After a week in Brazil, I have made it to the airport in preparation for my departure back to home. The trip has been relatively busy, plenty of work but I have still had some time to get to absorb some of the beautiful Brazilian culture and to see some of the breathtaking landscape that this fantastic country has to offer.
Day 1: Monday
The alarm went off a touch to early for my liking (3am), so I could get some excercise in before my flight, seeing as I figured that after a 6 hour flight, and a 2 hour drive I wouldn't be in any mood on my arrival to Brazil to hit a gym. Mario, my ever reliable and friendly taxi driver successfully negotiated the Santiago early morning vaccuum of traffic and got me to the airport in time.
I was luckily pretty tired, and was able to grab a couple of hours of shut-eye on the plane before I watched "The Ugly Truth", to tell the truth I didn't really care what the movie was about, as soon as I saw it had Katherine Heigel in it, I wasn't interested in anything else ;) Getting through customs was a breeze, after hearing some horror stories from friends who have had realy difficulties getting into Brazil I expected some trouble. The only trouble I had was when I said "Bom dia" I receieved a bombardment of rapid Portuguese, which I had no possibility of understanding. After explaining that I only spoke Spanish, we had a delightful conversation in slow Portunol, before finally getting my papers stamped.
2 Hours later, my colleague and I arrived in Lorena, where we checked our emails, and made some plans to the following few days.
That night, I had my first parmagiana since leaving Australia - the deliciousness of a schnitzel that was so tender it was able to be cut by a spoon along with the rice and salad was great.
Day 2 - Lorena
Tuesday was a pretty busy day, exclusively work before going to a nice and quaint little restaurant in the township where I had a nice steak, followed by probably my favourite desert - Creme de Papaya, a puree'd papaya and ice-cream dish with a blackberry (I think) liquor. I will make sure that I bring the recipe back home, its amazing!
Day 3 - Lorena
Once again, a day at the office and then a brief nap before trying to get in touch with my new graduate friends to see if we could meet up for a beer. Alas not, so I grabbed a quiet one on my own before having a rather delicious Sushi dinner at the hotel restaurant.
Day 4 - Lorena-Rio De Janeiro
Once again, another early morning start - however this time, it was to prepare for the long drive from Lorena to Rio de Janeiro. The drive is rather spectacular, particularly early in the morning with the fog rolling over the hills/mountains as you drive past. A few business stops at vendors along the way broke the drive up sufficiently and it was nice to meet people whom I had heard about but hadn't actually had the chance to meet yet. Our arrival into Rio however was easily the highlight for me, the outskirts are extremely interesting, with a lot of extremely poor areas which don't have power or water and are quite dangerous (to the extent that traffic cameras solely operate as extra street lighting at night... nobody actually stops).
There are effectively two cities in Rio located right next to each other. There is the poor side of the city, and then the rich areas - these two dicotomies are located immediately adjacent, and its as though there is a line drawn through the landscape which defines them. One side you have nice new buildings, and on the other is rather obvious poverty.
Day 5 -Rio de Janerio - Santiago
Today, I am currently in the airport after another early start. This time however, it was totally self inflicted. I decided that given I was staying at Cobacobana beach I should take the opportunity to go down for a sunrise and drink a coconut for breakfast. Whilst it wasn't quite what I was hoping for, in that the sun rose from behind some hills to the left of the beach (looking out across the water) It was still a magnificent site and I cant believe I was one of so few people out there! Hopefully there will be a next time, so that I can go around to Flameingo and get a pproper sunrise, and find the time to get to the Sao Cristobal (La Cristi - as the locals call it... we know it as the Giant Jesus).
Anyway, hopefully my flight isn't delayed any further and I will get back to Santiago only slightly later than planned. Boa Tarj amigos!
