version is by moving from the stinky mouth of the River upstream the air was sweeter.

Sunset over Rio de la Plata from ship

Argentina did a similar job to Uruguay in reducing the indigenous population to accommodate new settlers from Europe.  Many of these had originally come from the Canary Islands  in the Atlantic Ocean and some of the Spanish spoken here is unique to the area.  They say ‘che’ (sort of like ‘hey’ or ‘mate’) all the time and this is why local Che Guevara was known by that moniker rather than his birth name of Ernesto.

Argentina has a colourful political history and the Portenos as the locals call themselves aren’t afraid of a protest – the is a semi-permanent one in the main square for those war veterans who were mobilised for 1982 Falklands War but did not actually go; they’re seeking compensation similar to the veterans who did go.

Protest Plaza de Mayo, BA

There’s actually a few references to the war in town – this is the British Tower once called Torres de los Ingleses and since 1982 as Torre Monumental given to the city by the British descendants living in BA 1916 to commemorate the anniversary of the May (independence) Revolution

British Tower

 – and this, directly opposite, is the memorial to the 600+ Argentinians who died in the Falklands - you'll need to click to see the red granite plaques.  Also note the  beautiful 'bottle trees' in bloom

La Malvinas Memorial BA

The Pink (presidential) House is sometimes home to the helicopter commuting President Cristina or CFK as she is known; the balcony in the background is where Eva Peron delivered some of her speeches and where Madonna was filmed during the making of the Evita movie.

Pink House - and 'Evita' balcony

The story of the people who disappeared during the 1976-83 Dirty War and the women who protested over the 30,000 los desaparecidos with white scarves (originally nappies) is well known.  These women or their relatives still gather each Thursday.  Of the 4-500 pregnant women who vanished and whose children were ‘adopted’ by party officials and grew up all over the world, 112 have been identified  - the last as recently as October 2012!

Whatever you may think of Eva Peron, her spirit is still alive and well in certain parts of the city and we dutifully visited her family’s mausoleum in the Recoleta cemetery

Duarte Family Crypt, Recoleta Cemetary

– a fascinating destination in its own right.

Mausoleums, Recoleta Cemetery BA

And BA without the tango?  Yes, we did the obligatory Tango show – frankly far better than we expected – world champion dancers and superb musicians – the elder statesman bandoneon player and the charango player from Bolivia were standouts.  We couldn't take photos so you’ll have visualize the show from the venue.  Oh, and by the way after deputations by both Argentina and Uruguay, the Tango was declared part of the world's 'intangible cultural heritage' by UNESCO in 2009.

La Ventana Tango House, BA

Sadly the show ended with a Spanish version of - you guessed it – Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.  Good grief!

A quick catch - up from Bill

Hi everyone!

We are in Montevideo again after a couple of days at the Iguazu Falls - they forgot to include me in the tour - mean, huh?.
I've attached a couple of shots from the last time we were here in the land of meat as. Roger and Susan, our neighbours and my new friends are in the blue and green tops.

Me with Roger and Susan - awaiting MEAT!

You can see that I'm in one of the kitchens.  I had to supervise the great chilli cook - off and add the secret ingredient. We didn't win but it was really good fun.  

'Secret' ingredient in the chilli cook-off

After all the action I relaxed with a drink on the balcony. 

Well, it's time to go ashore again for some more meaty substances cooked over red hot coals, so I'll write again soon.

Bill

Montevideo, Uruguay – the home of meat and eclectic architecture.

I once worked with a lady from Uruguay who taught me a few cooking tricks I still use – so I always knew they were big on food, but until we arrived I didn’t realize how big!!!

This small country between Argentina and Brazil has a population of just over 3 million, half of whom live in the capital Montevideo.  And 13 million head of cattle.  The people are very sociable and proud of their city with a rather wicked sense of humour - much of this blog information came from our highly entertaining tour guide.  I'm not sure I'd write this all as fact, but it sure makes for a good blog.

The politics and economy has been up and down since it was first granted nationhood in 1828 – ostensibly as a buffer zone between the two larger countries.  Unlike the more western countries in South America, there are practically no indigenous people left.  They were basically eradicated and the country is not proud of this black spot on their history.

Memorial to the last indigenous family

The Spanish were initially not really interested in the country as it had no gold, silver or precious stones until they realised what great farming land it was.  Widespread immigration from Europe occurred at the end of the 1800s mainly from Italy and Spain; these migrants developed the farms and agriculture remains a principal industry.  More recently, a free trade agreement between Brazil and Argentina has meant the closure of many smaller industries as they are no longer economically viable for Uruguay.  The trains stopped running years ago.   However the compactness of the population and good education has also meant a boon to service industries as many companies are choosing to outsource parts of their business – a sort of Spanish Call Centre hub - in Montevideo.

Uruguay does have two noted events

1.       The First FIFA Soccer World Cup – held in 1930 and won by them – they also won in 1950 and have been busy exporting players since and

2.       The Battle of the River Plate – the first naval altercation of World War 2 where the German Captain of the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee scuttled the ship on 17 December 1939; the ship’s anchor was retrieved and is on display in the Port.

Anchor of Admiral Graf Spee

The capital Montevideo – I could find 5 versions of the origin of the name of the city and two are officially taught in school (?) – was named in 2006 the most liveable city in Latin America.  It enjoys a quite pleasant climate – it has a huge beach front in the middle of the city like a smaller version of Rio.  Though it is actually a fresh water beach as it forms part of the 350 km wide estuary of the Rio de la Plata - River Plate and the Uruguay River.

Beach meets city 

It is relatively safe (though five couples from our ship were quite badly mugged yesterday) and it takes its art and culture seriously.  Even the souvenirs have (relative) taste.

Talking of taste this is the city of meat.  Our tour guide quoted they know that they should eat vegetables for their health, but as they’re not sick, why bother?  Across the road from where the ship is docked is the Mercado del Puerto.  This open fire BBQ market was made famous following a visit from Anthony Bourdain who could not believe how good the food was.

Meat BBQ at Mercado del Puerto

And we had dinner there yesterday AND lunch today – it’s just amazing.  Washed down with a good local red – who could ask for more???

Steak anyone???

The title of this blog also mentions the eclectic architecture of the city – it is really quite a mix of old colonial, modern and very bizarre Art Deco.  I’ll let the photos speak for themselves – I’ll let you make up your mind whether it’s good or bad.

The most iconic is the Palacio Salvo finished in 1928, for decades the tallest building in South America and still the largest concrete structure.  There are 33 palm trees in the main square - this is a reference to the 33 years that J Christ was alive and is a Masonic symbol - they apparently have some influence in politics here.

The  Palacio Legislativo.  Its original architect died before completion in 1925 - and the legend goes his planned title for the building died with him and they couldn't agree on what to call it so the left the large marble plaque over the entrance blank.

Palacio Legislativo

The old Naval Headquarters currently under restoration

Colonial Streetscapes - these are slowly been restored

And the fully restored Teatro Solis  from 1856

Teatro Solis

The Torre Antel telecommunication tower.  This photo is from Wikipedia as I just couldn't get this angle - it is the national joke - supposedly designed to look like a sail and a cell phone - all anyone can think of is the Burj al Arab Hotel in Dubai - it has multiple structural issues and had enormous cost overruns - but so did the Sydney Opera House.

     

Torre Antel Montevideo 2002                 Burj Al Arab Hotel Dubai 1999