The 13 hour night bus ride from Montevideo was pretty comfortable but we didn't get much sleep as the lady next to us got out at every stop the bus made and smoked as fast as she could. She got back into her seat and coughed incessantly until the next smoke break. The seats reclined further than they do in an aeroplane and they have a leg rest that folds down to lie your feet on. A thin flat cushion was under us and and a polar fleece blanket over us. Sadly my earplugs could not cut out the noisy cougher. Included in the price of the ticket was dinner; a cheese pastry slice, a chicken pastry slice, a cheese and guava jam pastry slice, that were all cold with two fudge balls for dessert and a cup of coca cola. Most people did not eat their dinner.
We handed our passports to the driver and he checked them when we got on the bus and then presented them at the border checkpoints while we were sleeping so we never had to get out of the bus until we arrived in Porto Alegre.
We caught a local bus from the bus station to our hostel. The bus had a turnstile just past the driver. It was managed by the operator who takes the money or prepaid cards. With our day bags in front of us and our packs on our backs it was such a tight squeeze that the operator had to give us a lift and a push so we could get into the aisle. We have been scheming ever since to find a way to get through these things in a more dignified manner.
The hostel was great and as it is low season there are not many guests. Even though we arrived about 8am and check in is usually 2pm we were invited to have breakfast and were shown our room. It had a heat pump which we used as it is still quite cold. There was also an extractor fan in the room and the outlet pipe went down near the wall of the neighbouring carpark. This meant that the noises of cars starting, doors slamming and people talking was amplified up the extractor pipe. Luckily the earplugs could keep out most of the noises
.
We had a map of several self guiding tours of the city so spent some time doing those. Most people pass through Porto Alegre on their way to Iguazu Falls and don't spend much time there. We noticed that the streets were very clean and people recycled their rubbish. Sadly there is still a lot of graffiti but not as much as in Uruguay and Buenos Aires.
The people living in the parks and streets never bothered us. There are lots of people selling sweets or small items as they walk about and lots selling things they have made on the footpaths.We saw some musicians busking with banjos and playing American bluegrass tunes.
On one day we got hungry and saw a lot of people in a restaurant having lunch so decided it must be a good place to eat. A young lady gave us a ticket each and mumbled something in Portuguese so we went in. We asked at the cashier if anyone spoke English and they shook their heads. We looked at the buffet dishes and found a person monitoring a set of scales. She found us an English speaker who explained how the system worked. If you eat a little your plate is weighed and you pay per 100 gms. If you eat more than a certain weight you pay a set price and can eat soup, a drink, a main, and dessert and have as much as you want for that set price. It is called a buffet livre. There were so many dishes; salads, pastas, stews, vegetables, fried meats, and accompaniments. It was great to have a choice of cooked and salad vegetables.
On the Couchsurfing website we saw that the local group was meeting at a bar near the hostel so we signed up to join them. What a great night. There were about 40 people and most spoke English. Every time a person arrived they went to each person and introduced themselves and gave everyone a kiss. This is such a welcoming tradition compared with what would happen at a NZ gathering. People mingled and came over to chat to us. On Couchsurfing they are all interested in travelling so we have a lot in common to chat about.
On the way to the bar we passed two groups of people being watched by the police and the streets were shut down. A couple of fireworks went off and we hurried on to our meeting. We were told it was protesting about the impeachment of the current female president by those for it and those against it. It will be 180 days before the investigation into the impeachment is resolved and the vice president takes over running the country in the meantime.
I had posted a public trip notice on the CS website saying we would be in Porto Alegre and that means that anyone in the area can contact you. A young lady named Eliete read it and invited us to stay with her at her place in the south of the city for the weekend. We accepted her invitation and then she sent us a message to say that some people in the group were going trekking and organised for her friends to pick us up and take us to the Itapua State park where we caught up with her.
The park is home to one of the indigenous tribes and we had to hire a guide to take us on our trek through the park ending at Lake Guiaba.
The guide showed our group of 12 the different varieties of plants and we had to preserve the spider webs that crossed the track.
The park is home to lots of different kinds of snakes, monkeys and capybara the largest rodent in the world. The only wildlife we saw was an enormous spider right in the middle of the track and it was bigger than a golf ball.
Eliete lives with her mum on a piece of land that was her grandfather's farm. It has a small orchard with mandarins, lemons, loquats and huge passionfruit with yellow skin. The farm now has three houses on it for her sister, cousins and brother.
It rained while we were with Eliete but she got out maps and brochures and gave us suggestions for places to visit and things to do in Brazil. When we told her it was our wedding anniversary she made us a heart shaped polenta cake and put some sparklers on it and sang to us. She does not speak much English but we managed to communicate in three languages at the same time- English, Spanish and Portuguese. What a great time we had!
We handed our passports to the driver and he checked them when we got on the bus and then presented them at the border checkpoints while we were sleeping so we never had to get out of the bus until we arrived in Porto Alegre.
We caught a local bus from the bus station to our hostel. The bus had a turnstile just past the driver. It was managed by the operator who takes the money or prepaid cards. With our day bags in front of us and our packs on our backs it was such a tight squeeze that the operator had to give us a lift and a push so we could get into the aisle. We have been scheming ever since to find a way to get through these things in a more dignified manner.
The hostel was great and as it is low season there are not many guests. Even though we arrived about 8am and check in is usually 2pm we were invited to have breakfast and were shown our room. It had a heat pump which we used as it is still quite cold. There was also an extractor fan in the room and the outlet pipe went down near the wall of the neighbouring carpark. This meant that the noises of cars starting, doors slamming and people talking was amplified up the extractor pipe. Luckily the earplugs could keep out most of the noises
.
We had a map of several self guiding tours of the city so spent some time doing those. Most people pass through Porto Alegre on their way to Iguazu Falls and don't spend much time there. We noticed that the streets were very clean and people recycled their rubbish. Sadly there is still a lot of graffiti but not as much as in Uruguay and Buenos Aires.
The people living in the parks and streets never bothered us. There are lots of people selling sweets or small items as they walk about and lots selling things they have made on the footpaths.We saw some musicians busking with banjos and playing American bluegrass tunes.
 |
| The account that shows we paid a set price |
On one day we got hungry and saw a lot of people in a restaurant having lunch so decided it must be a good place to eat. A young lady gave us a ticket each and mumbled something in Portuguese so we went in. We asked at the cashier if anyone spoke English and they shook their heads. We looked at the buffet dishes and found a person monitoring a set of scales. She found us an English speaker who explained how the system worked. If you eat a little your plate is weighed and you pay per 100 gms. If you eat more than a certain weight you pay a set price and can eat soup, a drink, a main, and dessert and have as much as you want for that set price. It is called a buffet livre. There were so many dishes; salads, pastas, stews, vegetables, fried meats, and accompaniments. It was great to have a choice of cooked and salad vegetables.
 |
| The desserts |
On the Couchsurfing website we saw that the local group was meeting at a bar near the hostel so we signed up to join them. What a great night. There were about 40 people and most spoke English. Every time a person arrived they went to each person and introduced themselves and gave everyone a kiss. This is such a welcoming tradition compared with what would happen at a NZ gathering. People mingled and came over to chat to us. On Couchsurfing they are all interested in travelling so we have a lot in common to chat about.
On the way to the bar we passed two groups of people being watched by the police and the streets were shut down. A couple of fireworks went off and we hurried on to our meeting. We were told it was protesting about the impeachment of the current female president by those for it and those against it. It will be 180 days before the investigation into the impeachment is resolved and the vice president takes over running the country in the meantime.
I had posted a public trip notice on the CS website saying we would be in Porto Alegre and that means that anyone in the area can contact you. A young lady named Eliete read it and invited us to stay with her at her place in the south of the city for the weekend. We accepted her invitation and then she sent us a message to say that some people in the group were going trekking and organised for her friends to pick us up and take us to the Itapua State park where we caught up with her.
The park is home to one of the indigenous tribes and we had to hire a guide to take us on our trek through the park ending at Lake Guiaba.
The guide showed our group of 12 the different varieties of plants and we had to preserve the spider webs that crossed the track.
 |
| No Capybara but his droppings. |
The park is home to lots of different kinds of snakes, monkeys and capybara the largest rodent in the world. The only wildlife we saw was an enormous spider right in the middle of the track and it was bigger than a golf ball.
Eliete lives with her mum on a piece of land that was her grandfather's farm. It has a small orchard with mandarins, lemons, loquats and huge passionfruit with yellow skin. The farm now has three houses on it for her sister, cousins and brother.
It rained while we were with Eliete but she got out maps and brochures and gave us suggestions for places to visit and things to do in Brazil. When we told her it was our wedding anniversary she made us a heart shaped polenta cake and put some sparklers on it and sang to us. She does not speak much English but we managed to communicate in three languages at the same time- English, Spanish and Portuguese. What a great time we had!
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