Iguazu: Falls and Foz

Our next stop, after yet another 17 hour bus ride, was Foz do Iguazu, Brazil. Foz do Iguazu is the nearest town on the Brazilian side of the Iguazu Falls, one of the newly named seven natural wonders of the world.

The Iguazu Falls is an enormous collection of waterfalls, spanning 1.67 miles and containing the greatest annual flow of water in the world.

The falls are located at the border of three countries: Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay, although Paraguay appears to have drawn the short straw of the bargain, as only Argentina and Brazil actually share the falls between them, with Paraguay waving at them from down the river.

Both the Argentinian and Brazilian side contain phenomenally beautiful waterfalls, each with their own perspective, charm, and entrance fee (naturally). Before we arrived at the falls, everyone we met who had already visited them told us we had to visit both sides. We must have heard this 10 times. I didn't pay much attention at the time, thinking obviously if we go all the way over there, we'll make an effort to see everything. However, I'm really grateful for the advice now, since there's a good chance that upon realizing that each side was almost a full day trip (and cost around $30/per person), we would have assumed that water falling looks the same in both Brazil and Argentina. Rest assured, both sides were well worth it!

The first afternoon we visited the Brazilian side of the falls, since we were staying in the Brazilian town of Foz do Iguazu (a big mistake, more on that later). The Brazilian side of Iguazu (or Iguacu) has a nice easy walking trail which runs parallel to the falls, with successively more stunning views of the waterfalls.

The result is an amazingly beautiful hour or so long walk, and a truly absurd number of pictures at the end of it.

The Iguazu National Park also includes a large nature preserve of the subtropical rainforest, with a number of endangered species, a complete list of which can be found on the UNESCO World Heritage website. While we didn't get to see any ocelots or pumas, we did see a number of interesting animals, including an armadillo and a lizard

as well as a number of South American Coatis, a strange mammal which looks like a cross between a badger, a raccoon and an anteater (they actually are related to the raccoon). The ones near the Iguazu Falls have become quite accustomed to humans, and can be particularly vicious when they smell food, and will eat anything from chocolate to sandwiches.

The following day was devoted to the Argentinian side, which provided a more up close and personal view of the waterfalls. While the Brazilian side offers a beautiful panoramic view from the bank across from the bottom of the falls, the Argentinian side allows you to walk along the top of the falls themselves, so while you often only see the waterfall in front of you, what you see is absolutely incredible.

Particularly breathtaking is one extremely powerful horseshoe-shaped fall known as Garganta del Diablo ("Devil's Throat").

You can stand so close to the top of this waterfall, that all you can see and hear is gallons and gallons of rushing water.

By the time you're ready to move to the next lookout point, your clothing and belongings are soaking wet. As it happens, one of the only rainy days of our trip up until that point was during our tour of the Argentinian side, and the torrential rain lasted about two hours. We were about three steps beyond soaked, passed waterlogged, and approaching drowned. And Yishai and I were wearing rain gear!

In addition to being awestruck by the natural splendor of the falls, I was very impressed with the minimalist design of both sides of Iguazu. Both countries provide access on foot to many of the most beautiful areas of the waterfalls using metal, wooden and concrete walkways. These walkways are practically camouflaged, allowing visitors maximum access to the best views, while in no way detracting from or obstructing the overwhelming pristine beauty of Iguazu itself.

On our last day in Iguazu, we also visited the Parque des Aves (Bird Park), which had some amazing South American bird enclosures that you could enter and get close to these brilliantly colored birds.

This was an afterthought in our trip (really, the only attraction in Iguazu are the waterfalls), but it was great fun and I highly recommend it!

Unfortunately, our visit to Foz do Iguacu itself was underwhelming, to be charitable (Aviva's preferred adjective was "Podunk"). Our hostel Pousada El Shaddai was home to an incredibly dirty pool (I think their only attempt at keeping it clean may have been to request that guests shower before entering), appeared to be decorated in a style somewhere between convent utilitarianism and spinster aunt, and was under constant and excruciatingly loud construction.

I must credit Foz do Iguazu with the distinction of providing us with our absolute worst meal yet on this trip, and possibly of my life thus far. Food during our travels has been somewhat of a trial. Being Kosher  observant, we have not been eating beef or chicken which has not been prepared in a special way, or pork or shellfish as a matter of course. Unfortunately, much of South America appears to consume only meat - or rather, grilled meat, breaded meat, meat wrapped in pastry and deep fried, etc. Occasionally they throw in some shrimp or clams as a diversion, and then return to the main course of ham. In Brazil, every excursion to find food included the word "vegetariano" and one of the first phrases we learned in Portuguese: "sem carne, sem frango" (without meat, without chicken). As a result, we have eaten more grilled fish and pizza than I ever thought humanly possible. Naturally, there were mix ups, like the dish of fettuccine Alfredo which came with pieces of prosciutto on top. I've also discovered that all pastries marked "pizza" in Brazil contain cheese and ham (tomato is optional, apparently). Our rule of thumb: never bite into anything without a thorough examination.

At any rate, we found that pizza was usually a pretty fail-safe course of action, and one we frequently fell back upon when looking for something fast, tasty, and within our budgetary and dietary requirements. After all (we said to ourselves, the air thick with the foreshadowing of doom), how badly can you screw up pizza? In Foz do Iguacu, we tragically learned the answer. Hungry tired, and full of waterfall bits, we arrive at an all you can eat pizza buffet (probably should have tipped us off) in a hole in the wall, and ordered a four cheese pizza, after checking first that it contained tomato sauce. A few minutes later the waiter brings us a pizza covered in what appears to be cheese, but no tomato sauce in sight. When asked, he pointed us towards a bottle of what I can only describe as red, watery sweet syrup, and says with a "duh" tone "tomato sauce". It was some form of tasteless, travesty of tabasco sauce which had apparently been sprinkled on the (puffy, soggy) crust under the cheese, but not visible to the naked eye. But wait, this isn't even the worst of it! On top of the alleged tomato sauce, was a layer of what was probably mozzarella cheese, and then a layer of another cheeze, with the consistency and taste of cheez-whiz if it had been funneled on using a cake icing set. I can only describe what this pie looked like, you'll have to imagine the taste (or try not to) on your own.

Let's end this post with something tasty, vegetarian, and easy to make:

Shakshuka Iguazu
serves 1-2

Ingredients:
2-3 Tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 red bell pepper, chopped
2-3 tomatoes, cubed*
1 6 or 8 oz packet tomato sauce*
3 eggs
fresh parsley, chopped

Spices: (a pinch of each)
salt
black pepper
paprika
oregano
sugar**

*Shakshuka can be made with only fresh tomatoes, only tomato sauce, or a mixture. I have given instructions for a mixture of the two, since that's my favorite, but if you double the fresh tomatoes and let them cook for an additional 10-12 minutes until very sauce-like you can omit the tomato sauce altogether, or if you don't have any fresh tomatoes, simply skip step # 4
**(only if using only fresh tomatoes, tomato sauce packets usually already have sugar in them)


Directions:
1. In a medium size frying pan, which is at least 2 inches deep, over medium heat, saute the onion in a generous splash of olive oil until translucent, around 5-7 minutes.
2. Add the garlic and saute for a minute or two until lightly browned and delicious smelling.
3. Add the red peppers and a good dash paprika and saute for a further 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally until slightly soft (you can also add green peppers or other vegetables you may have on hand at this point).
4. Add the fresh tomatoes and stir occasionally until they are soft and the juice has released, another 5-7 minutes.
5. Add the tomato sauce and turn the heat down to low.
6. Add the spices and fresh parsley and simmer, stirring occasionally, until sauce is uniformly heated (around 5 minutes).
7. Carefully break the eggs one at a time into a glass or bowl, trying to keep the yolks intact. Then pour them (carefully!) on top of the tomato sauce, so that each egg is in a third of the pan. Don't worry if one of the yolks broke, you can just stir it into the sauce. It'll still be delicious, but not as pretty.
8. Simmer on low heat until the whites of the eggs are opaque and the yellows are jiggly but not totally rare looking (around 15 minutes). Occasionally gently scrape the sauce from the side of the pan so it doesn't stick.
9. Sprinkle with more fresh parsley (for all of you fresh parsley lovers out there like me) and EAT UP!

Paradise, a.k.a. Florianopolis

The Thursday after Carnival we moved to our second destination, Florianopolis. The 18 hour bus ride was mostly uneventful and surprisingly comfortable, departing at 2 PM and arriving the following morning at 8 AM, with a half hour stop for supper at a roadside per-kilo buffet. The buses in South America are usually equipped with bathrooms, good air conditioning, and seats which lay farther back than your average airplane seat, so bus rides of this length are generally fairly tolerable.

On Friday morning we arrived at our hostel Albergue Estrelas no Mar in Florianopolis (Floripa for short), and I need to give them credit for providing extremely detailed and accurate directions from the bus station on the hostel booking website. 

Floripa is a stunning city situated on and around a large island on the coast of Brazil in the Santa Catarina district. It's well known among tourists for its beautiful beaches, wild surfing, and even wilder nightlife. The hostel where we stayed is located on the southern edge of the island, in a small traditional fishing village called Pantano do Sul. I actually have no firsthand knowledge of the nightlife on the island, as we arrived in this beautiful, rustic, quiet beach village, surrounded by the constant sound of waves crashing, friendly stray dogs and fishing boats parked along the beach, and unanimously decided that this was exactly the atmosphere we needed in order to recharge after the chaotic energy of Rio.

The view from Estrelo no Mar

These two men were having a very boisterous argument in this boat

Yishai in particular seems to thrive in this type of peaceful, relaxed atmosphere. Immediately upon arrival Yishai removed his watch, and for the rest of our stay whenever I asked him the time, he would respond, "What does it matter?".

Yishai on vacation time

Naturally, the first thing Aviva and I did upon arrival was get fantastically sunburned. Yishai was spared because he had already pinked out the first day in Rio, and has just been steadily browning since then, whereas Aviva and I seemed to have limitless capacity to burn.

Our stay at Albuerge Estrelos No Mar was truly wonderful, mostly because of how friendly and sweet the other guests of the hostel were, creating a warm and welcoming environment for everyone. There were a number of other travelers following routes similar to ours from Germany, Holland, Israel and Australia, for varying amounts of time (from two weeks to a year), as well as a couple on holiday from Porto Alegre, Brazil, and a Japanese guest who appeared to be working at the hostel and staying indefinitely. 

Together we went on a hike one afternoon to a local waterfall,

(where we saw an awesome lizard on the way),

hung out in a boat parked on the beach,

held a rousing hostel vs. local game of beach soccer one night,   

and overall adjusting to a different tempo of living, drifting to sleeping every night listening to the waves beat against the shore.

Of course, the most memorable event in Floripa was the most beautiful sunset ever.

Shabbos

I realize I haven't discussed our shabbos experiences at all up to this point. Our first shabbos (Sabbath) was spent in Rio de Janeiro, pleasant and relatively simply. While we had a lot of trouble finding Kosher food during the week, we had the good fortune to connect with Roger from Shelanu catering (kosher@lubavitchcopacabana.org) who provided us with catered Kosher food, and an invitation to the local chabad (of Copacabana) for shabbos kiddush/lunch. On Friday night we walked around for over an hour searching for the synagogue without managing to find the address. As it turns out, we had walked in entirely the wrong direction. On Saturday morning we managed to find the shul with little difficulty, and after being grilled by the security guard posted out front in Hebrew ("Who told you about the shul?" "Did you ask anyone for directions?" "Does anyone else know you're here?"), we were allowed in for services and invited to stay for the light lunch.

We spent our second shabbos far from any Jewish community, in our hostel in Florianopolis. Since we arrived on Friday morning, we only had a few hours to prepare, although thankfully sundown, when shabbos begins, was quite late, it being the height of summer. We managed to whip up a lovely hearty meal of tomato bean and cabbage soup, sliced baked potatoes, rice pilaf, and grilled fish. There was a supermarket nearby, and Yishai was charged with finding fish, since the clearly marked fish market appeared to be closed. After about 15 minutes, he returned with 4 frozen fish fillets, which cost a total of about $6, which he apparently found by knocking on the door of one of the village houses and asking where he could buy fish. The house owner promptly led him directly to his freezer, which was industrial sized and stocked with fish.

And so we began our second shabbos meal, replete with shalom aleichem and eishet chayil, what I'm sure must have been a very strange sight to our fellow hostel guests. Soon enough, however, we were all sitting around, eating our respective meals and discussing different religions and traditions. It was a wonderful, relaxing, and spiritually refreshing Sabbath.

Floripa Tomato Cabbage Bean Soup Recipe
serves 8- 10

Ingredients:
a splash of olive oil
5-7 cloves garlic, minced
1 onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1/2- 1 head of cabbage, cut into strips or chopped
2-3 carrots, chopped
2-3 potatoes, cubed
1 packet of tomato paste, around 8 oz (or 2 packets of tomato sauce)
1/2 cup black beans
1/2 cup garbanzo beans
1/2 black eyed peas
1/2 cup lentils

Spices:
black pepper
salt
cumin
oregano
paprika


*Note: Any combination of beans will do. Ideally, the beans should be soaked overnight and then rinsed, but if this isn't possible they can be boiled in plenty of water for around 30-45 minutes until somewhat soft.

Directions:

Find a hostel with a kitchen. In a large soup pot over medium heat, sautee the onion in olive oil until translucent (around 5-7 minutes). Add the garlic and stir for another minute until slightly brown. Add the chopped carrots, celery and cabbage and stir for another 10-12 minutes, until the cabbage is soft. Add the tomato paste, beans, potatoes and around 10-12 cups of water (the beans will soak up quite a bit of the water), and whatever savory spices you have on hand - I've listed my personal favorites. Let the soup simmer for around an hour, or until the beans and potatoes are soft. Invite the other travelers around to eat with you. Enjoy!

This is one of my absolute favorite soups, and can be whipped together with whatever beans you have in your bag, and vegetables and grocery staples that can be found pretty much anywhere. 

A Bit of Greenery- Tijuca National Park

On our last full day in Rio de Janeiro, we decided to forgo the beaches in favor of a bit of greenery, and settled upon a day hike in Tijuca. Tijuca National Park is one of the largest urban forests in the world, and part of the Atlantic Rainforest, which once covered large areas of Coastal and Southern Brazil, but has now mostly disappeared in the wake of human settlement. 

Southern Rio de Janeiro - the only area most tourists ever see - includes the famous beaches: Copacabana, Ipanema, and Leblon. The city is a sort of long crescent-shaped swath of urban settlement sandwiched between the rich green of the Tijuca forest and the brilliant white and glistening blue of the sandy coastline. The backdrop of green mountains, visible from most of the city, is one of the aesthetic features that lends Rio such a vibrant air. 

In theory, Tijuca should not have been a difficult destination to reach, given how close it is to Copocabana, where we were staying. I should mention around now our overwhelmingly positive experiences with the bus system in Rio up to this point. We had taken buses all over the city with great success (including the city center (Centro) and Lapa during the festivities), after discovering early on that Rio's bus system is fairly straightforward and easy to navigate.

The buses are divided into three groups, according to where they stop. In heavily populated areas every bus stop is clearly marked 1,2, or 3, and every bus stop has a complete list of buses stopping at all of the nearly stations, including origin and destination, by station, as well as a handy map of the surrounding area with all of the nearby stations clearly marked and numbered. Furthermore, once we realized that due to the geography of Rio mentioned above, almost every bus heading South towards Copacabana, Ipanema or Leblon would pass through Copacabana, getting around by bus was really quite simple (although not always pleasant- air conditioned buses were both rare and more expensive). 

This may have been the reason why we slightly overestimated our own abilities to reach Tijuca by bus. We set out fairly early, planning on hiking a moderately challenging trail and heading home. After an hour and a half, three buses, and some well-meaning misdirection by an American ex-pat (from Dallas), we finally arrived, visibly wilting from the 35 degree heat (95 degrees Fahrenheit) and indescribable humidity, at the bottom of a narrow, winding road, wide enough to let a single car pass. Apparently this incredibly narrow, steep, tortuous road was used as a two way street by some mysterious means of communication between the guard booths at the top and bottom of the hill. As a safety (?) precaution, the drivers of the first car going up or down would lean on their horn for the duration of the path, a fact we were somewhat rudely made aware of during out own exhausting climb up the mountain. 

Attempting to navigate

Upon reaching the summit, we discovered that we had not reached the beginning of a trail, as we had expected, but rather the launchpad for paragliding and hang gliding, at the edge of a cliff. We were indeed in Tijuca park, but quite far from the area with the trails.

We took the opportunity for a much needed rest, enjoying the stunning view, and regretfully declining the extremely attractive (but still out of our budget) offers "to fly". There were two launchpads; a wooden platform for hang gliding, which made a delightful whump bump bump weeee sound when a hang glider took off, and underneath it, a dugout with benches overlooking a tarp where the paragliders assembled their parachutes and then seemed to simply step off the cliff. We sat in the dugout for quite a bit, enjoying the takeoffs, and the occasional shower of coins from the pockets of the hang gliders above during takeoff.

It was an unexpected, accidental stop, one rarely visited by travelers not planning on jumping off the cliff, but I would highly recommend it. I also learned that apparently paragliding is an Olympic sport. Who knew?

A short while and another ride later, we arrived where we had originally planned to be nearly 4 hours earlier: the entrance to Tijuca National Park. There we saw a sweet, tranquil waterfall,

some interesting insects,

and had a pleasant walk through the greenery.

However, as so often happens on great trips, the journey was somewhat more memorable than the destination.

Carnival 2012

For those of you who are not familiar with it, Carnival is basically an enormous, week-long party. It officially occurs on the Friday-Tues proceeding Ash Wednesday (although festivities often begin up to a month earlier), and is celebrated in many Catholic countries, and with particular fervor in Brazil. In Rio de Janeiro, the height of the Carnival festivities is this absolutely fabulous parade of hundreds upon hundreds of samba dancers in incredibly elaborate costumes on enormous glittery floats, dancing to a percussion and brass band. 

One of the Carnaval parade floats

The parade is actually a competition between a number of different samba schools, all trying to outdo each other in glittery, whirling, booty-shaking, feathery, sequined splendor. In Rio, different samba schools perform every night for four nights in the Sambadrome, a giant stadium built for this express purpose. Watch some of the video below, and then imagine that continuing for 4 straight nights, 6 hours each time.

Unfortunately, the ticket prices were out of our budget so we didn't get to watch the parade from the Sambadrome firsthand, but we did catch quite a bit of it on TV, and we did get to see the floats up close. The floats are constructed on a main thoroughfare (closed to traffic during the holiday, of course) outside the Sambadrome, and on Sunday afternoon we went down to watch the floats being constructed. Here are some of our pictures of the floats up close:

Another great way that Carnival is celebrated in Rio is with blocos, a sort of street party. A group of people arrange a place and a time and pretty much throw a free public party. There is usually what I call a party truck, a huge double decker bus with a live brass and/or percussion band and enormous speakers, and a everyone in the neighborhood (or on the way to the beach or the supermarket) surrounds the truck and dances, sings, drinks, and has a generally good time. We went to a whole bunch of those. Staying in Copacabana made not finding a bloco every day much harder than the alternative.

Copacabana Bloco

Perhaps the largest party every night took place downtown (Centro), near the Arcos da Lapa. Lapa was packed to the gills with people partying- to the point of insanity. We visited once with some Brazilian friends we made coincidentally and while it was a lot of fun, it was a little intense for our group.

Partying at the Arcos da Lapa

There were also often free live concerts going on around the city, especially downtown and in Lapa area.  We went to an alternative/rock themed one downtown, where we enjoyed hearing green day played to samba drum beats, and listening to the lead singer mumble through most of the English lyrics of a whole bunch of famous songs. ("Can you hear, can you hear the thumbfer, yeah yeah!")

 o

Where's Waldo?

Concert at Centro

In many ways, Carnaval is sort of a mix between Purim, Halloween, and New Year's Eve, only hotter, with more sequins and Capirinhas. People wear all sorts of crazy costumes.

Some also had hilarious misspelled Hebrew tattoos, although we figured that might not be exclusively Carnaval related, so decided against pointing it out to our unfortunately tattooed friend here.

Some of them even dressed up their dogs.

One of the things I thought was most noticeable, and perhaps surprising about the festivities was that everyone took part in the party, including the very young, the very old, and even the disabled. Additionally, although there was quite a bit of drinking in the merrymaking (particularly in the younger crowds, like in Lapa), there were very few incidents of clear over-indulgence that I saw (or smelled) during or after the revelries. Compared to New York on New Years morning, the streets were positively vomit-free. Of course, we had already discovered that although the beer on tap (chopp) flows like water here, it mostly tastes of water too, so perhaps this contributed to it.

We also tried to go to the beach on one of the days of Carnaval. Bad idea - or very good idea, seeing how everyone else apparently had it too.

Those are people, not locust

All in all, had a rockin' good time. Getting on the bus to Florianopolis now, will post more later.