Where's Andrew

PARATY, SANTOS & PORTA ALEGRE, BRAZIL AND MONTEVIDEO, URUGUAY - FEB 27 - MAR 5

It is pouring rain for most of the 2 hour drive to Paraty but it stops a few minutes before getting to town. It's about 3PM and I find a room in a nice pousada for $30US per night. Although the rain has stopped, many of the streets in town are flooded. Nevertheless, I decide to go for a walk in the old town core. Paraty is supposed to be the nicest colonial town in all of Brazil. The oldest part of the town is about 6 square blocks right along the coast to the east and a river to the north and south. The streets are cobblestone and very narrow, they are pedestrian only. All the building in this area are hundreds of years old and there are many restaurants, bars, shops and artist studios. Most of the restaurants have small interiors with tables setup in front of the restaurant right on the street.

Within 20 minutes, it is starting to rain again so I cut my walk short and go back to the pousada. The rain lasts the rest of the afternoon and into the early evening. Around 8PM it finally stops. I head to the main street west of the old town and find a busy pizza restaurant for dinner, the pizza is excellent. I'm looking forward to meeting Louisa and Jason here tomorrow. I met them in Nicaragua about 10 months ago and our paths are crossing again. Since I last saw them, they got engages on Valentine's Day.

The next morning I wake up to the sound of more rain, so I decide to work on my blog and do some reading. Just after noon, it stops raining and I head out for a walk. Some of the flooding caused by the rain seems to have receded, but in the old part of town there is flooding caused by a real high tide. This happens quite frequently and the road fills up with water but the sidewalks and building remain dry although there are parts of the old town that I can't get to without getting my feet wet. When I get to the main plaza, I find that there is a stage being setup with a nice looking sound system. It is the town's birthday today and there going to be a big concert in the plaza tonight.

It starts raining lightly once again and within a few minutes it is pouring so I take refuge in the pousada again. When I get back to my room, I have a message on my tablet from Louisa; Jason and her have just arrived into town so we set a place to meet at 6PM and we plan on going out for drinks then dinner. It rains all afternoon and is still raining when I go meet Louisa and Jason. The rain has chased almost everyone in doors so the streets are almost deserted. We head into the old town looking for a nice bar but most of them only have outside sitting areas that are not covered so it takes a while to find a indoor place. We spend a couple of hours conversing about what we have been doing since we last saw each other. I especially enjoyed hearing about the volunteer work they have done; first at a turtle hatchery in Costa Rica and more recently at a monkey and bird rehab center in Bolivia.

After a couple hours, the rain stops and we decide to go check out one of the outside bars but after one drink it is raining again. We duck into a small cafe for dinner. We enjoy the live music and dinner is ok but nothing special. Finally around 10PM it stops raining for good. We decide to head to the plaza and within 15 minutes a Brazilian rock band starts to play. I think the rain keeps a lot of people away as there are not many people in the plaza and those there are very subdued. After listening to the band play for about 40 minutes we decide to get another drink somewhere; the band is not bad but all the songs are in Portuguese. All the bars are completely deserted and after 1 more drink, we call it a night.

The next day it is not raining but it is still very overcast. After breakfast, I go for a 4 hour walk, at first I try to walk to what I thought was a nearby peninsula with some beaches. But after an hour, I realize it is many kilometres away so I end up walking round the perimeter of the whole town where I find a different beach called Praia da Pontal across the river to the north of town. On my way back to town to get some lunch, I run into Louisa and Jason and we decide to meet up at 7PM for dinner.

We go to another restaurant in the old town and I order fish. It tastes strange and I'm unable to eat it, I think it may have been in the fridge too long so I hope I don't get sick from it. I really have not had a good meal in Brazil yet, I miss the Argentinian beef. It has been raining lightly on and off all evening and the town is very quiet for a weekend. We have a couple drinks after dinner but there is no one else around so we say goodbye and call it a night. I'm heading south to Uruguay and they are heading north to Rio to fly to Australia in a few weeks so I won't be seeing them again on this trip.

At noon the next day, I catch a bus to the city of Santos which is located on the coast just east of Sao Paulo.  The bus takes the coastal road and there are beautiful beaches every few kilometers and the bus stops at everyone of them. It is only a little over 200kms to Santos but it takes about 5 hours to get there. Santos is the largest port in Brazil and has a population of just over 400,000. It is also a good alternative transportation hub to Sao Paulo for buses heading south, it has a beautiful beach that stretches for several kilometers right in front of the main city and it was made famous by it's futbol (soccer) team in the 1950s and the team's star player, Pele. Santos was the only team Pele played for other than the national team until he was coaxed out of retirement to come play for the New York Cosmos in the old NASL. He scored over 1000 goals during his career for Santos and I really want to see the stadium he played in and the Santos Futbol Club Museum. Tomorrow is Sunday so maybe there is even a game I can go to.

My guide book has a full page write-up on Santos but does not list any places to stay. Instead it just says there are many hotels and pousadas in the center of the city 2 or 3 blocks west of the beach. The bus terminal is quite a ways from the beach so I catch a taxi to the beach and start walking to find a place to stay. I walk for about an hour and I don't see any hotels or pousadas other than a couple of really high end hotels right across the street from the beach. Finally as it gets dark, I find a pousada and it is only $25US per night so I take a room and then grab some dinner at a nearby restaurant.

The next morning I walk to the Santos Futbol Stadium and visit the museum in the stadium.  Of course Pele is the main attraction and there is one whole corner just on his soccer exploits. all the various trophies they won are on display including a couple of world club championship trophies. Most are from Pele's era in the late 1950s and the 1960s but the are a few from every decade. I buy a Santos jersey as I leave the museum and I see a sign about a game today at 4PM against Corinthians. It's only 11:30AM and there is already lots of fans around wearing Santos shirts but then I see dozens of buses and the fans are getting on these buses to go to Sao Paulo to watch the game. I decide I don't want to be the only English speaking person on the bus so I don't go with them.

It's a beautiful day so I decide to walk down to the many beaches that fronts the city. I walk north along the whole length of the waterfront including along Praias Jose Minino, Gonzaga, Boqueirao, Embare, Aparecida, and Ponta until the beaches end and the city curls west along the Santos Channel. There is a large pier located here called Fisherman's Wharf and true to its name, it is full of people fishing. I've been seeing lots of people fishing along rivers and along the ocean ever since I got to Chile but I am yet to see someone actually catch something. That evening after dinner, I walk to a nearby mall that has movie cinemas and watch the new "Die Hard 5." They should have stopped after the 4th movie because this movie was terrible and the story was ridiculous.

The next morning I catch a bus south to Curitiba. Curitiba is a fairly large city a couple hours away from the coast. I need to decide if I want to spend more beach time at a coast destination like Florianopolis or whether I want to continue south B-lining my way to Uruguay. I've been on the Brazilian coast for more than 3 weeks, so I decide to keep heading south. I arrive in Curitiba around 6PM and immediately buy another bus ticket for the night bus to Porto Alegre leaving around 9PM. So I check my bags in at the bus station and go find a restaurant for dinner. I come back to the bus station around 8:30PM and grab my bags and my bus leaves right on time.

I arrive into Porto Alegre around 9AM and I get a room in the Hotel Erechim for $25US per night. Porto Alegre is located on a large estuary just inland from the coast. It used to be a large shipping port but the port was closed more than 20 years ago. It is now the cultural centre of the southern part of Brazil which has a huge German and Italian influence because of the high number of immigrants from these countries in the first half of the 1900s. It is also the largest city in the south at over 1.4 million people. The city is quite modern, very clean and has the feel of a European city. I spend the afternoon walking the main downtown core and shopping districts. That evening I have dinner at a traditional Brazilian restaurant where waiters bring meat on a large skewer to your table and cut off pieces until you do not want more. It was the best meal I have had in Brazil so far and cost only $15US.

The next morning I check out of the hotel and go buy a bus ticket to Montevideo. The bus does not leave until 8:30PM so I check in my backpack at the luggage storage place in the terminal and then go for a real long walk. I first head to a large park in the centre of the city called Parque Farroupilha, and then I walk along the waterfront back to the main downtown centre. I go back to the same restaurant for another great dinner before heading back to the bus station to grab my stuff and catch the bus.

Travel in Brazil has been long and expensive, in fact, it is more expensive here than anywhere else that I have been. A 2 to 3 hour bus trip cost around $20US,  5 to 7 hour bus ride costs around $40 US and a 12 to 14 hour overnight bus costs about $60US. With the size of Brazil, there is a lot of long bus rides coming up. After Uruguay, I'm travelling to Iguazu Falls and then the Pantanal area in the southwest part of Brazil. Then I want to head to Salvador on the coast north of Rio and it is over 48 hours by bus from the Pantanal. So, I think I may try to fly and it will probably be no more expensive than the bus.

I wake up on the bus around 7AM somewhere in Uruguay. They didn't even wake me up when we crossed the boarder which is surprising. The bus driver's assistant had everyone's passport so I guess he got the required exit stamp in Brazil and the Uruguay entry stamp. The bus arrives in Montevideo around 10AM and I go in search for a place to stay. The first couple of places I go to are expensive, around $50US. Then I stumble across a hostel 1 block from the main plaza in the old part of town and I get a private room for only $25US per night.

I need Uruguay pesos so I go in search of a bank. I walk down the main business street in the downtown core and there are very few banks and if they have an ATM, there is only one with a large lineup. There is only 2 types of banks that I can find with ATMs and my bank card and credit cards do not work in either of them. I'm just about to give up and go call my bank when I finally get my bank card to work. When I first put it in the ATM, I have to select "Foreign Mastercard;" not really very intuitive. I notice there is an option to take out US currency, I'll have to take advantage of that later because I will be back in Argentina when I go to Iguazu so I need more US dollars to take advantage of the grey market exchange. I also need to start stockpiling some US money for when I go to Venezuela. Venezuela has a grey market exchange similar to Argentina, but instead of getting 50% more when you exchange US dollars instead of using an ATM, you get 400% more. I'm going to want to have around $2000US in cash when I go to Venezuela.

It is nice to be back in a Spanish speaking country again. In Brazil, I really struggled communicating because Portuguese is so different from Spanish. Even the small amount of Spanish that I have learned makes a huge difference. It also makes me feel much more comfortable doing all the day to day stuff like ordering a meal in a restaurant or buying a bus ticket. But within 10 days or so, I will be back in Brazil and I expect even less people to speak English in the Pantanal compared to the Brazilian coast.

By the time I find an ATM that works, it is almost 4PM. I grab some lunch and decide to find out if there are any futbol games being played in town this weekend, it is Thursday tonight. There are 2 big teams in Montevideo, the first is Nacional and the second is Atlectico Penarol. When I ask about futbol games in the hostel, they tell me that both teams are playing at home this weekend, Atlectico Penarol is playing Saturday evening and Nacional is playing Sunday evening. So I decide to go to the Saturday night game and I'm told that good tickets are $10 to $15US.

The old historic part of Montevideo is on a small peninsula at the southeast tip of the city. And the next morning I decide to go for a walk along the peninsula's waterfront. Just before I get to the tip of the peninsula, I come across a large market called El Mercado del Puerto, it is a market that is full of Parrilla type restaurants and is supposed to be where the best grilled beef is served in all of Uruguay. There are dozens of Parrillas to choose from within the market. It's 12:30PM and I did not have breakfast, so I decide to pick a Parrilla for lunch. In every Parrilla, there is a huge grill prominently setup and there are steaks, chicken, sausages and seafood grilling everywhere I look. I finally choose a place and order a rib eye steak and I get a huge, thick 500 gram steak and it is awesome. It is as good as any of the steaks I had in Argentina and it costs less than $20US.

After lunch I continue on my walk around the peninsula and then I walk along a large beach until a get to another point a couple kilometers away. Then I decide to take a road that cuts through what looks to be a park on my map and this road will take me back to the main square near my hostel. This park ends up being a golf course called the Club de Golf del Uruguay. I stop at the clubhouse on my way bye and I ask how much it is to play. I'm told that weekends is members only but on Monday it is free for anyone. I can't believe there is free golf on a private course 1 block off the ocean with nice views of the ocean. I confirm that they have clubs to rent and they have top of the line Ping irons and woods for $40US. So, I guess I am going to stay through Monday and play golf.

On my way back to the hostel, I withdraw $300 in US currency which is the maximum the ATM allows and I will do the same tomorrow. It is almost 5PM when I do get back to the hostel. I spend the next couple of hours reading and working on a new blog post. The next morning I sleep in a bit and then work for a while on my blog but all I can think of is El Mercado del Puerto and a nice steak. So, at noon I walk to the mercado and have a incredible, huge sirlon steak at a different Parrilla than yesterday. I think I'm getting addicted to the beef here. I then spend a couple of hours looking for a pair of cheap runners or canvas shoes with decent treads for use during a trek in a flooded jungle or marsh area of the Pantanal. I've been warned that a couple days trekking in shallow water will make most shoes a throw away when you finish so I don't want to use my good hiking boots when I get to the Pantanal and/or the Amazon. But, I am not able to find anything suitable in a size 12 that is cheap.

The next day I once again have lunch at El Mercado del Puerto. I have a New York steak at another Parrilla and it is delicious. I then spend a couple hours walking throughout a market area of town before heading back to the hostel. At 5PM, I walk to the Centenario Stadium in the Parque Batlle which can seat over 75,000 people. I buy a ticket to the game for $15US and sit centre of the stadium about 10 rows up from the field. The stadium seating areas are designed so that you cannot go from 1 part of the stadium to another. This way, they can seat fans in sections according to which team they support and then these fans are separated from each other by the stadium design to help avoid possible violence between rival fans. There is even a moat around the playing field to keep spectators of the field and the players get to the pitch via a stairwell under the field along one sideline.

The stadium is about half full tonight but one end zone area is just packed with supporters of the Penarol team. Everyone in this section is wearing the home team's yellow jersey and they have drums playing non-stop like Brazilian fans do. They also sing non stop and most of the fans throughout the stadium join them for many of these songs. I never did figure out the name of the team that Penarol played but the visitor's were never really in the game and Penarol won 2 - 0 but the game was never in doubt but I really enjoyed it, especially all the singing and the drums

The next morning I get up late and read for a while before once again going to El Mercado del Puerto for some grilled steak. It's a good thing I'm leaving tomorrow after golf because I could eat here every day. After lunch I walk just over an hour to the bus terminal and buy a ticket for the 3:30PM bus to Punta del Este. I figure this should allow me lots of time to play golf in the morning before catching the bus. The est of the day I spend relaxing in the hostel reading and watching some video on my tablet.

The next morning I'm up early and catch a taxi to the bus terminal around 8AM. I then check my large backpack in at the luggage storage place in the terminal and then walk 40 minutes to the golf course. I get the rental clubs and some balls then head to the practise green to work on some putting and within about 20 minutes, I tee off with an American Marine who works at the US Embassy. The course is  over 50 years old and is a private club but the do most of their major maintenance on Monday's so that is why it is free. The only impact the maintenance made to my round was that a couple of tee boxes were closed for repairs. Otherwise, the course was a really nice tree lined layout with lots of bunkers that I seemed to be in all day long. I was hitting the ball great off the tee but my long irons, fairway woods and chipping were terrible and I end up shooting a 98.

There was almost no one on the course so we finish the round in just over 3 hours and I walk back to the bus station arriving at around 1PM and I'm able to change my ticket to an earlier bus that leaves at 2PM. The weather has been mostly sunny the whole time I've been in Montevideo but it is clouding up a lot this afternoon so I hope that does not mean that I'm in for some bad weather. Punta del Este is a beach resort town about 100kms east of Montevideo and I really want a couple nice days on the beach before heading inland to Iguazu and the Pantanal.

I was looking at my travel map on my blog the other day and I'm starting to fill up all of my destinations. I only have more of Brazil and Venezuela to go so I'm starting to think of when I will come home. I think I will likely fly home at the end of May from Trinidad and Tobago. It is less than half the price to fly from there than it is from anywhere in Venezuela. So, I will be seeing everyone from home in a couple of months and I must say that I'm starting to think a lot about home.

Adios for now amigos.