Today I went on a tour and it was a fascinating, long, and profoundly weird day.
I was excited to see the tour company was really organized. They picked up people in the same areas, and then all the buses met up at a meeting point and we switched to the van that was taking us on our particular trip. The guide was super smart and spouted stories and facts and numbers practically the entire two hours north.
The trip was to Blumenau, a city created by Germans and currently populated by mostly their descendants. More on this later.
So here are some of the fun factoids I learned.
Florianopolis is a truly weird city. It is not the most populous city in the state, even though it is the capital; a random industrial city I`ve never heard of is the most populous, since it has so many jobs. 86% of Floripan residents were not born in Santa Catarina, but in other Brazilian states like Sao Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul. 60% of the island of Floripa is protected under environmental law. There was no slavery in Santa Catarina, so the black population is minute. Unemployment is 9%. Floripa supposedly has the highest quality of life of any Brazilian city, is the cleanest Brazilian city, and is the Brazilian city with the lowest crime rate.
Nevertheless, there are favelas and crime in Floripa. Apparently, the drug trade is the main source of crime and violence, like in Rio. However, the state government has a program called Bom Abrigo, in which each month it takes people out of their favela homes, destroys the homes, and builds them real houses to live in. Some of them are really cute -- we passed them on the highway. I`m not sure this system is necessarily doing much good though; Cidade de Deus in Rio experienced a similar program and it is still one of the most violent favelas.
Anyhoo. He also told a great story about one of the bridges that connects Floripa to the mainland. It was built in the 1990s, but the engineer disappeared with US$8 million before its completion. He left his wife and family, eloped with his secretary, and went to Spain, where the pair went to support Brazil in the Olympics. Except that wasn`t too smart because Globo caught them on camera, and the police were on their tail. They managed to elude them until a few years later, when the engineer was single, penniless, and arrested in Portugal. He spent some time in jail but is now free, living in Floripa, and wants to help restore the old bridge undergoing construction to the mainland.
I loved the trip through the countryside. It is stunningly beautiful here, with rolling fields, huge farms, enormous forests, and gorgeous homes, big and small, surrounded by tropical gardens. I also loved seeing a Bug pulling a wooden cart with a cow crunched inside.
The part of the state I visited today is known as the European valley, which was settled by Portuguese, Italian, and German immigrants. It is the home of the largest textile manufacturing center in Latin America, and of a lot of towns that have parts that look like they were plucked out of Germany.
Blumenau is the main German town. Parts of the architecture look straight out of ye old Germany and one of their big industries is making beer. Because of the textile industry, though, there are 4 women for every man in the city. Since most of the residents are of German descent, many are very fair-skinned, and apparently skin cancer is one of the biggest health risks in the city. As such, the government distributes sunscreen for free through public hospitals and clinics.
Blumenau is also home to Brazil`s second largest festival after Rio`s Carnaval: Oktoberfest. It is like the German one, where people drink beer and party for days on end. However, it has a really interesting history. Blumenau used to suffer from terrible floods that destroyed entire parts of the city. In the 1980s, after a really bad flood, the Catholic Church (which has a weak presence in a German Protestant area) decided to hold a fundraiser to help victims of the flood. Let`s have an Oktoberfest, the Church said, and have people pay to drink beer. The German goverment (or beer companies, its not clear) found out and decided to donate all of the beer, and they still do, to this day. The highest turn out was in the mid-80s when over 1 million people attended Oktoberfest.
Blumenau is one of the hottest cities in the state, reaching in the early 100s easily in the summer and the 80s and 90s even in the winter. It`s super humid and hot from being located in a particular spot in the valley. Meanwhile, the coldest city in the country is found in Santa Catarina, where it can get as cold as -10 degrees Celsius and can snow.
So the tour technically started in Blumenau, where we stopped at the Beer Museum (tiny but cool), then drove around to see parts of the city, then stopped at a really obnoxious tourist trap store, and then went to lunch. The guy first told us we were headed to a churrascaria that cost R$30, and I got mad because eating rodizio for lunch, and an expensive one at that, was not what I at all wanted to do. But he said that across the street there was a cheaper option. Off went me, the Argentine couple, and the Brasilia couple.
Thus began the best cheapest meal I have had since Argentina.
It was in a huge beautiful hall in some sort of sports club, that looked very German. The line was super long but it was worth the wait. For a mere SEVEN reais, about US$3.50, you could put as much food on your plate as you could balance. This is different from every other Brazilian buffet place I`ve been to, where they weigh your plate and you pay for as much as you got. This was a bad habit for today since I should have piled on much more food because it was incredibly delicious. The seven reais also includes a free juice (tangerine or raspberry) and a free dessert. Oh my god, the food was exactly what I`ve been craving lately. Real food besides rice and beans (though of course they had that). PICKLES. Real pickles. Coleslaw. An amazing yellow rice that seemed to be soaked in wine. Amazing meat and chicken. Fresh veggies. Oh my good god. I wanted to go back for seconds but I didn`t want to be a Gluttonous Gringa, so I left after paying my 7 reais determined to come back some day.
After lunch, we went to the Beer Garden, where they hold Oktoberfest. During the year, they have mini-ones once a week, but during the day it´s basically a tourist trap where you can buy touristy crap and visit and old car exhibit, try local alcohol, and dress up like a German. I tried ¨beer liquor¨ which is like a liquor...made of beer. It was surprisingly really delicious except made me feel kind of sick later. You can only buy it in Brazil and Germany. I also bought some touristy stuff for my boyfriend and brother.
After that, we were brought to an outlet mall and told we had 2 hours. I was pissed. But apparently this is how a lot of these tours work in Brazil: it`s all on commission. So obnoxious. Anyway, I was determined to just wander around, but I found a dress half the price of what it would cost in Rio that fit me like a glove, so I bought it. THEN we were brought to another freakin outlet, but this one was just shoes. It was like DSW but with much cheaper and chinsier and tackier stuff. However, I have been meaning to buy running shoes and some new flats, and got both for a grand total of R$50, about US$25. Now I can finally go exercise without getting blisters all over my feet. Glorious. On the way back, I chatted with a lady from Mato Grosso, who was like, ¨You´re practically Brazilian, aren`t you?¨ I love that. Then I chatted with the old driver who dropped me off at the hostel, and he was like, ¨Make sure you come back to Floripa someday!¨
When I got back to the hostel, there were two huge backpacks right next to my bed in the middle of the floor. The bathroom was occupied with what seemed like forever, and when the door finally opened, two girls got out from the shower and went back into my room. They must be American, or Argentine, I thought. Only those people are that obnoxious. But then I talked to them after I got back to the room, and it turns out they`re Israeli. I am completely fascinated by Israelis, so we talked and I felt less annoyed by their obnoxiousness. Israelis are kind of like that aren`t they? They are going to DC and NY after Brazil, ironically.
Anyway, I may or may not be going on a boat tour tomorrow, since apparently it`s dependent on the weather and the ocean. So I gotta go.
