Tropical adventure with some surfers

by Paloma Lopez (Spain)

Making a local connection Brazil

Brazil, the big tropical country, the largest one in South America. Everything started landing off in Sao Paulo, a drunk guy yelled “Brazil here I come to dance Sambaa”, and how stereotyped I was about to discover is this. ¿Jungle or the ‘NY city’ of South America? You could see the palms growing from the ground of Sao Paulo’s streets or how the huge skyscrapers reflected the splendor of the late’s 20th century and the influence of North America’s culture. For me, an European girl who had never crossed the big puddle was the start of the adventure of a lifetime. I was so lucky that I met there a friend who was living two years there already. First we were staying a few days in Sao Paulo, then on the road to Rio de Janeiro and serendipity would take us to unbelievable amazing places. Paulistanos, they’re so nice, always smiling, I remember seating next to a young local who was making a palm handmade figures for selling. We started a nice conversation, he told me about some bars where I could go to see live concerts of Bossa Nova (typical music that Paulistanos listen to), also he told me about how Brazilian people respect and promote a lot their own national artists. Few words later I was about to leave, not without buying him a palm figure first, he gave me another for free and told me ‘I hope this present illuminates your journey’, I’ll never forget it. Next journey, we were going into the wild, Rio de Janeiro was waiting for us. First stop? Sunset in Ipanema beach please! From the Arpoador rock you could see the sun set… a vibrant red sun disappearing with the beach landscape in the background and someone singing Bob Marley’s ‘Is this love’ song, life is made of small moments like this. A man was selling caipirinhas and talked to us, he saw we were foreigners and told us: You know how people native from Rio de Janeiro are called? Cariocas, Kari (white man) and oca (house), which means ‘White man’s house’ referring to the first house that was built in that area. Talking with different Brazilian people you could notice how colonization has marked the history of these lands. We were in Rio so we had to visit places like Christ the redeemer statue or go to Copacabana beach (I had never seen biggest waves in my entire life). Many surfers, people playing football in the sand… and guess what? We made some local surfers friends Went with these surfers to eat Feijoada (national dish made of rice and beans), later these guys took us to really authentic local places like La Lapa district where we danced to samba all night with the locals in the streets or Joatxinga beach which was the most wild and beautiful beach I had ever seen with lots of surfers catching giant waves. We made a really good friendship with these guys and they were traveling around as well with their van so they wanted us to join their traveling journey. Some road songs later, we stopped in Trindade, an authentic hippie town where you could see the typical hippies from movies and a small town made of wood houses. We went to a local restaurant where there was a poster on the wall that said ‘nearest fast food place is 500km away’, that was a really hippie vibe. After that short stop, we were on our way to Paraty, an authentic Portuguese colonial town, it seemed like time had not passed in that place. White houses with colorful windows and rock ground next to a small port. Locals told us that this place was where portugueses transported gold to Europe from. Last stop? Ilhabela, a wild island with lots of crabs, monkeys, parrots and virgin jungles. My last day, before leaving to Sao Paulo to catch my flight back to Spain, we took a boat to a non accesible beach of the island (only accesible by boat), saved some sand from ‘Bonette beach’ and we all promised that we would meet someday, ending a new trip drinking some coconuts in some paradisiac beach again.