Wow, that was quite a trip!  We left Wednesday afternoon by bus and arrived in Rio 8 hours later and took a 15 minute taxi ride to Flavia’s Uncle Rafael who has an apartment in the middle of the city.

The road was a dual carriage way for the first hour and then became two single lanes. There was often a third lane for overtaking, especially up hills. The last hour was dual, then triple carriageway.  The roads were all in pretty good condition. The modern comfortable bus was limited to 80 or 90 kph for the whole journey and mostly managed to keep to those speeds. It did help arriving in Rio in the evening after the peak traffic.

In the morning Rafael took us on a tour of Rio. It is a real advantage having a car, driver and guide with a detailed knowledge of the city.  First we went to Corcovado mountain and the statue of Christ the Redeemer which is 700 metres above Rio. We stopped at a couple of brilliant viewing points on the way up.  We drove almost to the top of the hill, parked and got

into small buses for the last climb of a hundred metres of hairpin bends. From there was a short walk, a couple of escalators and we were at the foot of the statue without even getting out of breath. There is also a funicular railway which is very useful if you do not have a car.

The views are breathtaking.  It was a hot sunny day and the city inland was covered in a light haze. This trip alone is worth a visit to Brazil.   Rio is full of very steep hills and so there are thousands of locations with fabulous views, soon you become a little blasé about what would be a traffic-stopping elsewhere. Rafael’s lounge faces the statue and a nearby favela an interesting combination of two of Rio’s signature sights.
Around 4 o’clock we had a self-service meal followed by a well-earned siesta.  In the evening we took a 20 minute taxi ride to the old city area full of bars and restaurants. We went to the Scenarium whch the Guardian rates as one of the best ten bars in the world.  It is a very strange place. It is not really a pub or bar or a restaurant or a nightclub or a disco or an antiques shop but a mixture of all of them. It looks like an ancient converted warehouse with two rooms the size of tennis courts on each of the three floors. In fact it used to be housing and each floor used to contain 12 apartments. A girl singer accompanied by keyboards and guitar was singing sambas and the sound was piped to the more remote areas; there was no dancing that I noticed.

It was fairly busy. Plenty of customers were eating large meals or snacks but there was no expectation that the customers should eat. The thing which I like about most live music I have heard here is that the volume is reasonable, not the ear-splitting high volume that is everywhere in Europe.  Some listened attentively while other groups chatted without raising their voices. The musicians accept that they are not giving a concert and that all the customers are not expected to applaud every song. It makes the whole evening very pleasant and relaxing.

So, I hear you ask, what was that bit about the antiques shop?  Well the decor is something that Salvador Dalí or Federico Fellini might have come up with.  The walls were full of religious icons, pictures, statues and other paraphernalia; at least the staff were not dressed as monks and nuns.  During the day the tables and chairs are moved and the premises open as an antiques shop with all the decorations for sale.  I did find it a little disconcerting being so decadent under a life-sized portrait of a nun!  Sadly I did not bring my camera but the next article will have some pictures of its similar sister establishments in the same street.

PS
Pics will appear within 24 hours, I promise!
PPS
They are in place and I have also added pics to the two previous articles.

… kill me with feijoada!  After the wonderful meal the previous Saturday Marçal invited us to their weekend house a couple of hours away in the hills for a home made version prepared by his brother-in law. It was just as good.  There were eight of us for the weekend and Saturday was spent eating, drinking, sleeping it off and then eating and drinking again. Marçal and Lourdes are very generous hosts.

On Sunday morning we drove around the area. Their house is on a secluded hill on a large estate similar to a Spanish  urbanisación. Eventually there will be around 120 houses. The neighbours seem to be exclusively bankers and senior judges.  Somehow the President of the Appeal Court loses some of his majesty when you meet him on a weekend morning wearing a pair of jeans and nothing else.  It is a very natural wooded area full of wildlife and plants. Lourdes is a keen gardener and has a magnificent collection including a black orchid.

We stopped for lunch in the shadow of the Pedra Azul which is a rock with a sheer face of 600 metres.  The whole area is a State Park and is well developed for tourism.  They promote all sorts of local food and agricultural products and handicrafts as well as the environment. We had an excellent lunch in an Italian restaurant.

After lunch we returned home for a week of penance, eating lettuce and painting the kitchen.

Bossa Nova This year is the 50th anniversary of the Bossa Nova and the City of Vitória held a free four day festival in celebration.  On the final night we listened to Roberto Menescal and  his partner of 20 years Wanda Sá. Menescal, along with people such as Tom Jobim, Carlos Lyra, Herbie Mann, Charlie Byrd and Stan Getz did much to popularise João Gilberto’s new style of music in the 1960s.  We really enjoyed the concert in spite of the appalling acoustics in a converted warehouse theatre in the middle of the docks. There was a ship moored 20 metres away where the crew were also enjoying the music.

Rio de Janeiro

The next report will be from Rio where we will spend a long weekend with Flavia’s Uncle.  His suggestion for an exciting tourist activity is to fill an old camera case with rocks and hang it off your shoulder, then stuff a wallet with Monopoly money and put it in your back pocket. Now go for a stroll along the beachfront and then tell the world how you were mugged.

Delay in Posting new reports

It has been a bit erratic recently. I was trying to organise some more photos but they do take a lot of time to get right. I have published the last two or three reports without any photos but will soon add some so keep watching.

I have mentioned them before without going into too much detail.  I have been to three types: self-service, churrascaria and a normal a la carte restaurant.  There are lots of snack bars (a snack is called lunch whatever the time of day) and a few MacDonalds.

There are not many bars in the conventional sense. Most of the self-service places are midday only. In the evening they open as a cross between bars and restaurants. Flavia says that Brazilians do not drink while they eat. They certainly eat while they drink! There is always a food menu and quite substantial portions of food available; these are put in the middle of the table and everyone shares the meal. The food is often fried and is the sort of thing you can easily stab with a fork. It is mostly a bit unhealthy for my taste.

Serving a customer

The other sort of restaurant is churrasco which is the Brazilian barbecue. Their appetite for meat in general and beef in particular is only challenged by the Argentinian asado. The film clip of the home churrasco below gives you an idea of the scale.

In a churrasco restaurant you usually pay a fixed amount to eat. There will be a generous salad bar and fruits and sweet things for dessert. Mostly the customers eat meat, lots of it! The waiters will bring a selection of chicken hearts, sausages, chicken wings to stimulate your appetite. Later he will bring a large skewer about a metre long on which half a dozen joints will have been impaled and roasted. You point to the joint that takes your fancy and he will cut a few thin slices which you take with a pair of tongs. The meat is usually very good quality with no seasoning or marinade apart from salt.
There is a sort of unofficial rationing in that the waiters with skewers work their way around the room so you eat at the speed they serve you. They are very generous so it is only the Homer Simpsons of this world that will worry about it. Very often there is a self-service section of the restaurant and the remainders of the joints which are less than perfect will be served there.

Like feijoada and the beach, churrasco is part of the heart and soul of Brazilians.  I am still trying to work out how most of them look remarkably fit and slim!

Hmm … I seem to becoming fixated on food

On Sundays the English eat roast beef and yorkshire pudding. On Saturdays Brazilians eat feijoada.

Feijoada is prepared with black turtle beans, with a variety of salted pork and beef products such as salted pork trimmings (ears, tail, feet), bacon, smoked pork ribs, at least two types of smoked sausage and jerked beef (loin and tongue). It is prepared over slow fire in a thick clay pot. The final dish has the beans and meat pieces barely covered by a dark purplish-brown broth.

The taste is strong, moderately salty but not spicy, dominated by the flavors of black bean and meat stew. The dish is served with rice, collard greens and slices of orange. It is very good indeed. Typically in restaurants they will serve six or eight different pots each with a different type of meat so that each person can ensure his favourite and avoid his dislikes. At home a single pot with a selection of the varieties of meat is usually prepared.

On Saturday we were invited to lunch at the Novotel Hotel which has the reputation of doing the best feijoada in town. Our hosts were Lourdes, a colleague of Flavia and her husband Marçal who is a prosecutor in the Appeal Court.

The other guests were Lourdes´ sister and brother-in-law. We started with drinks and tapas in the lounge and then moved into the restaurant for the serious eating.

As usual I disgraced myself in the “eat until you drop” fixed price buffet. There was a lot of salad and healthy stuff which I ignored in favour of calories and cholestrol. After my second helping there was no room for the fruit and deserts. I had managed to lose a second kilo this week but I am afraid all the good work was undone. Fortunately Flavia was nearly as bad so my edge in our competitive weight loss campaign was not too badly damaged. Feijoada is a wonderful dish but not to be eaten too often!

One of the highlights of the restaurant was a trio of guitar, bandolin and tambourine who were playng delightful soft Brazilian music. It was a perfect background in a busy room.

After lunch we wandered up the coast for around 100km. It is much more the Brazil I was expecting. Miles of beaches, beach bars, surfers, para-surfing, beach football and general fun. There were plenty of much poorer people than in Vitória but not much sign of real povery. We found a cheap hotel, had a very light supper and plenty of beer and then bed.

In the morning it was cold (around 22C) and windy with patches of rain, it was not busy on the beaches but the restuarants were thriving. We tried to get a cruise around the bay but the afternoon cruise was cancelled. it was the captain’s birthday and he was having a party on board. He was already a bit tipsy and offered to include us in the party with no promises about when we would return. Regretfully we watched them sail off with a mountain of beer and churrasco.

We stopped in Nova Almeida on the way back. It is a nice beach resort with a beautiful colonial church dating back to 1580.

It was a great weekend and now we must spend the week eating lettuce

Since Flavia came to Europe in early April I have been putting on weight -about four kilos.

More large meals!

So has she but I will not tell you how much. We both enjoy eating and drinking and have been taking less exercise than we should.  Just the wedding last week must have added a kilo. Things must change! The start of the Tour de France has inspired me. Put your money on Oscar Freire to win the points competition.

In fact I have already started and have lost a kilo. No alcohol on at least three days per week and a lot less food. In theory we walk around 6 km every evening. In practice we usually do it two or three times a week. I will try to get that up to six times a week. Flavia’s daughter Jana has lent me her bike and my first three rides have been 6, 9 and 12 km. I will increase that  to 20km most days.

The bike is a fetching shade of pink. As Brazilians are so keen on everything being colour co-ordinated I think I will probably have to buy some matching shorts and top like this. Maybe I should go for the hat and sun glasses too. The bike will be very good exercise as half the gears do not work and it is a bit small for me and is very hard work.

The problem is the Brazilian food. It is wonderful, I love it!  It is also high meat content, high fat and high calorie.  It is too much to expect me to show self-restraint when I go to an Aladdin’s Cave of a self-service restaurant. There are so many new things to try and different  ways of preparing them. And, of course, lots of European dishes to show Flavia. It is a shame that fruit and salad take so much time to clean here.