October 2017 – amusemusings

A few comments about Brazil & its culture, language & people that I’ve learned over my 6+wks there:

The entire country is obsessed with acai & tapioca. There are shops & street vendors selling it on every corner. Many mornings for breakfast I have tapioca crepes stuffed with some sort of cheese & hopefully veggies & a protein. I know the Chinese love their tapioca pearls in the bottom of their smoothies & teas but I had no prior knowledge of the Brazilians’ obsession. The only thing that tops tapioca is acai. Don’t get me wrong, I love it. I enjoy a small cup of the pudding-consistency-like acai topped with fresh fruit & granola… it’s a nice light lunch or afternoon snack. But Brazilians eat entire massively large bowls of the stuff in one sitting & I just don’t get it. It’s not THAT good.
Brazilians outside of Rio seem to hate the “Cariocas” (term for people who live in Rio). There’s a sense that Cariocas seem to think they’re better than anyone else & no place compares to Rio. It’s true, while traveling in NE Brazil, I don’t think I met even one Carioca. I commented on this to a Bahian & he rolled his eyes & said in a mocking tone “nothing is as good as Rio so why visit?” I met a bunch of Paulistanos (from Sao Paulo) & the NE-ers seem to like them just fine. Paulistanos really don’t like Cariocas. Cariocas are certainly body-image obsessed & while I think there are gorgeous people all over Brazil, it seems NE-ers believe Cariocas take it to another level. I just find it all rather amusing.
All Brazilians seem to love Bahia. Especially its food & music. I first tried moqueca on the Rio foodie tour. Moqueca is a Bahia dish (see my Salvador post) & it’s definitely much better there with a lot more spice. Perhaps Cariocas are indeed short on culture & food. Since visiting Bahia, I’ll hear music, indicate I like it & a non-Bahian local will say “de Bahia”. So it seems Bahia is definitely the culture capital of Brazil.
Throughout Brazil, everyone seems to clap for sunsets. I suspect the Cariocas think they’re real special with the clapping on Arpoador rock in Rio but it’s actually done throughout the country & I find it pretty darn charming.
I’ve been getting along fairly well in terms of the Portuguese language & thankfully so, because there are very few people who speak any English. Somehow my crude mix of Spanish with substituted Portuguese words when I know they differ from their Spanish counterparts has not only gotten me by but it’s managed to fool more than one person into commenting how good my Portugese is. Please. As I continue to learn more, I’ve noted a few things I find interesting:
- I’m not saying it’s a rule or anything but the “ll” in Spanish seems to be a “ch” in Portuguese. Examples include “llave” & “chave”, “llamar” & “chamar”, and “llegar” & “chegar” so I’m treating it as a rule & substituting “ch” for “ll” & it’s turned out pretty well for me.
- When a word starts with an “r” it seems that it’s an “h” sound in Portuguese. This was an easy one to figure out with “Rio” & “Reai”.
- “Gracias” is so much more fun in Portuguese… “obrigado”.
- “Bien” is so much more fun in Portuguese… “bom”. Everything is “muito bom”.
- Greetings are so much more fun in Portuguese… “total bom?”. All good? This didn’t really start until Fernando but it’s continued in Ceara while visiting the beaches in/around Fortaleza. I love it.
In general, Brazil is just more fun. The cities, culture, music, food & of course the people. The people are amazing, friendly & just want to enjoy life & have a good time. My kinda outlook. So it’s perhaps my favorite country in South America. And I almost didn’t even visit.

No extended trip to South America is complete without a trip to the Amazon rainforest right? I explored the rainforest by staying in a jungle lodge a few hours away from Manaus, Brazil. I did it during the time when the water level in the Amazon River is at its highest & the surrounding jungle is flooded. Quietly gliding in your canoe through the flooded forest is pretty great & the reason to go when the Amazon is high is it increases the likelihood you get to see super cool land-based animals as flooded forests mean less places for those super cool animals to hangout. The river rises & falls by 12-15m annually so when it’s flooded, it puts you that much closer to the jungle canopy where monkeys & cats hang out & birds like to roost. It can make it more difficult to see water-based animals but that clearly wasn’t my experience.

I was able to tick off the following amazing creepy creatures, among others:

Amazon river dolphin
Caiman (alligator)
Piranha
Howler monkey
Boa constrictor
Tarantula
Giant otherworldly MF mosquito

It was because of the mosquitos mentioned above that will most likely make the Amazon a one-and-done destination for me. You see, I’ve always known mosquitos liked me. Now I know I react to bites a little more extreme than the normal person. Of 20 people staying at the lodge, I was 1 of 2 whose bites swelled up to ½ to 1-inch & itched like a MF. I looked diseased as I was covered head-to-toe in massive bites. This was despite dousing myself with deet, wearing long socks & hiking boots, hiking pants, long sleeves, neck gaiter, etc. in 90 degree heat & crazy humidity, then dousing myself again once fully clothed. I had 30-40 bites just on one knee. Bites on the bottom of my feet despite socks & boots. It didn’t matter what you did to prevent them from eating you alive. You couldn’t deter those MFs. It was really something. But while everyone else was also getting bitten, no one was reacting as I was. So sleeping was difficult as I spent all night either itching or trying not to itch or shooing away other mosquitos that had somehow found their way into my mosquito net. So 3 nights was enough. Am I glad I went? Yes, absolutely. Will I return? Not a chance. But I’ll have permanent bite scars to remind me forever of my Amazon experience.