A surreal detour to Porto Alegre
Trip Start
Feb 01, 2009
1
7
Trip End
Ongoing
Porto Alegre, Brazil
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Brazil was never on our itinerary until later on in our adventure, but meeting and making friends with a Brazilian girl from Porto Alegre changed all that. We met Bruna at a hostel in Buenos Aires a few weeks earlier and briefly mentioned the possibility of making a detour from Punta del Diablo in Uruguay to Porto Alegre in south Brazil. After leaving Buenos Aires and while making our way through Uruguay we continued to communicate with Bruna and the initial idea materialised into an actual plan and we agreed to make the detour.
Within two hours of arriving in Brazil after the easiest border crossing to date, we were singing along to the well-known musician, Serginho, from the Brazilian band Papas da Língua. It turned out that Bruna was well connected with the local music scene in southern Brazil and has lots of friends who are well-known musicians. Our first night in Porto Alegre set the scene for the next week and we were treated to numerous encounters with musicians and watched a few concerts in venues only known to locals. We didn't realise it at the time, but meeting and chatting with the well-known musicians would stand us in good stead for future encounters with other Brazilians we would meet along the way. As our Portuguese was embarrassingly non-existent, we found we were able to start conversations simply by mentioning musicians' names and showing pictures of us posing with the stars. It was all rather crazy!
We frequented Bruna's local bar on three occasions and received a great reception from the owner Alemou who tried to convince us on the last day that we should not leave Porto Alegre, but to rather spend more time at his bar. One of the guys working at the bar, Paulinho, was a legend amongst the locals and showed us great hospitality by making sure we had a continuous supply of very, very cold beer. We learnt quickly that the Brazilians love their beer very cold and Paulinho was no exception. It was an offense to leave a half empty beer can out of the ice bucket. Every beer we bought was either served in a bucket or in a cold sleeve. This custom was consistent in all the bars and restaurants we visited in Brazil.
Before our adventure started we often wondered what we would be doing and where in South America we would be on Easter Sunday, a big event in most South American countries. As it turned out we started off the day in Porte Alegre with some of Bruna's family eating a traditional Brazilian dish. Feijoada, a delicious dish consisting of beans, three types of meat, garnish, rice and oranges went round and round the table and into the bellies of those lucky enough to be present until there was nothing left on the table and definitely no space left in the stomach. Under the guidance of Bruna's godmother, the story and history of the dish was related to Jools and I. And just when we thought the food was done, an incredible selections of sweets appeared before us.
After two hours of food-digesting and a church service in Portuguese we visited a flea market and then on to the highlight of the day: watching the Internacional soccer team play in the semi-finals at the local stadium. It was an impressive display and the home team came away with four goals. Having been previously disappointed at not having watched a live soccer game in Argentina, we left the stadium in Porto Alegre with big smiles on our faces. And the experience had been made possible only because Bruna has season tickets for the stadium as she is an avid Internacional soccer fan.
Besides our time spent in the city of Porte Alegre, we made a day trip to see some impressive waterfalls in the Parque do Caracol, visit the town of Gramado, witness the Easter mayhem in the tourist town of Canela, find solitude and peace at a Buddhist temple, punish our stomachs by gorging on a Colonial lunch and finally dance and sing the night away at a gig of Tonho Crocco's, another musician-friend of Brunas.
We were entertained wherever we went. Even at Bruna's apartment we had the fortune of getting to know her dog Lorelai who was a real character. One highlight was having to put her in a nappy as she was on heat and leaving stains on various chairs and sections of the floor. It was the first time I had seen a dog in a nappy. Be sure to see the attached picture.
Apart from all the fantastic people we met and interesting things we did, Bruna did take us to see museums and historical building in the city. Who needs a travel guide when you have such a knowledgeable local friend. It was refreshing not to see another tourist or 'gringo' in the seven days that we were in Porto Alegre. If we had not had the fortune of staying with Bruna and being exposed to local Brazilian culture, cuisines and football, our experience would have been completely different and not nearly as memorable.
Although we did a tremendous amount of activities that involved travelling, socialising, eating and drinking we did allow ourselves one day of relaxing by immersing ourselves in local Brazilian cinema. We watched the two really great Brazilian movies 'Central do Brasil' and ' Meu Nome nao e Johnny' which come highly recommended.
Our last night in Porto Alegre coincided with Bruna's birthday. We had a big party at the local bar and all the musicians and friends we had met over the past week were there. Although most of the people at the party spoke Portuguese, there were some interesting conversations in a mixture of Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and English...but hey, we managed to communicate and had a great time. It should be noted that hand-gestures go along way. And just when we thought that the night couldn't get any better we learnt that the bar-owner, our favourite character Alemou, was the son of the very well known singer, Edgar Pozzer. After the doors of the bar closed we sat at a table and had the pleasure of watching Alemou singing to a DVD of his dad's music. Serginho, the singer from Papas da Língua who was mentioned at the beginning of this blog and who watched the DVD with us, made a guest appearance on the DVD. The DVD extras included pictures of Alemou when he was a kid which of course received many heartful laughs and cheers from those that were at the bar. A surreal night and one to remember for sure.
We were sad to leave Bruna, Porto Alegre and all the other people we met but our next destination and detour, Florianopolis, was calling us.
I'll finish off by saying a massive thank you to Bruna for her amazing kindness and hospitality, and to all her friends and family that made us feel so welcome.
Once again thanks for taking the time to read.
Alan
