The first few times I went shopping here I was rather puzzled by the price labels for items like shoes, clothing, electrical goods etc. Often they seemed very cheap and sometimes extraordinarily cheap. Finally I realised that the amount was not the actual price but the monthly installments.

A pair of shoes might be marked as costing R$30. Closer inspection showed that this was to be paid over three months. Sometimes a cash price of R$90 might be displayed in smaller letters. A TV might be priced at R$100 and a much nicer one priced at R$110. You have to work out that the first one has six installments totaling R$600 while the other has 10 installments making the cost R$1100.

It is all a bit confusing. I was amazed that things like medicines and quite ordinary clothing could be bought like this. Probably some items are discarded or consumed before they are paid for. The payment is usually by credit/debit card and the monthly statements will say something like “this is the third of six payments”. I guess that the trader can receive a lessor full payment quite quickly and the credit card company provides the finance. Strangely the traders rarely offer a discount or advertise a lower price for cash. Often they will take a series of post-dated cheques – the only security for these seems to be that you write a phone number on the back.

Credit cards are accepted far more widely than in Europe and are used extensively. Quite small restaurants, market traders and other small businesses routinely have wireless card verification systems. Supermarkets all accept credit cards. Unlike any card I have ever had the cards are both credit and debit. When you offer the card they always ask which you want to use. The answer is always credit.

It is only in recent years that personal credit has been easily available in Brazil and there has been spectacular growth. This has fueled the growth in the economy and is part of reason for such a successful economy. I cannot help wondering how Brazil will cope with the next down cycle in the economy. Everything is wonderful now with commodity prices breaking all records, exports of minerals and agricultural products booming and production of oil and ethanol gasoline substitutes making the country almost self sufficient for energy. I am not the only one wondering about this.

There will come a time when the markets realise that the banks have vast sums invested in consumer credit that are not likely to be repaid. The story of “The Emperer’s New Clothes is repeated endlessly around the world. The US savings and loans crisis of the late 1980s and the current American banking crisis which is badly affecting the British banks which bought their mortgage books were both due to insane lending policies. The Spanish banks rather cleverly avoided them only because they were busy digging their own hole in which to collapse.

There is no reason to believe that Brazilian banks are any less blinkered that their overseas cousins when it comes to favouring short term profits at the expense of the long term. There is still plenty of scope to make money investing in Brazilian banking shares. Reality has never mattered when investing, it is only the perception that counts. At some stage someone will be heard shouting that the emperor has no clothes, the market will instantly realise it is true and the share prices will collapse.

The trick, of course, is to to have sold out the day before the collapse. By then it might even be a good idea to invest in an American or European bank.

Manioc in the market

It is also called cassava, mandioca, cassava or, in Brazil aipim. It is a staple food here and is incredibly versatile. In London is is available in the areas where there are people of West Indian or African descent. I have often seen it but not did know what it was or how to cook it. Maybe i can start a new foodie fashion in the UK.

The British eat cassava without knowing it as it is used to make both arrowroot (for thickening sauces) and the milk pudding tapioca.

The manioc plant

Manioc has a very high starch and calorie content but is not rich in vitamins. It is gluten free which is a major advantage as so many people seem to have allergies. In Brazil every food label is marked as either containing gluten or not containing gluten. It is very easily digestible. Depending on the country it is grown and the particular strain of the plant there can be high levels of cyanide in manioc and then it needs careful handling. The leaves cannot be eaten raw due to the presence of cyanide but they are a good source of protein. I have not heard of Brazilians eating the leaves.

Fried The boiled chunks are dropped into hot fat for a couple of minutes.
There are many ways of preparing manioc and these are some of the ways I have eaten it here:

Boiled After peeling and cutting into chunks around five to ten centimeters long it is boiled for around 20 minutes and served much like boiled potato. Tough internal strands running the length of the root must be removed.

Mashed Take the boiled potato above and mash it. It is very good combined with mashed potato.

Manioc cake

Farofa Is lightly roasted coarse flour. It is sold already prepared and looks similar to bread crumbs. It is added to all sorts of meat and bean dishes. As street food, cooked kebabs are dipped in a yoghourt dressing and then farofa sprinkled over.

Flour It is used as as a thickener for soups and sauces.

Bread I have not tasted it yet but it looks good.

Bolos de Aipim are cakes and are guaranteed to send Flavia into ecstasy.

So if anyone reading this has any recipes or favourite dishes please tell us about it.

The trip to Minas Gerais was excellent and I will add something to the blog about it in a few days.

In the mean time the subject for today is the mosquito.

A mosquito eating lunch

One evening, shortly after arriving in brazil there was a diabolical noise in the road outside the apartment.  I looked out and saw a small truck belching black smoke and making the sort of noise that would really impress Spanish teenager motorcyclists. Flavia explained that this was the fumacê which burns oil to create black smoke to prevent mosquitos. A few days later a man from the town hall mosquito man arrived for his annual visit and put tablets in the u-bends of the water outlets in the floors of the bathrooms.

A fumacê truck

This is part of a very big scheme to try to control malaria and dengue in Brazil. This also explained whey there are not many mosquitos around the town.

The word mosquito derives from Latin via Spanish and Portuguese and means little fly. It is the female of the species that is dangerous – she can survive on a diet of nectar but needs the minerals and vitamins in blood to produce eggs. In Europe mosquitos are little more than a nuisance but in parts of the world they are dangerous killers. If Europe gets any warmer they could easily become a problem in the south.

Malaria is the danger that most people know about. The malaria map for Brazil shows that it is the northern part of Brazil outside of the bigger cities that is affected. The Amazon area is hot and wet which are the perfect conditions for breeding.  It is a dangerous disease worldwide and kills a lot of people every year.  In fact malaria is not that big a problem here, in 2003 there were only 30 deaths.  Bill Gates is not a person I often refer to favourably but I do admire him for the many millions he has donated to malaria research through his foundation.

Dengue fever is a bigger problem at the moment, eapecially in the urban areas. It is a very painful disease; in my childhood in the Caribbean it was known as break-bone fever. It affects most of the country except the far South. Earlier this year just in the State if Rio de Janeiro there were 23,555 cases of dengue, including 30 deaths,  in less than three months. Similar statistics apply to most areas of the country and Espirito Santo had 703 cases in a few weeks this January.

There is no cure or vaccine for dengue fever, all you can do is take the usual treatments for fever and wait for it to go away. The strong and healthy will recover and the weak can die. Once you have had one of the four strains of dengue you are immune to a recurrence of that strain. Unfortunately it also means that if you have an attack by one of the other strains it is more likely to be haemorrhagic which is very dangerous.

The only weapon against dengue is to fight the mosquito itself. It breeds in still water and so old car tires, empty cans and plastic containers, flower pots, open sewage, puddles in the road and even large leaves can all be breeding grounds. Wearing long trousers and sleeves in the evening is a good idea as is using repellants and sprays. In the North visitors should take anti-malaria pills.

On a more cheerful note I will add that I have had a few mosquito bites but they are less of a nuisance here that they are in Málaga during the summer.  Brazil is remarkably free of nasty things! Apart from the jungle areas there are very few natural threats. Snakes, spiders, hornets and all other bugs seem to be pretty harmless. Apart from the occasional shark in the Northeast the sea does not hold much threat.  There are no hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanos, tsunamis or anything else dangerous …  apart from the people, of course

For a more detailed description of haemorrhagic dengue see the WHO article.

Sunday morning and our last day. We took a taxi to the hippie market in Ipanema. There were no hippies there but there were a lot of interesting handicrafts stalls as well as all the mass-manufactured tourist rubbish. We wandered around and bought a couple of things and ate some very good food from a stall run by ladies from Bahía. We wandered around the town for a while but by this time my batteries were run down. Three days of walking, eating and drinking too much with not enough sleep had caught up with me. We returned to the apartment and spent the rest of the day quietly.

At 22.30 Rafael took us to the bus station and the 23.10 bus departed on time. This time it was a very luxurious affair with fully reclining seats. We managed to sleep reasonably well and arrived at 06.30 Monday morning just in time for Flavia to start work at 07.00 and for me to complete the missing few hours sleep. It is tough not having to go to work but I have learned not to be jealous as Flavia leaves for work every morning at dawn.

When I arrived in Rio I was expecting not to like it; there had been too many tales of crime and violence and i was expecting to spend the whole time looking over my shoulder. Brazilians seem to enjoy scaring the wits out of foreigners with bloodthirsty tales of gruesome crimes committed in Rio.  Even Flavia was telling me about a visit a few years ago when two favelas were having a disagreement. All night they could hear the sound of guns firing and see tracer bullets going in both directions. Apparently it is not unknown for bullets to enter  apartments nearby.

It is hard to tell where the truth lies. I suspect that the crime rate outside of the favelas has dropped considerably over the years. Probably a lot of the violent crime, as in England, is by young black men against other young black men and often drugs and gang related. All I can say is that it felt no more dangerous than any other large city I have been in. Of course we stuck to the most important areas, were not out in the middle of the night and avoided deserted places.

So my verdict on Rio: it is fantastic, a city not to be missed, it has more natural beauty than any other city I ever ever seen – by a long margin. It has rich and vibrant cultural life too. It would be very easy to spend a week there and that is without going to the beach.  The beaches are wonderful, as good as anywhere, but I would not go there from Europe or the USA just for a beach holiday. There are plenty of nearer places which are much easier to get to. So my advice is go there for two weeks and alternate lazy days on the beaches with touring the city. It is very expensive by Brazilian standards (all large cities are more expensive than the smaller towns) but most Europeans will find the prices fairly reasonable.

It is with eager anticipation that I look forward to my next visit. (Rafael, that is a hint!)

Having gone 400km south-west our next trip is 450 km due west to Belo Horizonte the State Capital of Minas Gerais , the third biggest metropolitan area city in Brazil (5m).  We are going to spend a week driving around the first area in Brazil colonised due to its abundance of gold, diamonds and other riches. “Minas Gerais” means “General Mines” in Portuguese.  There are a lot of old towns with a well developed cultural tourism industry.

We may not have much access to the internet but will try to add a couple of reports while on the road.

On Saturday morning we went to the city centre to visit the Cathedral which did not impress me at all.  It looks like a giant command module of an Apollo space craft. Star Trek fans will know what I mean when I say that it comes from the Klingon school of architecture.  The inside was better but I found the place very depressing. In fact I preferred the distorted reflection of the cathedral on a neighbouring office block.

We then took the Santa Teresa Tram to the same area that we had lunch yesterday.  It is probably as near to a favela that a tourist can go in safety. This was a wonderful ride and is not to be missed. Do not be put off by the tram’s dilapidated appearance and the poverty of some of the passengers (I kept a close grip on my valuables). This is daily transport for many people and is not a tourist attraction. The European Health and safety people would have a nightmare with the open sides, overloading and passengers jumping on and off the moving tram.

The tram is supposed to be limited to 32 people; in spite of going considerably over this number the schedule of a tram every 30 minutes means that there can be long queues.

A couple of hours was spent wandering around various cultural  centres and a stroll around the Rua do Ouvidor area where we had a drink and listened to a samba band playing in the street. Yet again I was struck by the fact that hardly anyone seems to dance. The customers of half a dozen bars listened to the music,  eating and drinking while the shoeshine boys and other hustlers looked for an opportunity to earn a few Reais.

Around 4pm Rafael and his girlfriend Claudia picked us up and we went for lunch in Bar Lagoa restaurant overlooking the lake Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas. Three had perfectly cooked and very tender fillet mignon and Rafael went for the steak tartare. I do not object to eating the meat raw – even mixed with raw egg and other ingredients. What put me off is that the large plate arrived with nothing other than the tartare. It would have been much more appealing half the size but with some french fries and salad.  A couple of hours later we left having damaged our wallets severely.

After a rest and a change of  clothes we hit the Santo Scenarum, this time a different building very close to the one we went to on Thursday. We arrived at 21.30 and found that we had to pay $15 dollars admission at the weekend. Three drinks each and the bill for two came to $55 – we are moving in the fast lane.  In fact it was not that bad value.  This place was twice the gigantic size of the other branch. Two seven member tango bands rotated and there was a very large disco area. Someone said that there were 800 customers there and 180 staff. The decorations did not have the religious theme but were just as surreal.  The value for money was confirmed when we left at midnight and discovered a queue four deep stretching 500 metres.