Postcards from Puerto Natales

Brazil in a Nutshell

In Buenos Aires (which is a shabbier but slightly less pretentious version of Paris with 50p beers) we met a Brazilian mother and daughter travelling together. Esther, the mother, wondered why she lives in Brazil when she doesn't like Carnival or beaches. This struck a chord with me.

I don´t much like beaches and it was the wrong time of year for Carnival. Having seen Rio, Ihla Grande, Salvador de Bahia, Fernando de Noronha and a bit of Amazon near Manaus, I was wondering why Brazil was on our Itinerary.

I have seen Rio described in some disreputable guidance materials as the most beautiful city in the world. I agree that it has (arguably) the world´s most beautiful location for a city, the only problem being the actual buildings they´ve plonked down on it. I didn´t see one which wouldn´t be scheduled for urgent demolition if it was blighting the face of New York, Hong Kong or even London. Or Slough. From a very long way away, in the dark, they turn into specks of light on Rio´s naturally impressive panorama.

There are only two things you need to know about Ilha Grande. One is that it is an island, and the other is that it is quite big. I didn´t take any pictures.

Salvador is probably one of the best cities in the world for getting mugged or otherwise assaulted in a criminally violent way. It has some quite colourful, although decaying, colonial architecture in the Pelourinho area. When the boys in the streets who have not yet grown to full mugging size take time off from picking pockets, they flap and screech like electrocuted chickens. The Pelourinho also features a musical waterfall, awful Italian restaurants and an almost total absence of places to buy crisps. If you go there, loud music will assault your eardrums constantly, only some of which even pretends to have a tune. I´d feel safer, and probably have more fun, dressed in a Newcastle United shirt at the Sunderland side of the Stadium of Light with "Sunderland are crap" tatooed on my forehead.

Fernando de Noronha is a ¨paradise island¨ in the same vein as Rarotonga, but Rarotonga is better and much cheaper. It is supposed to have good diving but (in our experience) doesn´t. It has what are apparently Brazil´s best beaches, which were fine but made me wish I was on a really pretty beach like Whitehaven on Whitsunday Island, Australia, or somewhere more interesting such as Bamburgh or Tynemouth.

In the Amazon, the most notable wildlife I encountered were mosquitos and a large, ugly, poisonous spider which crawled inside my mosquito net. The weather was grey and damp. I took a few pictures (largely to make sure the camera hadn´t seized up from lack of use in Ihla Grande, Salvador and Noronha) but they were all crap. I guess it could be spectacular in the right light, but the mozzies would probably have sucked all your blood and given you malaria by the time you´d waited for it.

Then we went to the Iguassu falls. This is one of the most amazing places I´ve ever been, and singlehandedly made up for a month trawling around stressful and mediocre sights in the rest of Brazil. On arriving, Sonia and I were both startled by the beauty of our first glimpse. The falls were huge, the mist from their crashing flow painting a perfect rainbow from which a black bird of prey flew toward us. I took hundreds of photos, only to realise there was an even more impressive view around the next corner. And the next. It is impossible to take satisfactory photos of the falls, as whatever you leave out of the frame is generally just as magnificent as what you include. The falls mark the border between Brazil and Argentina, and the Argentinian side was bigger and in some ways even more impressive than the Brazilian one. Wildlife was teeming - we encountered giant lizards, toucans, a snake, small racoon-like creatures, some little unidentified rodents and even my boss from London. The huge numbers of tourists was the only downside, but the falls were so spectacular we hardly noticed them.

Brazilian Cuisine

Brazilian Cuisine is not what I expected. Not that I did a lot of research before arriving here in the world's fifth-largest country (I prefer to preserve the suspense and also couldn't be arsed). But even if I had done my homework I wouldn't have been prepared.

Generally, countries which don't have a particularly strong indigenous cuisine are taken care of by the Chinese, the Italians and (perhaps to a lesser extent) the Indians. The better the local fare, the fewer imports and vice versa. Being somewhat renowned for its bland national dishes, England benefits from the best the rest of the world has to offer, anglicised to taste. On the other hand, Greece has wonderful food, so Peking Duck and Chicken Tikkas are thinner on the ground, but a Pizza Quatro Staggioni is never too far away.

Thailand, and particularly Chiang Mai, struck us as the exception which proves this rule. There, not only are the local dishes varied, fresh, delicious, plentiful and cheap, but you can get pizza, pasta, chinese, Mexican and anything else your tastebuds crave, often all from the same restaurant, and invariably perfectly cooked. They are culinary geniuses in Chiang Mai, where it is seemingly impossible to get a less-than-excellent meal.

Brazil, on the other hand, does not appear to have much in the way of local cuisine. Sticking big chunks of meat on a barbeque is a Brazilian tradition, but not a particularly unique one (although the meat is generally excellent). Other than that, the only specially Brazillian food I can think of is Manioc sauce, which Sonia and I refer to as maniac sauce by reference to the level of mental disfunction required to order it more than once.

Having established that their home-grown recipes are rubbish, you would expect the normal tides of immigration to sort things out for Brazil. Not so. Whilst Italian restaurants are plentiful, the Brazilians insist on attempting to cook Italian dishes themselves, rather than leaving it to actual Italians like the rest of the world does. They are so bad at it that Pizza Hut is considered a gourmet restaurant here, and Jamie Oliver is probably already working on an exposé documentary in the interests of world health.

Despite having lived in England all my life, the worst meal I've ever had in a restaurant was a Brazilian pasta at the Lord Manaus Hotel in Manaus. It consisted of just dry spaghetti sprinkled with the charred remains of what was advertised as garlic. The pungent aroma of burnt garlic made me cough involuntarily and almost gag. Meanwhile Sonia was eating the worst meal she's ever had in her life, which was just spaghetti with putrid-smelling prawns mashed into a rancid tomato sauce. As she was upwind of my foul-smelling dish, Sonia foolishly assumed that it couldn't possibly be worse than hers and suggested a swap. Hoping for some relief from my bottle of Brazilian beer, I was disappointed to discover that it was frozen solid.

Bizarrely, apart from steaks which are always cooked very well, the only decent food we've had in Brazil has been Sushi. I would never have even guessed that Sushi would be available here, but it seems very popular. The explanation seems to be that any meal with two or less ingredients is generally fine, but any more than that is risky. A barbequed steak only has one ingredient, so it's fine. Similarly Sashimi. Sushi only has fish and rice, so is no problem. But once you get something as complicated as a pizza, which requires at least a base, cheese and tomato, things go downhill. I had one pizza which had a base and cheese but no tomato, and even saw a man eating a 'pizza' from a metal plate which had cheese and tomato but lacked a base!

The other confusing thing about Brazilian food is that the portions feed between one and six people, with traditionally no clues given as to which it will be. We took to ordering one item between us, and ordering another once it arrived if we got a one-man portion. The only problem with this is that it takes so long for the Brazilians to cook their food that when time is limited, for example on a tortuous 12 hour flight with the truly appalling (and bankrupt) Varig airline, you have to make do with a series of spam sandwiches.

More Wilderness Shots

I have spared no expense, consumed innumerable burgers and other meat-like substances (often coated with luke-warm near-solid gravy) and braved the world's worst computers (in Brazil where we are now travelling) in order to bring you more photos of the American Southwest before we disappear into the Amazon. Check back soon for the ultimate guide to Brazilian cuisine!


Red Canyon, near Bryce Canyon National Park.


Lower Antelope Slot Canyon.


Zion National Park, near Emerald Pools.


The Eye, Monument Valley.