Ilha da Magia

Florianopolis. Ilha do Santa Catarina. Ilha da Magia.

 

Unquestionable paradise.

 

It was a long 28-hour bus ride there from BA, crossing the somewhat sketchy Brazilian border in the middle of the night. When I woke up, I was surprised to find that the grass was greenest on this side; you know those highlighters that Flo decorates all of her notes with, the obscenely bright ones that inevitably get on your fingers no matter how long you wait for them to dry on the page? Yea, the green one. That´s the color of Brazil. The soil; brown? Why would you choose brown soil? Let us make it RED, violent red. And the sky? Well, let´s make it pretty blue during the day, but sunset, let us go all out and use every color we know. And then splash the sky with white at night.

 Even the cows are different on this side. They have this awesome hump projecting from their neck. Apparently it makes for really good, really fatty meat. By the way, forget being vegetarian at meal time in Brazil. Snacks, you´re set, between sucos, coconut water, queijo grilled right on the beach in a little charcoal bowl in front of you, churros filled with dulce de leche or chocolate. But meal time hits, and a vegetarian request lands you a frango sanduiche (chicken sandwich).

 Back to Floripa. So I arrived, and having no idea where my hostel was (truly NO clue), I figured it must be on the other side of the island, and so hopped on a bus with some Ozzies from the trip. They had to switch at one point, so I hopped off and started walking, hoping for the best. Mind you, the island is still probably 70 Km from North to South, so this was a serious shot in the dark. I asked the first local, and guess what? It was around the corner.

 I rushed to cross the lake/lagoon, and climb the hill over to the beach while it was still light. I hopped over one last hill, and there it was, Soft Beach, Praia Mole. Kilometers of pristine sand, with the ends chopped by huge rounded rocks. Surfers galore. Hippies everywhere. Young. Clean. Beautiful.

 Over the next days before Carnaval, I met some great characters at the wonderful Casa Brasil, a small hostel with hammocks out front and the most wonderful receptionist/barrista who made some lethal caipirinhas. When Carnaval began, I moved on over to Backpackers Sunset, which was a great location on the top of the hill to the beaches, with the most incredible view of the Lagoa da Conceição, but due to the masses needing room, the place was out of control. I formed a good group with a whole bunch of people from all over naturally, and we explored the island together over Carnaval.

 Betwee the elegant beaches of the North, to the secluded beaches of the South, the freezing water of the East, to the freakishly warm water of the West, the sand dunes and the mountains for hiking, and the partying which left us all out of breath, it was a crazy week. It just so happened that David Guetta was playing at Pasha, a 12,000 (yes, you read right) person club; and incredible night of dancing and smiling and watching the sun rise over a mountain of people.

 The last night was the biggest treat of all. Carnaval, the parade. So Carnaval is traditionally the top samba schools of the region competing in a parade held several times throughout the five days of Carnaval. Each school is given a theme, and on that they find the hundreds of people at the school to participate dancing, making costumes, and mounting floats. Each samba school comes from a different town in Santa Catarina in Florianopolis, and they have to have a song for their company. We went to the final night, which only had the three winners; the show lasted 8 hours. We were all exhausted, and it was cold after a nasty storm. But when the party finally started, there was no sleeping--- dancing in the stands, caipirinhas, singing! The parade was absolutely unbelievable. The women could be classified as the following:

The general participants, who were grouped into batches of 100 ish, and wore the more outrageous costumes

The little girls in their dream costumes of glitter and sparkles and crowns and sparkles and glitter

The older women in the most incredible hooped gowns spinning and spinning

The babes with the most absurd bodies filing out by the hundreds (HOW DO THEY DO IT HOW ARE THERE SO MANY OF THEM) in thongs and nipple covers and feathers. VERY nice.

 

The dancing.. oh the samba! It looks like just moving your feet as fast as humanly possible and shaking your hips at the same time and smiling like a crazy person.It was so lovely, when it ended at 2 AM, we couldnt help but stay and dance on their path, sucking up all the energy left over, and trying on all the costumes that they had shed on the way.

 

It is nicknamed Ilha da Magia, and it positively is. I would go back in a flash. And who knows...

Argentina de porteña

I flat out have a big-time crush on Buenos Aires, no two ways about it. BA, Bs As, Porteño land, has such a magic touch to it, something that moves the soul and makes it want to shake and dance because life is beautiful.

 The people have gone through some rough hardships in the past few generations, and those tough times are not forgotten; every week, the women of BA come to Plaza de Mayo to commemorate the missing from the Dirty War, and curse those responsible for it. There are memorials popping up in the spots around the city, under bridges, where hundreds of bodies were recently discovered hidden by the past governments. The people are not quiet about their past, and there is no reason to be; they were wronged, sent to disgraceful war in the Falklands  to try and save face for the President, and suffocated politically under his crazy wife´s rule. That is history; the present generation has seen quite a bit itself. Going from the most prominent and developed country in South America to plunging into poverty overnight in 2001, people saw their families desperate, and life 180 for the worst. Now, the economy is slowly climbing, but it is a very slow crawl, and it is difficult to accept that I am essentially profiting off of their terrible exchange rate. There are laws stating that tourist attractions may charge two prices, one to Argentines, and one to foreigners, to which gringos are outraged. I am of mixed feelings; the price they give us is still so cheap by our standards, why not let them make some extra cash while staying in our price range?

  There is money in Argentina, plenty of it, it just happens to lie in few´s hands. The range of wealth is shocking; I remember seeing an entire family living on an old mattress behind a shop in the bus station, the children running around unaccompanied as the television did a special on how dangerous the station had gotten. And I also remember seeing the wealth of the few families with estancias, thousands of hectars of land for one family, land that they probably will never visit entirely as they live in the decadent apartments in the city.

  But despite this rift, there is something amongst porteños that keeps them moving and smiling. The hot, hot days where all anyone can do is sit on a shady stoop of a once glorious building and sip mate under the trees. The busy plazas with everyone running every which way while just as many people busy themselves watching. The hundreds of people in the extensive parks, whiling away the day with their families, complaining about work. Maybe it was an unreal slice of life that I got to see, but I felt that here, people do not feel stress as we know it. They may work in offices, they may take a VERY crowded subte home in the oppressive heat, but at the end of the day, people are smiling, kissing, hugging, laughing, crying, shouting, FEELING. And that is what I came for, the city that feels outwardly, that has no problem showing what they have gone through, what they are going through, that has a pride in showing the world what they are and where they are from. Porteños.

A day on the estancia

i rode a horse. i fucking OWNED the horse. i bloody galloped. for a half hour. hair flying behind, holding onto nothing but the reigns as the gauchos do, into the fields of Areco with the storm at our backs.

 

the town has been lacking any rain for four months now, which is rather disastrous considering the region survives on agriculture. so everyone has been begging for rain, as the temperature climb, and the humidity soaks. little by little by little, it started to feel like the skies would explode, and last night everyone's hopes were the highest they could be. people stayed home waiting for it to rain. tension was so high. and then the stars came shining through, ruining everyone's hopes and providing another hot, hot night.

 

this morning, we walked to estancia cinacina (check the website--oh my goodness so beautiful). we were going horseback riding. ALL (note:every single one) of my riding experiences have ended in disaster, ranging in gravity; the first ride, thrown off a full-size horse at age 6; have a horse near roll onto me at 7; horse bolting off; horses bucking in front of me. they know i am scared, and therefore they are scared. clever fellows, they are, one should try and avoid the overly-nervous folk. so this morning, my mother convinces me to get out of bed early and head on over as the skies cloud over mighty fast. we meet our guide, Jose Luis, a charming shy gaucho, and i just pretend like i´ve been on a horse every day of my life, and guess what? JL and the horse bought it. fifteen minutes in we were running through the fields and a million bucks couldn´t have wiped the smile off my face. such a thrill. my ass may be killing me, but i could NOT care less. i am still grinning after three glasses of wine on the patio.

 

the rest of the day was watching traditional dance and laughing about with gauchos and italian tourists and american pastors (well, perhaps slightly laughing at the latter). as we ate the umpteen-course meal over the afternoon, the rain begain to collapse onto the grounds, dousing the estancia, giving us no choice but to get wet anyway. my mom and i looked at each other and decided to walk home in the torrential downpour, flip flops sliding in mud, winning the wet-tshirt contest and thoroughly drenching every part of our body. the electricity went out with the storm, and as we walked into the hotel, the staff (who is rather unoccupied seeing as we are the only guests in the hotel) burst out laughing at the sight of us. towels were wrapped around us and we siestad in the glory of my triumph.

 

the rain is still going, but i am happy it is, the rain makes the people happy, and i like smiling gauchos. i may try and sneak back on a horse tomorrow before heading back to BA

 

--
Julia Elena Paolucci

San Antonio de Areco

vale i will give you a poor attempt at a description of san antonio de areco.
 
as we (madre y yo) drove from pinamar, which is southeast of BA, to SA de A, the main thing that we noted was how much more lush the greenery gets. the arid plains of pinamar slowly deepened into dark green fields, with leafy, willowy trees keeping the innumerable horses and cows in the delicious shade of the afternoon. once we approached SA de A, there was no sign of town, just a bus stop on the side of the road. as i, porter of two, collected the bags, a remise (ie a car that serves the same purpose as a taxi) consisting of a driver and his wife in their ancient family bandwagon, drove up and picked our bags right up. as they drove us into the streets of the town, it was hard to judge, as the town was absolutely void of inhabitants. the hotel, from outside looked equally abandoned, shutters closed, a doorbell to ring to enter, and no sign of life anywhere.
 
and then the door opened.
 
we walked into a beautiful room that used to be a patio, with dark grey walls and cow hyde rugs and wrought iron furniture and plush beds and the typical black and white tiles of the region. the back terrace is where asado can be enjoyed, and there is a library in which i am currently sitting and listening to the life of the town riding by. once we settled in, we headed out. funny what you don´t notice in a car ride. the town (of roughly 20,000 people) is base camp for the gauchos' culture of argentina, which are like the cowboys of the south. they wear berets and boots and colorful belts with silver buckles. the chaps don the traditional patterns in exciting blues and yellows and reds, and their role from my limited understanding is to round up the cattle on their horses. so this is one of the towns that has maintained this history, and i can assure you that there are still gauchos roaming the streets of San Antonio.
 
The buildings are short, and the grid plan of the city reminds me of the forlorn mining towns in Colorado, only much, much greener. the buildings are from the turn of the 20th century, and unlike in BA, they have been wonderfully preserved and painted in traditional colors of olive green, beige and subtle pinks. when we arrived, the streets were empty because of the intense heat (35 degrees at 6PM anyone?), but little by little shutters opened and cars from the 70's started to show. in the calming heat of the evening, we ventured towards the town Plaza Arellano (pronounced arejano).
 
and then we were under attack.
 
from out of nowhere, water balloons were aimed at us from all directions from the Lost Boys of the Eve, and looking around, we saw the remnants of the siege and many others' ill fate lying in the streets, bullets of bright rainbow colors, lying exploded on the pavements, with the water splattered violently over the buildings.
 
once escaped, we managed to get to the Plaza, a dream of calm and green, and proceeded to make our way to the Rio; there, we found the citizens of SA de A adorning the banks of a beautiful river glittering in the evening sunshine as kids daringly jumped in. there is the absolute incessant beat of latino music in the air EVERYWHERE here, if you listen carefully enough, and here was no exception, along with youth and aged alike basking in the shade, patiently sipping at their maté before dinner.

returned to the hotel and having escaped a second battle with the young warriors, we ate the first vegetable meal since we have arrived (N.B. meals=carbs or meat. basta), before looking at estancias for tomorrow's adventures of horseback riding. you know my history with horses: please pray for me.

 

--
Julia Elena Paolucci