Around Brazil – Oktoberfest Parade in Blumenau

Oktoberfest in Blumenau was never top of the list for Brazilian cultural events that I needed to attend. Even with Blondie’s relatives in the area, it didn’t appeal because going to a German festival while in South America just seems wrong. I’ve been to plenty of German beer festivals and always had a fantastic time there, but they had the added advantage of being in Germany, and full of Germans, and full of German beer. I didn’t imagine it could be this way in Brazil, although at least Oktoberfest in Blumenau is actually in Oktober.

Blumenau was founded in 1850 by Hermann Blumenau and his group of German immigrants. They headed up the Itajaí River in Santa Catarina past the floodplains on each side, possibly filled with flowers at that time as they are now filled with paddy fields and cattle. With a name that means Floodplain in Bloom in German, he must have felt immediately at home and decided to stop where the green hills on each side converged and their boat couldn’t travel much up into the mountains. The scenery may have reminded the fresh immigrants of home, with tree-covered hills and fertile land to grow the things that Germans love, such as hops and wheat amongst the native fruits.

They grew families too, with Blumenau having a high percentage of blond people, some who still speak German as a first language at home and have Portuguese tinged with Teutonic accents. With such a strong Germanic influence, perhaps it was no surprise that after the floodplains flooded in 1983 and Blumenau was cut off from the world for a few weeks that the locals turned to the fatherland for inspiration. With most Brazilian beers having been brewed by German immigrants with their pilsner knowledge, the idea was to start an Oktoberfest to cheer up the town. It worked quite well. Just over twenty years later and the town is famous throughout Brazil for its huge festival, the largest in South America.

Much as in Rio, there are also parades preceeding the weekend days of the seventeen day cervejaganza. The idea for us was to watch the parade and laugh at people we knew wearing lederhosen and dirndl. But our blond-haired blue-eyed Brazilian met with something of an accident as he was playing bowls on the night of his birthday a week before. While examining who was closest, the rival team hurled down their final bowl, slammed the jack into the air and straight into his conkers. The pain was so bad that he was carried home in the back of the pick-up. After arriving home, things got even worse for him but I should not go into such private details, suffice to say that he would not be leaving the house for the his club’s desfila. He’d only just bought a brand new pair of lederhosen for the occasion. We were offered their place in the line-up. Wearing the outfit. Now many gringoes can say they’ve taken part in one of Brazil’s largest cultural events wearing a Carnaval costume, but not many can say they’ve taken part in one wearing a German costume. How could we say no – it sounded like there may be some quality comedy involved as well as free beer and free entrance into the arena.

An afternoon of dressing up and giggling followed, with some dance moves learnt from youtube. Hats were to be worn, hair was to be rolled into buns and long white socks were to be bought. I never thought I could look forward to wearing leather shorts and dancing amongst large German men with moustaches, I’m not that kind of guy. But by Saturday afternoon I was already drunk with excitement and laughter, and still 12 hours away from the finish line of the night. This was really going to be a marathon not a sprint.

The reason that Oktoberfest was founded in October, the reason that those floodplains were full of flowers, and the reason that the area is so green is because the mountains behind attract the clouds. In spring it rains regularly and heavily in Blumenau and Saturday was one of those times. The clouds came down the valleys and obscured our view of the town in the afternoon. The phone call came half an hour before we were due to start. Cancelled. My Big Moment blown. I don’t want to hear that ‘Rained on Your Parade’ phrase, thanks.

Around Brazil – Praia do Rosa

The mainland of Santa Catarina has so many fantastic beaches that it would take months to visit them all. If you only have time for one, then Praia do Rosa is as good a choice as any. As well as great surf and great scenery (including the whale watching of course), the town itself has a twinkling charm that can also be found in places such as Arraial d´Ajuda or Jericoacoara. Unlike some of the more residential beaches, Praia do Rosa always seems to have that holiday feeling and doesn´t empty, even in the winter months of south Brazil. You can still find candle-lit restaurants open all year round here.

The bumpy, sandy roads help give Praia do Rosa the air of undeveloped beach town, yet this is also partly because the residents of the town appear to care more about their environment than many other places in Brazil. Construction has largely been limited to two stories, and the hills at the northern end of the beach protect it from the predatory eye of developers. The southern end houses some historic boat houses and also had prehistoric rock carvings (in Brazil terms), which were sadly destroyed some years ago.

Being set on a hill, one of the beauties of Praia do Rosa is that many of the small pousadas come with views of the beach. Falling asleep to the noise of the waves breaking on the shore, one of the most helpful sounds for drifting off, is something that I haven´t had enough of in Brazil. With a visiting mother to impress, and wanting her to leave Santa Catarina with memories of more than the days of rain that we´d had recently, we had to go for a Room With A View. We got just that. With a view of the whole beach at night, I couldn´t wait to wake up next morning for sunrise. The sun reflecting from the blue Atlantic Ocean, with surfers already bouncing in the waves below us is the kind of first sight of the day that I don´t wake up to often enough in Brazil.

With some of the best surf in Brazil on your doorstep, the very best kitesurfing just around the headland at Ibiraquera, the ASP World Championship Tournament event for the professionals just down the road at Imbituba, and the best whale-watching in Brazil also leaving from the port there and taking you to all three beaches, this is the perfect place to base yourself for a few days. Trails take you over the headlands to other quieter, pine-fringed beaches such as Praia Ouvidor and Praia Vermelho. If you can´t walk that far and the sea looks too rough, there are enough lagoas in the dunes behind the beach, and over the hill behind or leading from the dunes at Ibiraquera to keep you entertained.

As you would expect of a surf town, the streets are busy at night with plenty of bars and restaurants to pass the time. Some of the most charming pousadas with the best views in Brazil (we stayed at Vigia das Marés, with Nelson being a complete fountain of information on everything about the area), and plenty of cheap apartments to rent, just about everybody can experience the delights of Praia do Rosa – undoubtedly one of those special places in Brazil.

Around Brazil – Whale-Watching in Santa Catarina

The Whales are Here! Santa Catarina whale-watching season began in July with the arrival of the first three Southern Right Whales of the 2010 season. The Instituta Baleia Franca (IBF) had a little ceremony to open observation season after two adults and one calf were spotted playing around off Praias Ibiraquera and Ribanceira, between Imbituba and Praia do Rosa. Local authorities enjoyed a little jolly for the opening ceremony at Pousada Vida Sol e Mar in Praia do Rosa, which had already been organised. The three whales timed things perfectly and saved the local dignitaries the embarrassment of opening... nothing much.

The whales continue to visit the beaches and bays of Florianopolis and the rest of Santa Catarina through until October or November time. Whale-watching as an activity can be enjoyed at many of the beaches, with a little luck. Favourite beaches on the island for the whales include Moçambique & Barra da Lagoa, Armação, Matadeiro (where they were once herded into the sand for slaughtering - hence the name of the beach) and Pântano do Sul.

From the sands and the headlands of all these beaches, it is possible to see a whale or few going through their morning... their morning what? Nobody really knows why the whales come so close to shore at this time of year. They only seem to be playing, rolling around on top of each other, flapping the water with their flukes (a technical term that only those of us who have broken our whale-watching virginity are allowed to use – ‘fins’ to the rest of you), blowing, diving, breaching (another term) and all kinds of interesting behaviour. One theory has it that they hide their calves from the orcas of the area, but if that was really the case, then why do they only appear close to the shores in the morning? Do orcas only eat breakfast? Do they have an afternoon siesta?

There are more whales up and down the coast of Santa Catarina, with by far the best place to see these huge, beautiful, curious creatures being a boat trip out from Imbituba. This port town lies around 90km south of Floripa, slightly further south than Garopaba and Praia do Rosa. There are more whales per beach than anywhere else in Brazil (don’t check that stat please, I just guessed) and they like to hang around the waters of Rosa, Ibiraquera and Ribanceira in particular. These surf and kite-surf beaches can all be a little wild for putting a boat out, so the best idea is to drive to Imbituba.

The whale-watching voyages are run by IBF and are properly organised trips, with the whole coast being an Area of Environmental Preservation.

Luis and his team of guides run them from their office at the old Imbituba train station. Before the trip, a little education video is shown to the passengers about the work of the IBF and about the whales in general. The boats head out of the port and along the coast to where the whales have been sighted by fishermen that morning. The boats don’t drive too close to the whales as it can be disturbing. With calm seas, the boats can stop though, and the whales come nosing around to see if their visitors are worth impressing. This affords wonderful photo opportunities, and is one of the only places on earth that you can possibly come within touching distance of such a large creature in the wild.

Florianopolis is the usual starting point for tours, with Praia do Rosa certainly being the best place to stay close to Imbituba. Staying overnight there is not necessary to make the boat trip, but if you want to give yourselves the best chance of being nose to nose with a Southern Right Whale, a night in Rosa is a must. This way, if the seas are too rough for the humans to brave, or the whales are playing elsewhere along the Santa Catarina coastline, you can always have another try the next day.

The arrival of Brazil’s largest creatures is not guaranteed, but a memorable encounter with nature certainly is if they are around – especially if you find yourselves being interviewed for one of the Sunday night Brazilian TV Specials, as my own mother did!

Cultural Brazil – The Alambique

Você pensa que cachaça é água

Cachaça não é água não

Cachaça vem do Alambique

E água vem do ribeirão

This Carnaval Classic was my first introduction to Alambique, learning the words of a Brazilian song while dancing behind a Rio trio electrico driving along the Ipanema Beach road one sunny afternoon. I looked on maps and in guide books and couldn’t find this place from where Brazil’s famous firewater originated. It took me a few months, maybe even a year – not of constant searching obviously – before I realised that Alambique was more of a place in the house rather than a place in the world.

I had never visited one though. Having seen the menu of a cachaçaria, I knew that Minas Gerais has hundreds, the mountains of the south have a few, and even places I have visited such as Paraty have plenty. The original alambiques were powered by water running down mountain streams, with the water-wheels turning the grinding wheels to squeeze the caldo de cana from the harvested plants.

I also knew that my Florianopolis had many little alambiques around the coastline and in the hills, but that almost all of them had closed down. I felt a little shame that I had been in Brazil so long without actually visiting one, even though I don’t particularly enjoy drinking pinga pura. It hurts too much. Still, after an afternoon’s struggling through half-closed trails in rural Floripa hills, with Blondie scratched to bits and turning into a sulky 6 year old girl while also blaming me for her choice of footwear, I celebrated like we’d arrived at Eden when I saw the magical sign – Alambique do Zeca. It explained why I just thought I’d seen somebody walking down the trail with a urine sample for the doctor.

One of the only two alambiques left on the island, the other run by his brother, Ze makes what is regarded by those who know as some of the finest cachaça in Brazil. So he told us. He built the barn himself, and I can’t imagine any alambique looking more perfect – wooden wheels; packed-soil floor; stained and stencilled barrels; smoke; copper furnace; and the smell of all those things and more, mingling together to enter your senses, exactly the same earthy odour found in any alambique in the colonial history of the country. Brazil was built on that scent.

The whole cachaça process is simple but labour-intensive and done by Ze’s own fair hand, the planting, harvesting and processing of the sugar cane. He leaves the juice to ferment on its own, before stoking his fires and distilling the proceeds to produce one of the simplest spirits around. The evil liquid is then transferred to barrels of different sizes and colours to sit for a year, two years, five years, however long our cachaça expert prefers.

We arrived in daylight and left in the dark, stumbling down the down the dusty track with the lights of the beach villages twinkling way below. It didn’t seem so long, but we went through the different types - white and yellow; and the different flavours – apple, ginger, banana, honey, plum and one rocket fuel that would only bow down to absinthe. I could barely remember my own name when we hit the trail with still miles to go until we found the road. I remember some of the story though – that in spite of being one of Brazil’s oldest traditions, the alambique is a dying art. The artesans are prevented from burning their fields to regenerate the soil. I can understand if this if for environmental reasons, although it makes me wonder if the big business of Brazil had a hand in such decisions. It would be a shame if such an important part of Brazilian culture was to disappear at the hands of the larger factory operations.

Everyone should visit an alambique if spending enough time in Brazil. Do it soon though – while you still have a rustic old alambique to visit.

Tainha Time in Florianopolis

One surprising fact about Brazil that doesn’t fit with our lazy Latin stereotypes is the amount that people work. Not only does everybody in Brazil do something, from those selling doces on the buses and beaches to Paulista high-rise office workers, but they do it for long hours. At home, being a student means staying in bed smoking maconha all day and not being capable of making your two hours of Art History or Theology lectures a week. In Brazil, even students work full days then study another four hours at night, 5 nights a week.

Nobody works harder throughout the country than the fishermen of the southern coasts during Tainha Time. In the late autumn and winter months of May, June and July, the coastal waters of Santa Catarina are inundated with huge shoals of tainha, a type of mullet. Following tradition that has been maintained since the very first Azorean settlers arrived on the island, the local fishermen take to the open seas in their wooden boats day after day to make hay as the sun shines.

While the boats may have motors, the nets don’t. With no winches, all the catches are landed by hand. The nets are large to allow the young tainha to escape, while the adults are taken in great numbers into the boat. The typical Floripa Fisherman is short and stocky, with a deep tan and arms that make Popeye look like me. While out at sea, it is impossible to appreciate the amount of work that goes into pulling a net with perhaps dozens and dozens of 3-5kg fish.

Boat after boat arrives on the beach or at the dock to unload huge catches. Enormous nets are also spread out from the beaches, and the whole male half of the community, kids and adults, joins in the pull. The sands are soon piled full of hundreds of tainha, glistening and flopping around in the winter sun. One single cast into the waves with a personal net can bring in three or four at once.

As an insight into the traditional lifestyles that still form a big part of Florianopolis life, a trip to see the daily tainha catch arrive is very worthwhile. A helping hand may also result in you being one of the many people walking the streets of Floripa carrying a large fish as thank you for your help.

Clean it, gut it, fill it with fresh coriander and garlic, wrap it in aluminium, then put in the oven or the churrasco for 30 minutes. Leave the foil off for another 10 minutes or so and you can eat your catch.