Spring Break Round 2, part 2: Rio

And now for Brazil.

My 5am alarm went off Monday morning, and I struggled out of bed to make our early morning flight. Observation: for some reason, for every flight passengers are loaded onto a bus and then transported maybe 300 feet over to the airplane from the gate, and from there they board. Same goes for landing- we land somewhere in the middle of the runway and a bus transports us back to the terminal…it was just a huge waste of time. There’s also no order or organization to how you board the plane, it’s more just a stampede of people, followed by 30 minutes of falling over chairs and scooting past each other to find your seat. This is when I realize how much I take US airport organization for granted. After a 25-minute flight (literally), we have a layover in Montevideo, Uruguay. We proceed to take a 2.5 hour flight to Sao Paolo, Brazil, followed by a shuttle ride to the omnibus station, followed by a 8 hour omnibus ride to Rio, followed by a stressful yet successful attempt at a Brazilian pay phone in order to contact the apartment renter, and finally a cab ride that got us home at around 12:30. And then I remembered I had woken up at 5am that morning, and how so, so far away that seemed.

After our long day of traveling, we were relieved to find that our apartment was very nice. Two floors, 4 queen size beds for our group of 8, a kitchen (though smaller than we would have liked), and a big terrace. The terrace was obviously the best part, with plenty of space and a pretty view of those big, green mountains of Brazil. We decided to save money by buying groceries and making dinner together at the apartment every night, which worked out very well with the table we had out on the terrace.

We were barely 2 blocks from Copacabana (yes, like the song) beach and only about a 15-minute walk from Ipanema beach, which was absolutely perfect. From Copacabana beach you could see Sugar Loaf Mountain, a very famous peak that is supposed to have a beautiful view of the entire city, especially at sunset. Unfortunately, I think that we were there at the end of their rainy season, so every day it became cloudy by the mid afternoon and we wouldn’t have been able to see the sunset if we had gone. But luckily we got some great weather each day we were there, and the mornings were the best. Ipanema had a huge surfing competition that week, so that was fun to watch. On the beach they had one of my favorite drinks called agua de coco, or coconut milk. There are stands all along the beach that have this, and it’s simply a coconut with a hole at the top and a drinking straw, and it’s delicious. The other favorite drink of the week was the traditional Brazilian caipirinha, made with essentially vodka, sugar, and lots of lime. To be honest, almost every day was spent on the beach doing the same thing: lying in the sun, swimming, watching the surfers, making friends on the beach, and sipping caipirinhas. So I really don’t have much to tell except that it was fantastic.

We had a friend studying abroad in Rio who had befriended some Brazilians, so a few nights out of the week we went out with them to a few local spots over the weekend. One of them was called Baixo Gávea, essentially a park where everybody was just socializing, with a traveling Tequila shot man who made a lot of business. There wasn’t much to it, but for that reason, it was great, just to be in a local place instead of a touristy club. Another night we went to Lapa, a neighborhood in Rio that’s known for its nightlife but also for its historical monuments. We obviously didn’t get to see much of those, but there was some interesting architecture, like the Arcos da Lapa, an old aqueduct. There was one long street that was basically the main drag, with tons of bars and clubs all in a row. There were lots of restaurants and also tons of colorful graffiti covering the walls of the buildings. The same can be found in Buenos Aires (they even give graffiti tours, which I hope to do before I leave), so it was interesting to look at the differences between the two. If anybody has seen the video for “Beautiful” by Snoop and Pharrell, you may remember that it was filmed in Brazil. You may also remember that they sit on a long flight of really colorful stairs. Well, those are in Lapa, and I got to see them. I am the coolest.

A very common fruit in Brazil is the acai berry. The only time I had heard about this was through all those acai berry diet infomercials in the States, but in Rio, they have restaurants dedicated to acai berry smoothies. On Sunday morning, we all went to get smoothies, and they were amazing. They were dark purple in color, and you could add other fruit to it to give it a different flavor. I chose mango, while others chose strawberry or left it plain. After smoothies, we made our way to the train station that would take us up to the Christ Redeemer statue. Forgetting that it was a Sunday, there were about a million people in line, and the wait was over 2 hours just to go up. Luckily there were also van companies that drove people up, so we hopped in one of those and made our way without waiting in line. The statue was incredible. Many people were there to pray, while others were there to take pictures. In order to get a full shot of the statue, it is very common to completely lie down on the ground to get the picture. Thus I found myself climbing over people and avoiding limbs in order to make my way around the lookout. The view was absolutely spectacular. From the statue you could see the entirety of Rio from all different sides. I would imagine it’s even more beautiful at nighttime with all the lights of the city. Sunday night we headed out to the bus station to make our way back to Sao Paolo for our early flight home the next morning.

I must have had a great time, because I got sick last week from lack of sleep. I spent the next several days relaxing (after my vacation?), however this past Saturday I had a great morning. I was able to visit a small school in the southern part of the city as a volunteer opportunity. With around 8 other volunteers, we helped the children there with their English homework and also with making crafts for their mothers, as Argentina’s Mother’s day was this past Sunday. The children ranged from about 6 to 12 years old, and they were not only extremely friendly and entertaining, but very bright as well. In Buenos Aires I have been living in a wealthy area of the city, thus none of us ever really ever see the poverty of the villas (poor areas), which is very abundant. It was nice to get a real, cultural and eye-opening experience. Later that afternoon, I met some friends at the Recoleta fair. I think I have mentioned it before, but it happens every Saturday and Sunday in a park with food vendors, music, and a market that tons of great things like jewelry, leather goods, clothes, shoes, art, statues, everything. We spent the afternoon lying on the grass in the sun, listening to live music, and, my favorite, people watching.

Spring Break Round 2, part 1: Oktoberfest

HELLO. After my long leave of absence for my Spring Break 2010 Round 2: South America edition vacation, I have returned. And I have a lot to tell. I have broken up my two trips, Cordoba and Rio, into 2 separate posts for your convenience/sanity.

Since I am, after all, trying to be thorough, I will briefly cover the few days in between Bariloche and spring break. These would be the days of September 25^th-29^th. We only had 9 days at home after Bariloche before we were to venture out again. To be honest, they were not very interesting. I spent the following weekend resting from the previous trip and also starting (or pretending) to study for my upcoming midterms.

The highlight of my weekend was Jesus, obviously. Jesus was, naturally, getting ready to go out with her girlfriends on Friday night, when she walks into the dining room to see me on my computer, attempting to write up notes for my midterms. She asks me, “Diana, you’re going dancing tonight, yes?” I respond, “No, no…not tonight.” The facial expression that followed in response to my answer was a mix of both confusion and pity, and as she made her way to her silver tray of liquors, she insisted I take a shot with her before she left for the evening. It’s done, she officially thinks I’m antisocial. I’m pretty sure whenever I go into my room and shut the door she thinks I’m furiously studying, as opposed to dabbling on Facebook for hours, having numerous Skype dates, and catching up on Glee, Gossip Girl, Jersey Shore, and Modern Family. Oh well. The name on the bottle was Llave, and it seemed like gin to me, but she said it was different, but I think that was a lie. Well, anyway, as I sniffed the top of the bottle and nearly passed out, Jesus threw back her shot like a champ, grabbed her cell phone and fur coat, and left me with a “Chau, linda!” as she walked out the door. What a diva.

My midterms went quite well, I think, or at least I hope. Wednesday was terrible, I had 3 midterms in a row, though after that I was done- huge relief. Thursday morning was a personal day. I got a mani/pedi before leaving for my spring break extravaganza later that night. While at lunch at Tea Connection, I decided to challenge myself, and I was actually fully able to read the Argentine edition of Glamour magazine. Small victories.

After a restful day, I packed up my things and headed out to the bus station to catch the 11:45 pm bus to Córdoba for Oktoberfest. The festival runs for about two weeks straight, starting October 1^st, the day we arrived. Córdoba is about a 10-hour bus ride northwest of Buenos Aires. Unfortunately, we woke up to a very rainy and miserable Friday morning. Our day plans of exploring the city were pretty much obsolete, so instead we hung around the bus station for another round of café and medialunas.

We were told that the Oktoberfest was actually held in the small town of Villa General Belgrano, however we were not aware that this town is a full 2 hours away from Córdoba…where we had booked our hostel. After calling multiple places in Villa G. Belgrano, and by some stroke of God, we found a little place called El Rincon just outside the town that had room for all of us 7 girls. A miracle, considering almost everywhere else had been fully booked for the festival even several weeks earlier. We caught the next bus out to Villa, figuring we might as well start Oktoberfest early and not waste time. This Oktoberfest, according to the internet, is the 3^rd largest Oktoberfest after Germany and Brazil. The area of Córdoba apparently has a large community of German immigrants that settled there a while back.

Oddly enough there were signs at the Villa bus station directing us to El Rincon. After trekking through the mud for a few minutes, following other janky, painted-on, wooden signs, we got to the entrance of the hostel’s property, and I thought I was about to enter a horror film. The dirt road led us to a trail (definitely not qualified to be a road) that wound far into the forest, with no building in sight. Having survived a similar situation like this with my family on vacation in Homer, Alaska, which had included a terrifyingly large, bald man and a pitbull in the front seat of his pickup truck, I figured this could only have a happy ending as our other trip had; a beautiful log cabin with an incredible view of the mountains. Luckily, I was right. Though we didn’t discover anything like mountain peaks, it was the most quaint and cozy Argentine hostel ever. A small wooden building with a large fireplace in the living room and homemade food, it was better than we could have ever imagined. Our room was huge, with 5 bunk beds and plenty of extra space. For dinner that night we had pizza, milanesa (a traditional Argentine food- fried, breaded chicken), and a zucchini pie, all made of organic ingredients and all homemade. The family that owned the hostel was very warm and helpful as well. Everything was SO wonderful.

Our weekend was especially fun because we made a lot of new friends! Two of them were lovely ladies from Buenos Aires, whom I will hopefully be seeing this weekend, two boys from Germany, and two other travelers, one from the States and the other from Australia. We had quite a global team. We went out together Friday night to ring in Oktoberfest with the grand opening parade- lots of German music and people dressed in costume. I purchased my personal “stein”/mug and over-the-shoulder lanyard to clip it on for convenient travel. I was ready to go.

The actual festival was essentially a large field that had a stage in the center. Surrounding the outer edges of the area were beer stands where you could fill up your mug, and tons of venders were selling food- shiskabobs, grilled vegetables, meats, sausage, sauerkraut, ice cream sundaes, EVERYTHING. I somehow felt at home eating sauerkraut, though it had nothing on grandpa’s sauerkraut. Dieduko definitely wins.

While we drank and made merry, we watched the many folkdance groups performing on stage, some from Córdoba, others German and even Italian. If I were to say that I had to use all my mental stamina to stop myself from jumping up there and start polka-ing with everybody else, I would be blatantly lying. I felt a bit nostalgic at the sight of their folkdance costumes and accordion music filling my ears. To ease my aching heart, my friends and I started our own polka dancing off-stage. All was well.

The next morning, Saturday, we had a delicious breakfast with homemade yogurt, granola, and marmalade alongside fresh baked breads. The weather was gorgeous and we spent the morning and part of the afternoon soaking up the sun before returning to Oktoberfest. We spent the afternoon simply watching more of the shows on stage, enjoying each other’s company and the great weather. We couldn’t have asked for a prettier afternoon. That night was a little rough, because we had to catch a 6am bus back to Córdoba in order to catch our 9am back to Buenos Aires on Sunday; we had plans to fly out to Brazil on Monday morning. So we stayed up till 5, packed, and headed out. Lucky for us we’ve become quite accustomed to the Argentine nightlife, so staying up that late wasn’t much of an issue.


After a pretty cold and miserable bus ride back to Córdoba, we grabbed breakfast and jumped on the bus back to Buenos Aires, repacked, and passed out before my alarm went off at 5am the next morning for Brazil.

To be continued.