Brazil, Pt. 1 - A Month Of Celebrations
Flickr Album - Brazil, Pt. 1
Welcome to Brazil! Fernando's home, and the start of the last leg of our trip, South America. After spending 3 months in Asia, 3 months in Europe and another 3 in the US, we are now looking at the tail end of our trip. But before we start talking about Carnaval, football and caipirinhas, let's cover this jam packed time we had here, including Fernando's 30th birthday, Christmas, New Years Eve and two beach road trips.
We had originally planned to spend December in Central America, with the intention of slowly making our way down from North America eventually getting to São Paulo. But the beauty of this trip has been keeping ourselves flexible and open to changes. After we travelled through Asia we realised how much we missed the company of friends and family and we decided that celebrating all those big milestones alone would be very sad. So with all that said, we decided to give Central America a miss and ended up in São Paulo to have an amazing, action-packed month filled with so many great moment with family and friends.
São Paulo, SP
Sunrise over the Concrete Jungle, São Paulo
Fernando's 30th Birthday
Family Celebrations for Fernando's Birthday
One of the key factors that brought us to São Paulo this time of the year was to spend Fernando's 30th birthday and Christmas with his family - a decision suggested by Alex and that I'm extremely grateful for. So we landed in the Concrete Jungle, as we like to call São Paulo, the morning before my birthday. With no time to even adjust to the jet lag, we jumped straight into a family dinner that same night, caught our breaths for a little bit and had a full party the day after, in traditional Brazilian style: at a street bar (or boteco), with lots of friends, drinks and even a samba band playing live.
Snaps from the Big Party
I barely had time to realise what it all meant, but turning 30 years old in my hometown, while travelling the world is an absolutely amazing feeling. I later took some time to reflect on all the work I've put into moving to Australia, creating my new life there, making my way up the ladder to finally have the chance to see the world - only to close the cycle of the 20's here, in my hometown. It was one of those things that you don't fully comprehend when you're at it and have to take a step back to understand.
All I know is that I was extremely happy to see so many friends and family members showing up to celebrate my birthday with me. I felt very loved, thanks to you all!
The special ones
Wakeboarding
Our day out (attempting) wakeboarding
Romeo, Yuji and some of our friends are really into wakeboarding, going out a few times a month and becoming really pro at it. So Alex, Fernando and Gustavo (Fernando's little bro) decided to join them on a day out at the dam. So much fun.
It's a lot of hard work, and Fernando was terrible at it (standing up only once), but Alex and Gustavo showed them what we're made of! Both of them stood up on their first ever try - and all the subsequents. They were basically born for it! To be fair, Gustavo has done a fair bit of surfing in his life, and Alex... well, she's Australian, so she's expected to do well.
Gustavo having a go at wake surfing
Sightseeing in São Paulo
Checking out Ai WeiWei's exhibition in São Paulo
Although this was Alex's second time in São Paulo, we had a lot more time to spare this time round so we were able to catch some sights we missed on the last visit. Most notably was the opportunity to visit Fernando's old condominium where we grew up, we even got to go inside his old house and have a quick look around. I've seen so many photos but it was amazing to see the place in real life, learning that little bit more about Fernando.
Being a vegetarian this time round, I have also been pleasantly surprised by the abundance of vegan and vegetarian options in the city. Not only this, but Fernando's entire family have gone above and beyond to cater for my new dietary needs, which I am utterly grateful for. Below are some highlights of meals out, I'm already planning to put vegan feijoada on my meal rotation back home!
Walking around Ibirapuera Park
Enjoying lots of amazing Brazilian Vegetarian food in SP!
Checking out Fernando's old neighbourhood: Zu Lai Buddhist temple and his old house
As for Fernando, it is quite an experience to be back home after finally seeing more of the world. It brings a whole new set of perspective and I relearned to love and appreciate São Paulo, its people and chaos. It is a beautiful, wild city, full of secrets and amazing surprises.
Sightseeing in SP: Beco do Batman and Tomie Ohtake Institute
Catching up with friends
Reunited with our Sydney Brazilians!
A central part in Brazilian life and culture is socialising. And we certainly did a lot of that! We have quite a few friends who lived in Australia or that we haven't seen in so long, so being able to sit down with them and have a few (too many) beers and remember the good old times is very special. It reminds us of who we are and what we're made of.
Christmas in São Paulo
Waiting til midnight to celebrate
It was Alex's first Christmas in Brazil (in fact, the first ever away from her family), which made it a very challenging but gratifying experience. This time of the year is very emotionally charged. Christmas, family, new year approaching, resolutions. It's hard to put in words, but travelling for so long is a draining experience: you are constantly having to make decisions - big and small - and you're never on "autopilot". You miss your family, friends, your routine, familiarity. And this was the context in which we were as Christmas came.
Religiously, I think Christmas has lost importance to me over the years. But from a family and love perspective, it gained a whole new dimension and I appreciated it a lot more this time around.
As it's tradition in Brazil, we spent Christmas Eve having a big family dinner, had our Secret Santa (which is quite different from the Australian version) and waited until midnight, when we popped the champagne and celebrated the arrival of Christmas.
The party still goes on on Christmas Day, with another family lunch and more eating, drinking and present giving. It's a never-ending feast.
It was especially hard for Alex because of how much she missed her family, but at the same time she enjoyed the experience of a Brazilian Christmas and felt loved and welcomed by my family.
Pouso da Cajaiba, RJ
The beachfront of Pouso da Cajaiba
For as long as I can remember, when Fernando has spoken about visiting Brazil, he has mentioned going to Pouso da Cajaiba. He painted a picture of a mythical place, which could only be reached by boat: a small, humble fisherman's village on the most beautiful beach, super simple but so beautiful. You'd think for such a build up I would have been set up for disappointment, but Pouso was truly all that and maybe more.
Pouso da Cajaiba, RJ
We spent three nights on this tiny beach, in a little house right on the shore front, just steps away from the water. It was truly paradise. As I had been warned, it was very simple, humble living. We brought all our own food and water (enjoying a simple lunch each day at the one open restaurant, but cooking everything else), the amenities were clean but basic (no TV's or WiFi) and no mosquito nets meant we had to be constantly covered in repellent. Having said that, this simple way of life was truly a breath of fresh air. We had very little to do each, and to be honest this stressed us out a bit at first but soon we were well into the swing of things: chilling on the hammocks, reading our books, dipping in the water once the sun went down a bit and enjoying all the local dogs. It was a sweet life!
Ilhabela, SP
Ilhabela - the beautiful island
Ilhabela was one of the few places we visited on my last visit to Brazil and I loved it so much that we came back. Our experience this time round was pretty different to the first, having come last time on the week before Carnaval (very empty) versus this time, the week before Christmas. Far from feeling like we had the whole island to ourselves, as we did last time, this time everything was very crowded; getting onto the island itself (via car ferry) took us 2 hours in the queue. Having said that, the vibe on the island was very different too, we enjoyed nights on the beach listening to live music
Around Ilhabela
On our Water and Land tour
One of the highlights was the "Water and Land" tour we did: as the name suggest, the tour takes us to the other side of the island on land (we board a 4x4 Jeep on an off-road adventure through rainforest and waterfalls), where we had a stop for lunch and rest, before heading back through water, on a small boat, stopping at remote fisherman's villages and snorkelling spots. Amazing way to explore the Beautiful Island!
Balneário Camboriú, SC
Balneário Camboriú, SC
For our New Year's trip, we were incredibly lucky to have our friend Yuji inviting us to his beach house in Balneário Camboriú, South of Brazil, located around 650km from São Paulo.
So the 11 of us got together at his beautiful place for 5 days of beach time, hanging out, drinks and quality food.
BBQ area at the beach house
It was an amazing experience to spend some quality time with Fernando's high school friends after so long. Our days were filled with the classic Brazilian Beach Experience (e.g. portable cooler filled with beers + speaker + beach chairs = hours spent on the beach, nibbing and drinking), walks around town, and having barbecues at the house.
Ready for another day at the beach
The whole crew
The New Year's Eve was another amazing experience. We had a wonderful BBQ with high quality meat (thanks to Gasparetto, the chef of the group), drinks, games and had the best views over the fireworks at the beach.
NYE
Alex and I took a brief moment there to take a step back and digest that moment. What a way to close what has been the best year of our lives yet. Everything we went through, all the experiences we gathered and people we saw along the way - it all helped shape us into who we are now.
But we couldn't help but realise a bit of a weird feeling: New Year usually mean the end of a cycle and start of a new one. The resolutions, the feeling of starting fresh. However, we still have another 3 months of travels, so we didn't feel that way. It's as if we have two NYE this time: one now and one when we're back in Sydney. We did take the moment to look back at all the wonderful things that happened to us in 2018, but the feeling is that we're still in the thick of it - and not about to restart fresh.
We are now off to exploring South America a bit, with Alex meeting her sister Lou in Costa Rica, before rejoining me, my dad and brother in Ecuador!
We'll still be back to Brazil for Carnaval, so it's not a farewell yet - just a see you soon.
Happy 2019!