Peru-Brazil 2013 – Day 37 – Belo Horizonte

We had a great day in downtown Belo Horizonte! First a good breakfast at the hostel (café de manha is a sacred tradition here in Brazil, and no matter how simple the hostel/hotel they always put out a great spread), and then the brilliant decision to leave the car at the hostel and spend the day walking.

Belo Horizonte is a relatively young city, founded in 1897, at the site of a small ranch. To start with, the founding commission set the few houses in fire, so they could start with “a clean slate”, and then proceeded to overlap two grids, rotated at 90 degrees from each other, to set the plan of the city. The coarser of the grids is oriented north-south/east-west, and separates the city in big barrios, originally intended to house the different classes (the politicians lived in one, the military in another, and so on). Then, in 1940, the mayor of the city hired a bright young architect, Oscar Niemeyer (yes, the same guy who designed Brasilia 30 years later), to revamp the old city, and plan the expansion of the next stage of growth. Finally, in 2000, centenarian Oscar Niemeyer, had another go at it, moved the state government to its own complex north of the city, and turned many of the old government buildings into a cultural mall, not unlike The Mall of Washington DC.

Unfortunately we entered the old downtown by the bus station, and had to cross the ugly part of town on our way to the museums of the cultural mall. It was unfortunate because our first impression was of a dirty city. The image changes considerably as you move into less marginalized portions of the city, but we short-circuited the transition by crossing through the Municipal Park (an equivalent to Central Park in New York) to enjoy the refreshing shade of enormous trees and the happy laughter of kiddies playing in the merry-go-round.

Once we reached the cultural mall we went into the Vale Museum of Minas Gerais. Vale is the name of the main mining company of Brazil, and the museum is their gift to the people. It is a fabulous museum that touches on many of the historical highlights of the sate of Minas Gerais, through the use of a few exhibits, many interactive displays, and clever use of computers and film. The discovery of gold in the 16^th century, and diamonds in the 17^th century, made Minas Gerais the original example of the Gold Rush and Diamond Fever. Because of the mineral richness the state was for a long time the leader in art, literature, and social change.

We have learned our lesson, and at 12:30 headed for our nearest restaurant, and had a wonderful by-the-kilo lunch, with churrasco. This is a very common type of lunch, where you go through the salad bar selecting what you want to eat, then pass the churrasco counter, where the friendly chef cuts you select morsels from all the meats he has on the grill, and then you go weight your plate, and pay by weight, at the rate of 38 reais per kilo. Besides being delicious I learned that this is the best way to have Annie eat her plate clean. Normally, you see, she has to leave something (or a lot) on her plate, daintily hidden under a crumpled napkin. Not here, though, she feels she paid by the gram, and she is not going to waste any of it!

Our second museum was the Museum of Minerals and Mines, which not only elaborated on the incredible diversity of mineral deposits in Minas Gerais, but using very clever exhibits discussed the history of the Mine of Morro Belo as you went down the 2,500 m deep shaft (a very cool effect), the uses of the different metals, the lives of the great geologists and engineers of the state, and the history of Xica Da Silva, a black beauty who became world known for her extravagant diamond jewelry, among others. They also had a great display of minerals!

Tired of museums we went for a bit of people watching to the Mercado Municipal, one of the cleanest markets we had ever seen. The variety of wares for sale was fascinating, the food was enticing, and the colors and aromas were mesmerizing. We took advantage of the beautiful veggies to buy the necessary items for supper.

Having done our duty, we came back to the hostel jut as the sun was setting. Plenty of time to cook to cook a potato-leek-broccoli soup for supper (and a very fine cream it tuned out to be).

Peru-Brazil 2013 – Day 36 – Another long travel day

We dutifully woke up early, and drove at a steady pace through beautiful country, including an area devoted to the growing of sugar cane and its conversion to ethanol fuel. Incidentally, our Silver Bullet runs on either gasoline or ethanol, and we have been using the latter because it is cheaper.

We also drove through hills and hills covered by very orderly coffee plantations. They grow the coffee in tight rows, with the plants being trimmed to be no taller than a man, and to judge for the planted area the output of coffee must be enormous.

But even though we drove at a steady pace it took us until after nightfall to go the 700 km to Belo Horizonte, which we reached at peak traffic hour. It is Brazil third largest city, so you can well imagine the traffic that Annie had to contend with. Once in downtown I took the wheel, and with the help of a couple good Samaritans, and a ton of good luck, managed to navigate to the rather obscure location of our hostel. It is a brand new hostel, opened in 2012, at the place of a mansion high in the hills. We have a small apartment with bathroom, and had a nice dinner of spaghetti and tomato sauce that Annie had been craving.

Peru-Brazil 2013 – Day 35 – Travel day

Today was a hard travel day. We drove for 12 hours, with very few brakes, and ended covering about 800 km. We went from the good roads of the state of Paraná, to the woeful ones of the state of Matto Grosso (Annie drove this stretch, and assures me she had never seen so many potholes, and so many trucks swerving wildly to avoid them), back to the nice roads of the state of Sao Paolo. We also drove under shining sun, pouring rain, hail, and wicked winds. Ah, but at the end we prevailed, and covered half the distance between Iguaçú and Belo Horizonte!

We spent the night at Itápolis, a small town along the road, in a very nice country inn. We went out for supper and found a pizzeria with 50 pizzas to choose from! But of all those 50 there was none that had the tomato-based sauced we are used to. Brazilian pizzas tend to be heavy on the meat, light on the cheese, and have no sauce. If you want tomatoes you have to ask for them as a topping. Also, Brazilians do not eat with their hands (hence Mexican tacos have not made any inroads in Brazil), so you are brought fork and knife with your pizza. Funny, isn’t it?

Peru-Brazil 2013 – Day 34 – The cataracts

The day is cold and dreary, but this did not slow us down. We had to drive 20 km to the entrance of the park, where you park for the day. The entrance is not cheap (50 reais, plus 15 reais of the parking), but once you are inside you can use the shuttle anytime you want. Also, there are some additional attractions (bicycling, parachuting, kayaking, etc.), but you have to pay additional fees for them.

Anyway, we took the bus to the third stop, where the trail to the cataracts starts. Just as we were getting under way it started to rain. Annie was already clad in her rain suit, and additionally pulled out a poncho, while yours truly had zero protection against the elements. I bought a cheap poncho as soon as I could, but by that time I was already “damp” and had to live with it for the rest of the day.

There are no words with which I can describe the cataracts, so you will have to wait until I show you the photographs. Enough to say that I had never seen such a beautiful spectacle (and I have seen quite a few in the past), and that the site is rightfully considered one of the seven natural wonders of the world. The Rio Iguaçú breaks into more than 200 waterfalls as it precipitates itself at the edge of a basaltic plateau, so no matter which way you look there is always a marvelous sight to behold.

The path culminates in a walkway that extends almost to the middle of the river, so for a moment you seem to be suspended right between the upper and middle waterfalls. The water rushes under your feet, and plunges down, down, down as the void almost drags you with it. Of course you get totally drenched while you imagine being a part of the torrent, and sooner or later you have to come back to reality and head for the drier shore (dry being a relative condition, because by then we were in the middle of a tropical downpour).

We had brought stuff for lunch, and were lucky enough to find a cafeteria where we could sit out of the rain, eat our sandwiches, and buy two cups of chocolate. It tasted sooo good!

For the afternoon we thought we would like to go for a hike through the jungle, but to our surprise found there were none! The trail to the cataracts was the only “free” trail. To use the other three that exist in the park you had to pay, and I am not sure at all you can actually walk on them without a guide. Apparently the park administration is paranoid about tourists getting lost or being attacked by a jaguar, so they don’t let one to just roam around.

Rather put down by this development I proposed to Annie taking a power boat excursion, from downstream all the way to the base of the falls. She automatically said no, but I could see by the glint in her eye that she was certainly intrigued. Even though she has bowed to not let me push you into crazy trips anymore, she kept going round the issue until, in a moment of weakness, she went for it. That is my BA Annie!

First we took a tram ride through a couple of kilometers of jungle, where we learned to identify the palmito palm. Did you know it takes 10 years for a palm to grow to the point where one kilo of palm hearth (palmito) can be extracted? Alas, the palm is now a threatened species because of the gourmet market for this delicacy.

Finally we got to the dock, where we were informed we would get completely soaked, so it was better to leave our valuables in a locker (foolish me, I left the camera there, so I don’t have hard evidence of the adventure to follow). We wrapped ourselves in our ponchos as best we could, donned a life vest, and boarded a rather large inflatable boat (seating capacity for 20 people) with two enormous outboard engines. And then we flew upstream! I have been in rapids going downstream, but with the power of the outboard engines we could actually climb through the holes and standing waves of the rapids! Annie was in pig heaven, smiling as wide as she could, and throwing caution to the winds. As we approached the base of the cataracts the boatman circled a couple of times to allow smart people to take pictures (while dodos who had left their cameras behind got to salivate with envy), and then plunged straight into the waterfalls with all the power of his engines! He didn’t get all the way there, because the force of the water was more powerful than the motors, but hovered right under the waterfall. Annie was wild with joy, wet as a mouse, and asked for an encore time and time again. In total we must have tried to plunge under the waterfall three or four times. Wet to the bone we finally turned around, and had another wild ride flying down the huge waves of the rapids. My Honey was ecstatic!

The tale has now been told. We shivered all the way to the car, where we finally thawed enough to talk excitedly about the experience. BA Annie gave it her highest praise when she said “I wouldn’t mind coming to Iguaçú again.”

Peru-Brazil 2013 – Day 33 – The Itaipú hydroelectric project

We did start reasonably early, but Iguaçú was still 150 km away, so we didn’t get there until 10 am. A helpful young man gave us directions as we entered the city, and also some brochures about hotels. Foolishly I thought maybe we should get the issue of lodging settled at the time, which made us lose valuable tourist time. After half an hour of futile confusion I came to my senses, and we headed to the Itaipú hydroelectric project. I must confess that the presence of this enormous hydroelectric dam was a total surprise to me, largely due to the fact that I had not read the travel guide. I am glad Annie did, for I would not have wanted to miss it.

The Itaipú dam is built across the Rio Paraná, which is the border between Paraguay and Brazil, about 20 km upriver from the cataracts. The dam, which is 8 km long, was built by a bi-national self-sustaining entity between 1973 and 1978 (with the actual construction accomplished in three years, between 1975 and 1978), for the sole purpose of generating 14,000 MW of electricity, which is split 50-50 between the two countries. In reality, Paraguay only uses about 10% of the output, and sells its other 40% to Brazil. The project meets 90% of the power needs of Paraguay, and about 20% of the power needs of Brazil, and is the ground reason for the prosperity of the Sao Paolo industrial powerhouse.

The dam complex is magnificent. The Paraná is one of the great rivers of South America, and the idea of building a dam across it was bold and ambitious. Yet, the project moved along at a fast pace, staring with the diversion of the river unto a side channel, so both the main body of the dam and the spillway complex could be built. I need to check my statistics, but in the peak of construction the crews were pouring enough cement every single day to build a couple of skyscrapers, every single day! The spillway has three enormous concrete dams through which the excess water of the Paraná is conveyed out of the reservoir, and they are active almost every day of the year. In full operation they have the capacity to move three times the average volume of the cataracts, and they look like white, roiling rivers on their own right.

When finished in 1978, with an installed capacity of 14,000 MW, the Itaipú project was the largest hydroelectric project in the world, a title it maintained until the Three Gorges dam came on line in the late 2010’s. In contrast with Three Gorges, however, the inundation are of Itaipú is a mere 1,300 km2, so the ratio of inundation area to power generation is a low 0.1 (in contrast to the common ratio values of 0.3 to 2 observed in other hydroelectric projects). An interesting factoid is that, when they were getting ready to fill the reservoir, they estimated it would take a good 60 days to fill (which must had been a small tourist catastrophe to the cataracts, which would have a reduced flow for nearly two months). As luck would have it, just as they were getting ready it started raining, the Paraná swelled up, and in less than two weeks the reservoir was full!

You can see from my description that we were very impressed by the Itaipú project. Annie still likes the elegance of Hoover dam better, but there is no question that Itaipú is one of the seven wonders of the modern world.

When we came back to Iguaçú it was time to tackle the hotel question. Now, I have mentioned before that my Honey has some difficulties making up her mind, but she has really improved as of late. This time it took her only two hours to settle on a place, and I only had to drive her to ten different hotels over town! At the end she harnessed the services of a travel agent to broaden her net, and we ended in a comfortable hotel on the outskirts of town. I am so glad she decided to come here. Had I decided, like it happened last night, I would have been treated to the cone of silence, the carita de caca, and the many other little ways my Honey has to show her displeasure.

Tonight we were in good spirits (even though it is chilly out in the open), and thought we could eat a cow, so we treated to a banquet at a famous churrascaría in town, O Bufalo Branco (or The White Bison). The way these restaurants work, is that there is a buffet of pasta, salad, and desserts, but the meat courses are brought to you by a swarm of waiters who carry choice morcels of beef, pork, lamb, or chicken, impaled on a sword! They certainly look like swords, but are really skewers that are kept rotating on a huge grill, to which the waiters go back from time to time to pick up a new delicacy. Leg of lamb, filet mignon, chicken hearts, broiled onions, hump stake, roasted pineapple, prime rib, toasted cheese, and pork ribs floated before our eyes, and we made our best to sample them all (we couldn’t, but you could at least feast your eyes and inhale deeply). It was fairly expensive, but was indeed a dining experience.

And know to sleep, because tomorrow we are spending the whole day at the cataracts!

Peru-Brazil 2013 – Day 32 – A hard travel day

I am beginning to think renting a car and driving was not such a chili red-hot idea. Brazil is just too big! The roads are OK (a 7 in a 1 to 10 scale), but are handicapped by (1) the mountainous quality of the landscape, which causes them to meander and go up and down; (2) the fact that they are narrow, one- or two-lane roads, so passing is difficult; and (3) the large number of slow, heavily loaded trucks, which accelerate on the downhill and make passing difficult, and then crawl in the upslope when passing is dangerous because the vehicles in the opposing lane are careening down the slope like banshees. In other words, it is just like driving in la libre in Mexico. Thinking in la libre (“the free” highway that in Mexico has been largely overwhelmed by the toll highways), reminds me that the highways here are toll, so a day of hard driving is likely to cost something like 60 or 80 reais (US$30 to US$40).

Annie and I have been trying all sorts of things to keep ourselves entertained. She has learned to play Adivinar el Personaje (Guess the Character) and stomped me with Mother Nature. I, in turn, almost stomped her with Amelia Bedelia. Then she taught me Twenty Questions, and I stomped her with a speed-limit road sign.

We have driven across some beautiful country. Now and then we cross across true mountains, but for the best part of the day we have been crossing a landscape of hills, where vast plantations of bananas are operated. Other use of the landscape is seasonal pasture (we happen to be in the season when the pastures are green, so it is very soothing to see them extending as far as the eye can see), and cattle grazing (definitely happy Brazilian cows).

From a geologic point of view, in the morning we drove through the sedimentary foothills of the Paraná Basalts Plateau, where some limestone units have given their name to the Rio Cavernoso or the Caverna del Diablo. Most of the day was spent driving through the eroded basaltic plateau, which has been a thrill because the Paraná basalts were erupted shortly before South America and Africa separated from each other, so one half of the province is here, in Southern Brazil, whereas the other half is now in western Africa. This is thus hallowed ground as far as Plate Tectonics and geology are concerned.

We arrived at the town of Cascavel around 9:30 pm, rather tired and ready to hole for the night. My Portuguese is good enough by know to ask for a good hotel (but not good enough to further elaborate that we need something that is good but not very expensive), so we got directed to one of the best hotels, and had to pay top reais for a room (170 reais, or US$85). We need to try to get to our resting place earlier, so we can search for better deals.

 
Anyway, we are now less than 200 km from Foz de Iguaçú, and look forward to seeing the famous cataracts early tomorrow.

Peru-Brazil 2013 – Day 31 – The road trip starts

Nothing like starting a new adventure! In a way is like having a third vacation, and we are ready for it. I have felt great from my dehydration, and by taking my medicine faithfully plan to avoid a second visit to the colorful health care system of Brazil. We landed in Rio de Janeiro to a beautiful, balmy morning, and the plane gave us a beautiful birds-eye view of the city with its many bays and valleys. We are going to like it here!

The car rental was relatively smooth, except that the workers seemed to have forgotten that their outfit, Unidas, had been created by the merger of National and Alamo. So it took a few confused phone calls to figure out that yes, we were at the right place. They were also kind of amazed to have two international clients coming to disturb the peace of their morning routine. Once our credentials had been duly validated we were quickly attended, and in 15 minutes were the proud “owners” of a silver VW Fox, which Annie immediately dubbed The Silver Bullet. We were ready to jump into 9 am Rio traffic (a task only for the stout of heart) when a Good Samaritan came to our rescue (I am glad to acknowledge that Brazil has more than an average amount of good Samaritans). He was also renting a car, and in five minutes he would be heading out of the city toward Sao Paolo. He could lead us out of the maze if we cared to wait for him. We did wait, and he took us out of the city without a hitch. Thank you Lord for the good people of Brazil!

The more we saw of Rio the more we liked it. It has so many small bays that it is difficult to describe, but the combination of the indented shoreline, the old churches atop hills, and the affluent new and poor old gives it the comfortable look of an old port city anxious to welcome the tourist.

Our goal in the next two days is to reach Foz the Iguaçú, 1500 km away, so we tried to do good time by looking out of the window a lot and stopping not too often. They have a speed limit of 110 km here, and our Good Samaritan warned us that they have many checkpoints with cameras waiting to catch the speeder. The problem is that once you approach a speed check point they mess with your mind, by dropping the speed limit to 80 all of a sudden. Do you know how hard it is to drop from 110 to 80 in a long-distance trip? I suspect that somewhere out there there is a pretty picture of yours truly, wanted for being a speed felon.

Crossing Sao Paolo was my big fear. Located at 400 km of Rio, it is the largest metropolis of Brazil, and we were planning on crossing it at 3 pm. Imagine going from San Francisco to San Diego, and having to cross Los Angeles at 3 pm! Well, our good luck held, and we successfully navigated the maze of freeways and surface streets without getting snagged. It is a big, Los Angeles-like city, but we were glad to put it behind us by 4:30. I had planned to drive until 6 pm, and we would have followed the plan perfectly, but 100 km from Sao Paolo we crossed a chain of mountains and that was pure torture. Big trucks were crawling up the slopes (and going even slower on the downhill) and even with my best Mexican reckless driving it was 6:30 pm by the time we were down. At 7:30 pm we reached the town of Registro, where we hurriedly booked a hotel, ate a quick (but very tasty) pizza, and zonked out for the night.