Photos
Back to Rio page
Pousada Barra do Sol
The Gym
Back to Home
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
| Rio Part II - Teresopolis | |||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
20th-23rd June (Thurs-Sun): Shopping continues to be entertaining. The food here is frequently too salty or sweet, so in an attempt to avoid sugar added to juices like guava nectar I purchased one which proudly stated ´no sugar´.. of course it was packed with asparteme.. I managed my first response to a question in the street - am well pleased. I´ve also got a painting well on the way - finally. Hooking up with some people from the Pousada, we headed over the canal to Downtown to watch the Brasil/England match at 3am - the shopping centre and bars were packed.. Somehow they managed to erect a 3m x 4m projection screen so after watching the first half in a cafe, we took some plastic chairs and mosied our way to the front of the throng. Great seats. Of course, attention seekers managed to pull down the screen twice even before the Brasilian goal was scored which resulted in the screen being lost for a while and the projecter redirected to a building. Not many chairs survived the final whistle (mine included) - I don´t want to see what happens if Brasil loses.. After meeting LuBão, Dodo and Rudolph over a bbq in the Pousada, they invited me to stay at their place in Teresopolis (in the Serra dos Orgãos hills 100km inland from Rio) and go hiking with them up the 5th highest peak in Brasil, the Pedro do Sino (Bell mountain). After another great surf lesson on a 7´8" board (finally allowed to catch the unbroken waves - woohoo!!) Rudolph drove me up to Lubão´s place (driving is taking a while to get used to). LuBãos´ parents live in a 3 room appartment, so it was interesting to stay with LuBão and his brother in the main room (they do this every weekend). Teresopolis has about 750,000 people and, after talking with LuBãos Dad, is only in existance because of a textile industry which exports jeans to the United States. I also discovered that GM, Ford and Volkswagon are manufactured in São Paulo as well as the national Troller and that Fiat is manufactured in Bela Horizonte - quite a big car industry for south america. One of the June festivals was on that night so we went to a gathering for a bowl of soup and fireworks at the half finished church that LuBãos dad was helping to design. Teresopolis is the highest city in Brasil at 910m. Saturday we climbed Pedro do Sino at 2263m, a 14 km walk through the endangered Atlantic Rainforest. We passed Paneiras (appropriately named floss-silk trees) many Maria São forgonia flowers and vibrant trees and waterfalls. The shadowed gaps between the trees demanded that your eyes probe them to their leafy depths. The 12 of us climbed to the top in about 4 hours where I pitched the tent and headed up the final kilometer to the top with Tatiana, the only one with legs enough to keep going. Tat wanted to stop when mist descended half way up but we waited for 5 minutes, it passed and we were treated to a view which defies description, mist and sun included. Great meditation.. On the way down with some other Brasilians, Tat managed to hurt her ankle.. being less than fluent in Portuguese, it took many pleading looks and shaking of my head to pursuade Tat that the course of action perscribed by the other brasilians (walking on the ankle to ´work out the pain´) was not the best course of action and she let me carry her down to the camp for some icy water treatment and a night of painful rest. We just made it before sundown. LuBão and I turned in early looking forward to the sunrise at the top (5 am) but the other lads spent the evening serenading some girl called Mariana from a neighbouring bunch of tents and trying to get me up for some local cognac.
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
| Daily links | |||||||||||||||||||
|
24th-27th June Photos Back to Rio page Pousada Barra do Sol The Gym Back to Home | |||||||||||||||||||
| My Info: | |||||||||||||||||||
| Name: | Craig | ||||||||||||||||||
| Email: | |||||||||||||||||||
| [email protected] | |||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||