Brazil’s New Capital

Our bus journey to Porto Alegre was marked, disappointingly, by a fat man sitting in front of us who not only reclined both chairs to their fullest position, but was also being very spiteful. We think he had sat in our space when he bought a ticket at the bus itself. However, they issued him with our seat, so when we turned up with our pre-booked ticket, he was asked to move; therefore holding some childish vendetta against us the whole 14 hour journey. At one point Francesca was sleeping with her knee resting on her chair, and he sat down really hard on his chair so that it would crush her leg. It was at this point that I cut his head off and threw it out of the window. At least, that’s what I should have done.

Our arrival was much better! We arrived on 20th June and were met by Ana Rita, or Rita to her friends. We had arranged through couchsurfing.com to meet and to stay for a few days with Ana (I will call her Ana here a her mum’s name is Rita, too!) in Porto Alegre. By this time the news of the Brazilian protests was reaching even more alarming levels; with protests in Sao Paolo, Rio, Brasilia, Salvador, Recife, Fortaleza and Belem (all the places we had been to). Scenes similar to those being played out in Turkey, Egypt and Chile were being shown on all TV stations. Of course, as in all protests, the media would only focus on the titillation and not the issues – a few criminally intent rioters and looters.

Porto Alegre was still relatively calm, and Ana very kindly picked us up from the bus terminal and drove us back to her home in a lovely area of Porto Alegre called Cristal. She pointed out the different areas of the city, including the Ibere Camargo art museum, the World Cup stadium (nowhere near finished yet – a bone of contention with the protestors), some parks and the dock area. We arrived at Ana’s mother’s house (Rita), and were met by her brother and the family’s four dogs. There were two long-haired and two short-haired small cross-bred dachshunds (ex street dogs adopted by the family).

The house was lovely. With wooden and tiled flooring, a lovely back garden with a swimming pool and set in one of Porto Alegre’s pretty avenues, it felt very safe and pleasant to be there. We were welcomed very warmly and we stored our things in a double bedroom that we were given for the length of our stay. We ate some breakfast of bread, turkey, cheese, and a spicy jam/jelly that Francesca and I adored, and then we all chatted for awhile. Ana showed us her chimarrão – a gourd made from a large fruit called a porongo, or calabash that is filled with mate (a bitter shrub used as tea). Just add hot water. A nickel-plated silver filtered straw is used to drink the chimarrão, which, although everyone says it is an acquired taste, we thoroughly enjoyed. Francesca and I were still very tired from the stop/start bus journey, and so we made our way to bed and slept until the evening.

In the evening we were treated to a Brazilian favorite, and a Southern Brazil specialty – churrasco. This is barbecue with a difference. Australians have their ‘barbies’, Americans have their ‘bbq’, and South Africans have their braai; but we have never had anything so good as a Brazilian churrasco! Beef, lamb and pork are salted and cooked on skewers for hours until succulent and tender. We even tried chicken heart, a local delicacy which was salty and delicious.

The setting was a rustic lodge out back in the garden that is the housing for the churrasqueira, or barbecue, and the traditional place for a get together during the churrasco. Not many houses in Porto Alegre can boast one of these lovely settings; you would normally find them in the smaller towns and villages of the state: Rio Grande do Sul. We all enjoyed a wonderful evening of beer and traditional food, rounded off by Rita playing some wonderful guitar.

We crawled into bed that night with plans of visiting the family farm in a little town North of Porto Alegre called Estrella (meaning star because of the clear night sky viewed from there). It was extremely cold in this part of the world now as Winter is fast approaching – approximately 10 to 15C. After being in the Amazon region barely a month ago, this felt cold! We were given plenty of blankets though, and as this is the first proper bed we have had in 5 months, we slept the sleep of the tired.

The next day we all breakfasted and then filled up the car and headed out for the hour and a half drive to Estrela. On the way we saw a car that had just crashed and it looked like a bad one. The roof of the car was totally destroyed so we called the Polícia Rodoviária, or traffic cops, to send someone out. We arrived in Estrella and loaded up from the supermarket, and then headed out of town to the farm.

The farmhouse is visited often by the family, and they love to spend some time relaxing there. The grounds are fairly large, with various animals such as horses, cows and chickens; and things growing such as corn, oranges and even a grape vineyard. These are all looked after by the neighbors who live rent free in the next door house on the provision that they tend to the livestock and crops. We bought two of the family’s four dogs with us to the farm, and we then met six more! One little black stray, and a bigger dog who had just had 4 pups. What a handful!

We took a quick tour of the farm before a lunch of pasta shrimp and salad, and looked at the animals and the man-made fishing lake in the front of the farm. It was very wet on the ground as it had rained heavily the night before – but we got to see Southern Lapwings and Great Kiskadees, which were birds we recognized from our time in the Pantanal and the Amazon. Ana told us that black, red and white coral snakes also lived here, but luckily none crossed our path.

Rita had made lunch for us by the time we got back, and we all talked about the history of the building. 120 years old, the building was owned by the family for four generations, going back to Ana’s great-grandmother. The house has been restored and extended a little since then, although Rita decided to keep some of the original features as the family history is important. Although cold in Winter, the farm is a wonderful place to spend some time – very relaxing and very quiet. Ana’s brother has even spent time here photographing the Southern night sky.

Heading out into Estrella, Francesca and I were shown to the local river, where boats regularly ferry people around the area. We also went to a traditional gaucho supermarket.

Gaucho is the term used by the people who inhabit Southern Brazil and the pampas regions of South America. It loosely translates to cowboy, as the word often connotes 19th Century lifestyles and ideals. A gaucho is self-sufficient, hard-working and proud of their traditions. This character is important in the make-up of the nationalistic attitude of many people today. People from Rio Grande do Sul are aware that these traits make them seem arrogant to the rest of Brazil, and so they often find the time to be self-deprecating and laugh at themselves and the perceptions they give off. Even today though, you can see gauchos in traditional dress – mostly reserved for dressing up at parties, etc. The ladies wear long, Southern-belle style attire, and the men wear ponchos with wide silver studded belts and wide-brimmed hats.

This region of South Brazil was long ago settled by German and Italian immigrants – around the 1880’s. People still speak German here, and the specialty foods are German cakes, meats and cheeses. We also saw the mate that Ana was drinking on the first day. It is a green shrub (yerba mate) that was first infused and drunk by the indigenous Guarani peoples before the colonization. It is well established as being essential to the gaucho culture.

Whilst in Estrella, we were also briefly the talk of the town, as we moved from shop to shop looking for some gloves and scarves for Francesca and I. The temperature was so cold, and as we were heading South into Winter, we figured we would stock up on warm things. They do not get many English speakers here so we made quite a stir.

We got back to the farm and we all spent hours talking to Ana and her mother about the family, our travels, and mostly Brazil’s current troubles. As Rita made the dinner for us, we could see on the news that the protests had spread to more local towns and regions of the South of Brazil. Corruption, lack of healthcare and education, the gap between rich and poor, and the many broken promises of congress all have contributed to a large, loud, but mostly incoherent voice from the protestors. With no protest leaders and a totally decentralized police security policy, the protests had quickly got out of hand. Small bands of criminals had broken away, even in Porto Alegre, to vandalize and loot. Familiar scenes to those in London in 2011. Even in Brasilia hundreds of people had breached security lines to climb onto the famous landmark buildings of congress built by Oscar Niemeyer. Francesca and I both agreed we were glad our journey in Brazil was ending and not starting, because of the protests.

Dinner was served after having been lovingly cooked on an old-style traditional wood burning stove. Rice, creamy potato mash, and a chicken stew were all gratefully consumed – tasty, traditional food that reminded me a lot of the food cooked by Francesca’s aunties.

We slept very peacefully that night and showered in the morning. The water at the farm is very clean with lots of minerals and no chemicals. It is the first time I drank tap water in Brazil. I spent the morning taking some photos of the farm, and then we all loaded up the car again and headed back to Porto Alegre. Before we left Rita showed us a porongo, or calabash used to make the chimarrão gourd. Historians believe the calabash was one of the first cultivated plants in the world. Not for food, but for usage as a water container.

It was a beautifully sunny day when we got back so we went into town to a traditional gaucho market place in Porto Alegre that sells food, religious items and antiques, amongst other things. We took a walk around the large building – the fruits, vegetables and meats were the best I had seen in any market in Brazil – and even the surrounding buildings and streets were the cleanest, widest and greenest we had seen so far. The telltale sign of being in the third world – the ever-present overhead electrical cables – were gone, replaced by blue sunny skies. Porto Alegre is the most proud, clean and progressive city we have seen in Brazil.

We settled down for some lunch at a specialty fish restaurant. The shops and merchants have to bid for their right to operate in this market; the best projects win the licenses. Our restaurant had been open for over 100 years and came highly recommended by Rita. We had bacalhau, which is the Portuguese for cod. It was fried and came with salad and rice. The rice was amazing, with peanuts and broccoli. The fish was grilled and tasted amazing. A bit pricy perhaps, but, as most dishes in Brazil, it was for two people and actually feeds about four! Rita surprised us with more of her boundless generosity and paid for our whole meal! Amazing!

Francesca bought a little charm for her necklace she has at home. A little nickel-plated silver arm that is used in Brazilian superstition to ward off the evil eye, or bad luck in general.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This market place was burnt down a few weeks after Colin and Francesca left Brazil.

That evening we had some Italian soup, called cappelletti. This soup is comprised of little dumplings in  We were so lucky to have such generous hosts! An early night of sleep was in order, as Ana had gone out to a friend’s wedding, but we had all agreed to leave early the next day for the mountain town of Gramado to the North of Porto Alegre.

We left the next morning, 23rd June, with Ana and her friend Simas who she had known since they were both at school. We drove to Gramado in about 2 hours and our first stop was a beautiful view over the valley next to Gramado. Quilombo valley was simply stunning. Named after the quilombo that used to exist here, the valley is now only used for farmland. A quilombo is a community made up of runaway escaped slaves in Brazil. Some are so well defended and hidden away, that they even found one in the 1960’s whose people were unaware of the end of slavery, or even the formation of the republic!

We got a little lost on our way to a cable car attraction because the roads around Gramado are a little confusing. Make sure you bring a map as GPS and google maps are useless in this remote region. We finally found the place and it turned out to be closed anyway. We all decided to grab some food in Gramado and walk around the town for a while. We even saw the place where they hold the Brazilian Oscars; and they even have the stars’ handprints and autographs in the cement in the pavement (sidewalk).

Gramado, being a slightly touristy and kitschy town, is trying very hard to resemble the Swiss Alps ski towns that its descendants once hailed from. Even down to the pubs and chocolate shops everywhere. Quaint architecture, and clean wide open spaces really makes you forget you are in Brazil. One of the quietest and sanest experiences of our 5 month trip in Brazil, even whilst the country was seemingly on fire politically. Brazil certainly provides the unexpected.

Whilst on our way to the next stop we noticed some amazing looking Brazilian pine wood trees. These are known locally as aracarias, and they provide the pinhao seeds in Winter. These are boiled for a long time, and are eaten much like the chestnuts roasted on a fire from back home. We were lucky enough to try them when we got back to Porto Alegre. Delicious. Very lucky to try them as they are not  allowed to be picked out of season.

We passed numerous attractions in the car – Gramado is a little Florida of attractions – Dinosaur World, Pirate World, you name it, they got it. We finally stopped at Mini Mundo, or little world. Supposedly for kids, we noticed it was mostly adults enjoying the fun here. Lots of miniature models that make up real-life buildings, towns and events of history using small models that you can walk around. Pretty cool, even if most of the representations were German. Francesca has been there so got more out of the experience than me, but it was fun, and we all got some cool pictures.

Ana, Simas, Francesca and I then decided to head to the boating pond in Gramado’s Lago Negro. We walked around the pond and soaked up some of the relaxed atmosphere – people boating in swan-shaped pedalos, and lots of families were having fun. The pond is artificially build with a pathway around it like a circuit that is beautifully populated by blue hydrangeas and trees grown from seeds from the black forest in Germany.

After sharing a hot chocolate, we all decided to make the short journey back to Porto Alegre (about an our and a half – a journey that is nothing to us anymore).

After getting back Ana dropped Simas off, and the rest of us headed to bed. In the morning we were treated to a delicious meal of feijoado, which is a black bean salty stew, with sides of rice, chicken stew and sweet potato stew. Ideal for such cold weather. Rita is officially the best cook in Brazil in my book, and Ana and her family were by far the most generous people we have met. They really showed us Brazilian cuisine and hospitality at its best.

On our penultimate day in Porto Alegre (the 25th June), Ana kindly dropped us off into town so we could look around the cultural center at the museums and architecture. Our first stop was the Catedral Metropolitana, right in the middle of the cultural district of Porto Alegre, overlooking the Praca da Matriz. This building was first constructed when the city was founded but was not completed until 1986.

The next stop, just on the next block to the Cathedral, was the Palacio Piratini, the seat of the state government since 1921. This building was pretty impressive and also provided an English speaking guide for us who was very informative. We saw the grand principle staircase with a bust of Getulio Vargas who was state governor, and went on to be the president of Brazil (who subsequently shot himself in the heart).

We were shown the main reception room next, where the governor stages the press conferences and they hold the major signings (trade deals, laws, etc.). This room had some very symbolic murals by Aldo Locatelli, particularly the ones on the ceiling, which held many symbols of the state and the gaucho way of life: horses, cowboys drinking mate, camp fires, Jesuit missionaries, slave hunters, agriculture workers and all things representing life on the trail. As elsewhere in Brazil, these looked distinctly Socialist inspired, but were really representations of a depressing history of conquest and bloodshed.

One local legend was also represented here: a young slave boy who raced his master’s horses, lost an important race angering his master so much that the master murdered him by throwing him on an anthill after beating him. Upon returning to the field where the anthill was, the ranch owner master saw the Virgin Mary carrying the boy to heaven.

This was a popular story for abolitionists at the end of the 19th Century.

Nowadays, visits are permitted on scheduled times when the governor is not using the main rooms, and half of the building is used for administrative offices. We did not see the governor because he was away in Brasilia meeting with president about the escalating protests and riots.

Our next visit was to the Museo Julio de Castilhos. A collection of more than a thousand pieces all related to the history of Rio Grande do Sul, this was a good museum to see, despite everything being in Portuguese and having no guides (we could get by and understand 90% by now). The museums first room was a display of all the innovative creations born from the necessities of life, living in the harsh New World environment. Side-saddles for the women, timepieces, moustache protectors in drinking cups, snakeskin match protectors for lighting pipes or cigarettes in the wind, etc. They also had some boots and photos of a giant black guy who lived in the region back in the early 19th Century.

Also on display where various artifacts from Brazil’s history including a banner that belonged to the Imperial Cavalry, which read: Legality Or Death, in Galician, whip, chains and other slave-era objects and also some ancient indigenous bones and tools.

We next did a small tour of the oldest theatre, Teatro Sao Pedro, which was completed in 1858. It was a pretty small, unimpressive theatre, I thought, but they also had a little museum underneath which had a little more in the way of old photographs and costumes that made up for it.

We made our way across a few blocks to the Santander Cultural building – an old bank transformed into a cultural center (for cultural center, read collection, gallery and/or museum). This one was interesting, not only because it was a cool building, but because I finally got a picture of the money that the United States made for Brasil (with an ‘s') when they misspelled Brazil (with a ‘z’). This is why we now spell Brazil with a ‘z’ in English.

The nearby Memorial Rio Grande do Sul, was an old post office building that now held a timeline display of the complete history of the state. We managed to get our hands on the last English copy of the timeline guide, so we really got a lot out of this exhibit (I hope they invest in more copies, particularly as many people come to Brazil for the World Cup next year).

We knew a lot about the gaucho culture and the state history already thanks to Ana and her family explaining much of it to us, but we also picked up some interesting facts, particularly about the pre-historic times of the region. The two land masses of North and South America had joined together, and people came to South America in three different waves. The first wave was around what is now believed to be about 13,000 years ago. These people would have encountered the megafauna creatures (mammals over one ton in weight). These include gliptodons; large armored creatures that would have looked like VW Beetle-sized armadillos) and megatheres; the mighty giant sloth, that could have walked on its back legs with razor-like claws of which, fossils tell us, grew up to 5+ meters long!

We also learnt about the Guarani Indians, who were related to later waves of peoples from North America, who basically killed their way to success. They were the ones who introduced and popularized mate drinking to the region and cultivated it first. These were the people the Europeans met in the region, and whom the Jesuits converted en masse.

One of the prominent figures in this regions history is Julio de Castilhos, who died in Porto Alegre, and held the office of state governor of Rio Grande do Sul in 1891. He was a firm believer in Positivism – the belief that all knowledge can only be sourced from logic, empiricism and science. A simplistic approach, perhaps, but Castilhos became a model for many future politicians to follow.

We also had confirmed what we suspected from just being in and seeing Porto Alegre with our own eyes: that the state of Rio Grande do Sul is the most progressive in the country (best literacy and life expectancy, and excellent agricultural economics mixed with a forward-thinking environmentalism). Rio: this is how it is done! Porto Alegre should be the capital not the horrible monstrosity of Brasilia.

Francesca and I took a look around the local main art gallery next. The first (downstairs) temporary exhibit is, in my opinion, all that is wrong with modern art – it made me feel nauseated. Lots of medical based ‘art’ that just evokes disgust. Come on artists, we wan to see some beauty, not just be shocked and revolted constantly by worthless collections a school kid can put together!

In the upstairs exhibition was some paintings more to my liking. Some seemingly 60’s and Beatles-inspired artwork, and a landscape that reminded me of Rita’s farm.

We left the gallery and made our way to the Mario Quintana Cultural Centre named after a Brazilian journalist, poet and translator. This decorated writer used to live in this ex-hotel, and it has been turned into an art an cultural space, with several floors spanning two buildings that are connected via walkways.

We saw the writer’s original room, which they have restored to how it was down to the finest details of having Quintana’s own cigarette butts in the ashtray. There are some exhibitions here of modern painters, photographers, sculptors and we even happened upon, and totally disrupted, a dance routine. We also saw a nice little rooftop garden, which used bathtubs (presumably from the old hotel) as ponds, and a tribute room, to Elis Regina; a Brazilian singer of pop songs who died from a drink and drugs overdose at 36.

There were a lot of rooms only open to administrative use in the building, so after a while and when we felt we had had enough, we headed on to a well-reviewed church Nossa Senhora das Dores (our lady of sorrows). Despite the ghoulish name, the architecture was very good, and the church was notable for having a statue of Christ tied to a pelourinho, or old slave whipping post.

Our last stop was to jump in a taxi and head to the Museu de Historia de Medicina. This museum was vaguely interesting, and held lots of old medical equipment, but the fact that it was so small, and had no English information whatsoever will dissuade most visitors from back home. They did have a skeleton on display, an apt icon perhaps, to show how far medicine has come from the torture device instruments that were used by doctors in the past.

After that long and exhausting day, we returned to Anna’s place and we were again treated to an amazing meal. This time, lasagna and stir-fried vegetables. Amazing.

The next day, the 26th we had to bid our farewells, but first Ana took us to see the Museu de folclore. This museum has long since disappeared though, so we just ended up getting our bus tickets, and we left Porto Alegre behind that evening. We had researched getting into Uruguay beforehand – no visa requirements for either of us, so we just hopped on the bus for the overnight journey to the border. We left Brazil behind with satisfaction. Satisfaction we were escaping the ongoing and violent clashes, satisfaction at having met such wonderful friends in Porto Alegre, and satisfaction that our journey was now moving to a new and different country.