São Paulo to Puerto Iguazú: 'Puedo usar el internet?'

8th February 2007, Day 329

Buenos Aires, Argentina

It's almost time to close the book. If this blog existed in a physical form, banging in my bag for the last 11 months, it would now be dog-earred, blotched with spilt beer and barely ledgible. God bless the megs (the internet for those who don't understand this term of affection). This blog, and the internet in general have made correspondence piece of cake for travellers. Cheap, widely available, and instant communication now exists which makes today's travellers completely unaware of the isolation intrepid itinerants used to experience. Indeed communication is the theme of this entry. We have another three weeks before we cross the Atlantic that has made me an alien of me these past fours months. During our way down from Rio we've passed through some sharply contrasting environments - cities, jungle and tranquil coast - and we've now crossed the border into Argentina, brushing the Paraguayan border on our way. Throughout this heady stretch, our last piece of serious travelling, I lost my muse, found it again and now have spare time to work on my paranoia about going home.

I expect that these final months of our junket will stain my memory as an ongoing battle to express myself and understand others; we arrived in Chile and learnt some Spanish which was fine for travelling in Perú around the backpaker route up until Christmas. We knew things would change in the New Year. Once we got past NYE in Brazil, the plans we made back in England petered out. I don't think we seriously thought we'd make it this far, so unexpectedly we had two months left to our own devices. Faced with this unforeseen dividend James and I have been left to pursue our own hastily arranged agendas. Our ambitions have lead to a need for more sophisticated conversation with the people around us in order to get by minus tourist infrastructure. At times we have needed to say things as complicated as 'Is there an internet cafe near here with PC's that have functioning USB ports?! One with a computer that doesn't have a locked desktop, needless restrictions and that is useless in every practical sense?' Tough going.

I include the photo above to illustrate our struggle with Portuguese while we were in São Paulo. Here our friend and resident Paulista (somebody from São Paulo state), Fernando, is helping James with a menu in Portuguese. We would have stood no chance in such an fast moving city like São Paulo without him.

As soon as we arrived in Rio it became apparent that we were going to struggle with the Portuguese language somewhat. We found a restuarant and realised that we didn't understand much on the menu and that we'd need to learn a set of nouns afresh. We never got on applied ourselves. I had to eat a lot of rice with broccolli.

On trying to read and pronounce the language, which sounds like fusion of French and Spanish, we realised what a tough proposition picking up this language would be after just starting to learn Spanish. Our enthusiam waned and I think somewhere in our post-plan impotence we lost the will to give the language a stab. As we'd paid for lessons and made some headway with this new tongue we were reluctant to obscure and confuse our latin American Spanish with latin American Portuguese. I now this would have happened: just as it took me several days to stop saying gracias in Brazil, it took me just as long to leave obrigado and muito bom behind once we got into Argentina. Little phrases do jump around in your memory when you've never learnt a language to a competant standard before.

We received a comeuppance for our laziness, don't you worry. When we weren't being 'babysat' by our friends/nannies - Lia (in Rio) or Fernando (São Paulo) - we sunk to a level of verbal isolation thus far unknown. The places we visited in Asia, except perhaps Japan, always had a number of ready English speakers or English translations/signs. No problem. Even excluding the Spanish we could speak, we'd stuck to the backpacker beaten track elsewhere in South America so we didn't encounter many difficulties as we could always do the very basics with ease. By contract it got to the stage that when people spoke to me in Portuguese, it might have well have been Martian. We stuck to Hostel International chain (the Youth Hostel Association in the UK) and closely to friends and aquaintances to weasel our way through the four weeks. Comportamento terrível!

A view of São Paulo from the very pleasant Ibirapuera park. This is a misleading photo. Most Paulistanos would readily admit that their city is not picturesque - it's not exactly ugly, but it has very few parks and not much green space to speak of. One consequence of all the asphalt, which the plentiful exhaust cannot escape, is the air pollution which gave me a throat infection. More of that in a moment.

After being around Rio de Janeiro during the beginning of the tourist season, I'd be lying to say we weren't relieved to make an uneventful journey across to the state border and into São Paulo. Rio is infamous as one of the most dangerous cities in the world and this added to some circumstancial events made me feel less safe than any other city or country we visited: a tourist bus, taking the same route as us, was the target of some of the Favela gangs. They were trying to punish the incoming Rio de Janeiro state governor who had pledged to crack down on gang related crime. This particular bus was set on fire and seven tourists were killed. São Paulo didn't exactly feel free and easy to me, but it was a relief after the oppressive atmosphere of Rio.

When we arrived at São Paulo rodoviária, we had arranged to meet another friend from the internet music forum through which we'd met Iain in Japan and Roberto in Chile. Bowlie (the forum I mention) has come up trumps three times in a row now! An extremely friendly and chatty Fernando Brito bounded up to meet us, grinned, shook our hands and the conversation never stopped from that moment on. He's the sort of person I can't imagine being down. Fernando took us to the rather dingy hostel we'd booked, rang up the staff when we found that the door was locked, checked out the hostel, waited for us while we had a shower and then offered to put us up in his own house at zero notice!

A quick aside. I still find it hard to believe generosity, amiability and kindness of most people we've met. We have certainly accrued a debt of hospitality to pay off.

Back to the issue of discourse. Fernando was slightly uncertain about his seamless English when he met us, because he is used to writing and not speaking it. In fact within one evening of meeting us he'd spoken more English than he had during any other single occasion in his life. All of Fernando's friends seem to speak at least one language fluently. The scores are even between Fernando and his girlfriend Dani:

Fernando - speaks perfect Spanish and English.
Dani - speaks perfect French and Spanish.

I take my hat off to them both. Our response to this was to speak English to Fernando and to get him and his mates to help us out with our day to day life. Fernando even leant us his old mobile phone so that we could be in close contact with him for the two weeks we spent in São Paulo. When our new friends weren't about we found ourselves out on a limb.

One of the occasions when we got most frustrated by the language barrier was in our first hostel in São Paulo. The hostel manager spoke enough English for us to get by, but was rarely present and relied on the cleaner to sort out her affairs. The cleaner persisted in speaking Portuguese to us long after it was established that we understood nothing of the language. This caused a misunderstanding about payment which infuriated James. A simple misunderstanding because the cleaner would speak to the manager (the person who spoke some English) on the phone and then hang up and then tell us what she'd discussed with the manager in Portuguese. As I was ill, James was having to arrange this himself and not having much joy, but eventually I got up and we sorted it out between us by forcing the cleaner to let us speak directly to the hotel manager. There was some irrationality on their part, but if you visit a country without speaking the language this is the kind of scenario that crops up.

It's time to talk a little about what São Paulo is known for: it's nightlife. We didn't expect to spend a fortnight in Sampa, but we also hadn't reckoned upon meeting people like Fernando and his friends who went out of their way to include us in their social life. Indeed we'd only been in the place for four hours before we found ourselves at a full-on house party with plenty of Fernando's friends and others. It was great, those people really made an effort to speak to us even if they couldn't speak much English. The party was on and we felt right at home. I've never been in such erudite company, the place was full of journalist and lawyers. By the end of the night I'd ended up in a club called Vegas and left at 12pm, Sunday lunchtime! I spent about two hours in the club asleep, but I enjoyed myself before this from what I can remember... It's a good job there was someone to look after me and wake me up. On another occasion we went to a club called D-Edge, which is the first time I've been to a worthy electronica club for several years. I enjoyed the progressive house more than I expected. A good experience.
The main thing I noticed about clubs in Sao Paulo was the lack of attitude pervading those places. There were no 'big time charlies' knocking into you deliberately or the threat of violence hanging in the air. Like Rio, people were out to have fun.

After the dance music, we went to Funhouse, an indie club created from an old house. We always feel at home in an indie club, and this was no exception. I especially enjoyed hearing 'About You' by Teenage Fanclub so far from the British Isles. For more information, Fernando writes about this club on his aide to São Paulo on the Indie Travel Guide, a website for those who like a certain type of music travelling in cities all over the world. Yours truly co-authored the Reading section on this website.

I underwent only my third bout of illness in São Paulo since I'd been travelling, which I imagine is good going. On our third day in town I started to feel unusually tired. I spent the night with a painfully sore throat and had no energy the following day. James did his best to look after me and got me medication and supplies. After the bout of weakness passed I thought the episode was coming to a close. It took several days and a change of hostel before I woke up with enough of a sore throat to prompt a visit to the doctors. I tried to go the following day but had no idea were to start. The casualty ward just wasn't an appropriate place for me to queue up with serious sick people and then push forward the piece of paper I had with 'please could I see a an English speaking doctor', scrawled on it by the HI hostel staff. Fernando's friend Léo came to rescue the following day and accompanied me to the hospital translating on my behalf. It turned out that I had an adenoidal infection and got put on a course of antibiotics. I don't know how I would have got medical attention without Portuguese speakers around to help me.

A quick word about the Brazilian public health care system. Everybody told me I'd be waiting for hours to be seen and diagnosed. I was in and out of the clinic in under half an hour, with no appointment. I was extremely impressed.

Cup o' beans, anyone? Frequent were the conversations I had with people about how tough I might find it to be a vegetarian outside of Europe. Well, I can tell you it's really not hard at all based on my experiences in Asia, Oceania and South America. The exception to the rule is Brazil. They tend to mix meat in with everything including this cup of Carioquinha beans which Fernando thought was vegetarian. I left it for the birds. More arroz con brocolis for me.






Our ears and tongue in Sampa. Fernando (on the left) and Bili showing us how to let one's hair down in São Paulo. To Fernando, Dani, Bili (Marcello) and Leó, thank you so much for your kindness. They showed us around the nightspots, but also markets, the sights of the city, restaurants and hospitals.

This was the evening before we left Sampa. We must have spent 50 reais in the juke box that evening and our high spirits ended in some extremely silly photos of us. We posed on the small stage at the back of the pub which had a gaudy gold drape and looked like something out of New Orleans bawdy house. It was a appropriate way to say goodbye to this hard working, hard partying city.








Sunburnt feet, Florianópolis. As we planned to get down to Buenos Aires by the 1st February we didn't have much of January left by the time we'd dragged ourselves out of São Paulo. We wanted to enjoy some beach time with one eye on the of the freezing British March that awaits us, and with that in mind we stopped off in Florianópolis before heading to Iguazú falls. We managed two days on the beach and ended up more sunburnt than anywhere since Ko Phi Phi in the Indian Ocean.

It was nice to get to Florianópolis. Another city but not one nearly as imposing as Rio or São Paulo. Ilha Santa Catarina on which half of the city lies is a middle class tourist resort for Brazilians, Argentinians and Uruguayans. Therefore it's pretty safe, and I was glad to let my guard down a bit regardless of whether the threat we'd faced in Rio and Sampa was real or imagined. Santa Catarina has numerous beaches facing into the Atlantic which are beautiful but which have some fierce coastal currents. We visited Ingleses beach (developed with lots of unidentifyable oddities washed up on the beach) and Joaquina beach (plenty of beautiful people). At the latter we considered doing some surfing and planned to spend a full day in sun. We couldn't hire surf boards, so after a bit of splashing about in the sea we spent a long time in the blazing sun trying to find the bus stop. We ended up with the sunburn you can see above. Calamine lotion doesn't help to soothe the exposed area much, but it does turn red skin a purpley shade of pink!

One thing I noted about Santa Catarina was it's network of buses, which were well organised and operated around a number of different terminuses based in the geological extremes of each part of the island. We got around pretty easily, and saw plenty of the rest of the island out of the bus window. In retrospect it was shame we got burnt, because of the huge lake in the middle of island looked ideal for swimming and other watersports.

A view from the edge of Ilha Santa Catarina. This part of the island is also the eastern side of Florianópolis. It looks a little like Rio because of the islands in the distance and the coast-hugging avenue which is packed full of condominiums and apartments overlooking the bay between the island and the mainland. There was even somewhere for me to go running; a purpose built track following the avenue which had distance markers along it's length. Very nice.

I think the folk in the photo were doing a type of yoga in the late evening sun. The photo has lost the sense of that brightness. I took the picture as it seemed to represent the kind of trendy civic leisure ideal that city tourist boards are always trying to capture. Florianópolis was that kind of place: designers malls, posh restaurants and well dressed sophisticated residents. Pretty souless, really.

Mighty Iguazú! No translation was necessary for us to understand the elegance of these waterfalls. The roar of the waterfall is inescapable when you arrive at the parks. We took the time to see the falls from both the Brazilian and Argentinian sides as they stretch for over a mile and half.

This is the centre peice of the falls: the Devil's Throat. It's a U-shaped 150-metre-wide and 700-metre-long (490 by 2300 feet) cliff which marks the border between Brazil and Argentina. You cannot get a view like this of a waterfall anywhere else on earth. Depending on your mood it is a thunderous testament to infinity or brush with the apocalypse.



This is view from beneath the falls on the Argentinian side. The mist gives you an idea of the power of this natural phenomenon.

Iguazú attracts thousands upon thousands of visitors every year, and there are some excellent hostels in the vicinity to cope with the demand. The second of these places was a great resort type place in Puerto Iguazú (Argentina), with swimming pool and large restaurant. It gave us a short time to pick up the Spanish studies again and some people (the staff) to practise on.

As soon as we'd crossed back into Spanish speaking territory we were relieved to be able to do simple conversational things like order food in restaurants politely (having understood the menu) and buy tickets, book into hostels. I had at least ten verbs to call on for communication! Exactly ten more than I had in Brazil.

What wildlife lurks! This kamen hangs silently in the calm waters above Iguazú. Waiting to pounce no doubt. If only the baby croc had been near enough to get a snap at the idiots who were throwing bread at him.

The other commonly sighted animal around Iguazú is the Coati, which is from the Raccoon family. They are known for being dexterous and inquisitive towards to humans. When a pack of them approached me they seemed a little like dogs and climbed the bottom of my leg to have a good gander at me. Whilst I tried to take a photo of one he spied my open rucksack on the ground and in one deft movement pulled out the sandwich I'd just bought, teared open the cellophane wrapper and gorged on the (disappointingly for the Coati) vegetarian contents. I should have learnt my lesson over this since that deer ate my banana in Nara, Japan.

A particularly attractive butterfly above the Devil's Throat. I've never seen so many before, I think my Grandfather would have loved to been there to see them. I have done a quick search on the internet but, I can't find out what this particular type is.

It was a delight to see such colourful and exotic wildlife in detail. I forget how much of a thrill it gives me.







Travelling in luxury. This is the 'full cama' bus we travelled on from Puerto Iguazú to Buenos Aires. The shot doesn't really capture how much space there was on this bus, which was what I'd intended. You could literally drop the back back of the seat to a vertical position and pull up a foot rest so you had a proper bed. You wouldn't anticipate that a 17 hour bus ride could be this comfortable, or even enjoyable. The total journey from Puerto Iguazú to Buenos Aires cost 32 quid. Not bad for a 1234 kilometer journey including dinner, breakfast and free alcohol.

As I say, we are now back in a Spanish speaking country and we have spent much of our spare time redoubling our efforts to learn the language again. We have an obligation to at the moment: we are working with a children's charity called LIFE. Speaking Spanish is our only way of making exchanges I will cover this in my final post from Buenos Aires!

A last word. Since we arrived in Buenos Aires and started I've met many individuals who are staying in Argentina for three months in order to intensively study Spanish and it seems a great idea. Having met Roberta, a Swiss girl, who seems to have good conversational quality Spanish which she learnt in three months in Costa Rica, it seems to work. I must admit that I did feel a sense of regret that we didn't think of this before ourselves. We might have planned to learn Spanish in a formal sense over the last four months. This would mean we wouldn't have to stand around in dumb ineptitude while Spanish speakers try in vain to communicate with us. It'd be great to do something like this in the future. Our money is spent now!