Bourgois Buzios

The St Tropez of Brazil

After 4 nights in Rio (3 in posh hotel, 1 in Ipanema hostel) we´ve just spent the last 3 nights in Buzios, a resort town about 2.5 hours outside the city.

My parents met Yolanda, a well-to-do Carioca, while traveling in Bhutan this year. She has been incredibly generous, taking us around Rio one day, then letting us stay at her swank beach house while she´s away in Paris with her family.

In addition to the gorgeous pad, which literally sits right on the beach, her housekeeper, Marly, has been preparing the most amazing meals for us. Black beans with hunks of ham, fresh salad with hard boiled eggs and tomato, chicken, pork, baked fish, roasted potato, flan,...and last night an incredible passion fruit mousse. For breakfast this morning we had papaya slices, fresh squeezed OJ, Brazilian coffee, rolls, warm lemon cake, and homemade cheese with jelly. We haven´t eaten this well since getting to South America, and I doubt we´d do any better in any restaurant, which are dramatically overpriced here ($30 for pad thai at the only Thai place in town). It´s so good to eat a home-cooked meal. Jen is shopping for a thank you gift for Yolanda´s staff right now.

All we´ve been doing is going to the beach, watching movies on cable, and eating. I did take a surf lesson and managed to stand a couple of times. That´s about the most productive thing I´ve done for a while.

We´re ready to rough it again in Salvador. Leaving tonight...

Portugese Pain

It´s been tough for me to lose all my communication skills. Speaking Spanish was just fun. I felt like such a badass compared to most travelers. For a while in Rio I tried speaking Spanish with a Brazilian accent and changing words at random to sound more Portugese, but that was idiotic. Now I just speak straight Spanish. In Rio´s tourist areas, I was actually better off in English.

Brazilians generally understand Spanish. The problem is I only catch about 30% of what they say back to me. It´s ok for day-to-day situations like ordering food or taking the bus, but when I don´t know the context I am completely lost.