Beautiful Bruna, Diego and family

Porto Allegre is a beautiful city of 1.5 million people in southern Brazil. We flew in from Sao Paulo and saw the sea, a river and endless miles of green farmland surrounding the city.

At the airport, we were picked up by Bruna and her boyfriend, Diego, who spent the next couple of days and nights showing us around the town. We stayed with Bruna’s Grandmother, Gladis, in her gorgeous apartment.  

Gladis' beautiful apartment

From the moment we got off the plane, the warmth and friendship that Bruna and Diego showed us was phenomenal.

On our first night, Diego shared his love of music and mate with us. We tried the infamous mate, which I never realized was enjoyed in Brazil (I thought only in Uruguay and Argentina). Mate is a dried herb which is brewed by placing the mate in a cup (in Brazil made from a fruit and called a Cuia) and adding hot water continuously. The cup is passed from person to person until the hot water runs out. It also quite the stimulant, and seems way stronger than coffee.

Mate at the park

After we’d put our things down and freshened up at Gladis’s place, we went out to an Irish pub and had a relaxing drink and dinner and listened to a live band playing Beatles music, which was brilliant.

Dinner at APPLEBYS

Drinks on our first night

On our second day, Bruna and Diego took us to see Porto Allegre. We saw the centre of the old town, which included a few museums, the municipal building and the central square, all of which were very interesting and beautiful. We also saw an old hotel which was home to Mario Quintana for over 20 years, one of the region’s most famous writers. The hotel is now an Arts museum and Quintana’s room is kept as it was when he died.

We went to the river where the sunset was GOSTOSO.

City explorations

INTER FOR LIFE

Sunset

Afternoon in the park

Sunset by the river

We also had a beautiful dinner at Bruna’s and a beautiful lunch at Brunas’ mum’s, Claudia. We ate meat loaf and feijoada and drank massive Caipirinhas’ thanks to Diegos fantastic bar tending skills. I was hammered by 3pm and Mish was totally ready for bed after only one!!

Claudia, Diego and capirinhas

Diego teaching us to make capirinhas

Beautiful lunch by Claudia

Bruna and Diego were so generous with their time, showing us around all of Porto Allegre, having us for dinner and beautiful wine, giving us advice for our travels and teaching us about the amazing Brazilian musical scene. We built a true friendship in just 2 days, which will last a lifetime and whether we return for the World Cup in 2014 or we see Bruna, Diego and family in Sydney, we will be reciprocating their wonderful and beautiful hospitality.

Dinner on our last night

Bruna's place

Sao Paulo - big, dirty and difficult ... but

We had been warned that Sao Paulo was big, dirty and difficult city - and it was. 

It is huge - spread over 30,000 square kilometers with a population just over 20 million – and a few days is not long enough to get your bearings – but we had a fun time.

• We flew into the city’s international airport (the domestic airport only takes a small amount of traffic following a deadly crash in 2007 in which an airbus 320 with 180(ish) people on board crashed on landing at the airport (skidding along the wet runway (with insufficient drainage), with no reverse thrust, veering left at the end of the runway, across a major highway and into a factory). We landed fine though.
• We stayed in a cool hostel called Lime Time and met some fun people, including a dude from Hornsby and a bunch of UK lads who spent all day in front of the TV watching soccer (Grey’s dream).
• We met up with Ricardo for his birthday celebrations at “Solique”.
• We saw an amazing collection of paintings at MASP, including Renoir, Manet, Monet, Degas, Reynolds and Toulous Lautrec.
• We watched “The King’s Speech” on Sunday afternoon, in English, in a cinema. So easy! Great movie too.
• We were so desperate that we paid $50 for a load of washing.
• Sao Paulo has the largest population of Japanese people in any city outside of Japan (approximately 800,000) so we visited Japan-town and ate udon and sushi.
• We checked out some impressive architecture around the town. 
• We sampled what is widely considered the best pizza in Sao Paulo at Casa Braz. A huge number of Sao Paulo-ians are of Italian descent so we expected good things – and it delivered. 

The 3 best looking guys at the party

With Ricardo

Japanese food

Rubbish

Business idea - self serve frozen yogurt. The US has it, Mexico has it, and so does Brazil. So much better than tiny the Sydney way.

Better

Architecture ... tick

Casa Braz

Pao de Calabresa (bread with SAUSAGE)

Great zucchini pizza - "The Braz"

Hair is getting long

Recife

Recife is a north eastern Brazilian city with a population of about 1.5 million. It is the epicenter of African culture in Brazil. We only stayed in the city for one night but managed to have a reasonable look around.

What we did:

• We stayed in Boa Viagem, the ‘affluent’ beachside area of town;
• Went for a run along the beachfront. There are reefs just 15 metres or so from the sand that create calm pools for swimming. We were warned not to swim beyond the reefs because there are many sharks there;
• We caught a bus to the historical centre of the city in the evening. The bus travelled at 110km/h down suburbans streets - fun ride;
• We checked out the main square of the town. We wanted to have dinner at a restaurant called "The Bangue" which we had read about in a book called “A death in Brazil” by Peter Robb. We found the restaurant but that night the square was hosting a big pre-carnivale concert so there was no chance of getting a table. Instead, we pulled up some plastic chairs, ordered beers and watched crazy Brazilians dance the night away. 

Accidentally stumbled  upon a pre-carnivale party

The beach