Home | Poland | Krakow

Jonathan Travel Update # 5--The Rest of South America

OK, finally. I'm back! No I haven't plummeted to my death from the
world's highest bungee jump, been trampled by hippopotami, been
indefinitely detained by Israeli security forces, cursed by an Egyptian mummy, and I'm not rotting away in a Turkish prison. Nope, none of the above despite what some of you may have hoped. Here I am, 19 weeks, 16 countries and 4 continents after my last update, alive and well at my brother's apartment in Krakow, Poland, with sufficient time, equipment,and most importantly, initiative, to finally bring you up to date on Bryan's and my continuing world tour.

Don't worry, I won't try to fit all 16 countries into one e-mail. Some
of you have already read about Bryan's version of events anyway, so
what I'll do is go continent by continent. This one will cover the
rest of South America, and you'll have to stay tuned for the
hippopotamus and bungee jump stories in upcoming issues.

So getting back to South America (picture the screen wavering as an
image of carneval costumes, bikinis, and waterfalls in rain forests
emerges, with samba music pulsing in the background).....

BRAZIL
When last we left our intrepid heroes they were in La Paz Bolivia,
heading to Brazil for an important rendezvous. Well, Bryan and I made
it to none-too-pretty Sao Paulo without event, and in what would set
the tone for the next few weeks, met Todd and Bill (our friends from
home) in the bar of our hotel. So far so good-they were even buying
the drinks--but when all four of us tried to go up to the room we ran
into a problem: hotel management was adamant that only three people
were allowed. What to do?

I volunteered to be odd man out and tried unsuccessfully to sneak under their noses, but several minutes later there was a pounding on our door. I tried in my best stealthy ninja fashion to melt into the
shadows of the bathroom as Bryan, Todd and Bill denied my existence, but the manager threatened to call the police. After half an hour of
hiding in the stairwell, contemplating a night in Brazilian jail without a passport or even a phrasebook (how do you say, "I demand to see my lawyer!" in Portuguese?), Todd gave me the all-clear sign to
return. Half expecting a midnight raid, I slept out of sight on the
top of the wardrobe. I say, "slept," but I'm using that term
loosely-real sleep was impossible with Bill snoring like a chainsaw.

Fortunately the next night's accommodations made up for it. We had
flown down to see Iguazu Falls, Brazil's answer to Niagara, and ended
up as guinea-pig guests for hotel workers in training at a brand new
five star place. With only three other visitors in the hotel the
guest-to-employee ratio was about 7:1. They brought our drinks to the
pool, fed us the sushi chef's practice dishes, and attempted to make
Bryan a custom order of French toast. Nice place!

As for the falls themselves, situated along the Brazilian and
Argentinean border not too far from Paraguay, they're higher than
Niagara Falls and wider than Angel Falls. Immense volumes of water
come crashing out of the rainforest and send up shirt-drenching,
camera-ruining clouds of spray--your basic waterfall, but on a massive
scale. If you've seen the movie "The Mission" you know what I'm
talking about; those are the Iguazu Falls that the priest on the cross
plummets over, at the section known as Devil's Mouth. We observed the
cataracts both from the Brazilian side (for a panoramic view) and the
Argentinean side (for a close up) and cooled off in the spray amidst
swarms of tourists and other monkey-like mammals.

Rio de Janeiro
Moving out of the jungle and into the city, Jesus welcomed us with open arms to Rio de Janeiro. No kidding, it really was Jesus, "Cristo
Redentor," the well-known image of Rio overlooking the city from
Corcovado Mountain. And it's a good thing Jesus was close by; we were there for Carneval and there were a lot of souls that needed saving.

But not our souls, no. We were good. And it wasn't even difficult.
Having been to Mardi Gras in New Orleans last year, we expected Rio's
Carneval to be an even more frenzied Dionysian free-for-fall of alcohol fueled ribaldry. In reality the event was considerably more tame, more of a spectator activity than a participation sport. OK, we could have paid several hundred dollars to join a samba club's parade, or paid almost as much to watch it from reserved seats in the Sambadrome, the purpose-built grandstand they march through. We settled for some last minute haggled tickets and watched a few clubs pass by, distinguishable only by slightly different floopy floozy flouncy feather boa Priscilla Queen of the Desert costumes and their individual carneval song which was repeated over and over at full volume. Just like the Superbowl-tickets are hard to get, the game is never very good, and you can see more on TV anyway.

The scene on the beach was only slightly different. We were staying
just off the famous Copacabana beach (no, we did not see Barry Manilow
and in fact we were substantially south of Havana) which was populated not by hordes of scantily clad super models, but mostly families with kids. Although at one point Todd spotted some bare breasts down the beach which upon closer examination were attached to people with broad shoulders, adam's apples, and no hips....the hottest women we saw in Rio weren't even women.

So Rio was the place to be for transvestites and prostitutes, but we
had fun anyway. With all of our late nights out the only morning we
saw in Rio was the day we did the tourist activities. We took the cog
railway up Corcovado to catch an occasional glimpse of Cristo Redentor through the clouds, and a cable car up to Sugar Loaf for a pleasant view of the city at nightfall. We had possibly the best meal of the trip so far, at I forget the local name for it since it was so long ago, but I'll call it a meat bar. Set price (except drinks) for all you can eat meat. Servers come around to the table with sword-like skewers of every carnivorous delight imaginable: prime rib, sausages, chicken, roast beef, steak cuts, and more prime rib. (There is a salad bar too so you can keep yourself regular.) Definitely not for vegetarians. And all for a low low price--the Brazilian currency, the "real", had recently devalued which was how were able to afford the Copacabana lifestyle.

After several days of feasting and drinking, Todd and Bill departed
bloated, hung over, and probably wishing we had heeded the advice to go to somewhere other than Rio for Carneval (apparently, the real partying happens further north up the coast), while Bryan and I returned to the low-budget traveling mode.

Curitiba
The next stop was Curitiba, an overnight bus ride to the south into a
region with a large German population. The Germanic traits of
orderliness, cleanliness, and punctuality helped get us back on track
after the debauchery of Rio. And combined with the typical Brazilian
wide-smile, thumbs-up, eager-to-please friendliness which we
encountered throughout the country, Curitiba was a good place to dry
out and do some errands.

At this points a few comments on Brazilian culture. Although there are tremendous pockets of poverty in Brazil (we passed several shanty-towns going to and from airports) and a substantial gap between the haves and the have-nots, I was impressed by the racial integration of the Brazilian population. The Brazilians we encountered were very outgoing and welcoming and patiently put up with our pathetic attempts at Portuguese. Whereas a lot of Central and South American countries have a strong US pop culture influence, Brazil has a distinctly unique culture. Maybe it's due to the language difference, but the radio played Brazilian music almost exclusively and the cities were wonderfully untainted by McDonald's and Pizza Huts.

We got back into the travel mode by taking a day trip through Brazil's
most scenic stretch of railway, down from the high hills of Curitiba to the coastal town of Paranagua. I'd love to tell you all about the
wonderful views, gorgeous scenery, and scenic vistas, but alas, that
was the most scenic train ride I've ever slept though. And we couldn't see much through the clouds anyway. Leaving Bryan behind in Curitiba,I hit the road solo to.....

PARAGUAY
The ride into Paraguay reminded me of the Pennsylvania turnpike, if not in road quality then at least in scenery. After a couple of bus rides interrupted by a long nap in a bus station I arrived in Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay. There's not a lot to the place-come on, this is Paraguay we're talking about here. Asuncion is a steamy, somnolent river town with a roadside Presidential Palace and a bloated sense of it's own importance. My digestive tract melted in the heat (recovering from that Brazilian meat bar, I presume), so I didn't do much except lay around and read. And e-mail. Although there was apparently only one pay phone in town, they had several internet cafes. Go figure.

My first night there I stayed in a dive hotel down by the river, trying to sleep in a pool of sweat while a rickety ceiling fan clunked out a few hundred ineffective RPM's above me. This being the cheapest place in town, I encountered some interesting characters. The craziest was a guy from Vancouver. A few years younger than me, this guy's dream had always been to move to Paraguay. He'd been there about two weeks, had already met,fallen in love with, and proposed to a local girl, confirmed acceptance of his proposal several days later when both parties were sober, but couldn't understand why her friends didn't like him. He was planning
to join the Paraguayan navy (keep in mind that Paraguay is a land
locked country) so he could guard the river border against "the
Argentinean and Bolivian Fascists." Of course, the only reason he was
available for military service in South America was that the Bosnian
army had denied him admission two years ago on the ridiculous basis
that a) he wasn't born there, b) he wasn't even a little bit Bosnian,
and c) he couldn't speak the language. I never thought I'd want to say "Duck, you idiot, there's a grenade flying at your head!" in
Serbo-Croatian; maybe that wouldhave helped him understand. After the
"fascist bartender" cut him off, the crazy Canadian hit me up for his
drinks and I cut him off as well. Bryan joined me in Asuncion the next day and we upgraded to a much needed room with AC and without any
loonies.

Bryan was off shortly to Buenos Aires to meet up with Lisa, but I took
my time and saw a few more sights in Paraguay. From Asuncion I headed
out into the Chaco, the South American version of Australia's outback. After another long bus ride (imagine 8 hours on a Greyhound through Kansas or one of those other square flat states) I emerged into the dusty wild-west looking town of Filadelfia. Except this town wasn't so wild; it's one of three towns in the Chaco with large Mennonite populations. Related to the Amish and Pennsylvania Dutch, the Mennonites in this Filadelfia came from Germany shortly after the turn of the century. They believe in separation of church and state, but unlike their more conservative American cousins they have nothing against modern technology. A Mennonite man who had studied in Indiana
showed me around a museum of Mennonite pioneer life and explained their history and beliefs. I wanted to visit Sommerfelder, the next town over where some Canadian Mennonites had settled, but the bus drivers weren't cooperative and the heat was too intense to sit around waiting so I hit the road again.

My next significant stop was in the southern border town of
Encarnacion, from where I made a short day trip to Trinidad, site of a
ruined Jesuit mission. Remember that movie? Well, this could have been the namesake of "The Mission." All that's left today is a few crumbly stone walls, a reconstructed watch tower, and the remains of a once impressive church.

But enough about persecuted religious minorities. Are you still
reading? I didn't think this update would be so long. Stay with me,
because soon I'll be in.....

ARGENTINA
Sticking with the movie metaphor, I'll switch from "The Mission" to
"Groundhogs Day." (The one where Bill Murray lives the same day over
and over again.) We spent about a week and half total in Buenos Aires, and each day seemed very much the same. Wake up, eat, and run the Florida Avenue gauntlet of American fast food restaurants (I counted McDonalds within a km radius), record stores, shopping malls, and souvenir stands on our way to the internet place and the student travel place. I did manage to squeeze in the typical art museum and a
cathedral or two, and of course sang "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" in my best Madonna voice next to Evita's palace. And a quick visit to the artsy San Telmo neighborhood was countered by a trip to the working class La Boca district, home of the famous Boca Juniors soccer team and their unruly fans. A lot of our time in Buenos Aires was spent trying to plan our escape to Africa, but I'll get to that after I tell you about....

URUGUAY
Another one of those little known South American 'guay countries,
Bryan, his fiancee Lisa and I bopped over to Uruguay on a hydrofoil for a few days. Uruguay was better off economically than Paraguay, probably due to the Argentinean tourists, and while Bryan and Lisa
frolicked with them at the beach resorts along the "Uruguayan
Riviera," I spent a few days in the historic town of Colonia. A former outpost of both the Spanish and British Empires, with cobblestone streets flanked by rows of sycamore trees and surrounded by ancient fortifications, Colonia was a nice place to relax and catch up on some reading and writing. We also spent some time in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, which to me was most memorable for it's brand new fancy modern bus station. (By this point I was tired of old churches and musty museums.) So Uruguay was nice, and cheaper than Buenos Aires, but we had to head back to Evitaville to plan the next phase of our trip....

OFF TO AFRICA
Our original plan was to avoid airlines as much as possible, so getting to Africa proved to be a challenge. We visited four yacht clubs hoping to hitch a ride, and then tried the commercial shipyards. Rejection everywhere. Then I came across a freight company that books passengers on some of their cargo ships, marketing that as luxury travel to people of means much more significant than ours. Not to be deterred, we approached them in the guise of travel journalists and almost scammed a free ride to Africa, but unfortunately our schedules didn't coincide. Having exhausted all surface travel options other than swimming or rowing, we finally had to break down and fly. Our disappointment evaporated, however, when we scored a one way ticket to South Africa for, get this, less than $300. Unbelievable! The student ID cards have indeed paid for themselves.

So that about wraps it up for South America. If you're still reading
at this point, stay tuned for the next issue where I'll tell you about
our bungee jumping, mountain climbing, safari touring, and other
death-defying adventures in Africa....

Jonathan Nieuwsma
from Krakow, Poland
June 22, 1999

copyright 1999 Jonathan Nieuwsma

More from theplan here