#itxi

So you were right went you mentioned u might get in trouble here.. well, actually and to be honest, I thought about making a nice post about you, xplaining how wonderful and such a great person you are.. all that rubbish! (not to mention your proficiency to be a good friend! Or how you always cook delicious foot for me ¡and even for my friends back in Bremen! Ur generosity, ur ability to listen people’s problems and the way you have to easily make them feel better again..!) But cmon.. it’s me.. “ain't no itxi is capable of dat”..! So instead, I’ll just say terrible things about your person, cause it’s far funnier. So, first of all let me point out your cucumber face on every pic

Yeah, and I think I’m done here. anything I can say after this will be just crap in comparison

Just last point (I’ll keep this short, don’t worry!)You said we covered everything, and indeed we did!! But I must add that we covered everything with dignity! (oha, that’s a very stupid sentence) 24/7 it’s not an easy deal! And we just made it, and made it nicely, cause –and I don’t wanna be cheesy here, cause u know I’m not chessy at all (ok, might be a liiiiiittle bit..! or a little not that little bit…) anyway- we’ve gone through a lot together besides silly and easy stuff and we always kept our smiles. Yesterday already back home, I was trying to analyze my time in there. Now I can certainly conclude that Brazil has been a nice mistake in my life! I would never change the last month of travel.. all I’ve seen, experienced, suffered & also learned with you & guys, cause it has been an incredible month!! But as we know, before that in SP, I was extremely unmotivated and disappointed.. It has been the first time that happens to me and being so far away from home… yeah, it has been pretty tough! And the only thing really helping me there (and trust me when I say this) was you! We’ve been living and basically spending ALL time together! So I can just be grateful with you and thank you for joining me in this incredible experience..! <3

 yeah, I just felt like randomly adding a stupid pic from you, pouring the best coffee in the whole world in a moment of specialty:) - to keep this less emotional, you understand-

So now, let me live in peace without you for a month aaaaaaaaaand let me just hug u once back in Bremen!! Once more, buy urself a jumper when in NY as a Xmas present and don’t die in the cold..! Barbados, please! Hear me here!!

¡Uh! btw, I would be always able to say now that I let to know you behind the make up and black clothes ^^

As Barbarinho said in the last post, Luz came for a visit on my last week in the country. After spending those two wonderful days in Floripa with BB and Fred, the two of us took a bus to for 4h until São Sebastião. In there, a ferry took us to Ilhabela and we quickly found a bungalow for 2 people, nearby the port, nice and cheap. That afternoon we let to know the constructed side of the island, the one facing the continent. It was very, very nice! Towns were just popping out of the green with lots of colorful lights and people were very sweet and relaxed!

Day after, we went for an excursion my prof told me about. It was a 5h track crossing 3 mountain ranges and ending up in Praia do Bonete. In that excursion everything happened to us! :) We had to run from a red&black snake that jumped to the sky when we were passing nearby it, then (and that wasn’t funny) a group of furious bees came towards both of us making a lot of noise and started to attack us!!!! It was very suffocating so we undressed ourselves as fast as possible and jumped to the river.. we had to be there for at least 15min splashing water everywhere until they went away! And finally, mosquitoes! They were biting so hard that blood was coming out from each bite! like a 1cm blood river..! But well, fights with nature apart, it was an enjoyable trekking with lots of cachoeiras in where we stopped for taking baths! 

5h later, we reached the most beautiful beach in the world.. It was like a small bay with white sand, lots of trees at the back of the beach and a town hidden down them. Town was very colorful, having a beautiful river at one side. In there, lots of fishermen were drinking and smoking, and their families were around as well. Even some fog was going down the hills already when we left the place.. It was wonderful! Dark-blue sky with white clouds and fog going down green hills with dark rocks.. all ending in a very white sand! We took a speed boat to go back to the town. Guy that drove it was crazy, I was even afraid! Waves were massive and we kept splashing and turning and jumping for 30min. At one point, he even went really close to the rocks to show us some impressive marine caves! 

After a long shower, we took a bus for 5 more hours to Rio. We arrived there at 5am so we went to the hostel and slept for some more time. That morning, we went to the city center. It was raining and it was Saturday morning, so nobody was there but lots of street guys walking around. We went visiting the theater, all churches placed in the area and the cathedral. Reached that point, we decided to see Sta. Teresa colorful stairs, but well.. then I was stolen (bad place, wrong time..they made me give everything I had at the moment, which was quite a lot..! but you know, at least nobody got injured, which wasn’t that far). So after that, we just kept visiting and reached Copacabana beach, in where we stopped for dinner. Next day it kept raining. Nevertheless we could spend a nice time at the bay of Botafogo, visiting the quarter of Ipanema and even coming up Pão de Açúcar. It stopped raining for a while and sky went a bit clearer, so we could go up, take some pics, go down again and already drive to the bus station to go back to SP. In the bus station we received the visit from our crazy&lovely Leila and Dali. That cheered us up a lot! :)

Bus then was 7h, so we reached SP at 3am. Some more sleep and a really quick tour through Paulista was everything we had time to do in the city! It was just time leave to the airport and say good bye to Luz..!

Day after, I did the same to my landlords, Camilo, Barbarinho and Luciano; but this time it was me who was going to the airport to take a plane back home. Amazing month went to its end..! Not before stopping for 11h in Miami! There I went out from the airport and took 2 touristic buses after having a very Xmas breakfast (yes, at 40ºC!) First one went across the city xplaining all kind of stories and showing wonderful quarters (like Little Havana, which I really found lovely). Second one went along Miami Beach. I went down in one of the stops and joined the tour in the next one. I could walk in the beach, take a bath and even drink a piña colada! :) Afterwards, I even had to run back to the airport!

We survived a week in the jungle!

Day after returning to SP from the 2 week tour & saying goodbye to Jens in the airport, it was time for another visit to Guarulhos and fly off to Manaus, capital of the state of Amazon. Pilot announced that our weather till there would be homogeneous. What he actually meant was lots of rain and storms during the whole flight! After 4h flight and crossing 2 time zones, we’ve met our guide in the airport, Amazon Rambo. After a night spent in a hostel, the following morning we had a chance to visit a bit the city center and we left to the jungle! After 2 h drive by car and another 30 min by boat, we reached the lodge placed in an island in Rio Negro. On the way he told us some anecdotes (e.g. few days ago he was with 2 em.. fat English guys in the jungle.. and they had a visit from wild pigs so they had to climb up in trees. One of the guys was soo scared that he climbed high up and… the branch broke and he fell down to the ground, in between pigs which got scares and ran away) and so on..! 

Rio Negro is actually negro! It has a tea-dark color and it’s quite acid, the best possible repellent for mosquitoes. Lodge where we stayed is just great, having a lion as a dog and 2h of electricity per day. And about climate... Climate there is something; it or either rains like there is no tomorrow or sun shines so strong that you wanna melt. Temperature is more or less constantly 35º and humidity around/over 90%, so everything is permanently wet!

With us there was a couple of crazy girls from Atlanta, Lejla and Dali, and an Austrian guy, David. After lunch we took a small green boat with our guide, Fabio, and crossed to the other side of the river which took us 30/40min. It is one massive river indeed. And you could always see butterflies on it. Fabio “parked” the boat on a small beach and we started half an hour trekking through the jungle to reach our camp. It already has a wooden construction for placing a plastic roof and our hammocks with mosquito nets. It was raining a lot, so starting fire was quite a challenge! Nevertheless, after a couple of hours we had a delicious rice with chicken, and some alligator eggs for the veggie Barbara, for dinner! Fabio made us spoons out of palm tree and dinner was served on a leafy plates. So authentic :)

During the night rain was pouring, lightings everywhere, lots of magical sounds of the jungle… By the time we woke up breakfast was already done - yummy coffee, some more eggs and bread. Not bad for being in the middle of nowhere! We made a 2h trek around the forest. Trees are massive, super green and very diverse. There are termites all over the place and the ground is full of branches and small trees and brown leaves. We saw a massive tarantula, a lot of insects, birds and lizards. On the ride back to the lodge we had a storm to fight in order not to sink, since waves kept filling our boat. Somehow that was funny (or at least for me, BB seriously doubted our survival!). After delicious fish for lunch a couple of Germans arrived. The three of us decided to make a canoeing trip. With that rain we couldn’t see anything, but at least it was very relaxing with lots of fog coming out from the warm river. Next day we woke up at 5.30am to see the sun rise. Fabio took us through the river, crossing some flooded trees and paddling for some time through bushes in the water. Sun was already high up when we realized it... Ops! We were too busy looking at the jumping fishes, birds and monkeys having their breakfast. After our breakfast we visited an Amazon tribe. Was so nice! They danced for us, explained us in Portuguese their traditions and way of life and played some instruments. We had the opportunity to dance with them and even to speak, since they are speaking 6 tribal languages (to be able to communicate between other tribes) and Portuguese. They are such welcoming people!

That afternoon an English couple arrived, and 9 of us went together to catch piranhas with bamboo fishing sticks and some chicken hanging from the hook as the bait. We didn’t have to wait for too long, piranhas came quite fast, and most of time just ate our chicken! They are smart (and ugly). And I even caught one!! After some time, with our boat tied to a small tree watching the sunset, + a couple of dolphins decide to peacefully swim in the area. It was a ridiculously ideal cheesy scene..!

Once it got dark, we went again out on the river for some caiman spotting! When you point a torch in their direction all you can see are their red eyes, it’s so creepy! Our boat was moving slowly and kept sinking (a hole in the bottom). All of us were very quiet, tension high! We were so concentrated looking what is out there when, all of the sudden, a flying fish jumps out from the water and slaps David's face! It’s was hilarious! I mean, which are chances for that to happen? Tension as gone, atmosphere relaxed... (BB- and I had a true Bear Grylls’ moment! I caught the fish with my own bare hands! (ok, should point out that the fish was struggling to breathe, lying there helplessly at the bottom of our boat, but still…) Another time, Fabio was about to jump into the water to catch a caiman and then he sneezed :D hilarious! Not long after, he caught a baby alligator! So cuteee, he/she was making that cute noise ^^ Once we were done with alligators, we went back to a native village for dinner. That night we slept at the white sandy beach, under the clear sky full of starts and almost full-moon.

Next morning I woke up with a wasp under my mosquito net (still don’t know how he managed to get there) but at least, it didn’t bite me. Weather was incredibly hot that day, needed 4 coffees to cheer me up! After coffee we went on a search to spot some monkeys, without lots of success. It didn’t make much difference if 11 of us were speaking while walking or staying in a total silence since we were as quiet as a horde of elephants :D After lunch, some more coffee, and a short nap we packed once more and started our last trip into the jungle. This time we have to walk for quite a while to reach our camp. Same story as before: lots of thunders on our way, reaching the camp, putting up the roof and.. it started to rain. When storm calmed a bit we set the fire (or tried to). After more than an hour and 3 or 4 tries from the scratch, wood finally started to burn and we could prepare the dinner. That evening was full of horror stories, fun and songs. Night was amazing, warmer than previous, lots of sounds coming from the forest, a toilet expedition sometime in the middle of the night, and some panic with bugs as flat mates.. which was actually really funny. 

Next morning we went to swim with pink dolphins! They are so super soft!! It was hilarious watching how we were (at least at the beginning) scared and even disgusted to be touched by one of them! They have such a long “nose”! They kept touching us with it to get more fish for quite long time and even biting BB’s belt from the life jacket! And since the river is so dark that you cannot see them, all of was got scared at some point when they touched us :D

Back to the lodge and after lunch, it was time to say goodbye to American girls with whom we had such a nice time!! :/ In the afternoon we did some more canoeing, not with much more luck than on the first try. At least we heard a big splash (you know, from a caiman/alligator entering the water or whatever one wants to imagine..!) That evening and next morning I wasn’t feeling very fit, so I stayed at the lodge (was so nice to rest a bit and stay dry!) BB and the guys drank some caipis that night and went for jungle trek next morning, spotted some some cappuccino monkeys (yup, those that make terrible noises and scream like hell!) and some cute small ones as well.

That was our last day in the jungle. In the afternoon we went back to Manaus and met the Müllers (German siblings that left the lodge same day as the American girls). We went together to see the meeting of the waters. I thought waters would meet and mix a bit, being just able to trace a line between them form the distance, but it was a great surprise watching how actually that’s not true at all! Waters coming from Rio Solimões (higher PH, lower Tº, higher speed and whiter color) meet waters coming from Rio Negro and don’t mix at all! Mixing just happens long after, just before the discharge of the Amazon to the Atlantic Ocean. That was such a great experience. Boat made a “circle” with our hands in the water so that we could clearly feel the difference in temperature between them!

Last weekend we went to a really nice market that takes place outside the city. Outside the city means crossing the suburbs and suburbs means favelas. To do that, we took a bus which crossed one favela after another one for an hour. From the window I could see how life looks like there a bit closer, and couldn’t help comparing it with the film “Cidade de Deus” (http://goo.gl/w8EyZr ) which reflects that part of the society in an excellent way.  Those communities somehow captivate me (besides scaring the s* out of me!)

 It is undeniable that there is poverty, marginalization, crime, drugs, violence and other evils; and that the vast majority of middle-class Brazilians doesn’t even think for a second to go and walk through one (and by that, just try to realize the magnitude of the situation). But it’s worth to mention that there are as well theater & cinematography workshops, cooperatives & literacy training, people with normal jobs, bars, even churches and kids playing in streets (although they might be full of trash all around). So I would say, favelas are mostly occupied by poor people that can’t afford living anywhere else, excluded from society by this vicious circle of fear-exclusion (and to be honest, no wonder why there is that fear).

Criminal gangs are the main problem there, making corruption grow among the childs. Childs which doesn’t know (and will probably never know) what school is. They are the ones that continuously ruin the lives of the inhabitants, both, inside and outside the community making it unsafe and problematic. Barbarinho and I live very close by a small one, not very violent.  Even though, they have already tried to mug us and I’ve been followed by cars more than once, (cars that have all windows, front one included, dark tinted) among other weird stuff. ‘Our’ favela is a pacified one, what means that military police is there hovering 24h/day (in fact, they established a headquarter next door) making sure that there’s no presence of armed bandits. [[Speaking with people here, I let to know that ironically, pacification is carried out after invading the community and killing its current boss (well boss, people here, people there..) and while everything is unstructured, they install the UPP (peacemaker police unit). UPP is just great, if one doesn’t expect from them any kind of efficiency. Everybody knows that they charge a fee to the gangs for allowing them selling drugs without punishment; and well, it is also ignored by the justice, credible allegations of police involvement in numerous extrajudicial killings]]. So all in all (and that's what I wanna point out here) for me, this concept of security has some serious flaws.. (I’m just glad that we have 3 street keepers 24h/d 365d/y) Further, in our case, police allows e.g. loud Brazilian funk parties all weekend long, or guys to drive crazily illegal & terribly noisy motorbikes all day/night long all over the place (that’s our quarter http://goo.gl/2oqa1Z ) as they please. But, when it comes to intervention, they normally use the force in an extremely way (happened past Saturday nearby here http://goo.gl/6k5YHr). So for me it’s really difficult to understand it’s role..

We've been here for a month now, and we think that now we can share out impressions of this city. 

Disclaimer: * since we are not tourists here, our story is most likely very different from someone who’s been here for the same time as a tourist (...just saying :D ) ** if my mom finds out about it, I’ll deny everything (!) (B.)

It’s a love - hate relationship since the very first day. And this describes the city itself very well. If we had to choose one word to say something about São Paulo it would most definitely be – “contrast” .

For start, I call São Paulo a “concrete jungle” . Growing up in a city that has a population of USP’s campus (and USP stands for Universidade de São Paulo, not Utah State Prison, just in case you were wondering… ;) ), and later living in Zagreb, which is like 2 neighborhoods here, I am… overwhelmed. It is so unbelievably big, crowded, messy, chaotic and polluted. The list is endless… (B.)

We live 10 min walking from the campus, which here may as well be like we’re sleeping on the campus. And that is great. On the other hand, campus is located way out of the city center, which means it takes us ages to get anywhere. And that drives us completely crazy. If you’re lucky, you’re in city center in around half an hour (bus + metro), but if you get stuck in the traffic… that extends to an hour, at least. Oh buses… That’s something. They don’t have any timetable (so they come when they come), are just too crowded to be able to breathe normally and drive like crazy. At this point, it would be good to inform general public that here there are a lot, a looooot of speed bumps. And they are massive! Sometimes, a driver doesn't really give a single fuck about it and simply drives over it, which ends with a loud crack of bus’ back side touching the road. And if you’re sitting at the back seat, as we did one night, you get to experience “the roller-coaster bus” with flying half a meter up from your seat (needless to say that we were both dying laughing). And when talking about buses we have to mention... Avoid using after dark, it is not safe (which we are so not doing because metro shuts at midnight, and we have to get home somehow, don’t we?). This “It is not safe”, “Be very careful” and everything else people have told us… it is soooooooo tiring!  We’re completely sick of being careful all the time and trying to fit in, not to attract any attention, no laughing loud on streets, when passing by people we stop talking, do our best not to get mugged… So we've made a short list ''How to behave on a bus and on the streets in our neighborhood  (*especially after 6pm, when it’s dark)'' ...and we did mention we have a favela around the corner, didn't we? Our neighborhood  is on the periphery of the city, making it, how to say.. less safe... Here it goes:

NO jewlery what-so-ever (yeah, you know us, we have fancy earrings for no more than 5€ :D) (& no need to point out that our smartphones don't know how neighborhood looks like)

no talking (English)

do not ever, ever sit in the back seat of a bus when dark

no smiling !! (Itxi: ''cmon BB!!!!!!!!!!! I smile and even play with little childs...! :P")

look as depressed and fucked up as possible !! (Itxi again: ''cmoooooooon i wouldn’t say that neither... :P'')

be sure to know which bus you need to take & where to get off (bus stops don’t really have names, or you may end up in the favela... - true story bro)

do not rely on timetables (just for the sake of saying it out loud :D) they don’t really exist!

And now try to have a good time when you’re going out when you know all of that is waiting for you on the way back. At one point I do forget about it, and really relax and have fun (yeah, caipirinhas help... ;) ) but then reality kicks back in when it’s time to leave, and we wish we lived in the city center…

Did we freak you out yet? :D

BUT…. (and there is always a “but”)

The campus is amazing! It covers around 7,5 square kilometres, offering a high variety of courses (“you name it and they have it”).

I work with 2 very nice PhD students and a crazy Spanish dude, our prof is also kinda crazy (I mean cool way of crazy, not psychotic or smth), dropping in with some new ideas on a daily basis :D  (B.)

City centre is like a different world!  (referring to Avenida Paulista, Vila Madelena, Jardins and other fancy neighbourhoods…)

The main avenue is Avenida Paulista, one of the world's biggest financial/economic points. The cool thing about it - it’s not like a typical main avenue. Yes, there are tall glass building protruding to the sky on the both sides, and yes, traffic is unbelievable… (you know what’s coming) BUT (!) it is very wide so you walk around without feeling the weight of it, there are 2 blocks of *preserved* Atlantic forest right next to it - better place to have a coffee in city center? We don’t think so 8) ...and we found a really yummy coffee place nearby :)

Oh yeah.. so, when it comes to plants…. Very often I see something that’s growing in a flowerpot back home, and here they are XXXXXXL in size :D (ok, I’ll stop. Just wait for the Amazon post buahaha 3:)  (B.)

Just to point out, coffee is NOT good everywhere in Brazil. What it’s good everywhere is Feijoada. Feijoada is a traditional meal here in Brazil, consisting of red beans with pork. Normally is eaten along with farofa, which is a mandioca’s flour. Açaí is also very well known here and eaten regularly. It is a paler fruit and one can found it in drinks, sweets and ice creams, normally served with muesli and with some  fruits. All typical meals can be found in markets (pão de queijo, pastel with whatever on it, coconut juice..), botecos, padarias or lanchonetas (funny thing - lanche =  sandwich).

Brazilians looooove food!

  Back to Paulista…right across the forest there is MASP (Museum of Art) with an antiques market on the weekends, and something very cool is going on every Sunday. One of the three car lanes in each direction is closed between 7 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon, and turned into a cycle lane! That’s how we spent our last Sunday. And one more thing – you don’t even “rent” a bike - it’s for FREE! It was very cool to cycle down the avenue 8)

Fancy neighborhoods, with Vila Madelena in the front – the going out neighborhood, full of cool bars and restaurants, people always end up drinking on the streets, live music everywhere…

And of course, samba schools - where people train for carnival & are open for ''public''. There are tones of underground-style bars/pubs with live music as well, where you end up dancing whichever kind of samba... And one more fun fact: apart from being asked for your passport number when entering bars, sometimes they even ask you for your fingerprints (!)

Street art is a big thing here, one can see amazing graffiti everywhere.. But what is definitely breathe cutting, is  Beco do Batman, a street covered by spry art (pics from there on some other occasion)

   And what else are we doing here? We met with Fred for a beer! Ok,a few beers :D

And we spent an afternoon with Rafael, my friend from London, whom I haven't seen for 5 years! After late lunch and coffee,  we ended up visiting Sebastião Salgado's exhibition :) (B.)

After crossing a couple of mountain ranges, 200Km south of São Paulo, there’s “Vale do Ribeira” which embraces the whole catchment area of the Ribeira river and the Iguape estuary lagoon complex of Iguape-Cananéia-Paranaguá. At the other side of the estuary Ilha comprida emerges, an elongated island of 4Km wide x 75Km long (yes, 75Km of continuous beach)!

The first sight of Iguape was a nicely lightened bank of the river as we reached the town around 23h on Friday. After eating palmito salad and drinking some caipis, a little chilling while listening to live reggae closed the night. Iguape looks so different from SP! Old, historical, non-touristic town with colorful houses, kombis crossing by, lots of beetles, palm trees, tropical clima and streets made out of stones. In contrast to SP, people are relaxed here and they use bikes to get around, leaving them unlocked right on the street, leaning on the sidewalks. No fences around houses, no lockers on the bikes, no sight of the police. Bars with live music are all over the place and lots of native American-Indian kids play loudly on streets. On Sundays around 10 o’clock, music starts to play through very loud speakers in order to call people to attend the Mass. It keeps playing for at least half an hour, at which point basically, one can’t stand the music anymore and has to get up (except Barbara!). Also, there is a street market taking place in the main square, right in front of ‘our’ home. City is full with cheerful people that just keep talking on and on with every single person they meet in the street. All of which makes this place just adorable.

We started a day with a cup of good coffee at churro place (for Spanish people. churros here are not churros! They are kind of a copy of one of our best contributions to this world, fulfilled with condensed milk or cream. Almost offensive to call those churros!). Family who invited us for the weekend decided that the little town of Cananéia and Ilha Cardosa are must-see places, so we drove to the South for an hour until we reached the town. Cananéia, or Cananeias how they call it, has colorful houses, big trees, lots of bikes parked everywhere and huge blue clouds. It is a small, fishing village. There we rented a small boat, really cheap, that took us to the other side of the riviera, to ilha Cardosa. On our way a storm started. It was so sudden, so terrible, so loud and so funny! We have to laugh hard.. We drove for ~15min when we saw a sand bad popping out from the sea, in the middle of nowhere. From the distance one can’t see it. Clear and very flat sand with a turtle! I simply had to run back and forth like Jack Sparrow when escaping from the natives on “the black pearl” film http://goo.gl/FD15pd. After some minutes, we realized that the exposed piece of land was getting smaller and smaller.. Tide rised rapidly, so it was time to go back to the boat. We drove for some more minutes. It was not raining anymore, it must had stopped sometime when we were being busy doing silly stuff on the ‘island’, can’t really say when. At one point, we noticed golphinos (dolphins) swimming around in small groups. They are so fast! It’s just impossible to take a picture of them. We kept watching them for a while, dragged by the weak current. Finally, we reached the beach of ilha Cardosa, where some nice, old ships were anchored in the sand. Barbara was the first one who decided to take a swim and after a while, we all did the same. Too perfect to miss it! Sea food, natural fruit juices at the barsinho.. Suddenly, everybody ran to the beach. Golfinhos were fishing at the coast line! So tricky, they are everywhere and nowhere.

yes! that's a golfinho :)

Back to the boat and we were drenched by a second storm. Rain drops hurt so much as they smashed against your face! I tried to keep my face down, but couldn’t help not to look around. There were some wild small islands covered with leafy trees, palmers and exotic red birds flying in circles and coming out from the fog. We reached Cananeias completely wet, laughing a lot and making jokes. We ran to the main church of the town, and there (I mean, why not..) we changed our clothes and dressed a bit warmer. Afterwards, short walk across the town, quick visit to the small museum and.. it was coffee time! Have to say that it was the best cappuccino in Brazil, so far. We spend quite some time in that bar, ordering more cappuccinos and hot chocolates… 

We wanna strongly thank to the wonderful family who lives in SP but has a house there in the city for inviting us to their place and walk us around. We had a lot of fun, met a lot of very nice people, they all greeted us with a big smile and got a glimpse of the real Brazil :)