Brasil - our summary

  Manaus, State of Amazonas, Brazil Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Our Summary Brasil has some truly amazing and beautiful places to visit and we only saw a fraction of what this massive country has to offer. But Brasil is place of contradictions. For every great beauty, there was great filth, for every act of kindness, there was an act of criminality, for every modern apartment block, there is a slum. When you go somewhere new, you see the things a city wants you to see, the things for tourists, the cleaner, glitzier side of life. The longer you stay somewhere, you get to hear more stories from locals about how the country runs and understand more about what it is like to live in a place.  You get to see more problems than you would as a 2 week tourist and then that sparkly sheen slides off a bit and you notice more about what is wrong with a place, the attitudes, the smells of urine in the street everywhere, the lack of cleanliness and the things which can be improved. That is unfortunately what has happened to us in Rio and we fell out of love with it. The Olympics and the fact that we were running out of funds, kept us in Rio for far longer than we would normally stay anywhere and it really began to affect how we felt about this city. We didn't get robbed (we had a sneaky beach thief but he didn't get up early enough to get away with it with us). But Brasil is more than just Rio. Brasil is the Amazon, Brasil is its beaches and Brasil is Iguazu. All incredible places with some wonderful people and wonderful things to see.  Maybe if we stayed longer in those places the sparkly sheen would have faded from there too, who knows?  We didn't, so it didn't and we are left with some very contrasting memories of this country.We loved ~  Iguazu, the Amazon, Manaus  and the waves on Copacabana beach. The night market on Copacabana, the Hippy Market in Ipanema, the pizza restaurant underneath our building. 686 Gourmet and the pay-by-weight ice-cream parlours. The colourful sarongs the beach sellers display and the Olympics. We didn't like ~ The appalling sporting attitude of the Brasilian people - the booing at Olympic events was just despicable. The stench of urine wherever you go which sometimes was extremely overpowering. The sheer number of homeless people was really sad. The long commute to get to the Olympic Park. The people ~ We have met some truly lovely Brasilians especially some of the other volunteers we met. Most people are very friendly, really helpful and welcoming who really took us into their hearts. And they are all very noisy! Especially in Rio they seem to do everything very loudly :-) But when out and about in the city, we found also they could be very rude. Not intentionally mind you, but whatever they want to do - they do it and with little consideration for others. Whether it be block a road with their car rather than wait a moment, pile onto a metro when you are trying to get off, push their way into a restaurant when you are trying to leave – whatever it is they are trying to do, it is more important than what anybody else wants to do and common sense has very little to do with it. e.g. no you can't fit any more people onto this metro until you have stood back and let a few people off!It's just a different culture with different attitudes that’s all and is not meant as a criticism. But it gives the impression of being quite rude when compared to British values. We have come across this before though and think it can be best summed up like this: In Britain we teach consideration for others. Always being careful not to annoy others eg let’s keep the noise down because other people are sleeping. Whereas in most other parts of the world they teach tolerance of others ie don’t let that noisy bar upset you at 2am, those people are having a good time. Because we are not taught to be so tolerant, we end up frustrated because of it. Us Brits lose out every time which you can't change - you just have to accept it. It doesn't just apply to the Brits and Cariocas (people of Rio) we have found this difference all over the world but we are just mentioning it here as it seemed more obvious here. The Food ~  surprisingly pretty good. Pay by-weight is the trend here and are set up like big self service buffets with lots of salad and several vegetarian options.The Transport ~ Buses & planes - Brasil is so big that we did hop over some of it taking two internal flights; one from Iguazu to Rio and the second from Rio to Manaus. It really was the only viable option to get to Manaus as the road links through the jungle are not brilliant and it is suuuuch a long way! The Weather ~  Rio was more variable than Britain! Yes really. One day would be 36 degrees, the next could be cold and we were shivering in the drizzle. We visited Manaus at a good time of year - normally so humid we arrived in their summer and it was still hot - but dry - not humid at all which really surprised us. Iguazu was more like Rio.Miles travelled ~  we have travelled 3648 miles (5827km) Capital ~ Brasília - bet you wouldn't have guessed that! Population ~ 200.8 million - yes that's huge! They drive on ~ the right like crazy people Currency ~ Brasilian Real   £1 = 4.95 R$ pre Brexit - 4.34 after Brexit Language ~ Portuguese Did we feel safe? ~ On the whole yes but we were not complacent about that and there were areas we didn't feel safe going into at all especially at night and especially in Rio Things which will remind us of Brasil ~ cake, Havaiana flip flops, big bums on the beach, Caipirinha, black and white mosaic tiles, favelas and yellow football shirts Would we recommend it?  Yes but not for a long period of time in any one place. Do a hopping tour. We would go back but only to visit places we didn't get to see on this trip.Places we stayed, cost per night and our Star Rating Total number of different beds slept in ~ 7 Foz de Iguazu – Iguazu Central B&B ~ £17.50 /night ~ 4* Rio – Babylonia favela  ~ £7/night ~ 0* Rio – Rio's Nice Hotel ~ £18 /night ~ 2* Buzios - Passada Piexi ~ £11/night ~ 2* Buzios - Casa De Central ~ £23 /night ~ 4* Rio - Shoebox 902, Djama da Ulrich 91 Copacabana ~ R$ 8,000 for 3 months £1,600 when booked (post Brexit £1800) 3* Manaus - Taj Mahal Hotel ~ £22 / night 4*