some final thoughts on Brasil...

Well, I could tell you all about the last nights in Brazil after the jungle trip, how we were greeted in the main square by Baltimora´s 80s classic "Tarzan Boy" being blared out of the main square upon our return to Manaus, but there just isn´t time. I could even tell you about our extraordinary night of Amazonian Rock at the Opera House, but you´ll have to ask us about that separately if you wanna hear about that!

So, as it´s time to move on now, let´s leave you with a few things we noticed about Brazil, and a few of the MANY things we´ll miss...

In the main, I reckon we'll miss the drinks - guaraná, coco gelado, all the incredible fruit juices and the ice-cold beer... in all my time in Brazil I was never served a crap drink once. Oh how hard will it be to get used to London drinks again! We´ll miss speaking and hearing Portuguese. And the breakfasts! And eating at por kilo places (a genius idea that I can´t believe hasn´t taken off elsewhere)! And açai!


After seven weeks in Brazil, we´ve become able to distinguish a few of the regional accents. Mainly the bizarre one you get round Sao Paulo state and some parts of the south, where, for some reason, they sound like they´re either from the US or from the West Country (ie "Salvadorrr"). This accent wasn´t Becka´s favourite.


And I reckon I could make a good stab at where someone comes from as well. It was fascinating seeing how the looks changed through the country - largely black in Salvador, overwhelmingly white in the south (even Becka got taken for a native of Santa Catarina once), a whole different thing again in Amazonia - I became strangely obsessed in Pernambuco and Paraíba with the look of the locals (wide faces with almost comically rounded eyebrows). It seemed like the ridiculous hotness was mainly a Rio thing, but the obsession with looking good and being healthy certainly seemed nationwide. Brazil also seemed full of older guys who had definitely "done well for themselves" on the partner front...



Everyone seems to know the lyrics to all samba songs. It was a bit of a mystery as to how exactly, but it probably helps that they always seem to be subtitled on telly! Many of these lyrics expressed how brilliant it was being from Brazil, and I can definitely see why they would think that if they´d grown up there.


They´ve definitely got their own thing going on musically. Far from hearing the usual international pop hits everywhere, the music we heard was almost always local, (with the exception of Mariah Carey´s version of "I Want to Know What Love Is", which was ubiquitous) whether it be forró, frevo, brega, choro, samba or axé... Rock didn´t seem that big anywhere except in the Amazon, of all places!

Brazilians aren´t generally too hung up on spelling. Something to do with it being mainly an "oral" culture, or something, but you would get Santa Teresa/Santa Tereza, Rui Barbosa/Ruy Barbosa etc... even Mario Zagalo/Zagallo can´t escape this relaxed attitude to spelling, and he won the World Cup four times! So basically - it doesn´t matter how it´s spelt! It´s pronounced the same, right? Cool! I reckon I´ll take this Brazilian attitude back with me to my job in London! (No?)


Chocolate isn´t that big in Brazil. I guess it´s just too hot! I was excited however to get hold of a bar of Diamante Negro ("Ooooh! Black Diamond!") which was named after Brazil´s legendary striker from the 1938 World Cup, Leonidas. Still going strong... Wonder if people will be eating "Rooney" chocolate bars in 70 years´time? (oh, the name "Wayne Rooney" is very difficult indeed for Brazilians to pronounce, by the way).

The 10% service tax got kind of annoying. Especially as we usually got the WORST service in the places that charged it, and the best service in the places that didn´t!

They need to get over manioc! It´s in everything - and to be honest, in a lot of the more (in our opinion) overrated dishes (actually, we couldn´t quite see what the fuss was about with carne do sol - a bit tough, and tapioca - kind of like getting a crepe, only a worse version)

"Na frente" - aarghhh!!! If we never hear this again, that´s fine by us! Whenever we asked for directions, we would be told this, it seemed to mean anything from "over the road" to "left, then right, then left again, about 15 minutes walk away".

They´re quite happy to go through your dirty laundry in Brazil. (Literally.) It gets pretty embarrassing in the laundries when they open your bag and start sifting through your dirty pants by hand... Still, you can get used to anything!


Religion is a huge part of everyday life. This has obviously been commented on before, but it was noticeable how much Christian graffiti you would see, often around the favelas, and it was unforgettable to get a close up view of the candomblé which is such a big part of the culture in Bahia, in particular...

They´ve started whipping up enthusiasm for the 2016 Olympics already. There are TV spots recounting famous Olympic moments of the past - the question is, are they gonna keep this up for the next six years??

We took some forms of transport we won´t forget in a hurry. Speedboats, beach buggies, canoes, kombis, frequently alarming, though nothing topped being given a lift in a car by a man driving while holding a baby in one hand... Fingers crossed we won´t be doing that again!!

Anyway, that´s quite enough about Brazil now, suffice to say we loved it, were sad to leave and definitely want to return, but we are in PERU now, and from what we´ve seen of Lima so far, we´re quite excited about it! More to follow on that, in the meantime we´ll leave you with this video of Iguazu falls...