Brazil, A holiday from a holiday – Oktoberfest

Peter Griffin is alive and well in Blumenau

I’ve been to Brazil before, and seen quite a few places out here, but this time round I am coming for a break from Spanish speaking countries and I have not been to the southern states before so thought I would have a bit of a holiday here and find the beaches.  To begin though, my fast progress thorough the lower part of Brazil was because I was trying to get to Blumenau in Santa Catalina for the Oktoberfest festival.  Its not as big as the one in Munich, I thought it was the second largest, but randomly there is one bigger in China apparently.  So this one is in fact the 3^rd largest, still 1 million people visit every year.   

Southern Brazil is a bit different from the rest of Brazil and has been populated mainly by people of European decent, many of which originated from Germany.  Blumenau is the same and was started by German immigrants in the 19^th century.  In fact in many homes today German is still the 1^st language spoken and there are German style homes all over the place.  

I spent the 23^rd and 24^th October in Porto Alegre, recovering from the hellish ride through the Cyclone and then set off for Florianopolis on the 25^th.  This again was in bad weather and spent the whole day with the rain chasing me.  The road to Florianopolis follows the ocean so there was some something to stare at on the journey, I even saw Dolphins at one point while crossing a bridge.  I was lucky this day though as I literally arrived in Floripa as the rain came down.  Plenty of time for the beaches later, I just slept the night and then set off the next morning – 26^th for Blumenau, in yet again a full storm.  I was soaked through in wet clothes upon arriving and I knew they smelt bad after being wet and then dried several times without being washed.  A nice surprise for my Couchsurf host Millah, however she is either too polite or has no sense of smell as she didn’t mention it once.  

Port Alegre, even the mannequins have the famous Brazilian arse

The latest addition to my wet proof gear, doesn't work mind.

Oktoberfest is one big beer and dance festival.  I guess you could say its the same as the one in Munich with a Brazilian flavour – less tables and more dancing.  I’d like to say the next 3 nights were a cultural insight to Germans in Brazil but that would be a blatent lie.  In reality along with Millahs friends we spent the whole weekend either drinking beer or nursing a hangover, maybe that is the cultural insight.  I think I will just post the pics as there is not much more I can say about the town, but I will say it was strange meeting so many full on Germans here though.  I don’t think political correctness means much either as there were some dressed as Nazi’s doing the hitler salutes, but if its ok for Prince Harry it must ok for everyone right?  But really on the whole everyone else was dressed in traditional clothes, knew the dance moves and really got into it.  After 3 nights of drinking though I was dead to the world and couldn’t go out another night, but some people I met had been out drinking every night for a month - Tatiana this is you, seriously I'm impressed!  There easily has to be a liver transplant issue in Brazil, the amounts being consumed is impressive, but then again with traditional music laced with europop songs like '99 Luftballons' playing on a loop, you need copious amount of beer too.  Oktoberfest, strange and surreal, but a massive laugh.

Thigh slapping and other things are the norm

These guys are a famous german band who come out here every year and apparently have the pick of all the hottest Brazilian German girls, no really its true

Not a f'king clue to the dance moves

Nope still no idea

The girl in the middle was the singer in the headline band.  The conversation went, Hables Espanol? No. You speak English? No.  Ok nice to meet you

Faceoff with a Cyclone in Uruguay

Having spent the whole day hanging around Cabo Polonio I left in the early evening as I found out the weather was going to be good for the next few days and I thought I would spend the weekend at Punta del Diablo, 80km up the road.  As I had the 4x4 to myself coming to Cabo the night before I was a bit shellshocked to share the 4x4 with a group of 40 school students on the way back to the visitor centre.  It was reminiscent of my school trips except I didn’t know any of the songs.  The kids asked lots of questions and wanted me to tell stories, which I was beyond rubbish at, but kids are forgiving and they were really interested in my trip.  Getting to the visitor centre I loaded up my bike and rode an hour to Punta del Diablo, arriving at Hostel Tranquilo as it got dark.  

Punta del Diablo is a small fishing town on the cusp of a tourism boom.  There are a lot of houses and small hotels being built, but no highrises thankfully.  Like the rest of Uruguay it is extremely busy for the 3 summer months and dead quiet the rest of the year.  But right now there are a lot of foreign speculators buying up land and many of the town folk are working all year in construction.  It will be interesting to see what will happen here, but at the moment it is cheap.  You can buy good beach view plots for only US$60,000, just saying mum.

Punta del Diablo

As soon as I arrived at the hostel a French guy ran out to say hi.  He said he knew me from Montevideo and we’d been hanging out together.  I’d definitely never seen him before, but as there were a group of people watching us and as he was so happy to see me I decided to go along with it.  The weather ironically was pretty bad, so much for the beach weekend…bastard weather reports.  Still, waiting for the rain to stop I had fun and ended up hanging around for 3 days with all the people getting up to all kinds of hostel stuff, which in summary is drinking beer.  The French guy was as crazy as they come and along with him a group of us did venture out on Saturday night to a local bar inland.  It’s a little vague but was a good night, I remember thinking it was a good idea to come back on the bonnet of a car.  Upon reflection it probably wasn’t the wisest.

Cheesy I made it to the beach on my bike and its not raining shot

Trying to see inside the fort in Santa Teresa only to find there's an entrance the other side.

By the 22^nd the weather was actually getting worse and I decided to make a run for it to Brazil.  The weather had to get better there.  I planned to cross the border at Chuy and then ride onto Rio Grande but by lunchtime the rain was torrential.  I’d already packed so thought I would just ride 40km to Chuy and spend the night at the border, making my journey the next day a bit shorter.  The rain though was so bad that I missed the main part of the town and actually rode through the border control and into Brazil.  It was only when the signs changed to Portuguese that I realised so had to backtrack a few kms haha.  Chuy is a strange town, cross one side of the street and its Brazil, cross back and its Uruguay.  This is good as there was some kind of holiday on the Uruguay side and the shops were closed, so I just crossed the road and went to the supermarket in Brazil.

Chuy - Brazil on the left, Uruguay on the right

I was soaked through when I got to the hostel (I really need to get some better water gear).  I was the only guest too and the owner told me a Cyclone was on its way the next day.  I asked how bad and he said there was a “Red Alert” warning and all businesses and schools will be closed.  Not what you want to hear when you're riding a bike, Still the next morning it seemed quite windy, but no worse than I’d seen before so I decided to make a run for it.  This was perhaps not too intelligent, but I was sick of all the bad weather – and at least the roads would be clear of traffic.  Immediately, and I don’t know how, I rode off in the wrong direction and somehow again I think I crossed into Brazil.  This time there were no signs so it took me 20mins to work it out.  I’m so retarded sometimes.  

Brazilian Armed police clearly not interested in my bike

After turning back and finding the right border control and getting my documents checked it was after 9am – so much to my early start.  I still had to go 550km – my furthest in one day yet and through a cyclone at that.  A real full blown Cyclone it turns out.  I think I have blocked it all out now, but it was a terrible day riding.  The eye of the storm was luckily about 200km south, with winds reaching 185km/h.  In the north it was 120km/h, but this was still powerful and the rain was so strong it felt like stones were hitting me.  As I rode, the strength of the wind forced the bike to a 45 degree angle as the wind flew in from the side, but it was even worse when there were intermittent gaps in the trees as they acted as windbreaks and were so inconsistent I veered all over the place.  So difficult to control but I couldn’t stop let alone take photos because I would have been blown over as well.  I remember I kept screaming weak and pathetic swear words to no one in particular.  I wasn’t the only one affected though.  The few trucks I did see started to loose their loads with their canvass covers coming undone and flying like huge flags across the road.  Birds were laughably making no impact when they flew and just hovered in the sky.  Trees were really being hit, many loosing branches and there was a lot of debris in the road.

The cyclone in Montevideo, taken from news websites

I can’t even remember when I finally got past the worst of it, but it was well into the afternoon something like 4pm before I noticed blue sky and sun and I stopped and lay down for a while to recover.  It then hit that I’d made it to Brazil and out of a Cyclone, so I was feeling pretty good by then.  After this everything was easy and I happily kept going until I crossed the bridge into Porto Alegre at around 6pm, 8hrs after leaving the border.  A massive day covering 570km, and so so happy to be in Brazil and have nice weather for once.  

Sun - at fucking last!!!

Cabo Polonio, Uruguays best

Leaving Punta del Este the next morning I rode onto Punta del Diablo.  It wasn’t raining so my bike became an improvised moving clothes dryer and with the sun out I started to finally dry out.  It was only 180km so I was in no rush and was looking forward to a trouble free sunny day.  The journey along Ruta 10 next to the coastline is picturesque.  There are some seriously nice properties scattered around, much more tasteful that Punta del Este.  You know they are ridiculously expensive when all the “for sale” signs are placed by Christies and Sotherbys International.   After sometime I had to turn inland as the powers that be have inappropriately placed the Laguna de Roca in the way and at this time of year there is no ferry.  Heading inland there was one farm after the other, the only change in the scenery was a blown up oil tanker, where I stopped to take my lunch.  

Strange suposedly clever "Stressed Ribbon" in Maldonaldo, on the way out of Punta.

Lunch stop at deceased oil tanker

Continuing on I was enjoying the fact that my clothes were dry and my feet were no longer shrivelled up in my cheap boots when I noticed my GPS had fallen off the handlebar.  Its not that I have had good results with it over the trip so I thought I’d be better off without the bugger.  Then I realised GPS is pretty useful negotiating cities, of which there are many big ones in Brazil, so weighing it up I decided to retrace my route back 60km to the oil tanker where I had stopped for lunch and hopefully find it on the way.

To say this was tedious is an understatement, stopping for pointless inanimate objects that might resemble a GPS unit is no fun way to spend an hour or two.  Making it all the way back to the oil tanker without finding it I realised my chances were slim, but as I was there I thought I may as well look around where I had lunch.  After searching I still couldn’t find it so was resigned to the fact that some farmer without a passport now pointlessly owned a shiny new GPS unit with all the maps between Alaska and Argentina.  I walked back to the bike, leaned over to get back on and felt a lump dig into my side.  Yep, the bloody thing was in my jacket pocket the whole time.  There were only cows to witness a lunatic laugh.  

This extra 120km dented into my travel time and as the sun started to get lower in the sky I was cold, which is just as bad as being wet.  In no time at all I was really cold and decided to cut the trip short and head for Cabo Polonio, which was 80km nearer.  I wasn’t planning on going there until after Punta del Diablo, but the order didn’t matter and I was happy to be cutting the journey.

Cabo Polonio is definitely a highlight of Uruguay.  It is a hamlet which began in 1735 after a Spanish Galleon called “Polonio” shipwrecked offshore.  Since then around a 100 rustic houses have been built using wood and other materials that appear as though they have been found washed up along the shore.  The people who live there originally were sailers and fishermen but over time tourism has become important and more than a few of the great unwashed also known as hippies and artists live there now.  

There are no roads and due to it being located in a national park you are not allowed to reach the place in your vehicle so have to take a 4x4 7kms through the sand dunes and along the beach.  I caught the last 4x4 of the day and was lucky enough to see the sun go down just as we reached the beach through the vast sand dunes.  I really had no idea what the place would be like and as it was dark upon entering the village I wouldn't know until the morning.  The only light emitting from the small houses scattered around in no particular order.  You could tell it is different to every other place in Uruguay.  At one point asking for directions to the only shop, I was given the response “Oh just walk towards the light up there”.  Its so laid back, you don’t need to care about walking though peoples gardens or finding a path – they just don’t exist.  The hostel I stayed in was very basic, any other place it would be a negative but in Cabo it is really fitting.  At night the locals popped in for a game of poker and I sat around eating my dinner chatting in Spanish all night.   

Nearly as uncomfortable as the seat on my bike

Down at the local shop

Poker night in poor light

Turning in tired and early I slept until early morning when a vindictive little bastard of a mosquito stopped me sleeping.  By 6:30 I gave up sleep and went for a walk as the sun rose.  What an amazing place, heaven on earth as long as you don’t trip over the odd dead sea lion on the beach.  There are of course lots of live ones too and quite often walking across the rocks I kept stumbing into them and had to back off.  I was the only person around and took so many pictures all morning.  It really is that special and I would love to come back again some day.  What a place, I hope it doesn’t change.

Morning Sunshine, after days of rain.

My Hostel, Viejo Lobo, quite easy to find too

Best deck chair ever

Sea Lions, thousands of em

a house with a view

 

Views from the lighthouse

Black dots = Sea Lions

Bolivian fruit drink you boil with water, the hostel had this for breakfast.