Brasil (cue Brasil movie theme song)

Brasil.  That should be all I need to say.  Everyone knows that I have a huge obsession with this country well before even going there.  I honestly had no idea why I was obsessed but I was and now that I have been I have to say that Brasil lived up to every expectation possible.  In fact, it was much more fantastic then I could have ever imagined.  And Rio de Janeiro.  Christ!  When I got to Rio on Sunday morning, I thought I died Saturday night and I woke up in Heaven.  No joke.  The city, the OMG boys, the energy, the happiness, the excitement, the location on earth, the community, the beaches, the society were all without a doubt like what being in Heaven has to be.  And by that I mean... nearly perfect.  But I need to fill you all in for the entire trip to Brasil so I have to go back to day one, where we first entered Brasil.  Granted this was about 4 days into the gay cruise, (I will later blog about that too) having been to Punta del Este and Montevideo which was written about in the previous entry.  I will provide deeper more emotional thoughts after I get this all out, when I have time.

After a day at sea, our entrance into Brasil (Tuesday) was in the south in a place called Rio Grande do Sul.  It felt like one of the most remote locations possible but it provided us with what possibly is an accurate first view at what the rest of the country (outside of the cities) looks like.  As I said, incredibly remote with a few donkeys and horses sitting in front of your house, dirt roads, clapboard houses, people hanging out on the streets, etc etc.  We boarded a bus for an excursion to see gauchos (cowboys) do some horse, bull, and cow tricks on a huge cattle ranch an hour plus from the cruise ship.  The ride there was great until we had to take one of the dirt roads to the ranch which then made the bus feel like...well...a cruise ship, lol.  As we pulled into the ranch, the bus was overtaken by boys (I eliminated in my mind the woman in this country) riding horses and dressed up in full gauchos gear.  Chaps and all ;)  We had our first Brasilian BBQ for lunch which was more meat than anyone could possibly eat but delicious nonetheless as the cowboys and the girls showed up some authentic "old school" dances.  I don't remember much of the bus ride back since I passed out from the heat.

We randomly bumped into Frank and Marty, two of my new friends from the ship the next morning (Wednesday) on the tender (the rowboat that takes you to shore) and we made plans to head to a beach called Praia Mole which was about a half hour away from a city called Florianopolis which I think is about the size of Boston, minus the cold (and I am talking about the people not the weather, lol).  So we rented some van to take us to this isolated beach on the other side of the island that was known to be a younger crowd in a great location.  The van drops us off, we all pile out and walk down this lush dirt path opening to unreal views of the ocean.  I first thought, "OMG this looks like the Jurassic Park island," but then realized that it was Brasilian surfer paradise on one of the most stunning beaches any of us have ever been to.  Period.  We trekked our way to the gay part of the beach even though  I was nearly sick of the whole gay thing at this point which was as far left as possible and was noticeable because of the boys and because of the club music blasting.  Thanks Deborah Cox, lol.  Hottie central but the beach was the second highlight of the trip.  I can't express how stunning it was and it wasn't just because the whiff of pot was blowing up and down the beach.  The gigantic green mountains drop right into the bright turquoise blue water which we soon learned is just what the coastlines of Brasil looks like.  Again, I got on the bus and supposedly we passed a lot of great stuff but I fell asleep.  It was at this point that I got my "famous handprint sunburn."   The picture above comes from a friend (again, my photo's are not on my computer because I am waiting for my fucking Macbook) and the boy in the blue squarecut walking towards the camera was OMG beautiful.   A warm up to Rio one could say.

I am pretty sure the days were lined up like this but there were two sea days meaning the ship was at sea.  One was Monday so we enjoyed the gym, reading, pool, dancing all day.  One was Thursday which was a little harder since the whole gay scene thing at this point was starting to get to me.

Santos is the port city for Sao Paulo as we learned when we headed there in a 9 hour bus ride (Friday).  It was sorta fun but only because I am now able to say I have been to Sao Paulo.  The port looked like a bombed out disaster and then the port city turned into massive beautifully green mountains before turning back into shanty town disaster before the downtown disaster.  lol.  It was great to see Sao Paulo but I basically never want to go back.  If Sao Paulo is the city of the future (as it is with 18million people, twice the size of NYC and then some) then the world is just over.  It is a terrible unplanned sprawling mess.  You can see the city as we approached from one of the higher mountains but you can also see how it just goes on for infinity.  There literally seems like there is no end to the skyscraping monstrosity it has become.  We toured around various neighborhoods (some resembling LA) but never fully got off the bus other then to eat lunch at another Brasilian BBQ, lol.  This was the best one as it turns out.  Skyscrapers tear up the skyline and there are times where you can barely see the sky.  The homeless is abundant.  The streets are dirty, the buildings are covered in graffiti (and when I say covered I mean you can barely see stone), fires burn in parks, its mega crowded at times, and overall just doesn't provide the sense of enticement that Rio does.  There is certainly a sense of life happening in this city and I am sad to say that I think a lot of the world looks like this but it is just too much to bear at times and I don't think it is a happy as that of Rio.

Our last day trip (Saturday) before heading into Rio was Parati.   Parati is a UNESCO World Heritage Site which pretty much means that it's very protected against change and destructive forces like Walmart.  Again, the ship was too large to pull into its port so we had to tender and thankfuly we did.  Since the tender ride allowed us to see how much the landscape of Parati was like the set of a fantasy movie.  Small uninhabited jungle islands dotted the harbor as the rolling hills and mountains were the backdrop.  It is again hard to describe but pulling into the small dock to see all of the brightly colored fishing boats was just a continuation of the movie set.  Our excursion planned for the day was to get into a 4x4 Jeep and head deep into the rainforest.  It was a ton of fun and after being on a bus for 9 hours around Sao Paulo, well needed.  About six of us were piled into the jeep and we were driven into the rainforest where I had no idea what to expect really.  I was expecting to see monkeys or wildlife but that only came in Rio, lol.  For four hours we trekked through the ridiculously green terrain (I only say this because I constantly thought to myself, as an artist, that it couldn't get any greener) until we got to a stopping point when we got out and then hiked to a waterfall.  I didn't jump in because I was expecting to go into the next one which I never got to do because we didn't have enough time at that point but Tom did and it was totally beautiful.  I got to play around with my CanonRebel so I have some cool time lapsed photo's of the water, which will be posted once my Macbook arrives since my current laptop can't handle 8mp photo uploadings.  After the trek into the rainforest we stopped at some rainforest farm where they make caraca (the Brasilian rum) which is basically an instant buzz.  After the farm, Tom and I walked around the town which was gearing up for Carnavale later that night.  Parati is very pretty.  It looks very much like a colonized town should look like, I guess.  Brightly colored, very architecturally European in a sense, streets were made from the stone ballasts of the trading ships, slightly touristy but fun and great to see.  I say gearing up because the entire town seemed to be stocking up on beer in the streets, lol, and already going wild.  I bought like 3 pairs of sandals in this town, lol.  People rarely wear a shirt in Brasil and it is entirely distracting, lol, as a gay boy American.  I was nearly run over by a mule/donkey/horse staring at a group of boys who I hysterically enough got pictures of hours earlier.