Salvador was founded in the early 16th century, is the oldest city in South America, the third largest in Brazil and it used to be the capital city. We discovered how big it was coming from the airport and taking a 30 minute bus ride to the area where the city started and later a similar journey to the old city centre. It is quite different to anywhere I have ever been before. There are not many people who are pure white or pure black. There is every shade of brown that you have ever seen anywhere. It is not surprising that it is a popular holiday destination for middle class blacks from the USA

The next blog report will talk about Salvador itself as in the morning we left for Morro do Sao Paulo which is on a beautiful little island about 30km away. You can fly there by air taxi from Salvador airport or take a taxi to the docks and an expensive fast ferry. Feeling mean and adventurous we took two buses and two ferries at maybe 25% of the cost and an extra three hours. If you only have a couple of days and a generous budget take the plane. Only take our route if you are confident, know the itinerary and speak at least basic Portuguese.

Morro do Sao Paulo has no paved roads and the only powered vehicles are boats and tractors. The ferry is met by a couple of dozen young men with wheelbarrows ready to carry your cases and take you to one of the hundred or so Pousadas (small hotels)spread along the five beaches. We found a reasonably priced place, clean but basic, with the bed right under large window and the beach 10 metres below us. It faced east and we were treated to such a beautiful sunrise that we were inspired to take a long walk at 5.30 am. Those who know me well will find that very hard to believe!

We soon recovered from this strange malady and became progressively lazier, going to bed earlier and rising later. The most energetic thing we did was watching the locals on the beach: soccer, surfing. volleyball, a form of beach tennis, running, gymnastics, stretching and practicing Capoeira a spectacular martial art. They have to be fit as every brick, can of beer. bottle of water or gas has to be carried through the water, across the beach, up steps and onto the sandy road and to the final destination. This makes everything a bit more expensive but is excellent value.

My only complaints were about the hotel which would not share wifi with us (the only guests) and about a couple of dozen dogs always on the beach having a fine time. They were a nuisance when we were eating and could get boisterous. Flavia does not like dogs and was troubled by them, especially when one barged into her and twisted her ankle. A cook at the hotel gave her a hot compress and a massage but insisted on closing all the doors and windows before she started and for an hour afterwards. It is, she explained, very dangerous to be exposed to any wind after a hot compress.

Having extended out stay by a day and preferring to be in the city during a forecast rainy spell we decided to leave. Two minutes before we were due to start the 15 minute walk to the ferry a tropical storm started, the rain was impressive. We were soaked in seconds and missed the ferry and lost an hour. Several hours and several more storms we were back in the first hotel and we still could not connect to the internet.

In a week I will add a chapter about the city and add some photos to this page.

A lot of the entertainment is almost the same as in Europe but in Portuguese. We have shopping channels, premium movies, cartoons, MTV, Discovery Channel lots of old movie channels, religion, three sports, and endless regurgitated old serials, CNN (in English as well as Portuguese), Fox News, Bloomberg etc. The similarity is probably because it is the same multinational companies controlling the media. Rupert Murdoch is here with Sky TV, various US corporations and Globo which is the Brazilian equivalent of Murdoch’s News International Corp.

There are some interesting differences.  There are three channels showing live debates in the legislative chambers of the State Government, The Senate and The Chamber of Deputies. There are also two channels which seem to show cattle and horse auctions 24 hours a day. There is no general news and entertainment  station dealing with Just Vila Velha or Greater Vitoria.

One interesting feature is the University Channel. The three local universities have a joint channel where all content is created by them. Each university creates its own content and has several one hour slots each day. The programs are anything from infomercials touting for new students, concerts and recitals, experimental projects by students, university news and productions as part of academic courses in journalism, TV production, music etc.

The other unusual item is the  legal channel which is the house journal for lawyers. It all looks pretty serius stuff with endless discussions of current legal affairs. It does not show trials.

Foreigners are reasonably well provided for. We receive the overseas or news versions of the main TV channel of the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Germany, and Portugal plus CNN and Fox News in English.. TV programs are all dubbed but movies are mostly shown in their original languages and sub-titles.

The Brazilian TV and movie industry is big and they produce a wide variety of programs. A lot of familiar formats with a Portuguese accent are here. Local versions of Big Brother, X Factor, The Apprentice and many others are popular. Soaps are just as important as anywhere else and the current big hit is about an extended family based in both Brazil and India. Churrasco and saris make an exotic combination.  Of course soccer is an obsession here and I  could (but don’t) watch the big matches of the week from a dozen different countries.

So, as with many things, Brazil is much like any other country.

The cult of the noisy motor cycle that plagues Spain does not seem to exist. There the youngsters compensate for their lack of horse power by disabling most of the silencing. The rock concerts and clubs here are as loud as anywhere but they do not over-amplify the calmer music like Jazz or soft rock. What does surprise me is the neighbouring building about 30 metres away. Half a dozen time a year they have a party with very load music starting about 4pm on a Sunday and lasting for five or six hours. It is very hard to make yourself heard in maybe 50 or 60 apartments. I wonder if anyone complains.

Romaria Vitoria to Vila Velha

On Friday evening the annual Romaria or pilgrimage of Nossa Senhora da Penha took place. This involved some 12,000 people walking 14km in a procession. We watched for around an hour and I was very impressed but the “trio elétrico”. This is a large lorry fitted with a stage, amplifiers, light show and and speakers the size of small cars. They are mainly used in the carnivals but can be rented at any time of year. Unfortunately I did not have my camera handy but the general idea seems to be to make your ears bleed and turn your liver into water. This will give you the general idea

Iriri beach

Boy racer

On the road
Traffic lights have two red lights; presumably to allow for a broken bulb.
Cats eyes (the studs in the road) are four times the size of European ones. They really do encourage lane discipline as nobody wants to drive over them.
Speed bumps (known here as suspension breakers) are like mini mountains and often quite well concealed. I think that these account for the almost complete absence of low slung sports cars.
Speed cameras are everywhere. On the edge of town they are just before traffic lights, at the lights and again 100 metres later. Speed up to almost catch the lights on green and you can get three fines in 20 seconds.

In the shops
Pharmacies will often deliver medicines at trivial cost. They open seven days a week and late in the evening, there seems to be one in every street competing strongly on price. Not many medicines seem to need prescriptions. Judging from the number of pharmacies and the queues in some it is safe to assume that Brazilians really like medicine.
Supermarkets always have someone at the till to put your shopping into bags. Often they will also push the trolley to the car. Usually there is free coffee (near the coffee shelves) and often also cheese, salami and other promoted products.
Tradesmen have little shops and can fix watches, phones, printers, TVs, washing machines, toasters and all the things Europeans tend to throw away when they break after the guarantee period finishes. You can buy the exact number of screws you need at the screw shop. It can be cheaper to get a dress made to measure than buy a known brand.

Apartment blocks
Security is paramount and almost all the buildings in middle class areas have 24 hour guards and high walls. Nobody gets in or out without the guard’s permission.
Shared facilities are common here. Flavia’s apartment, like mine in Spain, is around 30 years old and has much more land than more modern blocks. The neighbours share a basketball court, two barbecue areas, pool and changing rooms, beach volleyball (which is a bit derelict) and a room for parties and meetings. The underground garage has an area for storing bikes and a compressor for tyres and lilos. Newer buildings often have no land at all but the ground and first floors have barbecues, party rooms, gymnasium, sauna etc.
Apartment sizes are much larger than in Europe. 120 square metres is small and 150 to 200 is very common. Penthouses are as large as 600. There are some smaller apartments but not many.
Maids room and service area and kitchen. Often take up to 50 metres (my apartment in Spain is 75 metres) They all have a large cupboard without windows called the maid’s room. Even a London estate agent would be too embarrassed to call it a bedroom. There is a tiny bathroom with a shower over the lavatory. There is also a large scullery with laundry sink, washing machine, clothes line tumble dryer etc. Nobody I have met has a resident maid and it does strike me as a terrible waste of space.
A chimney over a metre square goes up the centre of the buildings and internal bathrooms have windows into the chimney. Some people have also put in windows from the kitchen. This can add up to a very interesting combination of sounds and smells wafting between apartments. The bathroom door must always be kept closed!
Dogs and cats are allowed but their feet must not touch communal areas. They have to be carried from the apartment front door to the street. This accounts for the large numbers of toy Poodles and absence of Great Danes. The Brazilian pet owners are much better than Europeans at clearing up the mess their dogs make on the pavements.

Bureaucracy
It is terrible! A bit like Spain 20 years ago (and England in 10 years’ time?). So far I have not had much to do with it but recently read that it takes 50 pieces of paper to start a new business and you should allow six months for the formalities. According to a TV program this week many legal processes are still open 20 years after starting

Food
Staples are rice and beans. Flavia says that it is correct to serve rice at any meal unless pasta is served. I think I would add that it is probably also correct to eat beans whenever rice is served unless fish is part of the dish. Bread is mostly eaten for breakfast in little french rolls. If you can afford it it is with butter cheese and ham. Plenty of potatoes are sold but french fries are not often served in restaurants. My roast potatoes (with beef and yorkshire pudding) went down very well.
Restaurants In previous posts I have talked about self service restaurants which I love. Mostly these are open for lunch only. In the evenings they become conventional restaurants or cafe/bars. A meal is often three times the price we pay for lunch for two and is big enough for three or even four people. This is very restricting when you are a couple. If there are more people you have to all agree on what to eat. Smaller portions are often available but it is not cheaper to have two small portions than one mega-meal

That is it for this week. sorry, no pics as I could not think of much that would go with this article. We have just booked two weeks vacation in Salvador, Bahia starting on 31st May. This is a very interesting city, the third biggest in Brazil with wonderful beaches all around and beaten for life, music and art only by Rio.

A brilliant landmark

This is by far the best time of day to get a brilliant first impression of the city. It really is spectacular and is worth the long trip just for this.

Where the politicians talk

Brasilia was conceived a long time ago but in the early 1950s President Kubitschek appointed Lúcio Costa as the urban planner and Oscar Niemeyer as the architect to realise the dream of a new capital city. Even 49 years after the inauguration of the city centre it still looks very contemporary, spacious and uncrowded. The clever layout of the city meant that originally there were no traffic lights at all. There are a few now and occasionally the pedestrian wishes that there were more as he ponders crossing six lanes of traffic between him and his destination.

A shower of sunlight

Walking on air

The original design was for a city of half a million people. There are now five times that plus another couple of million in nearby satellite cities. The concept was a city shaped roughly like a bird or aeroplane. The cockpit and front fusilage is the centre of government and is the equivalent of Westminster and Whitehall in London. The rear fusilage houses lots of different sectors such as banking, hotels, embassies, churches, medicine etc. The two wings are residential laid out to a strict formula with wide roads, lots of open spaces, and easy access to local shopping, entertainment, schools and all the requirements of modern life.

Around this is a very large artificial Lake Paranoá (not paranoia) which fulfills three functions: reservoir, leisure and humidifying what used to be a very dry atmosphere. The city is on a plain one thousand metres high which gives it a very nice climate, not often too hot or too cold and two seasons: wet and dry.

Lots of broken panes of glass

Closed, derelict and unloved

I loved the city and my only reservation is that many of the buildings are in need of maintenance or restoration. For example the cathedral is a brilliant concept, looks wonderful from a distance at night but closer inspection shows that a lot of the stained glass is broken and missing. Similarly the Praça dos Três Poderes (Portuguese for Square of the Three Powers) In the words of wikipedia :
“The name is derived from the encounter of the three federal branches around the plaza: the Executive, represented by the Palácio do Planalto (presidential office); the Legislative, represented by the Congresso Nacional (National Congress); and the Judicial branch, represented by the Supremo Tribunal Federal (Supreme Federal Court)”. For more information see here

All this sounds wonderful except that the square now looks a bit bleak and one of the Niemeyer buildings is permanently closed. It is a brave man who orders the demolition of a Niemeyer building but this will have to happen to some of them. Even though it is a United Nations World Heritage Site the occasional bad building will have to make way for a new one.

On a more personal note it was a very nice trip. Once again Flavia’s extended family were very hospitable. Monica is a doctor but the morning after we arrived she went off on a course and returned a few hours before we left. We looked after the cat in lieu of rent. Her flat is very conveniently located for the city centre being a 15 minutes bus ride. The taxis are reasonably priced and all fares are on the meter so getting around was not a problem. The centre is very hard on the feet as the buildings are often a long way apart.

May 1st was a national holiday and there was a big party in the square under the TV transmitter mast. This is a little like the Eiffel Tower and there is an elevator to a viewing platform 75 metres high. This is well worth a visit to get the best view of the city. We did not attend the party but saw it on TV. The City Hall provided a very big churrasco with lots of live music all free of charge. Tens of thousands of the poorer people attended and had a fine time. During the day teams of dentists, doctors, hairdressers, masseurs, manicurists and other personal care professionals gave free services to all comers. Some people queued for five or six hours.

Marcelo and Juliana after lunch

Talking of markets we also went to the very big imported goods market (popularly known as Feira do Paraguai). Much as I hate shopping I was impressed. It is very large and seems to sell just about anything you can carry. I was surprised at the extensive pirated software openly on sale. Even in Bangkok they are not quite so open. I was not tempted as it was all for Windows and almost free is too high a price for me.

Floating in the air

I think I might start being more polite about TAM. The tickets were paid for with air miles and my trip to Brazil from London was enough for two return tickets. The flights were on time and without incident. The only complaint is that the outward journey had a three hour stopover in Belo Horizonte turning a two hour journey into nearly six hours. If anyone comes to Brazil with TAM make sure that you first register with their frequent flyer scheme.

It is easy to ramble on for hours as there is so much there. I had better stop now.

PS

It looks better in real life

I forgot the The Juscelino Kubitschek Bridge. It is a recent addition and totally in the spirit of Brasilia. There are lots of very nice new buildings complementing the older ones.

There are similar arrangement at the University where Flavia’s daughter studies, this depends on the course, demand, facilities etc Last year Jana attended in the afternoons and evenings while other students study in the mornings. This has the obvious advantage of using the teaching facilities much more intensively than in Britain. The other advantage is that it allows students to take either morning or afternoon jobs to finance their studies. These hours can certainly help the parents of younger children who want to work part time.

In Brazil there is the system of “Lei do Estágio” or the law that covers the work experience for those in higher education. Students are required to work part time in employment related to their degrees. It is a similar idea to the British “industrial year” but the students work for four hours a day and study during the rest of the day. They receive the minimum wage and insurance cover but no employment protection. This idea might not go down well with British students as the Brazilians do not have nearly so much time for beer, sex and rock & roll.

So far I do not fully understand the system but can see that it works in different ways. I have heard of estagiarios who refuse to do any work at all because they have good family connections. Others seem to work hard and learn a bit about the world outside of academia. No doubt some are treated as a source of cheap labour. The work is supposed to be supervised and relevant to the subject being studied but it is not always easy to meet the requirements of the employer and the university. It seems to be a system that would be worth studying in Britain. Certainly the idea behind the system is excellent even if it does not always work as well as it should.

The other striking difference in education here is the vast number courses for adults. Most civil servants and other public employees have strong financial incentives to study. Most people seem to be doing some sort of course to accumulate more points to enable them to move to the next pay grade. This does lead to a very well educated work force.

The problem is that a lot of the study is totally pointless. Flavia scours the internet for suitable courses. Recently she found an advanced course in Portuguese punctuation and accents (which can be very tricky) which gave credit for 40 hours of study. Being very well educated she and several colleagues signed up and paid for the course and took the tests after a few hours of revision. They passed and the cost of the course will be more than repaid by the salary increase. A few years ago she studied very hard for five years to obtain a law degree. One would think that The Appeal Court might find some way of using the law degree of one of its administrators. She is in the same job as before – but with a higher salary. It seems so wasteful.

We have just come back from Brasilia where we spent the May 1st holiday weekend. As soon as I have time I will write an article about it.

The wedding vows

On Sunday we went to the wedding of Heliana (Flavia’s cousin) and David an Englishman.  They are both PhDs from Reading University where they met.  This explained a table full of Brazilians who had also studied at Reading.  It is tough to get any PhD but it must be very hard to do it in a second language.

The ceremony took place at 11am which is unusual in Brazil, they are usually held on Saturday evenings. The church is on the Vitoria military base probably because Heliana’s late father was a General.  The officiating priest was the bride’s brother which made it all much more personal.  There was no organ so the music was by a trio of flute, guitar and violin who also played at the reception which was in a local hotel.

As so often happens when I look at people around the world I was struck by the similarities rather than the differences.  Most of what happened would be very familiar to anyone who has attended a middle class wedding in England or Spain.  The best about a Brazilian wedding  are that there are no speeches, the clothing is less formal and there was no heavy drinking.  In fact it was very similar to a wedding in Spain but without the noise and excitement.

It is Holy Week at the moment and as Brazil is a very Catholic country I was expecting a lot more activity.  Around here it is very much business as usual apart from the the very religious who go to church every day. Friday is a holiday and the beaches were full and Saõ Paulo had 248km of traffic jams.  I was expecting processions, penitents carrying statues and passion plays.  There are some of those reported on the television but it seems to be very local.  Not like Spain where the smallest village will have some sort of demonstration of their faith.  In fact it seems as low key as the British Easter.

We went to the cinema twice last week and I was not impressed with the quality of staff at the ticket desk.  I had my passport ready each time and was ready to prove that I was entitled to my over 60s 50% discount. Each time they issued to ticket without comment.  Ridiculous!  Anyone would think that I look 60 years old.

As usual I am a bit rushed and will add the pictures later.  We are off early tomorrow morning for our second Torta Capixaba A traditional Easter fish dish. It is delicious.  One of the ingredients is heart of palm. Rather than coming in small cans you buy a tree trunk around one metre long.  I have not seen how this is prepared yet.  At this time of year street sellers have mounds of palms stacked up and plenty of customers buying them,

I was a bit premature last week when I said that you should register to
be able to add a comment to the blog. There was a glitch and the emails
with a password were not sent. This has been fixed but anyone who has
not received an email should either register again with a different
name or email me asking for a new password.

This time I will try to add to the blog at least once a week rather than twice. There will be some personal stuff but I will try to keep it all fairly general. The plan is to comment on anything in Brazil that strikes my fancy. The country’s affairs are not well reported in Europe and I hope to give a view from a European perspective. As this is my first week I will be more personal than usual while I find my feet in the Brazilian way of life.

Back together

The journey was about as good as you can hope for. I flew TAM because they had the best deal.  My previous journey with them was full of problems but this time everything worked perfectly.  My luggage was a few kilos over the limit but the checkin at Heathrow did not mention it. In São Paulo they tried to charge me R$72 extra which they finally waived.  It took 21 hours door to door which was very tiring.
It was very good to see Flavia again after three months apart. Skype is very good but but no substitute.

My first impression was the weather.  It is fairly humid which intensifies the feeling of heat. The actual temperature is around 28/32C which is much less than in Málaga in the summer. In short the heat is not a problem for me so far and it is going to get a bit cooler as the summer is now over.  Of course the rain is another thing. It has often been quite cloudy and most evenings there has been heavy rain, often accompanied by thunder and lightning.

Some of the guests

The Sunday after I arrived was Flavia’s birthday and she held a churrasco (barbecue) in the grounds of her apartment. There were twenty people most of whom I already knew and it was good to see old friends. It was very nice to have a maid and a cook to do the hard stuff on the day. We will be eating the left over food for the next month. Sadly we have finished all the beer.

My proxy server in the UK was running well but is suffering from some sort of glitch which needs sorting out.  It allows me to access BBC iPlayer which only admits people who connect via a UK computer. It can also access all sorts of other UK sites which have the same policy. This is another plus for Linux as it is very easy to do and is free.  Talking of computers (again) I have spent a couple of days re-installing Windows Vista Home Edition on Flavia’s computer. It is my first good look at Vista and it really is as bad as its reputation. I will also add Ubuntu Linux in the hope that she might be tempted to see how a proper operating system works.

Only three candles?

On Sunday we attend the wedding of Flavia’s cousin who is marrying an Englishman so there will be an unusual concentration of Brits in Vila Velha. It will be interesting to see how Brazilians celebrate weddings.  The first good thing is that the male guests are not required to dress like waiters.

To close here is a nice thing about life in Brazil. Since my last visit I had my 60th birthday; this gives me all sorts of concessions here. Post offices, banks, lottery shops, chemists etc must either allow me to go to the front of the queue or have a separate queue. Also people who are handicapped, pregnant or with very young children have the same rights.  Another bonus is that I receive half price entry to cinemas, museums and various other tickets. All I need is someone who gives half price hair transplants.

On a technical note I have been forced to make people log in if they want to add a comment.  This is because I was receiving over 20 spam comments every day all of which have to be manually deleted. If you want to add a comment please register a name and email address. You can fake both and remain 100% anonymous if you want.

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.