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Dystopian Rainiverse

02/01/2012/6 Comments/in Musings

After our New Year’s trip to the Coca Cola rivers of Ibitipoca, we arrived back late last night in pouring rain. Apart from a short period just as we arrived, it rained the whole time we were away. It is still raining now. The last few days reminded me of a short film I saw many years ago – a dystopian future world where it rained all day, every day without a break. Every seven years the sun would come out for just one hour, then the rain would restart. Through the magic of Google I have just discovered that the film was based on a short story by Ray Bradbury called All Summer in a Day (read it here or, if you have 30 minutes to kill, watch it here).

Taking photos of rain is not easy! I just hope I don’t have to wait 7 years to see the sun again…

Of course I’m being a little melodramatic here. We actually had a lovely time away in Minas Gerais and once I have a little time to sort through my photos I’ll tell you all about it. But for now I am going to continue being melodramatic. Or maybe I can drop the “melo”, because there was quite significant drama on the way home yesterday.

Brazil’s Coca Cola Rivers

31/12/2011/5 Comments/in Musings, Things to do

Hello there. It might seem like I am typing this to you from my normal seat (you know, the one at the table in the dining room), but that is actually a cleverly constructed illusion. In reality I am miles away. In another state no less. That’s right, I am finally going to Minas Gerais, Brazil’s state of Cheese and Cachaça (that’s not the official state logo, those are just the two things I’m most excited about).

Though in reality, that is also a bit of an illusion (OK, let’s drop this ‘illusion’ talk, it’s a lie, a straight out lie). Because I am in my normal seat in the dining room as I type this, but using the power of delayed publishing (I set a time in the future for this post to be automatically published), when you read this I will be in Minas Gerais. Basically I’m going to be away from Computer-Land for a while, so I’m writing a post before I go away. Everyone clear on that? Great.

The plan is to spend the New Year holiday in Ibitipoca (sounds like i-bitchy-POCK-a). Ibitipoca, or more properly Parque Estadual do Ibitipoca, is a forest park created back in 1973 and covering 1,488 hectares. You have to buy a ticket to enter the park and the number of visitors is limited to 300 per day. You can camp (we will be) and apparently these numbers are limited also.

That’s a LOT of Coca Cola…

What colour is your New Year’s Eve?

30/12/2011/11 Comments/in Art and culture, Things to do

And so we reach the point where memories of Amigo Oculto and Blueberry Trifle are fading fast and we turn our attention to New Year’s Eve. It seems that in Brazil, New Year’s Eve may be referred to using one of several terms. Mostly I hear people talking about Reveillon, but then I have also seen Véspera de Ano Novo and Noite de Ano Novo (hint, I ‘wonder’ about things like this in the hope and expectation that some clever Portuguese speaker will clarify things for me).

If you decide to spend your NYE in Rio then the main event is held in Copacabana. As many as 2 million people [shudder] are expected to celebrate together on the night – there will be big-name musicians such as Beth Carvalho, O Rappa and [shudder again] David Guetta, plus a spectacular firework display. I went past the area in a taxi yesterday and the driver joked that the only people who stick around for this event are tourists. Indeed, many Cariocas decide to use this holiday to get out of town and avoid the mayhem.

The New Year's Eve fireworks in Copacabana. Sure the fireworks look cool, but just look at all those people. Good luck getting a taxi home... (thanks to mazavideos.blogspot.com for the awesome photo)

But regardless of where you decide to spend Reveillon, there is one question on everyone’s mind: What colour will you be wearing?

Wark This Way!

29/12/2011/5 Comments/in Art and culture

As regular readers of Eat Rio will know, I have a small obsession with graffiti. I love spotting new pieces as they appear and getting to recognise the work of particular artists or crews. Soon after I arrived here, one character caught my attention and the more I travelled within the city, the more I saw his rather unseemly face.

Not a particularly friendly or happy character is he?

I have to say, I wasn’t a big fan of this series of often sneering characters. But they were striking and something about them really jumped out at me. In my head I dubbed them ‘Ballmen’ and the more I looked around, the more I realised that there were many different variations dotted around the streets of Rio.

British Christmas Food in Brazil (part 2)

28/12/2011/9 Comments/in Food and drink

Yesterday I did my best to convince you all that I’m some kind of super-chef (it’s great having your own blog, you can tell stories that make you sound great). Today I’m going to continue in the same vein by telling you the story of this year’s Christmas day cooking adventure.

Pavlova – a delicious dessert that I didn’t make this year.

After the stress and hassle of last year’s Beef Wellington, I made a point of opting out of the main dish and instead offered to make sobremesa (dessert). I decided to do a pavlova – none of my Brazilian family had heard of this delicious dessert made up of layers of meringue, cream and summer fruits, so it seemed like a great option for wowing them once again. Problem was we ended up being dangerously short of time. And it was stiflingly hot. And we had to make the dessert at our place in Santa Teresa and then transport it across town to my mother-in-law’s house in Gávea. I had visions of arriving across town and unveiling some broken, melted mess.

So we switched to Plan B.