Trying to summarize Montreal Jazz Festival in one shot.
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Hiking with ghosts
Hiking with ghosts (of double exposure).
@ Shafer Trail, Island in the sky, Canyonlands, Utah
Camera: Holga135
Brazil notes 2 - Rio
( Earlier Part I :here)
Rio de Janeiro
So our first stop was Rio de Janeiro (translation: River of January - the early settlers incorrectly thought the bay was mouth of a river). It is a very popular travel destination. This erstwhile capital is rich in the ethnic and cultural diversity and is located among wonderful natural settings. Sugarloaf and other mountains and hills, great crescent beaches and harbors - all overlooked and overseen by the iconic Christ the Redeemer at the top of Corcovado mountain.
First impression of Brazil (Rio, actually) was that it was pretty clean. Motorways were narrower than what we have gotten used to see in the US, but traffic was well organized and roads were spotless. Cars were smaller and saw few motorcycles on the road too. It was a bright sunny days, temperature was not uncomfortably high.
Along the way, we got our first glimpse of the famed Rio favelas.
A favela is basically a slum/shanty town, like Dharavi of Mumbai, but with higher crime rates. Life is tough with gang-wars and drug-wars erupting any time, and the police have little control over them (though, they steamrolled some of them about 3 months back in effort to wipe out the drug-lords).
Some travel operators arranged to take people there on tours. If they still run it and if you like to be in people-zoo, you can try it the next time. (But do watch (possibly completely inaccurate) the dazzling City of God before you do that.)
Brazil is the only Portuguese speaking country in the Southern American continent. Almost all the other countries speak Spanish (I think) . But more importantly, almost nobody speaks English (at least everybody who does not work in the tourism industry). We realized this as soon as we stumbled into a breakfast place near Copacabana beach after checking in our hotel. After a lot of gestures and hand-waving and finger-pointing, we finally managed to get across the idea that all we wanted was to just have breakfast at the place. Boy, we were going to have fun in Brazil!
Brazil offers you great choices for food - breakfast, lunch, dinner and everything in between is simply awesome. Even for vegetarians, it's not that difficult to survive (and often enjoy the food). And if you are meat-eater, it wont get any better anywhere else! (I have to also mention the Brazilian coffee - it may not be as great as Columbian one, but boy, it can get you started early in the day like no other coffee I found anywhere else!)
So, onto the Copacabana beach.
It was pleasant day, and it was also Brazil Independence day. Beach was full of people, including national tourists. Roads were blocked and it was just wonderful to roam around in misfitting clothes (AA was delivering our delayed luggage that afternoon) among new and unfamiliar faces, not understanding a single word in sea of unknown voices and sound.
We took a nice long stroll on the beach - our first glance at the famed Rio beaches. It was the end of winter and water was still cold, though weather was perfect 25 °c. People were jogging, bicycling, walking or just idling around.
We also noticed a lot of outdoor gyms on the beach, along with few volleyball nets and showers.
There were nice beachside cafes, with a lot of options for sandwitches and coconut-water and chilled beer.
Across the road, there was a nice roadside market, where you could buy inexpensive clothes, stone jeweleries, bikinis, shorts, wrap-arounds, and very tasty lemon-honey tea if you are up for it. It was very interesting when we asked an oldish lady if she could tell where we belong to - and she immediately replied in her broken but not bad English - "India!!". It was surprising to know how easy it was. Upon further inquiry, she told us that Indian soap operas were so popular in Brazil that they knew a lot about Indians. Now I know it's probably not the best idea to let them know all about our Saas and Bahus, but it was funny nonetheless.
Sand and the pavement with the famous black and white wave patterns (you can't see it here though).
While returning to the hotel (two blocks from the beach, we ventured to try one of the many fruit/sandwich stalls which you can find at every corner. We had read about açaí - a very nutritional fruit (berry) of South America, and we had to try it. Communication was almost impossible with the helpful guy serving across the counter, but understanding that we did not speak or read Portuguese, he produced a menu in English from somewhere, and we indicated a sandwich and then pointed to somebody having something we thought (correctly) was açaí pulp. Locals love it, and many have it in the breakfast with granola/cereals. I guess it takes a while to get used to the taste, or may be we had already eaten a lot, we struggled to finish one serving between two of us.
Heading back to the hotel, we were happy but still anxious. We had finally breathed and spent a day alrady. Our room was small but clean and it was not too long before we fell asleep.
_______________________________________
Since we were going to spend just one more day in Rio, it was decided to take a full day city-tour. I hate doing this, but we had few choices, and this was the best way to get a glimpse of the great city. We would surely come back to 'explore' it, wouldn't we? (Would we? But, but there are many more places to see!).
So off we went to the Sugarloaf mountain, thusly named (probably) because it raises from sea into air about 1300 feet like a loaf of sugar. We took the cable car (rope way) to the top as it's the only way to reach.
It provides great vantage point to see the great city sprawling below you, with sea on one side, harbor on the other, and the famous statue of Jesus far away in the distance on the other side. Only downside is that it's full of, well, tourists (isn't it awesome to bitch about everybody else while being one of them??).
Clean sparkling streets of some upscale area of Rio.
Graffiti of the city.
Before going to the main 'attraction' of the Chirst statue, we stopped at the Rio cathedral - a bit of unusual structure for a cathedral.
Inside, it has four stained glass window going all the way upto 200ft.
Last destination was the statue of Christ the Redeemer, located at the top of the Corcovado mountain. A magnificent 130ft statue, overlooking the whole city, as if protecting it. It's symbol of Rio, and looks as impressive at the close range as it looks in those panoramic pictures.
You can take a train or choose to walk. We took the train.
On a clear day, you have a great view all around, but we were not that lucky. In fact, the statue was almost lost in the fog most of the time, but every now and then, it cleared and one could see the full statue. It was funny how very suddenly a lot of cameras were fired as soon as the view cleared. Sometimes we want to store the memories in the hard drive rather than inside our head or heart.
So that was that for the great city of Rio - the next day, we would take a flight to Iguasu airport, in anticipation of the next wonder.
.
Rio de Janeiro
So our first stop was Rio de Janeiro (translation: River of January - the early settlers incorrectly thought the bay was mouth of a river). It is a very popular travel destination. This erstwhile capital is rich in the ethnic and cultural diversity and is located among wonderful natural settings. Sugarloaf and other mountains and hills, great crescent beaches and harbors - all overlooked and overseen by the iconic Christ the Redeemer at the top of Corcovado mountain.
First impression of Brazil (Rio, actually) was that it was pretty clean. Motorways were narrower than what we have gotten used to see in the US, but traffic was well organized and roads were spotless. Cars were smaller and saw few motorcycles on the road too. It was a bright sunny days, temperature was not uncomfortably high.
Along the way, we got our first glimpse of the famed Rio favelas.
A favela is basically a slum/shanty town, like Dharavi of Mumbai, but with higher crime rates. Life is tough with gang-wars and drug-wars erupting any time, and the police have little control over them (though, they steamrolled some of them about 3 months back in effort to wipe out the drug-lords).
Some travel operators arranged to take people there on tours. If they still run it and if you like to be in people-zoo, you can try it the next time. (But do watch (possibly completely inaccurate) the dazzling City of God before you do that.)
Brazil is the only Portuguese speaking country in the Southern American continent. Almost all the other countries speak Spanish (I think) . But more importantly, almost nobody speaks English (at least everybody who does not work in the tourism industry). We realized this as soon as we stumbled into a breakfast place near Copacabana beach after checking in our hotel. After a lot of gestures and hand-waving and finger-pointing, we finally managed to get across the idea that all we wanted was to just have breakfast at the place. Boy, we were going to have fun in Brazil!
Brazil offers you great choices for food - breakfast, lunch, dinner and everything in between is simply awesome. Even for vegetarians, it's not that difficult to survive (and often enjoy the food). And if you are meat-eater, it wont get any better anywhere else! (I have to also mention the Brazilian coffee - it may not be as great as Columbian one, but boy, it can get you started early in the day like no other coffee I found anywhere else!)
So, onto the Copacabana beach.
It was pleasant day, and it was also Brazil Independence day. Beach was full of people, including national tourists. Roads were blocked and it was just wonderful to roam around in misfitting clothes (AA was delivering our delayed luggage that afternoon) among new and unfamiliar faces, not understanding a single word in sea of unknown voices and sound.
We took a nice long stroll on the beach - our first glance at the famed Rio beaches. It was the end of winter and water was still cold, though weather was perfect 25 °c. People were jogging, bicycling, walking or just idling around.
We also noticed a lot of outdoor gyms on the beach, along with few volleyball nets and showers.
There were nice beachside cafes, with a lot of options for sandwitches and coconut-water and chilled beer.
Across the road, there was a nice roadside market, where you could buy inexpensive clothes, stone jeweleries, bikinis, shorts, wrap-arounds, and very tasty lemon-honey tea if you are up for it. It was very interesting when we asked an oldish lady if she could tell where we belong to - and she immediately replied in her broken but not bad English - "India!!". It was surprising to know how easy it was. Upon further inquiry, she told us that Indian soap operas were so popular in Brazil that they knew a lot about Indians. Now I know it's probably not the best idea to let them know all about our Saas and Bahus, but it was funny nonetheless.
Sand and the pavement with the famous black and white wave patterns (you can't see it here though).
While returning to the hotel (two blocks from the beach, we ventured to try one of the many fruit/sandwich stalls which you can find at every corner. We had read about açaí - a very nutritional fruit (berry) of South America, and we had to try it. Communication was almost impossible with the helpful guy serving across the counter, but understanding that we did not speak or read Portuguese, he produced a menu in English from somewhere, and we indicated a sandwich and then pointed to somebody having something we thought (correctly) was açaí pulp. Locals love it, and many have it in the breakfast with granola/cereals. I guess it takes a while to get used to the taste, or may be we had already eaten a lot, we struggled to finish one serving between two of us.
Heading back to the hotel, we were happy but still anxious. We had finally breathed and spent a day alrady. Our room was small but clean and it was not too long before we fell asleep.
_______________________________________
Since we were going to spend just one more day in Rio, it was decided to take a full day city-tour. I hate doing this, but we had few choices, and this was the best way to get a glimpse of the great city. We would surely come back to 'explore' it, wouldn't we? (Would we? But, but there are many more places to see!).
So off we went to the Sugarloaf mountain, thusly named (probably) because it raises from sea into air about 1300 feet like a loaf of sugar. We took the cable car (rope way) to the top as it's the only way to reach.
It provides great vantage point to see the great city sprawling below you, with sea on one side, harbor on the other, and the famous statue of Jesus far away in the distance on the other side. Only downside is that it's full of, well, tourists (isn't it awesome to bitch about everybody else while being one of them??).
Clean sparkling streets of some upscale area of Rio.
Graffiti of the city.
Before going to the main 'attraction' of the Chirst statue, we stopped at the Rio cathedral - a bit of unusual structure for a cathedral.
Inside, it has four stained glass window going all the way upto 200ft.
Last destination was the statue of Christ the Redeemer, located at the top of the Corcovado mountain. A magnificent 130ft statue, overlooking the whole city, as if protecting it. It's symbol of Rio, and looks as impressive at the close range as it looks in those panoramic pictures.
You can take a train or choose to walk. We took the train.
On a clear day, you have a great view all around, but we were not that lucky. In fact, the statue was almost lost in the fog most of the time, but every now and then, it cleared and one could see the full statue. It was funny how very suddenly a lot of cameras were fired as soon as the view cleared. Sometimes we want to store the memories in the hard drive rather than inside our head or heart.
So that was that for the great city of Rio - the next day, we would take a flight to Iguasu airport, in anticipation of the next wonder.
.
Toco!
Toco Tucan - the most colorful bird I have ever seen, and my most favorite too.
@ Arancua lodge, Pantanal.
Brazil notes 1 - On we go (and why I hate AA)
It had been five years since my last (and only) international trip, and we both had been itching to go to Amazon for years. Finally we put in vacation dates in advance and made sure we had no excuse not to go to Brazil this year.
Visa process was straight-forward and took us no time to get two new shiny visas stamped on our passports. It's not expensive either (I think we paid 40 dollars or something), but if you are a US citizen, they charge you 135$ or something, in response to US charging as high fees for the visa to Brazilians (talk about tit-for-tat!).
Now Brazil is a big, big country (more than 2.5 times the size of India) and offers a lot of possibilities for traveling. It was a difficult job to plan how best to spend the 10 days we had. After exchanging very large number of emails with our travel agent and long hours on net searching and researching (during which I bailed out leaving Sheetal to deal with the whole thing), we managed to include Rio, Iguassu (or Iguazu or Iguaçu) Falls, Pantanal and Amazon Basin. This meant we wouldn't be going to Lençóis Maranhenses or Jijoca de Jericoacoara in the north east, or the northern and more popular area of Amazon rain forest around touristy Manaus, and it was OK (no, not really).
View Brazil 2010 in a larger map
So on to the first destination - the great city of Rio.
The part I hate the most during such trips is the first long flight to your entry point. I hate traveling by air, especially in the paranoid country like the US. Whole circus of security checks (the day is not too far when we all will have to go completely naked through the security checkpoints), waits, delays, and total incompetency of airlines to boot - all together makes a very nasty experience. Especially when you are flying American Airlines. I don't remember flying AA without problems, ever.
After getting dropped at the Newark airport from our ever helpful friends Yaz and Anbreen, we had two hours to kill. Just before leaving, in a moment of craziness, I had thrown in 1248 page long and 2 kg heavy "The Gonzo Papers Anthology" by Hunter Thompson (a bible of Gonzo journalism), and was already thanking my wise self for the foresight - the flight was already delayed by 45 minutes.
There is something about waiting at the gate for delayed flights. Being inside the airport already makes people behave like crazies. And when the flights are late and the wait is long, you can sense the crazies are slowly turning into zombies. And those little kids who looked cute just five minutes ago turn into nasty little zombies.
Anyway, so, they finally announced the flight. Instantly, 300 people formed 30 very orderly queues. We joined the slowest one (isn't that always the case?) stumbled along and found the seats. I don't know about you, but for me, by the time I reach my seat, I feel as if I have just completed a triathlon and have come in last, two hours later than everybody else! No matter how early I board the flight, everybody else magically appears sitting after stashing their 500 various pieces of baggage in every available overhead space, looking at you all smug and satisfied. Those early-a$$holes!
Anyway, we inserted ourselves into the seats.
And waited.. for 30 more minutes, and then one hour more after a gazillion announcements that they found a mechanical problems and were fixing it. Really? Out of all 200000 flights scheduled in that hour, only ours had to have a problem? When we had just 3 hours to make our connection in Miami and were already delayed? We were still giving benefit of the doubt to AA, just hoping they did not cancel the flight. They didn't and we took off, already two hours late. Finally. YAY! We should be able to make the connection now, we had almost an hour to do that!
No. What is AA if not a bunch of a$$holes? THEY COULD NOT FIND A GATE at Miami!!!?? We further waited for 20-30 more minutes before finally emerging out of that morgue. Next step? To run and catch the flight - if they had not already closed the gate.
Now, Miami is a huge airport and about 1200 different terminals over 5000 miles of distance. Naturally, we were at one end the airport and had to go to the one exactly opposite of it to catch the flight.
There is something about people coming out of a delayed flight when they have to make an urgent connection. They are at their most vulnerable self and would start running in the direction they see many others running. Like Douglas Adams said, if you are lost out on the road, just follow anybody who you think knows where he is going. This strategy works fine, but only until you see some other people running in exactly opposite direction. And while all this chaos was going on, I am sure AA people were laughing their ass off, or even betting which ones were going to miss their flights. Bastards.
Anyway. So, we ran all 5000 miles in like 10 minutes - following various arrows pointing in opposite directions, in and out of the terminals, zigging and zagging, just like rabbits being chased by mad hounds. Breathless, we finally made our connection, after another security circus - just in time - because the TAM flight to Rio was late too. Phew!!
Eight hours to go, packed like sardines in that little box 40000 ft above in the air, breathing the recycled air, being fed some foul food. Finally we landed in Rio, with paining neck and muscles, constipated and sleepless. But we had made it! We were in Rio! Just get the luggage, find the guy waiting for you and start your great vacation, right? WRONG!!! AA was not done fucking around with us. No way. They managed to keep our luggage in Miami. Yes. We were in Rio sans our luggage and clothes and all that.
"I hate AA" is a gross understatement. I don't hate them - I abhor them, I loathe them. If the company goes down tomorrow, I would be first cheering up and down like a little girl in a pink frock screaming like crazy on top of my lung.
After waiting for half an hour for our luggage, realization happened upon us that we were fucked. We eventually managed to find somebody who did not speak a word of English, convey our problems with a lot of dramatic gestures and logged our lost baggage complaint - all thanks to a fellow Brazilian passenger who too was done over by AA and translated for us. (Muaaaaaaahhh!)
One to two hour late, but finally we managed to walk out of the door. A tall Carioca with a "Joshi/Pandit" placard was waiting for us.
And he said "Welcome to Rio!!"
Visa process was straight-forward and took us no time to get two new shiny visas stamped on our passports. It's not expensive either (I think we paid 40 dollars or something), but if you are a US citizen, they charge you 135$ or something, in response to US charging as high fees for the visa to Brazilians (talk about tit-for-tat!).
Now Brazil is a big, big country (more than 2.5 times the size of India) and offers a lot of possibilities for traveling. It was a difficult job to plan how best to spend the 10 days we had. After exchanging very large number of emails with our travel agent and long hours on net searching and researching (during which I bailed out leaving Sheetal to deal with the whole thing), we managed to include Rio, Iguassu (or Iguazu or Iguaçu) Falls, Pantanal and Amazon Basin. This meant we wouldn't be going to Lençóis Maranhenses or Jijoca de Jericoacoara in the north east, or the northern and more popular area of Amazon rain forest around touristy Manaus, and it was OK (no, not really).
View Brazil 2010 in a larger map
So on to the first destination - the great city of Rio.
The part I hate the most during such trips is the first long flight to your entry point. I hate traveling by air, especially in the paranoid country like the US. Whole circus of security checks (the day is not too far when we all will have to go completely naked through the security checkpoints), waits, delays, and total incompetency of airlines to boot - all together makes a very nasty experience. Especially when you are flying American Airlines. I don't remember flying AA without problems, ever.
After getting dropped at the Newark airport from our ever helpful friends Yaz and Anbreen, we had two hours to kill. Just before leaving, in a moment of craziness, I had thrown in 1248 page long and 2 kg heavy "The Gonzo Papers Anthology" by Hunter Thompson (a bible of Gonzo journalism), and was already thanking my wise self for the foresight - the flight was already delayed by 45 minutes.
There is something about waiting at the gate for delayed flights. Being inside the airport already makes people behave like crazies. And when the flights are late and the wait is long, you can sense the crazies are slowly turning into zombies. And those little kids who looked cute just five minutes ago turn into nasty little zombies.
Anyway, so, they finally announced the flight. Instantly, 300 people formed 30 very orderly queues. We joined the slowest one (isn't that always the case?) stumbled along and found the seats. I don't know about you, but for me, by the time I reach my seat, I feel as if I have just completed a triathlon and have come in last, two hours later than everybody else! No matter how early I board the flight, everybody else magically appears sitting after stashing their 500 various pieces of baggage in every available overhead space, looking at you all smug and satisfied. Those early-a$$holes!
Anyway, we inserted ourselves into the seats.
And waited.. for 30 more minutes, and then one hour more after a gazillion announcements that they found a mechanical problems and were fixing it. Really? Out of all 200000 flights scheduled in that hour, only ours had to have a problem? When we had just 3 hours to make our connection in Miami and were already delayed? We were still giving benefit of the doubt to AA, just hoping they did not cancel the flight. They didn't and we took off, already two hours late. Finally. YAY! We should be able to make the connection now, we had almost an hour to do that!
No. What is AA if not a bunch of a$$holes? THEY COULD NOT FIND A GATE at Miami!!!?? We further waited for 20-30 more minutes before finally emerging out of that morgue. Next step? To run and catch the flight - if they had not already closed the gate.
Now, Miami is a huge airport and about 1200 different terminals over 5000 miles of distance. Naturally, we were at one end the airport and had to go to the one exactly opposite of it to catch the flight.
There is something about people coming out of a delayed flight when they have to make an urgent connection. They are at their most vulnerable self and would start running in the direction they see many others running. Like Douglas Adams said, if you are lost out on the road, just follow anybody who you think knows where he is going. This strategy works fine, but only until you see some other people running in exactly opposite direction. And while all this chaos was going on, I am sure AA people were laughing their ass off, or even betting which ones were going to miss their flights. Bastards.
Anyway. So, we ran all 5000 miles in like 10 minutes - following various arrows pointing in opposite directions, in and out of the terminals, zigging and zagging, just like rabbits being chased by mad hounds. Breathless, we finally made our connection, after another security circus - just in time - because the TAM flight to Rio was late too. Phew!!
Eight hours to go, packed like sardines in that little box 40000 ft above in the air, breathing the recycled air, being fed some foul food. Finally we landed in Rio, with paining neck and muscles, constipated and sleepless. But we had made it! We were in Rio! Just get the luggage, find the guy waiting for you and start your great vacation, right? WRONG!!! AA was not done fucking around with us. No way. They managed to keep our luggage in Miami. Yes. We were in Rio sans our luggage and clothes and all that.
"I hate AA" is a gross understatement. I don't hate them - I abhor them, I loathe them. If the company goes down tomorrow, I would be first cheering up and down like a little girl in a pink frock screaming like crazy on top of my lung.
After waiting for half an hour for our luggage, realization happened upon us that we were fucked. We eventually managed to find somebody who did not speak a word of English, convey our problems with a lot of dramatic gestures and logged our lost baggage complaint - all thanks to a fellow Brazilian passenger who too was done over by AA and translated for us. (Muaaaaaaahhh!)
One to two hour late, but finally we managed to walk out of the door. A tall Carioca with a "Joshi/Pandit" placard was waiting for us.
And he said "Welcome to Rio!!"