Brazil – Bergheim .dk | .be

February in Natal and Carneval in Olinda (2006)

(Stein) Runar Bergheim — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 07:00:00 +0000

My favourite holiday destination over the past three years was once again made victim of my presence as I made my way across the atlantic, leaving behind the cold of the Scandinavian winter and greeting the equatorial summer.

Nunca mais Pax Turismo, Petropolis, Natal, Rio Grande do Norte

(Stein) Runar Bergheim — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 07:00:00 +0000

If you ever should find yourself in the position where you are tempted to go to Fernando do Noronha a beautiful yet somewhat dry archipelago in the atlantic outside the state of Pernambuco in North Eastern Brazil there is ONE thing you should make sure of. NEVER EVER USE the agency of PAX TURISMO located in Petropolis in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte.
Without lying I can safely say that the staff of this agency does not:

a) understand the concept of tourism
b) understand the basic needs of a tourist
c) know what the hell they are doing

If you spend good money going to an island in the middle of the ocean you would possibly like to live somewhere close to the sea – convenient for a late night swim if the spirit should come to you. You might also want sea view, convenient location in relation to restaurants and nightlife. Throw in a swimming pool and a bar service in the hotel and you’re pretty much there.

When we described these requirements to Pax Turismo they simply tried to explain why all of these amenities were useless instead of trying to find alternative accommodation. My last little piece of faith in these people left me when they called to inquire whether it was possible to see the horizon from our pousada.

Good God!

In addition to the very valid points above they are rude, formalistic and unpleasant. Do yourself a favor and find some other agency.

PS! It is important to be aware that organizing a simple holiday arrangement takes a long time and will really put your negotiation skills and patience to a test anywhere you go in Brazil. Brazilians like their shopping and gladly spend hours discussing the finer points of the journey without any other background information than a one page leaflet and whitout ever having been at the destination themselves.

Fernando do Noronha (Brazil) 2005

(Stein) Runar Bergheim — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 07:00:00 +0000

The archipelago of Fernando Noronha is located some 360 km off the coast of Brazil outside the sandy shores and heavenly beaches of Rio Grande do Norte.

The island is no larger than that one could easily walk around it within a day but has a rich marine fauna and holds important habitats for such species as sea turtles and dolphins.

The nature of the islands is dominated by volcanic rock and sandy ground with open forrested areas consisting of low bushes and trees.
The people of Fernando do Noronha mainly live from tourism. They either run pousadas, restaurants, souvenir shops or they operate tour companies.

A restaurant worth visiting is Ze Maria which serves excellent food of world class – but be aware that the quality of the food comes at the cost of long preparation time. Add a little slow service on top of this and a lunch might easily take two hours.

The restaurant cum entertainment venue next to the church in Vila dos Remedios is an excellent place to kill an evening or two. The same goes for Bar do Cachorro which isn’t all what it is cracked up to be but still a pleasant place.

A self-service restaurant by the name of Flamboyant should by all means be avoided disregarding its favorable location.

Watching the sunset from Forte dos Boulderos or Praia do C… is unsurpassed in natural beauty and will serve to keep you warm in winter nights to come.

English skills in Rio de Janeiro

(Stein) Runar Bergheim — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 07:00:00 +0000

I picked up this brochure at my hotel in Rio. It told me to visit the Belmonte bar, a fine establishment that seems to be packed with people most of the week. I do not doubt their capability of producing wonderful food and serving cold beers. It is this brochure that interest me. The design is professional – or at least semi professional, the layout is not unattractive, but who did the translation.

As you read through this wonderful text you might understand the meaning of most of it. But one of the passages remain a mystery to me: “More the icecream, the most flavorful at last car head of the Belmonte Bar”. I will gladly pay R$ 1 to the anyone who can tell me what this means.

(click to enlarge)

Natal & Rio (Brazil) 2005

(Stein) Runar Bergheim — Sat, 01 Jan 2005 07:00:00 +0000

Just like the month of december is a month of cheerfulness and anticipation before the holidays, january is the month of hang over. It is cold, it is dark, it has tons of work on store and the next holiday is yet out of reach. This if any is the month to leave Norway behind in favor of the southern hemisphere. Like january past, I headed for Brazil, for Natal and for Rio de Janeiro.

Natal, Rio Grande do Norte (Brazil) – 2/2004

(Stein) Runar Bergheim — Thu, 11 Nov 2004 07:00:00 +0000

Natal, Rio Grande do Norte (Brazil) – 2/2004
The autumn is a good time to go to South America. While it is getting steadily colder in Western Norway, spring has just kicked in just south of the Equator. Average 24 hour temperatures of 26 degrees celcius can be mean for someone who live in a cold, but combined with a steady sea breeze it is remarkably bearable. So I packed my suitcase, waved September good bye and left for the airport.
It is approximately 10 000 km between Sogn og Fjordane in Norway and Natal in North Eastern Brazil. For this reason it takes somewhere between 14 and 24 hours to arrive there – a little dependant on if you have to travel through Rio de Janeiro or S�o Paulo – which tends to prolong the trip by quite a few hours.
Bearing the above in mind, it is reasonable to believe that a tourist – such as myself – would try to do as many of the attractions as plainly possible when in Natal for the first time. Not so. Towering the list of cultural attractions in the city you find the Forte dos Reis Magos at the northeastern tip of Natal – just at the mouth of the Rio Potengi – much resembling a Norwegian fjord, omitting the steep mountains of course. After two visits to Natal I still hadn’t been there. Third time pays for all.
I didn’t stay in a regular tourist hotel this time, rather an apartment hotel in which a lot of locals, students and their like lived more or less permanently. It was not located in the prime tourist area Ponta Negra, but in Petropolis, just above the Praia dos Artistas, a beach where Norwegians were not to be found in plenty. Which is good.
The location was ideal for morning strolls to the Forte dos Reis Magos, 3-4 km northwards along the beach. Also swimming was just a matter of poping down the hill and throwing myself out into the rather big waves receiving some rather strong blows to the head before in calmer waters. Coconut vendors pace up and down the beach front promenade all the time offering the possibility to keep thirst at a pleasant distance.
Returning to the same destination several times have made me overcome my obsession with having to do something all the time. This is good – because I actually get some relaxation from my holidays in stead of being completely crushed and having to spend weeks getting back into normal shape..
[ (Stein) Runar Bergheim, 1 . 1.Thu, ]

Natal, Foz do Iguazu, Serra Gaucha (Brazil)

(Stein) Runar Bergheim — Thu, 22 Jan 2004 07:00:00 +0000

In accordance with something that has become more of a rule than an exception I woke up with a start at 04:50 in the morning. The taxi was waiting outside. Within 7 minutes I was on my way to the railway station and within an additional 13 I was on my way to the airport – on schedule. Itinerary Oslo, Amsterdam, Natal.

Where: Natal, Rio Grande do Norte. Foz do Igua�u, Paran�. Gramado, Serra Gaucha, Rio Grande do Sul. What: Vacation, exotic destionation. Accommodation: Hotel Tirol, Natal. Hotel Sol, Natal. Hotel Tropical das Cataratas, Foz do Igua�u. Hotel Bavaria, Gramado.

Natal, Rio Grande do Norte

Norwegians in general, (and me in particular), haven’t got a healthy tan in the early days of january. Our skin has a distinctively off-white color, maybe with a hint of dead-body-blue. With the help of sun block 50 I managed to maintain my pale hue throughout my whole stay in Natal despite this being the “Sun City” of Brazil.
Natal being a very agreeable place, only wanting a few mountains here and there, it is not difficult to spend many pleasant days here. The final destination for this holiday was hovever not Natal but Southern Brazil; Paran� and Rio Grande do Sul. Natal is also the place where I would meet up with my girlfriend Aline.
Airlines are not to be trusted and we therefore decided to try to buy tickets from Brazil a few days before departure. Our friend Nubia recommended us to a friend of hers who has a travel agency, respectively Andrea and SummerTour.
When entering a Brazilian shop, outlet or basically wherever something is bought or sold, it becomes apparent that the cost of labor can’t be the same as in Northern Europe. SummerTour was no exception being located in a standard one-person office equipped with 3 desks, 1 computer, 4 chairs, a phone, a fax machine, one director and two emplyoees of visibly lower rank.
Upon our entry the room became crowded and, as the skillled readed might have detected allready, there was a notable shortage of vacant chairs – there being two of us ‘customers’ in addition to the staff. One of the lesser employees was in a very feudal manner commanded first to stand up and eventually to leave the room to respectively free up the chair he was sitting on and the airt he consumed merely by being in the room. Had it appeared as if the poor guy was doing something it would have been very awkward indeed, as it was he seemed more than happy to buzz off for a while anticipating out withdrawal and his return to his well organized and nearly empty desk.
Efficiency may or may not have another definiton in Brazil than other places – it isn’t for me to say because I didn’t understand too much of what was going on in this office and wisely left Aline to do the talking. Speaking Portuguese isn’t as of yet among my talents. The negotiations took quite a few days and many visits, but in the end we wound up with some tickets issued to the hitherto unknown Mr Drergheim and the more familiar Miss Andrade.
Our itinerary was set to depart from Natal for Foz do Igua�u and from there onwards to Porto Allegre and Serra Gaucha, finishing off with a few days in Natal before my departure back to Sogndal.

Foz & Cataratas do Igua�u, Paran�

Having read in my travel bible (“Lonely Planet, Brazil”) that Foz do Igua�u was a small and scruffy place that grew forth with the building of the Itaipu power plant from a measly 30 000 inhabitants in the 1970’s to an astonishing 300 000 or so in 2004 I really didn’t know what to expect…
Hotel Tropical das Cataratas was as nice as it was expensive, being the only hotel located within the confines of the national park. It was big, it was pink, it was ideally located and it was – alas – inhabited by nothing but blue haired, white tennis shoed (US-)americans, loud and laughing Swedes – and – us!
The scenery was beautiful though… The hotel being located just at the edge og the Igua�u canyon offering a stunning overview of the falls and allowing for the wild roar of the cascading water to accompany us during the whole stay. An ideal setting for a romantic holiday.

Puerto Iguaz�, Argentina

However much I like to claim that I have now “done” Argentina, there is little to support this claim in manner of cultural experiences. We did however cross over the border, get some stamps in our passports and had a thorough look at the falls from the Argentinian side. So technically I’ve BEEN there.

Cidade del Est, Paraguay

Once again referring to my travel guide I use the word scruffy about Cidade del Est. Though apparently in posession of a blooming tax free industry, the city had the air of a place where you wouldn’ leave your grand mother unattended in a wheelchair without the fear of finding the chair jacked up and the wheels and granny gone upon return.

Serra Gaucha, Rio Grande do Sul

According to Norwegian logic if two states are both called Rio Grande, and the one is do Norte and the other is do Sul, they should be located next to each other, the one being to the north of the other etc. But no. In Brazil this is almost as far from the truth as possible, Rio Grande do Sul being the southernmost state in Brazil and Rio Grande do Norte being the state located furthest northeast in the country.

Gramado

Reading up on Brazilian history I found that there had been a massive immigration og europeans in the southern part of Brazil. And Gramado would be the living proof of this. Let alone the whole of Serra Gaucha, the region having a strong european influence alltogether.
Gramado is more german than Germany, more swiss than Switserland and less Brazilian than antything I have seen before. The place is positively booming with food with meat as the main ingredient and a choice of barbecue or fondue as means of preparation. And chocolate. Lots of chocolate. I HATE chocolate. Since wowing never to eat chocolate again I have had only one fallback; in Galway when I accidently ate a mint-chocolate that was supplied with the after dinner coffee. And that was six years ago!

Canela

Canela, allthough claiming to be a city, didn’t much resemble one – at least if compared to Gramado with its german alp village charm. That is not to say that Canela didn’t have its qualities! It is a beautiful place packed with stunning views of nature; forests, mountains. It is also the home of an incredible amount of chocolate manufacturers. Which wouldn’t scare away anyone either…
[ (Stein) Runar Bergheim, 2 . 2.Thu, ]

Natal (Brazil)

(Stein) Runar Bergheim — Sat, 19 Apr 2003 07:00:00 +0000

Natal (Brazil)

Having been a pronounced enemy of beach activities most of grown up life I didn’t quite know what to do with close to 1000 km of sandy beaches at my ~~hands~~ feet. However, a hundred or so drunk, and increasingly sun burnt, Scandinavians had a perfectly good idea what they wanted do, making the beach an altogether disagreeable place to spend time…

One of the less striking features of Natal is that all the taxis seem to drive around with near empty gas tanks… With an average income of some 75$ a month and a gasoline price of more than 50 cents a litre this is a small wonder, but still we spent some time pondering at it… Could also be a strategy to get more tip… Who knows.

Food, in Natal, comes in remarkably large portions, with excellent allthough not too spicy taste and at a price that is far below what would be expected as service fees by a european waiter… Allthough I have previously taken pride in never giving up a meal I had to give up on numerous occasions in Natal.

Naturewise beaches is the thing in Natal. Along the coastline where Natal is located there is a near 500 km long beach, broken only by the odd cliff. To the south of Natal you’ll find the most beautiful beaches (from a scandinavian perspective) with steep shorewalls at the back end of the beach and small pictoresque villages like Pipa. To the north you’ll find the most magnificent broad sandy beaches like Genipabu beach.

The sand and the sand dunes has made the Brazilians develop a profession; buggy driving. A beach buggy is a car built on a modified Volkswagen Beetle chassis and is a small open car which is used for the purpose of driving around in the sand like a madman.

Being a long term, heavily pronounced enemy of everything that is related to beach life I had envisaged a rather unpleasant stay. Such was not the case…