Hey all!
I know I just wrote a blog, but felt it would be nice to write a blog for each one of the trips I have recently taken. Istanbul was last weekend, so going to write about Brazil! This is my second time in Brazil, and I had a very limited time here, but I made the best of it.
It started out in Alphaville, a small city right outside of Sao Paolo. I was in Brazil for work, and Alphaville is an up and coming business area; however it is 45 minutes outside of the city. When I arrived (at 5AM) I was planning on heading to my hotel to take a nap prior to heading to my client site. Unfortunately for me, there were protests going on over the rise of the bus prices, which caused significant delays in me getting to my hotel (in reality the conflict is much deeper than this, it was just this that tipped the scales). The way the protests were happening, people were stopping their cars and blocking various highways around the city, essentially bringing traffic to a halt.
I finally arrived at my hotel at about 8:30, which gave me a ½ hour to show and get ready for work. People sometimes talk about how glamorous travelling is, or how they wish they could have come with me... Well I will tell you one thing, Alphaville is not like the rest of Brazil. It feels like you are in the middle of no-where, and my time was spent, wake-up, client, dinner, workout, more work, sleep, repeat. The benefit of the trip was that I was able to purchase a cheap flight to Rio for the weekend, and that is where my story begins.
I arrived in Rio on a Friday night. Even though it was winter, it was still a warm 80 during the day and a cool 75 in the evenings. I spend my first night walking around and then headed to a bar in the area to have a drink before bed. I was eager to get an early start, and after a long week of work, I was ready to relax. I was staying in Impanema, which is a couple blocks from the beach, so as soon as I had breakfast, I made a beeline for the beach. I remembered my favourite area and made my way down to it. I was looking for the right stand to rent a chair from, when I hear “Belton... Belton from Texas”! I was shocked, as I did now know anyone in the city, so who could be calling my name. It was none other than the tent/chair attendant who took care of me when I was there last November. He not only remembered my name, but recalled I was from Texas! Wow, you bet he got my service again.
I enjoyed a nice, long relaxing day on the beach, and as you can see from the pictures, it was amazing. One thing I was extremely impressed with was the volleyball players... To make the game more challenging, they were playing volleyball—with no hands! That’s right, they were using their heads, feet, knees, anything but their hands. I was so impressed because I recall when I was on our volleyball team back in Milwaukee (Sara Schmitt, Meredyth Hunn, Tim McDonald, Tony Alivo and others) we were horrible... Well, maybe just I was bad, but I enjoyed it. I could not even imagine playing with no hands.
After spending the entire day on the beach, I made my way to a Brazilian steakhouse. The way it works is as follows:
1. You receive a card that is red on one side and green on the other
2. You help your self to the salad bar buffet and then take a seat
3. The servers keep bringing you all different cuts of meat until you cannot eat anymore
4. Then you leave!
Only difference was that at this place, they decided to bring a table full of sides to go along with the salad bar and endless meat supply (see photo above). As you can see, I was not tempted by the cheap sides, and I opted to focus on the succulent cuts of lamb, beef and chicken.
The next day I made my way to Sugar Loaf, which is a peak situated in Rio de Janeiro, at the mouth of Guanabara Bay on a peninsula that sticks out into the Atlantic Ocean. Rising 396 metres (1,299 ft) above the harbor, its name is said to refer to its resemblance to the traditional shape of concentrated refined loaf sugar. It was an amazing view of the city and it was such a great experience. While on the top, I though how much better it would be with my R with me, it was just such a romantic place to be (you know who you are ;).
After Sugar Loaf, I made my way back down to the beach to watch the sunset and then back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep before my flight out in the morning. It was such a great weekend away, and I hope to get back to Brazil someday to do more exploring!
That’s all for now.
Bye
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