Owner: Brazil Travel Blog URL:www.braziltravelblog.com Join Date: Sat, 07 Apr 2007 16:55:07 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: A blog written from São Paulo for anyone with their minds set on a trip to Brazil. Site statistics:Click here
Arraial d’Ajuda 2007: low season and the weather 2007-06-07 07:00:54 This time around I won’t be writing a trip report (like I did last year in Arraial d’Ajuda y la Costa do Descobrimento). Writing a trip report takes a very long time, time I would rather devote to the blog. Instead, I’m going to write a handful of shortish impressions of useful things for anyone planning a trip to the area.
May and June are right in the middle of the low season in the region. So low that some restaurants and pousadas shut their doors so their owners can rest or implement alterations on their premises. This year, the opinion of absolutely everyone we have talked to is that it is the weakest lowest season they can remember, in terms of numbers of touristas. This is mainly due to the strong position of the Brazilian currency, that has driven lots of Brazilian tourists abroad rather than to domestic destinations.
For the tourist, the low season has two main advantages: lower prices and few people around. During the low season you don’t need to book Read more:weather
photos of Caraíva 2007 2007-06-06 09:47:45 Today is the turn for the pictures I took during a one-day trip to the little village of Caraíva, south of Arraial d’Ajuda and Trancoso: Caraíva 2007. Caraíva is a small fishing village with sand-covered streets and where electricity is arriving only just now.
You will see a panoramic view of the village, between the river and the Atlantic Ocean:
Images of its streets:
And of its inhabitants, playing football on a tiny ground improvised by the river bank:
And shots of the river, the sea and the beaches:
Keen photographers will notice my first experiments with HDR, as in the image above.
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Panamerican Games in Rio 2007-06-06 06:09:05 I would like to remind you that during the month of July, more exactly between 13 and 29 July, Rio de Janeiro will host the Panamerican Games
. The Games are not, by any stretch of the imagination, an event comparable to the Olympic Games. In fact, the Panamerican Games are virtually unknown in Europe, and draw very little attention in America. Very few foreign tourists are expected in Rio as a result of the games. However, hotel owners in Rio have tried too hard to play it smart, and prices for accommodation in Rio during July have experienced an outrageous increase, as if the city was holding another carnival. You have been warned, in case you check hotel prices for the dates and find them unusually expensive.
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photos of Trancoso 2007 2007-06-05 06:27:44 I’ve just finished editing and uploading the first of a series of albums from our latest trip to the south of the Bahia state: Trancoso 2007.
You will see images of the Quadrado square during daytime:
and night time (there is no public street lighting):
Snapshots taken at the Nativos beach:
And the presence of beach vendors, including this time a native from the pataxó tribe:
If you want to look at the photos
we took in Trancoso last year, they are here: Trancoso 2006.
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June 2007 2007-06-05 06:12:43 June is here! In a couple of weeks time Brazil will enter winter. I’m back from a shortish holiday break, that’s why this monthly recap comes in a bit later than usual.
This blog is now two months old, and its readership continues to grow - including a bunch of Brazilian friends. The performance of my hosting provider this month was really excellent - keep your fingers crossed.
Some things we saw on the blog during May:
photos of an spectacular sunrise in São Paulo, the ceramic tiles of São Luís, a Brazilian floral display, and the Lençóis Maranhenses.
the top 10 favourite places of Brazil.
I mentioned two Brazilian travel blogs I will be summarizing on a regular basis.
a review of Pousada Manacá in Arraial d’Ajuda.
a very useful site with info on travel by bus: Socicam.
a lengthy post on a terrific Brazilian festival: the bumba-meu-boi.
a file with all the data on TAM’s Airpass (in Spanish).
an entry on How to get from Porto Alegre to São Paulo by bus.
photos of Arraial d’Ajuda 2007 2007-06-09 10:41:25 The final album from our recent trip to the south of Bahia corresponds to Arraial d’Ajuda and its surrounding area: Arraial d’Ajuda 2007.
You will find images of the beaches:
And the cliffs:
And of the odd characters earning a living at the beaches:
And Arraial d’Ajuda at night:
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Arraial d’Ajuda: location of the pousadas 2007-06-08 07:28:00 I wanted to raise attention to an important aspect of Arraial d’Ajuda: the location of its pousadas. There are pousadas in the village, and pousadas far away from it (more than an hour’s walk in some cases). There are pousadas within the Arraial d’Ajuda boundary limits that are physically closer to Porto Seguro than to Arraial d’Ajuda itself.
Travel agents sell all the pousadas as if they were located in Arraial. Do find out the exact location of the pousada so you won’t be surprised when you get there. Nightlife is an important part of the Arraial experience. If you stay in the village you will enjoy it by foot. If you find yourselves on a distant beach you will depend on public transportation to go and come back. In case of doubt, leave a comment here and I’ll try to tell you whether the location of the pousada that interests you is good or not.
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Conference 2007-06-13 04:18:14 Today and tomorrow I’m taking part in the Conference organized by EyeforTravel Travel Distribution Latin America & The Caribbean Summit 2007. On Thursday I’ll take part as a speaker on a session called The future of the Travel Distribution in Latin America & the Caribbean. I am will be putting forward my take, as a blogger, on the emergence of the new 2.0 Traveller - a result of the coming together of what I’ve called “before Internet” and the new User Generated Content. I’ll tell you more after the conference.
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Brazilian St. Valentine’s 2007-06-12 05:23:29
Before someone corrects me, no, I didn’t get the date wrong. 12 June is the date when Brazilian
celebrate lover’s day, and not the 14 February as in the rest of the world. The official explanation tells that 12 June is the day before St. Anthony’s, a saint with a solid matchmaking reputation. The real story is quite different, the date was chosen by local tradesmen to give sales a push during a time of the year when business is rather weak. On top of that, 14 February is too close to Carnival.
Last night there was hardly any activity in front of the motel next to where I live. The odd car would go in (see photo) but that was all. Today, we are likely to see long queues of cars waiting outside motels all around the city. Brazilians are no different from the rest of the occidental world, they like to follow the standards set by consumer society. A romantic dinner, a few hours of torrid sex at a motel, and the absolutely essential upgrade to the mobile phone of your sig Read more:Valentine
Arraial d’Ajuda: trips 2007-06-11 05:21:04 The region around Arraial d’Ajuda is an extraordinary destination for foreign tourists: wonderful landscapes, safe, and with an efficient and affordable public transport system - something absolutely uncommon in the Brazilian context. Making base in Arraial d’Ajuda, you can spend days exploring the area. Here are some suggestions on things to do in and around Arraial.
But first, two important warnings on walks along the beaches:
1. Make sure you make the most of the low tide. When the tide is high, you are forced to walk on soft sand, a tiresome exercise. In some specific spots, the high tide makes it very difficult to continue your path. Look at the following two snapshots of the same beach, one during the high tide (and there was still another hour of high tide to go) and another one during the low tide:
2. The beaches on the region (as well as a sizeable number of beaches along the Northeast coastline) are not ideal for swimming, as there are lots of rocks and reefs ne Read more:trips
Wonderful photographs for your blogs 2007-06-15 11:06:26 In the very short existence of this blog I don’t recall having published a single off-topic. This will be the first one, then. I want to talk about blogs and photographs
taken by others. More and more people are starting up their own blog to tell the world about their travelling experiences (and so many other different experiences as well). It’s an unstoppable development that surprises us day after day with new blogging jewels. Among the new authors, there are people who are being careful about issues of authorship and intelectual property, and there are others who are behaving in a reckless manner, copying and pasting texts and photographs here and there. Some of those authors do so unknowingly (”I didn’t know you couldn’t do that“); others do it perfectly aware that they are infringing copyright laws. This text is addressed to those who are not respecting authorship knowingly.
Dear friend. Let’s just stop stealing photographs, shall we? It&# Read more:Wonderful
Two pages on São Paulo 2007-06-15 05:36:49
If Brazil as a whole is not that well served in terms of tourist information (concentrated in the sub-standard page mantained by Embratur), the same thing can’t be said of São Paulo
, that has two excellent institutional pages full of information.
The first one is Cidade de São Paulo, mantained by the local authority, and with a version in English. A basic entry point for anyone searching for information on the Brazilian megalopolis. It includes a section with aerial photographs, for those who enjoy that kind of images, and of panoramic photographs as well. As well as a wealth of information organized in different categories, the page includes a download section where tourist can download leaflets in PDF format, including the lovely guide “São Paulo, fique mais um día”.
The second site is Visite São Paulo, with a version in English as well - a page run by a non-profit foundation, São Paulo Convention & Visitors Bureau. In the section 3D Virtual Tour there a
Ode to the Paulista 2007-06-14 05:19:00
To the Paulista Avenue, that is. The announcement made by São Paulo City Council that intends to reform the pavement [sidewalk] of the Avenida Paulista (more than 3 kilometres each side of the avenue) gives me the chance to write a few lines on the thoroughfare that, above any other place, best simbolizes the city of São Paulo. Incidentally, the proposal is to substitute the delicate pavement of Portuguese mosaic by blocks of harsh concrete.
In any case, the Paulista was one of my first contacts with Brazil. In spite of the concrete, the carbon dioxide, the traffic jams, the crowds, it was an inexplicable case of love at first sight. Walking along the Paulista from one end to another every day (after my Portuguese lessons I would take the underground back home and get off the train three stations early so I could walk along the Paulista) I had the feeling that I had plunged into Brazil at its purest. No baianas on their white clothes, capoeira dancers or any other cultural manifesta
How to get from Rio to Angra dos Reis / Paraty? 2007-06-20 05:40:47 The company Costa Verde has quite a number of daily services from Rio to Angra dos Reis (a three-hour journey), and a slightly smaller number of buses going to Paraty every day (a four-hour journey).
You can check the timetables on its website. Buses leave from the Rodoviária Novo Rio.
[No te olvides de consultar el listado de preguntas ya respondidas en el blog, aquí]
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Arraial d’Ajuda 2007: round-up 2007-06-19 05:27:36
The most recent entry completed the core of entries related to our recent trip to the region. In a few week’s time we will be reviewing the pousadas where we stayed and will also mention some other topics. But the essential entries are here. To help locate the information, here’s a small index:
location of the pousadas
low season and the weather
prices
trips
photos of Arraial
photos of Caraíva
photos of Trancoso
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Arraial d’Ajuda 2007: prices 2007-06-18 05:24:00 Here’s a shortish listing of prices we paid for some services during our week in Arraial d’Ajuda. This info complements this blog’s Prices page.
TRANSPORTATION
Ferryboat Porto Seguro - Arraial d’Ajuda: R$2,5 (each way, on the way to Arraial you pay a full return fare, no fare is paid on the way back)
Bus ferryboat - Arraial d’Ajuda: R$1,30 (ida)
Bus Arraial d’Ajuda - Trancoso: R$4 (ida)
Van back from the Pitinga beach to Arraial d’Ajuda: R$2
Trip to Caraíva in 4-wheel drive: R$200 (4 people, low season price)
FOOD
crepe: from R$8 to R$15.
ice-cream (two scoops): from R$2,50 to R$3
coconut at the beach: R$2,50
pizza for two at a restaurant: from R$15 to R$25
beer at a beach bar: from R$2,5 to R$4
caipirinha: from R$7 to R$10
single-course meal (in Portuguese, prato feito): around R$15
baked fish for two (with rice and a salad): from R$40 to R$60
SEE ALSO: Round-up of entries on Arraial 2007
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UNESCO and the new wonders of the world 2007-06-23 10:10:55 I visited this week UNESCO
’s website to do some research on a future entry for this blog, and found a press release from the institution titled UNESCO confirms that it is not involved in the “New 7 wonders of the world” campaign. The note denies any relationship between UNESCO and the initiative of entrepeneur Bernard Weber. Jorge Gobbi had already alerted about the use of the name of the UNESCO in an article in Spanish.
The complete text of the note can be found at the UNESCO’s website. I wanted to highlight here two paragraphs:
“UNESCO’s objective and mandate is to assist countries in identifying, protecting and preserving World Heritage. Acknowledging the sentimental or emblematic value of sites and inscribing them on a new list is not enough. Scientific criteria must be defined, the quality of candidates evaluated, and legislative and management frameworks set up. The relevant authorities must also demonstrate commitment to these frameworks as well as to pe
Blog archives 2007-06-23 08:22:25 I’ve just added to the blog a new tool to improve the consultation of the material already published here. It is the page Archives - you can access it through the Pages menu at the top left of the blog. On the Archives page you will find, on a single entry, the titles of all the entries published in the blog so far, sorted chronologically by month and year.
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False friends: flat 2007-06-22 05:38:38 In Portuguese, a flat is a hotel apartment. They are very common in the big cities, and very popular among business travellers on long stays far from home. The British English term flat is translated as apartamento in Brazilian Portuguese.
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Broken promise 2007-06-22 05:36:11 I promise
d not to mention again the chaotic situation of air traffic transportation in Brazil - a promise that, under the present circumnstances, will be quite difficult to keep. Today I want to send you all of those who read Portuguese to the note written by our friend Rodrigo Purisch (our blogging authority on aviation-related topics) in his blog. There, he has put together a handful of newspaper headlines that will give you an idea of how negligent the authorities of a country can be, and their couldn’t-care-less attitude towards the problems faced by the population.
For those of you who don’t read Portuguese, the bottom line is: there is ongoing chaos at the airports (only yesterday 69 flights left with a delay of more of one hour and 11 were cancelled, at Guarulhos airport only - the problem is affecting all airports in the country). When you plan your holidays, take into account the possibility of flight delays. The crisis, far from being closer to an end, seems to Read more:Broken
Maranhão in June: index 2007-06-21 06:15:41
Time does fly! It’s now a year since we went to Maranhão. I’d like to take the opportunity to leave here an index to the information published since then on São Luís do Maranhão and the Lençóis Maranhenses. It is June, after all, a very special month for the region, as it is now when the festas juninas and the bumba-meu-boi festival take place:
Destination: São Luís
Destination: Lençóis Maranhenses
Destination: Caburé
Bumba-meu-boi
video: festas juninas in São Luís
pictures of the Lençóis Maranhenses
pictures of the ceramic tiles of São Luís
pictures of Caburé
pictures of bumba-meu-boi
pictures of scarlet ibis in Alcântara
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Brazilian National parks 2007-06-27 05:27:48 Brasil has 62 National
Parks, and the list grows every year. Out of those, 22 are not opened to the public, as the government lacks the funds to run them, and only a very small amount of those parks opened for visitation have an infrastructure that remotely resembles what we understand for a National Park in the northern hemisphere.
The best known and most visited of all the parks is the Parque Nacional do Iguaçu.
Having 22 parks no one can visit is, of course, a contradiction, as the raison d’être of a national park is to exist so people can visit it. Worse than that are the very real threats hovering over all the parks -whether opened or not, a threat that comes in multiple shapes: illegal forest fires, deforestation, hunting, plantations, illegal mining and trafficking of wild animals.
To see the complete list of National Parks you need to visit the website of Ibama, the Brazilian
government’s body supposedly responsible for the protection of the enviroment. There, c
Brazil in pictures: rush hour in Caraiva 2007-06-26 05:28:59
During our recent trip to the region, we were witness to an exceptional moment in the serene and remote Caraiva (a scene that belongs to the imagery of the big city): the rush hour. Of a serene and gentle kind of sort, that is, nothing like the frantic comings and goings we’ve grown used to.
When the kids arrive back from school, across the river, there is a temporary explosion of boats going up and down the river, people crossing on one direction, people coming back on the opposite one. The rush hour reaches its climax in moments like the one portrayed here, when three boats dispute simultaneously the space in the wide Caraíva river. If only the rush hour could always be like this!
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Showers: the curse of the f-letter 2007-06-25 05:24:00 Veteran readers of this blog will remember a text I wrote some months ago on the Brazilian showers. We came back from our recent trip to Arraial with a new and fascinating adventure to share with you. I will be naming no names, especially because we made the unforgiveable mistake of not taking photographs of what we saw. I’ve had to use CGI to recreate the scene of the crime below.
I promise that, in spite of the comic undertones of the story, nothing here is invented.
We went through three different rooms in one of the pousadas where we stayed (notice the giveaway, in a few day’s time the shrewdest among you will be able to identify the place). The reasons for the change of room were unrelated to what it is being described here. All the rooms have an ample shower with hot water coming from a single boiler that feeds all the premises. After opening the tap [faucet], the hot water took anything between 5 to 10 minutes to reach the room. All that time, cold water was being Read more:Showers
Brazil in pictures: blue moon from São Paulo 2007-06-30 16:27:45
This photograph is nearly a live broadcast. I took this picture 20 minutes ago. It’s the second full moon of the month, the legendary blue moon. As you will see, when I took the picture, with the moon still being hit by the rays of the setting soon, it was more of an orange affair than a blue one.
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July desktop calendar 2007-06-29 05:21:21 The desktop calendar for the month of July is already available for download at the calendars section of this blog. Any month of the year is a good month to visit Paraty, and July is no exception. The only warning I want to give you is that from the 4th to the 8th July Paraty will be host to the International Literary Fair. You are strongly advised not to visit the village during that period, as accommodation is hard to find and prices rocket.
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A list of the other wonders of the world 2007-06-28 05:16:59 As part of a joint initiative with Blog de Viajes, our sister blog De Viaje a Brasil has published today an entry (in Spanish) with a list of all the sites in Latin America that are on the UNESCO tentative list, waiting for the day when they will be upgraded to World Heritage Status. The list can be seen here: Una lista de las otras maravillas.
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Destination: Caraíva 2007-07-04 05:19:41
Caraiva is a small jewel in the south of coast of the state of Bahia. A tiny fishing village, everything in Caraiva is basic, from the unpaved streets to the lack of electricity supply - electricity is arriving in Caraíva only as we speak.
WE LIKE THE MOST: the absolute peace and tranquility of the place, mass tourism hasn’t arrived there yet, and the less conventional tourist is getting there in dribs and drabs
WE LIKE THE LEAST: the road leading to Caraiva, in a sorry state
HOW TO GET THERE: from Porto Seguro/Arraial d’Ajuda, or in the bus that goes to Caraiva twice a day, or on a rented car
CAREFUL WITH: the road that goes to Caraiva, especially if it has rained the previous days, it is in a truly sorry state - I don’t advice anyone to get in there with a rented car
FAVOURITE PLACES: the village, the beaches, the point where the river meets the sea
PIECE OF ADVICE:
everything is quite basic in Caraiva, and there are very few shops. Bring whatever you are lik Read more:Destination
National parks: online brochures 2007-07-03 05:22:14 Last week I wrote an entry on the Brazilian National
parks and today I’d like to share with you an interesting - albeit limited - resource I’ve just come across.
It’s a series of brochures edited by Philips in partnership with the Brazilian publisher Horizonte Geográfico. The series is very small, in Portuguese, but it’s worth knowing about its existence. The following brochures are available:
Parques Nacionais do Brasil
Parque Nacional de Aparados da Serra
Parque Nacional do Caparaó
Parque Nacional da Chapada Diamantina
Parque Nacional da Chapada dos Veadeiros
Parque Nacional do Itatiaia
Parque Nacional Marinho dos Abrolhos
Parque Nacional da Serra da Capivara
Parque Nacional de Ubajara
The PDFs are available for download at the site Sustentabilidade Philips. The list of brochures is found on the bottom part of the middle column.
At the website of the publisher Horizonte Geográfico you will also find a brochure for Fernando de Noronha. It is found under Read more:online
Airport trouble 2007-07-02 06:17:13 It’s that time of the year when many of you will be coming to Brazil, mainly from the Northern hemisphere. Unfortunately, the following warning is still in force: be very careful, as Brazil is still experiencing a critical situation at its airports. We had yet another weekend of widespread delays and flight cancellations. On Saturday and Sunday, nearly 50% of all the flights were either delayed for more than one hour, or cancelled.
The main piece of advice I have for you is: be very careful with connecting flights. Leave plenty of time between one flight and another or, when possible, avoid connecting flights altogether. Bear in mind that the airlines are washing their hands when it comes to admitting responsability for delays and cancellations. It doesn’t help the role the military is playing on the crisis. The Air Force, responsible for air traffic control in Brazil, attributed Saturday’s delays and cancellations to the fog. Transparency is not the name of the game
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