The bad behaviour of Brazilian bees

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One day when we were shopping for something completely different, I spotted a hummingbird feeder for sale. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it before, but I love birds and I find hummingbirds particularly wonderful. As soon as I saw the feeder I lost interest in everything else! On the way home I was already googling how to make the sugar solution and where best to place the feeder.

Before long we had several hummingbirds visiting regularly and I started taking photos. All was peace and harmony in the garden until one day, this happened:

Bees on hummingbird feeder

A couple of bees discovered that there was free nectar on offer. Guess what happened next…

 

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Looking up

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I’m feeling a bit wistful at the moment – perhaps some saudade even. It’s because we have reluctantly made the decision to leave our lovely big apartment in Santa Teresa and move a bit closer to my work. A young couple came to look round this morning and they loved it – the looks on their faces said it all: “You guys are mad to be leaving this place”. Maybe they’re right. It’s just that it takes between 1.5 and 2 hours to get to my place of work. And when you spend 4 hours sitting on a bus each day, you don’t have much time left for anything else.

We will probably end up in a much smaller apartment and it almost certainly won’t have the roof terrace and amazing views we currently enjoy. This morning I woke up with a bit of a heavy head , wandered outside and looked up:

Amazing clouds

Woah! Awesome clouds!

 

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The Ultimate Caipirinha

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In today’s post I am going to tell you about what I think is the best caipirinha there is. I never thought I’d find a fruit that suited this cocktail better than the good old classic limão (lime), but I’m confident that when you try one of these you will agree. The fruit in question isn’t easy to find, but if you can track it down, you will have something pretty special on your hands. Let’s take a look at it shall we?

 

Limão cravo, rangpur lime, canton lemon, hime

Limão Cravo – unassuming looking little fellows aren’t they? This fruit goes by many names (even in Brazil!): Limão Galego, Limão Lava-tacho, Limão Bode, Limão Rosa, Limão Capeta. Outside Brazil the list grows longer still: Rangpur lime, Canton Lemon, Hime Lemon.

 

A confusing list of names for a citrus fruit? After recent posts, I don’t expect any of you to be surprised by that! This fruit was mentioned in the comments of a few recent posts and I had been keeping a look-out for them for a while. You don’t find them in every supermarket, but I managed to track them down a few days ago in the organic section of Zona Sul. As I appear to be going through a bit of a mystery-fruit obsession a the moment, you won’t be surprised to hear that I hurried home to take a better look at these strange things.

 

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Stripes in the sky

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When I first came to Brazil it was by crossing over the border with Colombia in the Northwest (deep in the Amazon). A friend and I spent a few days exploring the river and the jungle – of course, in such a short time we could only scratch the surface, but nevertheless we saw all kinds of amazing sights.

The Amazon.

 

We spent one memorable day with a guide in a small canoe, paddling upstream and then stopping off to trek through the forest, seeing some very cool animals and meeting some indigenous people who lived along the river.

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A MASSIVE leaf

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It’s at times like these that my wife gives a long-suffering sigh and shakes her head as if to say “How did I get mixed up with this strange guy?”. Well I’m sorry, but I had to show you this massive leaf! Amazing isn’t it? These things are littered all over the place and even after 2 years in Brazil, they still amaze and delight me.

Unbeleafable...

 

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