On the Road to Find Out

Sounds and Colours, as mentioned in a previous post, is a website I have been working on for the last couple of months. It seems like now is the time to get the word out on this thing! The site features interviews, mixtapes, news and reviews of all aspects of South American music and culture. At the moment the focus is Brazil, with a strong bias towards everything musical. In August we will be looking at Argentina.

The basic idea is to create a site about South America in a way that’s not been done for. The majority of sites that are about South American music in particular tend to categorise it as ‘world music’ or ‘latin american music’. These tags are just too broad to ever really embrace all the amazing styles of music from this region. The same also applies to culture with Brazil largely described as ‘carnival’ country, Argentina as the home of ‘tango’ and Peru as the place to visit ‘macchu picchu.’ There is just so much more going on and we are hoping to get the word out as much as possible! Keep on eye on this blog as well obviously as the Sounds and Colours site for the latest on this new project.

Sounds and Colours

More of an update on these mudslides I’m afraid since they are the main thing on my mind, Brazil-wise, at the moment.

Christ the Redeemer is currently unreachable by tourists as mudslides have affected the area all around it’s perch on Corcovado. The city are saying it could take up to six months to remove the debris and get access to Mr Redeemer going again. This seems like a ridiculously long time, especially considering every poster for Rio I see has a massive picture of Christ on it and a promise of the monumental Christ tour, meaning there will not be many dry gringo eyes in Rio for quite a while.

These are the some of the workers trying to clear the rail line which takes the people up to the top:

I’m presuming the fact they are sitting around doing absolutely nothing has very little to do with the fact it will take six months.

The amount of deaths from the floods and mudslides is also now estimated at 230 people.

It is still raining in Rio, though fortunately not as much as previously in the week, and thankfully forecasts are that it will stop completely tomorrow. The floods carried on til Friday (bringing the death toll upto 205 people) with the worst mudslide happening on Wednesday in Niteroi. Over 100 to 150 bodies have been pulled from that mudslide alone.

This is a video from ITN News focusing on the floods:

For me it’s the carioca at the end who says the most interesting thing. Why isn’t Rio prepared for tropical levels of rainfall? It’s obviously a big problem, and one which is explained by the poorly-built homes that adorn many of the hills. As I previously suggested it seems that the Government will therefore use these incidents as a reason to move its poorer residents. This has already begun to happen, with resident groups getting in their complaints early.

It does seem I may have picked the perfect moment to traverse oceans. England has been dry and calm over Easter weekend, only a cold wind to grumble about, but the bouts of sunshine have at least given the illusion that the tides are turning and that the snow which has been covering this place for the past three months and finally gone back to where it came from.

There’s certainly no possibility of using the words ‘dry’ and ‘calm’ in Rio de Janeiro right now. For the past few days there has been continual rainfall, of the tropical variety. I have just been reading some of the reports which are putting the death toll at a minimum of 72 people but most likely rising to over 100.

The majority of casualties have come from mudslides occurring all over the city (Rio’s hills are full of favelas and improvised housing), particularly in the Niteroi and Sao Goncalo areas. It’s the second time this year that such fateful mudslides have occurred. In January, at least 85 people died after a series of torrential rain.

Rainfall was 11 inches over two days starting on Monday afternoon. I have no idea how much rain this actually is, but it is some kind of record so must be a hell of a lot. More rain is forecast for Thursday and Friday.

It will be interesting to see how Rio deals with this event. They are one of the main cities for the 2014 World Cup and are also the hosts for the 2016 Olympics. I wouldn’t be surprised if it saw the Government step up the need to shift its poor citizens from their hill-based favelas to alternative housing. I almost feel certain this will happen in some way, though I would have major doubts over how they would find alternative housing for so many people. As well as causing so much disruption to the city (residents have been told to stay in their homes, children are not able to go to school), the rain has also caused some power shortages, especially in Barra da Tijuca where much of the Olympic activity will be taking place. As the first Olympics in South America there will be so much weight on Rio to excel as hosts and so I have no doubts they will take many proactive actions.

More links on the flooding:

Big Floods in Brazil (Euronet / 7th April 2010)
Flooding in Rio de Janeiro (BBC News / 7th April 2010)
April 2010 Rio de Janeiro floods and mudslides (Wikipedia)

You see, what I’ve gone and done already is I’ve lied. I’ve gone and called this article ‘The Essentials.’ There really is no essentials and even if there was I don’t think I’d be the person to be telling folk about them. This really is just my idea of some interesting things to bring back from Brazil, or even just interesting things to buy while in Brazil. A few ideas that shy away from the normal Christ statue and Brazil football shirt.

1. Cachaca

This is quite an obvious choice for me but it’s got to be done. For between 5 and 6 Reais you can pick up a bottle of Velho Barreiro, by far my favourite of the cachacas, or at least of the dirt-cheap cachacas. Plus, as an added bonus it comes in this fancy bottle which makes it seem like a fine rum, or at least something that would cost you up to 20 pounds, not the 2 pounds that it will actually cost you. It’s the perfect gift. The only other alternative for this price is 51, which is pretty good in Caipirinhas but pretty bob for all else.

2. Aviação Butter

This may seem like an odd choice. It is butter after all. But Aviacao butter is like no other. It has one unparalleled asset. On the front of the tin is a picture of a cow with a plane flying above it. You don’t get this with just any butter ya know!

Plus, this butter has a lot of history, it’s a tin that has lasted for many generations of Brazilians, and is something they use a lot. As butters go it’s very distinctive, probably due to the fact that they have added about a kilo of salt into each tin. The best way to enjoy it is with some boiled root vegetables (add it just before eating), i.e. potatoes, parsnips or batatas barao (if you’re in Brazil) and enjoy!

3. Rapadura

Rapadura is unrefined sugar straight from the sugarcane factories. It’s pretty darn common in Brazil and is also the healthiest way to sweeten anything (or maybe I should say joint-healthiest as jaggery is also pretty good). Even brown sugar and demerera are refined in some way, making rapadura one of the purest you can find. Buying it in Europe and North America is possible but costs a fortune compared to its price in Brazil. Buy a block I say and then whenever you are making something with sugar, simply use a bit of rapadura instead of the usual stuff.

Interestingly, the Germans at some point decided that they’d come up with the name ‘rapadura’ and managed to trademark it, meaning that whenever this stuff was exported from Brazil they would have to cover up the name or design new packaging. A ridiculous situation which I believe has now been resolved, but only after one of the Brazilian sugarcane companies spent years trying to copyright ‘sauerkraut’ to show those Germans what it felt like to have something copyrighted which you love so much!

4. Havaianas

Wait a second, this one doesn’t involve food. I think I’ve made a mistake! Okay, so maybe there is room for one entry here that doesn’t involve shoving things into my gob. Everyone who goes to Brazil should buy some Havaianas. There are stores on just about every corner selling them, plus there is the beautifully-designed new store on Rua Oscar Freire in Sao Paulo. I bought several pairs; they do make good presents. Anyone venturing to Brazil should wait until they arrive before buying any flip-flops, there is so much choice and they are unbelievably cheap, between 7 and 25 Reais, which equates to between 2 and 8 pounds.

I think that’s about it for now. Maybe I’ll make this a part one if I can think of anything else that I’ve missed. Otherwise, there you have it, a very brief idea of some things that are definitely uniquely Brazilian that you should buy.

It’s closing in on three weeks since I arrived back in Trindade. I still can’t see myself leaving anytime soon. Especially now that the sun has come. It may not last for too much longer but we have had a whole week of sun which for a couple of weeks seemed like an alien prospect.

The hardest part of any day is to decide what to do. There are six beaches to choose from with seemingly one for every occasion. Cachadaco is my favourite of the beaches nearby, a long beach with a few stray currents which sometimes produce perfect waves for surfing. As you have to trek over a hill for 10 minutes it also seems to be one of the most deserted beaches around here.

Praia do Meio is the beach where all the Brazilians come and hang out. It is always packed with bronzing tourists, generally stuffing their faces at all the restaurants on the beach. Praia dos Ranchos is definitely the spot in the nighttime, the perfect place to pick up a Gabriela at Rogerio’s, something which I’m sure I’ve already mentioned a few times. Following on from that beach is Praia da Fora (kind of a chilled-out family beach) and then Praia Cepilho at the end. This is the number one spot for surfing. It’s only a small beach but it has a real nice point break which brings huge waves up to the coast, making it a great place both to surf and to watch. No surprise then that the next World Cup of surfing will be held right there.

My favourite beach of them all though has to be Praia Brava. It’s not a beach to go to every day seeing as it takes an hour and a half of walking but it is definitely worth trying to go as often as possible. At the moment the sun is too hot for me to even contemplate 3 hours of walking under it so I am waiting for a few clouds before I next go.

It’s the most deserted of all the beaches here in Trindade, and the only one that is closed. It also happens to be a nudist beach but so far I’ve only ever seen one naked man on there. A very disappointing innings really. It is quite common to see many different birds on the trail to the beach, as well as a few giant lizards if you’re lucky. Instead of taking the trail back now I walk up the river starting at the beach. This route will eventually take you to my favourite waterfall. A beautiful set of four falls which you can climb up, before taking the route back to the bottom again before doing it all again.

As well as all this, there is the waterfall and swallowing rock just near the hostel, the trail to the Indian’s head and the fact that there are always plenty of people to meet and of course my mistress, Gabriela, always waiting down at the beach. Leaving just doesn’t seem like a possibility!

There are two main reasons that I’ve been writing less since I arrived in Trindade (on the green coast of Rio state). First is the fact that being in a small fishing village with rainforests on all sides and a plethora of beaches doesn’t make sitting down and spending a good portion of the day on the internet a tempting option. The second is cachaça. This is the national drink of Brazil, and is used to make caipirinhas, a cocktail made from mixing cachaça, lime, sugar and ice, and which is increasingly becoming popular in other countries. This is reflected in the price, with caipirinhas sold in the bars of Rio, Sao Paulo and any-other tourist-leaning city for upto 15 or 20 Reais, which is about 5 pounds, and ridiculously over-priced. Until 1990 cachaça and caipirinhas were both drinks primarily of the working class. The word caipirinha is derived from the word caipira, which means something along the lines of country bumpkin in portuguese. After that point brewers started making artesanal cachaças by aging the drink (made by distilling sugarcane, in a similar process to most brandies) in wooden casks, giving the alcohol a deeper flavour as well as colouring it a golden brown. In addition, the rising popularity of caipirinhas in the United States meant that exports became a lot more common and that visitors were more aware of this drink, which was now available in pretty much every bar you can find in Brazil.

To buy a bottle of unaged cachaça will set you back around 5 Reais. Considering you can then get around 20 or more caipirinhas from that bottle it’s no surprise that bars are more than willing to bask in its popularity and sell it for 15 Reais a glass. Drinking cachaça in this way is only the tip of the iceberg though. Since arriving in Trindade I’ve discovered far more ways in which people enjoy it. It’s not too surprising that this village would be so steeped in the drink, it’s an hour’s bus journey from Paraty, a place generally seen as some kind of cachaça capital. The drink was in fact actually known as paraty before its other titles of cachaça and pinga (which is more common here) were introduced. In addition, they hold the Pinga Festival every August where a mountain of artesanal cachaças and cachaças flavoured with all kinds of fruits and spices are available as shots from hundreds of vendors on the street.

My current poison and reason for spending many daylight hours flat out when I really should be doing something more productive is Gabriela. This is cachaça infused with honey, cloves and cinnamon. Thanks to these spices it does have something of the mulled wine about it and it most certainly warms up the stomach. I’ve also been told that in the south of Brazil they drink a very similar thing which they serve hot (I’m guessing on those days when the temperature is only 15 degrees or someting). There’s a bar on Praia dos Ranchos here in Trindade, called Rogerio’s, who only plays vinyl records, all of which are from the 70s and 80s. Nights spent drinking Gabriela and listening to scratchy Led Zeppelin and Supertramp records have becoming something quite legendary, at least in my eyes anyway!

Another great tipple is Pinga com Mel, which is quite simply cachaça with honey. Even stronger than gabriela but half the price at just 2 Reais a glass (that’s less than one pound) it’s too strong for me to drink solidly. I prefer a beer by the side just to take the edge off every now and again.

There is something that will always appeal to me about these drinks over the over-priced caipirinhas. It seems simple to me. If you want a caipirinha then you buy a bottle of cachaça and a few limes and make your own, and if you want to drink what the people drink, then you look for the shoddy-looking old water machine in the corner, or the jerry can with a price on the side, to get a taste of what the people actually drink, and also get a little bit fuzzy in the mouth at the same time.

It almost seems ridiculous that people end up travelling all over Brazil in search of great beaches when there are so many around Rio and Sao Paulo. Trindade, where I’m currently sat, is one of them, on what is known as the Green Coast, mainly due to the fact that it’s flanked by Mata Atlantic Rainforest which pushes right up to the coastline. The main tourist destinations in this area are Buzios and Ilha Grande in Rio state and also Ilha Bela in Sao Paulo. Personally, I think Trindade is far nicer than any of these. As it doesn’t have too many tourists it means that the main industry here is still fishing and that as you go around town, both day and night, you are more than likely to bump into the locals quite a number of times, and considering how friendly they are here you will certainly make friends with them. Going even more extreme than this is Ponta Negra.

Ponta Negra is at the end of a 3 hour trail from Laranjeiras, which is a condominium full of rich tycoons (where apparently the head of Brahma brewery lives.) Laranjeiras can be reached by buses coming from either Paraty or Trindade. From there it’s a good walk to the next beach, Praia do Sono.

This is a popular place to camp in the summer time, especially by Brazilians from Sao Paulo and Rio. It’s a really calm beach, perfect for swimming. After this, there is Antigos and Antiguinhos beaches.

These are more beautiful beaches, lacking the restaurants and campsites of Sono so feel a little more natural and away from the world.

It takes a final hill climb to reach Ponta Negra.

This trip can also be done by boat, but then you miss the other beaches and the satisfaction of three hours hike to get the perfect view of this tiny fishing village from the top of the hill.

There is something really special about Ponta Negra. The slow erection of telegraph poles along the route indicates that they will soon have electricity, but at the moment this isn’t the case. There are two restaurants in the village, one of which is actually more like someone’s home, but she does have a couple of tables she can put out front and is also a pretty great chef, so deserves her status.

In the day the kids of the village simply play out on the beach, jumping off rocks and throwing things around. It’s so nice to join them for a few hours!

The chooses for getting back are the same as for getting there, with a boat journey back quite tempting, especially as it will give you great views of all these beaches.

Where did the brolly come from? Who invented it? I can’t see one without thinking about making the walk from Sneinton to Nottingham city centre; the sheer upward struggle of St. Stephen’s Road, the river gushing past Emmanuel House and arriving in cold offices wearing ridiculously wet trousers. Which makes it all the more stranger when I’m sitting on the beach, sweating so much I have to jump in the water every 5 minutes so that I can feel human again, and see people walking past with brolly in hand. There really is something not right about it. Despite the fact that the use of parasols seems so logical to actually be strolling about with an umbrella seems like it should be the pinnacle of inept decision-making. What’s wrong with a hat or some sun screen, at least feel like you’re on holiday. Get into the spirit of things!

Although maybe it’s me that’s missing the point! The tropical climate of much of Brazil means that an umbrella is perhaps the greatest of all accessory, able to keep dry or keep the sun off in equal measures. I am having none of it though, instead quite happy to mock the stupid Brazilians with their ridiculous ‘bring the rain’ bad omen brollies.

Today (Saturday) is the winners parade for Rio carnival, finishing off the carnival week that started on Monday with the opening parades. It feels like the city is in meltdown. All my friends that have been living in Rio for the past week seem like wrecks. It’s not too surprising, there just never seems to be an end to the parties. Although most Carnival packages only run from Monday to Friday there are plenty of parties and parades still to be had going into the weekend and which will carry on next week. Plus, Rio has pretty much been the hottest place in the world over the last two weeks. Well, I say hottest, it’s actually been the second hottest, only beaten by Ada, a small town in Eastern Ghana. Recorded temperatures were 40 degress, though the lack of wind made it seem like 50 degrees. Right now I am doing an impression of an exasperated tap and it’s only 32, I can’t imagine what it was like last week, but I’m guessing it probably felt like you were really hot flannel that constantly needed wringing out.

I’m also certain this is probably one of the worst times ever to go to Rio. Maybe there are non-stop parties to choose from, and a ridiculous amount thereof, as well as constant parades and soundsystems going through the streets, but the thieves are also on the warpath. One of the hostels, Che Lagarto, got robbed two nights ago by 8 thieves with guns. Last night, down the road from the club I went to a man was stabbed to death. I also spoke to two people in the hostel I stayed in last night who were robbed by tiny children carrying broken bottles in the streets of Lapa. With so many drunk gringos carrying money around it’s a complete haven for the poorer factions of Rio.

The fact that I’ll be staying in Lapa then, where all of these things happened, for the next couple of nights might not seem too smart then. I’ve never had any trouble though and am pretty certain that if you don’t get into such a state that you can easily be robbed and generally don’t walk around with some ridiculously bad Hollyoaks-style caption-led t-shirt, while mouthing loudly in an American accent, that you won’t get robbed.