I Love Doing Hood-rat Stuff With My Friends

Day 18 - We all woke up this morning itching for some adventure, so Hernaldo scored a Peruvian visa, Mike stole a pair of pants from Joey (not for adventure's sake...) and we then headed to the local gun shop (aka Museo de las Armas). Mike picked up a sweet Swiss-army gun with a convenient cork screw, while Hernaldo browsed some gatling guns - more of his caliber. I grabbed some grenades, Dan a bazooka and Joey an empanada and an orange fanta.



Once equipped, we headed to La Boca (a blue collar barrio of Buenos Aires where Spanish and Italian immigrants settled in mid 19th century - and home of the Boca Juniors, one of South America's best futbol clubs) for some hood-rat action. A lot of houses consist of colorful corrugated metal, which port dwellers painted using leftover paint from shipping barges.


After terrorizing much of the neighborhood (with our tango dancing skillz) along el Caminito (that's small path for those of you that don't habla español), a pedestrian path with shops/restaurants and La Boca's most famous street, we hopped on a bus and headed back to the 'hood - without paying, of course.


We continued on with our wild adventures by devouring some amazing pizzas (NO HAM!! [for Dan]) whilst watching the Celtics destroy the Lakers (we strongly believe the sighting of the leprechaun helped insure their victory) and downing some cervezas - no worries, we were sure to pour some beer on the restaurant floor for our cronies back in North America (that continent is so last year). And this here picture is to prove that we do smile after all...

Tons of all new photo galleries.

With good wireless in Buenos Aires and some down time from a cold, I've put up galleries for most of the other cities in Brazil that we've visited. With more time, I'll be able to caption and tag all of them, but for now, here they are in raw form.

Ouro Preto, Brazil

82 photographs of our day and night in the hilly little gold town can be found here.

Belo Horizonte, Brazil

40 photos from our day in BH with plenty of Oscar Niemeyer buildings and a guest appearance by a pair of capybara (which look kind of like dog-sized guinea pigs) can be found over here. Sadly, there is not one picture of the beautiful women who were crawling all over that town.

Sao Paulo, Brazil

113 shots from a few days spent in Brazil's largest city are here.

Curitiba, Brazil

Love it or hate it (and I'm probably the only one who didn't hate it) we spent a delightful day of public transport and closed attractions in Curitiba. The next day featured a train trip through the Serra Verde mountains to the small town of Morretes. 73 photos from Curitiba (and the fun train rides that leave from there) can be found right here.

Iguaçu Falls
Straddling the river border between Argentina and Brazil, Iguacu is one of the world's three great waterfalls. (Niagara and Victoria being the others) We saw the falls from up close, far-away and both sides of the river. Our trip also included a stop by the Itaipu dam, which is the world's largest or second largest, depending on which guidebook you're reading. Regardless of its rank it is quite large, and involved a technical (but no passport stamps) visit to Paraguay. 57 wet and wild pictures from three countries can be found aqui.

IguAWESOME!

During our single pre-trip planning session, we had come to the conclusion that making a trip to Iguacu Falls would be very difficult and so we had left it off our itinerary. Once we were underway though, we realized we would be foolish if we skipped one of the world's biggest waterfalls, and against Mike's protests, we decided this was something we should see. So our adventure began from Curitba, and we boarded a 10 hour night bus to head directly west, to the Brazilian town of Foz de Iguacu. We arrived early on Wednesday morning, found a hostel, and quickly made our way to the bus stop to catch a bus going to the Parque Nacional de Iguacu. At the visitor center, we boarded a double decker bus that would take us into the park. The fact that this double decker bus was a cooler ride than even the famed busses of Curitiba was not lost on us, and Mike endured another round of Curitiba bashing!



There was a paved path that led into the woods, high up above the Iguacu river. The first sight wasn't the falls, but some raccoons that were scrounging for food around the path. I'm pretty sure no one from our group fed them, but I really can't be sure. Carlos had some really mischievous looks. The path initially led through some dense fauna, affording us only quick and limited glances of the falls. There are 271 individual falls that stretch 1km across the river, and we were seeing a good portion of them, but it wasn't until we got to Garganta do Diabo that things really got impressive.


The Diabo is a horseshoe shaped part of the falls where the path leads right into the river to let you get up close and personal with the water. The bridges they have built into the river are awesome, and you can peer right over the edge to see the water thundering down a few hundred feet or look up and see more waterfalls coming right down at you. As if the view isn't good enough, you are also getting soaked from the midst and hearing the roar of all the water!


After soaking in the falls (haha, get it!) it was early enough in the day that we wanted another adventure, a dam good one too. Lucky for us, the Itaipu Dam was close by, so we jumped back on the park bus, got on a city bus back to town, switched to one heading in the Dam direction, and arrived with 10 seconds to spare before the last tour left. We dam near missed it! We opted for the extended, or engineering tour, which started with a short propaganda film about how great the dam is, even though it flooded a few dozen towns, a famous waterfall, and has hurt a lot of the wildlife in the area. But still, this is the world's biggest hydroelectric dam and powers 40% of Brazil and 90% of Paraguay. The dam is shared between the two countries.

The tour started with the panoramic lookouts, and the scale of the project is pretty insane. If you look at this picture, try to find the red bus!


Then we drove along the top of it, checking out the massive reservoir on one side, and the 180 meter drop on the other. We drove over the spillway, which only opens and creates a very dramatic setting when the water in the reservoir is too high. Unfortunately for us, it was closed. But we still continued on to the main level of the dam, walking in between the massive buttresses and seeing the old river bottom way, way below. The white pipe below is us one of the 20 penstocks where the water falls. It's 10 meters in diameter just so you know!



We got to go into the main power plant and see the dam control room and how much energy was being produced at the time. Then we went to the dam turbine floor, which was 1 km in length. Although the turbines were in the floor below us, it was still an impressive space. Our tour actually continued down another level where we actually saw the turbines spinning. Since we were only a few feet from a machine that was powering most of Paraguay, we were pretty impressed! I don't think they let you get this close to sensitive equipment in the US, so we were happy for the opportunity.That just about wrapped up the dam tour, so we headed back to town for some food and an early night to bed.

Wait, our adventure at Iguacu wasn't over yet... there was day 2! We had a slow start, but eventually caught a bus to take us to the Argentine side of the falls, but that meant us Gringos had to stop at the border, twice. The bus dropped us off, we got our passports stamped out of Brazil, and had to wait for the bus again. In the meantime, we did our calesthenics and strength training excercises much to the delight of the border guards. These included pushups with our packs, lots of pull ups on a bus station kiosk, and situps. We're getting buff on this trip, so watch out!

We arrived at the Argentine bus terminal, booked our tickets for the 18 hour ride to Buenos Aires, and then got on a local bus to the falls. Once we arrived there, we realized we were very short on time, so after a little train ride into the park, we started the hustle. The five of us were power walking / jogging along the metal decks that led to the falls in the most ridiculous fashion possible. It was slippery, and that just made it all the more hysterical. We would stop at a scenic lookout, take our pictures, then sprint to the next one. There is video documenting this and we'll upload that as soon as we can.

The falls on the Argentine side were really awesome and we got up close and personal with many of them. There was another bridge we could take that brought us right up to the falling water where we stopped for a few minutes to soak in the setting. I can't believe I have been able to use that cheezy joke twice in one post!!!

Once we had seen everything at the falls, we headed back to the tourist train which departed about 15 seconds once we got on board. Our timing was impeccable on this day. After that it was a local bus to the main bus station where we boarded our night bus to Buenos Aires.

Sorry this post has been a long time in the making, and I'm sure it doesn't do justice to how awesome Iguacu was. But it certainly was IguAWESOME!

Ciao! Joey

Buenos Dias, Buenos Aires

Heading South, Portugese has given way to Spanish (kudos to Carlos for his tireless translations thru Brasil), Reals to Pesos, pasteis to empanadas, Flamengo or Corintheans to Boca Jr., samba to tango, and 70-ish degrees to 55-ish degrees.

The old adage (Hernaldo) claims South Americans find Argentinians to be snobby and aloof, and in turn Argentinians think that way of Portenos (people of the River Plate port, i.e. Buenos Aires residents). So far, however, nothing but platitudes to report here at one of the most cosmopolitan stops on our itinerary.

I'm sure our faithful readers will forgive our non-chronological postings, and perhaps text-heavy entries, as images/videos take a while to upload. Anyway, one of us will fill you in on the thoroughly amazing Iguacu Falls and the Itaipu Dam, from which we took a surprisingly pleasant 18-hr bus ride to Buenos Aires, where we have taken up residence (at $12/night hostel) in the ritzy Recoleta neighborhood. The Wallpaper* City Guide describes our current 'hood as "A little slice of Paris' staid, salubrious 16th arrondissement in South America." I've not been to Paris, but Recoleta is replete with comfortable confiterias (bakery/coffeeshop/cafes), fashionable clothing stores, and grand architecture--Beaux Arts and other styles of which we learned nothing in graduate school if a little in undergrad. Tree-lined streets sandwiched by rusticated stone, wrought iron, sculpted gargoyles, and mansard roofs. Meandering through the city in our first day and a half, we have explored the Microcentro (business/museum district), Puerto Madero (a recent dockland development with its own thoroughly-photographed, pivoting Calatrava pedestrian bridge), Avenida Florida (pedestrianized shopping area), and other neighborhoods. Last night we checked out Palermo, a very cool part of town full of restaurants, bars, clubs, all different cuisines, bebidas, tunes, crowds, and scenes, indoors and outdoors. Nightlife does not even pick up until around 1-2am, as Portenos generally don't eat until 9 or 10pm, which is followed by a nap before hitting the town. This meant that as we were getting tired, places were just coming alive. So no doubt we rallied, even Joey stayed out until 7am or so (playing bingo at the church, of course...)

It's about time for a quick power nap before heading out tonight. It looks like Palermo/Palermo Viejo tonight, and tomorrow San Telmo (perhaps Mike will be forced to take a tango lesson, or at least watch), La Boca, and if we can find cheap tickets, the Argentina-Ecuador qualifier match. I'm also very excited to meet for the first time a large branch of my extended family for a Dia del Padre (Father's Day) lunch tomorrow. Happy Father's Day to all back home.

-DH, el hombre martillo

Rio Flashback

I've finally gotten a chance to upload and geo-tag the 114 best pictures that I took in Rio de Janeiro earlier this month. You can check out the album over at my Picasa page:

http://picasaweb.google.com/michael.g.burlando/RioDeJaneiroBrazil

I'll try to caption them as I get time. And yes, Picasa also has a comments feature.

-Mike

Log-roll races at the Curitiba Botanical Gardens

I definitely won this...

Curitiba - A City with a Case of the Mondays

We arrived in Curitiba, Brazil after a brief 7-hour night bus from Sao Paolo. I was pumped to see the city, which is upheld as a model of urban planning, innovative transportation, and creative solutions to the myriad problems growing South American cities face. Of course, leaving the bus station, we ended up in a cab out to our hostel which was out in the suburbs. The hostel, Curitiba Eco Hostel, was among the nicest we've stayed at. Unfortunately, it was rather far outside of the city center. After checking in, we took a little nap, and caught a bus (just like any other bus, in any other city) into the center.

After a quick lunch, we took our first ride on the vaunted Bus Rapid Transit. Here's how it works: you pay in order to enter the tube, which means that the bus can run faster, by loading and unloading more quickly at each step. From the tube, you enter at the level of the bus floor, and the buses are HUGE. The BRT runs double-articulated buses capable of carrying 270 people. So, we waited a while, and caught the bus out to the Botanical Garden.

Botanical Garden - very nice. Cool greenhouse.


Great views of the city.

On the way back, we decided to hit the tourist office to see what else we could see in Curitiba. Here is where we encountered a little problem. Being a Monday, all the museums were closed. Unfortunately, the tourist bus line that connects all of the sites and almost all of the sites were also closed. So, with only a day in Curitiba, we were left with little to see.

So, we went to a Niemeyer museum!

After, we walked into the center, which was nice and had a most enjoyable pedestrian core. After the bustle and excitement of Brazil's big cities, Curitiba was quite a change. We found some good eats at a Pinhao (some weird fruit/nut thing) Festival - the Brazilian pulled pork sandwiches were a hit as was the mulled wine and chocolates.

After a couple of beers, we headed home in a heavy downpour for a good night's rest. In the morning, we were up early to head into town to catch an 8:15 train to Morretes, a small town to the east of Curitiba. The train route crossed the Serra Verde mountains, and is billed as the most scenic train route in all of Brazil.