It's a nice day in Rio, even when it rains!

As our friends at home are experiencing record low temperatures and loads of snow, and the iguanas are falling out of the trees in Florida, we are sweating buckets in Rio. It's super hot here! We have tried to walk earlier each day, but it is 27 degrees at 7:00 am. The sunshine is out until mid-late afternoon, then the clouds roll in, and the showers start. It has suited us quite well as we are usually ready to get out of the sun when the bad weather hits. This is very typical of a tropical rainy season. We've been caught out in the rain a few times, but since it is so warm, it hasn't bothered us at all. Today the sun was shining, and it started to rain. Everybody just stayed put on the beach, some under umbrellas, some swimming, and some just sitting out enjoying the rain. What a far cry from Canada, where beach showers send the crowds running.

Our morning walks and coconuts. Today we saw an ice sculpture counting down until the start of the Olympics! Lots of people are out playing beach soccer in the mornings.

It is incredible all of the setup for Carnaval. One of the areas on the beach in Copacabana
stretches about 4 city blocks at least.

We figured it was best to head out to see the world-famous Christ the Redeemer statue first thing in the morning to try and avoid the heat, but I'm not sure it made that much of a difference to get up at the crack of dawn. We did want to see it in the sunshine, and we were in luck! The morning was clear and beautiful. We took one of the first cog trains up the steep 700 metre hill and found lots of people already at the top. Although it is tough to get a picture of the statue without the crowds, we managed to get some great, nearly solo, shots of one of the new 7 Wonders of the World and incredible views of Rio and the islands beyond. We were lucky to be at the front of the train on the way back down and captured a time-lapse video of the entire trip. There is a huge Catholic population where we are staying, and Leblon essentially shuts down on Sundays. The 3 lane road along the beach is closed, and everyone is out walking, running and biking. The vendors set up along the roadway offering drinks and snacks, and the beach is exceptionally busy on Sundays.

A beautiful panorama of the view!

Shocking to get this shot without many people in it!

Us with the Christ the Redeemer statue.

Leblon road closed on Sundays, and the beautiful patterns on the boardwalks along the beach. There are always fellows fixing them. 

Since it was cloudy out, we took a "free walking food tour" in upscale Barra da Tijuca and Isla da Gigoia and learned loads of historical facts about Brazil, Barra da Tijuca, Rio, slavery, the favelas, and, of course, food. We even saw the hotel owned by the now jailed ex-president Jair Bolsonaro. One of the things we learned is that many of the Brazilian foods need to be mixed together to enjoy their full flavour, rather than being eaten separately. Eduardo, our guide, mentioned that visitors have asked him, "Why do people like eating sand in Brazilian meals"? He explained that although farofa does look like sand, it is intended to be mixed with the rice, beans, sauces and maybe eggs to add to the texture of the dish. Mixing the side dishes really did make a difference in the flavours. If you are someone who doesn't like their different foods touching, such as Mark's dad, Brazilian food may not be the right choice for you! The first dish we had was a very old dish consisting of dehydrated meat and cassava cooked in a buttery sauce. It was my favourite and was the Brazilian version of slow-roasted beef and mashed potatoes with butter. Years ago, cattle ranchers would salt the meat and dry it in the sun to preserve it. It was then boiled before it was to be eaten. We have tried some of the famous brazilian barbecued meats since being here, and we were waiting to eat fajoida, which is Brazil's national dish. It is a rich, slow-cooked Brazilian stew made primarily of black beans and a variety of pork and beef, such as smoked sausage, bacon and dried beef. The stew is served with rice, farofa, collard greens and orange slices. This is a very hearty meal and is usually enjoyed on the weekends. All the restaurants claim to have the best fajoida. Lastly, we tried a variation of risotto made with rice and cream cheese, served with meat in a red wine sauce. This risotto-like dish was Mark's favourite.  We learned about Carlota Joaquina  (Queen consort of Portugal and Brazil) and her affinity for Brazilian sugarcane liquor used to make Brazil's signature drink, caipirinha. Mark can't get enough of the potent lime forward drinks, but when I asked for mine without alcohol, the waiter smirked and said, well that is basically lime juice. 

The vendors cook this cheese in little grills on the beach, like the top right photo. We really wanted to try it, but thought it a little questionable on the beach, so we bought it at the grocery store and grilled it ourselves. It was delicious! It reminded us of halloumi cheese. 

We will see what tomorrow's weather brings. Cloudy means a trip into Centro, Brazil's downtown area and sunny means we will have to tough it out another day on the beach. Either way, we are definately not dealing with any snow or falling iguanas!

Eu não falo português.

We have been in Rio for a week now and are absolutely loving it, except maybe for the language barrier! Mark loves trying to converse with everyone, from the Uber driver to the doorman and our beach friends who get us our umbrellas and chairs every day.  He gets out his phone and uses Google Translate to ask them questions and gets them to dictate their answers back. It is not foolproof... according to Google, Mark had turkey-fish for dinner tonight! You have to hit the button back and forth to switch between the different languages. I don't have the patience for it at all, and since I lost my glasses, I can barely read the itty bitty type on it anyway!! I'm great at smiling and nodding, and I've mastered please and thank you, so I'm good! I do have a whole new appreciation for people who don't understand English, when I just repeat myself slower and louder, hoping they will understand. I have gotten quite creative with my sign language here for sure! 😄 

Our doorman, Andre.

We haven't gotten ourselves into too much trouble yet; however, the subway security guy escorted Mark off the 'women's only' subway car yesterday... who knew that the subway had gendered cars? We hopped on, and a lady tried to tell us that we had to move to the next car, of course, in Portuguese. Mark thought she was trying to tell us that the train wasn't going where we wanted to go. We tried to get off, and she said, "No," and pointed down the subway line. We didn't get it. How did she even know where we were going? Everyone on the train was looking at us; we hadn't noticed that they were all women. Then the security guy showed up, and he started speaking to us in Portuguese; we had no idea what was going on. He pointed to the pink wall with a picture of a woman, and thankfully, Mark put it together. I was too busy panicking about how I was going to bail Mark out of subway jail to think straight. We made our way, a little embarrassed, to the next train car. We later saw this sign between the two cars!

Just to be clear, the sign by the door that the security guy motioned to didn't have any ENGLISH on it like this one!!

We have become friends with the two waiter fellows on the beach, Marcus and Rafael. Rafael speaks a little English, but Marcus doesn't speak any at all. Marcus and Mark have become quite the buddies, chatting away all the time. Marcus hasn't quite figured out that Mark doesn't understand a word that he is saying. It took a couple of days, but now when Marcus comes to chat, he gestures to Mark to get out his phone. It is interesting that even when you say that you don't speak Portuguese here, people just keep talking. I think it is kind of funny that the way you say that you don't speak Portuguese sounds kind of like I NO FOLLOW PORTUGUESE. A lady on the beach today wasn't very happy with vendors getting too close to her towel, at least that is what I 'followed' from her hand gestures. I told her I didn't understand, and she continued anyway... I smiled and nodded. Who knows what I was agreeing to! 

This gives you an idea of just how busy the beach gets!

Tonight at dinner, when the waiter showed us to our table, I went to say thank you (obrigada) and randomly said (asada) the Spanish word for BBQ, (well tecnically ROAST) instead! I'm not even mixing up words in the same language! I suppose I don't have please and thank you mastered after all... smiling and nodding it is from now on!! Thank goodness ketchup is the same in English as Portuguese, because I have no idea what I would have ordered to go with my fries. At least I am not quite as bad as the English-speaking guy who was sitting on the patio. He ended up with 2 huge hamburgers! His eyes were as big as saucers when his order arrived.  He must have smiled and nodded when the waiter tried to explain that he was ordering from the dinner for 2 menu. I was surprised that Mark didn't whip out his phone to show him how to use Google Translate!

Just Chillin in Uruguay

We were told that Uruguay was a very chill country, and we found ourselves slowing down and 'chilling' more than we had in Buenos Aires. We stayed in the old city of Montevideo, which was much smaller, with a beautiful Rambla (boulevard) along the water. In the mornings, we would head out for a walk along the Rambla, where we would see people walking, running, biking and roller-skating. There were many fishermen along the route, each with extremely long fishing poles. We noticed that one had caught a catfish. People enjoy exercise here, and everyone appears trim and rather fit. Perhaps that is the yerba mate! I think there are even more people drinking yerba mate here than in Argentina. In the evenings, people sat along the Rambla, read books, socialized, fished and of course, drank mate. There are a few exercise parks, a soccer pitch and a roller skate surface. We were surprised not to see any vendors along the route; however, we did notice in the evenings that food trucks appeared selling sweet treats like churros and tortas fritas (fried cakes). Unlike in Buenos Aires, the restaurants close earlier here, so we found ourselves having an early dinner.

The Rambla

We lucked out and were here for the opening night Carnaval parade, which was absolutely spectacular to see. We had opted to avoid Rio during Carnaval as we were a little concerned about the crowds and our safety, so it was a real treat to experience a lower-risk Carnaval event. The colours were beautiful, and the dancers and musicians were so talented. Unlike our parades at home, the parade lasted for hours (7:30 - 1:00), and we did not stay and watch the whole thing. The Carnaval in Uruguay is the longest in the world, lasting 40 days. Along with parades, there is a competition featuring acts performing on tablados in various venues around the city.

 

Carnaval Opening Night Parade

The weather here is gorgeous, and we spent lots of time on our little balcony enjoying our breakfast while Mark worked away on booking and researching our future stays. He thinks we have everything booked as far as accommodation and travel now, but that doesn't stop him from researching everything he can about the places we will visit. We ventured down the Rambla to Pocitos Beach, where we both got a little too much sun. There was a beautiful breeze along the water, and it was deceiving just how strong the sun was.

Our balcony overlooked the Rambla and the beautiful architecture in the Old Town.

Pocitos Beach

As we toured around the Old Town (Ciudad Vieja), we couldn't help but notice the beautiful architecture and details that make Montevideo so special. We truly enjoyed our stay here and are off to Rio, Brazil, next, where it will definitely NOT be chill. We will have to be on alert at all times! Bora! (let's go!)

Food on the Run

 I know you have all been waiting to hear if we went to Don Julio's, the Michelin Star restaurant. Well, we didn't. According to Mark, we are on a Michelin Star trip, so we haven't gone... yet. I'm still holding out, as we are heading back to Buenos Aires to meet Sharon and Mark in a few weeks, I know that I can convince them to go. Perhaps all three of us will be able to persuade him then 😉. Regardless, we still enjoyed some unique foods and amazing meals while we were here! 

I mentioned that our first meal was empenadas. You can find empanadas everywhere here. They are usually around a $1.00 each and make for a quick and filling meal on the go. There are little shops that sell pizza along with the empanadas. We became friends with the owner of the shop near us and tried out their pizza. It had a thin crust and four different kinds of cheese (mozzarella, provolone, fontina, and roquefort - similar to blue cheese) We requested it with onions as that is the popular topping. It was very tasty.

My favourite was bandiolla (sweet BBQ pork) and Mark's was picante carne (spicy beef)

Mark's favourite meal on the go was sanguche de miga. They are little sandwiches made with very thin layers of white bread without crusts. There are all different kinds of fillings, but Mark's favourite was aceitunas de verde y queso - green olives and cheese. I stuck to more traditional flavours like salami and cheese, although I did try ham and pineapple, which was lovely. The kids at school would love these little sandwiches, as would Papa, Mark's Dad!

In Argentina, they usually eat 4 meals a day. Breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner. Dinner is usually enjoyed late in the evening, with many restaurants not opening until 8:00 in the evening. I usually ate fruit, and Mark ate granola and yogurt in the mornings. Café con leche y medialunas was another popular breakfast consisting of coffee or tea and small sweet croissants. There are cafes everywhere with tables and chairs on the sidewalk similar to the cafes in Europe. Lunch was usually sanguche de miga or empanadas. We often skipped tea as we would usually eat lunch later in the day. Grilled meat known as asado is very popular in Argentina, and it is relatively inexpensive. There are fresh butchers everywhere. 

We bought a little snack in the park that was sweet puffed corn, but different than popcorn. It reminded us of puffed wheat. These are the medialunas we got from our friend at the empanada shop. He said they were the best!

We met Laura and Jim in a restaurant not too far from Palermo. She taught us that many restaurants have a meal of the day, which is usually the best value for your money. She helped us choose and order and we tried two popular dishes. I had milanesa, a staple in Argentina, consisting of a breaded chicken cutlet topped with ham, cheese and tomato, served with fries. Mark had roast beef that was exceptionally tender, served with gravy and mashed potatoes. The meat is not aged as long here and has a lovely flavour. Laura and Jim took us to a restaurant called Melo in Racoleta, where we enjoyed beef tenderloin known as lumo with pepper sauce. We also tried tostadas with them, another popular food in Argentina. The only traditional Argentine meal that we missed was the chorizo sandwich called choripan. We will have to try that when we return.

yummy

For dessert, alfajores is very popular. They are little cookies filled with dulce de leche and somtimes dipped in chocolate. The fancy ones are found in bakeries, but there are packaged ones in the grocery stores too. We did some shopping in the grocery stores, as we always enjoy looking at all the different kinds of items in the countries we visit. Another very popular item here is dulce de leche, and of course,  I picked some of that up! We were surprised to see that a can of Campbell's chicken soup was $10.90 here! We purchased our fruit at the local fruit stands and water and other drinks in kioskos which were easy to find. 

These are some of the fancy alfajores!

Of course the ducle de leche was enjoyed with fruit for breakfast by me and by the spoonful by Mark! The milk and yogurt came in little bags, but we didn't have a container to store it in. We decanted the milk and took our chances that the yogurt would stay upright. We are not sure we actually bought yogurt as it was very runny. Perhaps we bought a yogurt drink??? 😝

We are heading to Uruguay now and have been told that everything is much more expensive there. Some friends we met from Toronto, originally from Colombia, told us that a bottle of wine that costs $5.00 in Argentina would cost $15.00 in Uruguay... good thing I don't drink wine! I wonder what restaurants will be recommended to us there. If Mark wouldn't go for the Michelin Star in Argentina, he surely won't in Uraguay. I can only imagine what I'll be eating there!

Walk Until You Drop

The title of this blog is very much the theme of our stay in Buenos Aires, and will probably continue for the next couple of months! We have been here for almost a week and will head out for Uruguay very early tomorrow morning. We love to walk, and to see everything we wanted to see, we have exceeded 25,000 steps most days. Mark made me change that number down from 30,000, he says that I exaggerate. But I have little legs, and although his watch says 25,000 steps, mine is FAR more!! Regardless of how many stepss we have recorded, we have visited some beautiful locations and taken in some stunning architecture. Walking also allows us to pop into the local shops and see where and what the locals are eating.  I'll tell you about the food in another post, but first I want to show you some of the sites we have visited and share our impressions of Buenos Aires. 

Although we were warned not to wear too much flashy jewelry and to keep an eye on our wallets and cell phones, we have felt quite safe and secure here. The people are lovely, they hold doors, try to converse with us despite the language barrier, and children give up their seats on the bus for their elders. We have noticed many parks and green spaces, all of which have entertainment for the children, like climbing structures, water pads, and even merry-go-rounds.  It appears that everyone has a dog here, and we have seen many dog walkers and pet stores! It is summer here, and the children are out of school on holiday, so we have seen many families out and about. There are also quite a few tourists here, although we do not hear English spoken all that frequently. 

There are all sorts of fun things in the parklands, and the dogwalkers pictured above had 7 different dogs with them. Six were on leashes, and one just walked along with them free. 

We have spent time walking through many of the communities within Buenos Aires: Belgrano, Recoleta, Puerto Madero, Plaza De Mayo, San Nicolas, La Boca, San Telmo, and Palermo. Our little apartment is in Palermo, and our new friends Laura and Jim live in Recoleta. Laura gave us many suggestions of things to see and places to visit in the neighbourhoods we visited, and she took us on a tour of her neighbourhood. We walked to all of these locations except La Boca! Laura said it wasn't safe for us to walk to La Boca, so we took the #152 bus, which allowed us to see some other areas of Buenos Aires.

Belgrano

Racoleta with Laura: Floralis Generica (a moving flower sculpture), Evita sculpture and Palacio Errazuri Alvear.

The faculty of law, Racoleta cemetery, and El Ateneo Grand Splendid.

Puerto Madero and the Bosque Museo Fragata ARA Presidente Sarmiento

Plaza de Mayo: Casa Rosada, the house of the president and famous for Evita's balcony. (I am very impressed with Mark taking this photo in the top right 😜)

The Obelisk in Plaza De La Republica

Teatro Colon in San Nicolas

La Boca and the home of the La Boca Juniors soccer team, one of my favourite places!

The Grade 2 students created a La Boca village several years ago using cardboard. I think I will have to do that again now that I have actually been here! It is such a fun and colourful place to visit.

San Telmo market, one of the biggest markets we have been to outside of Thailand, with so many local artisans. If I didn't have to carry everything and make the weight restrictions for a million flights, I could have done some serious damage here!

The cobblestone streets, eco park and people enjoying yerba mate in Palermo

I think you would agree that walking until we dropped has allowed us to see some spectacular sites this week. I won't lie, we have blisters, our bodies ache, and we have literally dropped into bed most nights. Since we have to catch the Boquebus (ferry) very early tomorrow morning, we only walked 10,000 steps today. We have to get packed, and I wanted to try to update the blog and Google map. Stay tuned for a culinary installment soon!

Yerba Mate in BA

 After two delayed flights, we landed in Buenos Aires, tired, hot and overdressed. The first things on the agenda were to get a sim card for the phone and to exchange some money. Some of the best things about travelling is learning about the different cultures, trying new foods and seeing sites that are different from home. Initially, I didn't think we were going to get much of that here. There was Starbucks, KFC, McDonald's, Bath and Body Works, Nike, and so many more stores and franchises we have at home. The only difference was that everything was a little more expensive. We asked our Airbnb host for some good restaurant recommendations, and he sent us information about Don Julio's, a Michelin-starred restaurant. He was not the only one who recommended this restaurant; even our Uber driver recommended it. They are very proud of this accomplishment here in Argentina, but it wasn't what Mark and I had in mind for our first meal in Buenos Aires. Instead, we paid $6.00 and enjoyed seven different kinds of empanadas in our little apartment. We were going to have to dig a little deeper to get the Argentinian cultural experience we were looking for.

We did some research and found a mate experience that we booked through Airbnb Experiences, and it was well worth the money and so much fun. Yerba mate is a drink that I would describe as similar to green tea, with lots of history, specific materials used to drink it, ways it is prepared, and shared. We headed out to La Martina, a polo shop closer to town, for our experience. The Polo shop itself was very interesting and full of history. It was the original location of the franchise and now has shops all over the world. The La Martina brand is the official supplier to the royal family. We learned that Yerba Mate and Polo have a strong connection through their gaucho origins. Yerba mate is a caffeneited beverage known for giving a slow boost of energy and satiating hunger.  This was definitely going to be the answer to my prayers; if only it tasted like Coca-Cola, I would be set! Yerba mate has a history of being enjoyed only by the rich at times, by the poor at times, and is now enjoyed by all. It is Argentina's national drink and a symbol of hospitality, freindship and trust. It is drunk from a cup called a mate through a metal straw with a filter on the end called a bambilla. The mates were originally hollowed out gourds, but now you can find wooden, glass, metal ones and even plastic ones for children. Yerba is made from the dried leaves and stems of a plant that looks like holly. The cebador is the person who prepares the mate. They heat the water to a specific temperature that is not quite a boil; the kettles here have mate settings on them.  The yerba is added to the cup and shaken on the side to form a mountain shape. The water is added to the base of the mountain in the mate, and the server is careful not get the top of the mountain of yerba wet. It is then passed to the consumer, who will drink it all and return to the server. The bambilla makes a slurping sound when empty, and if Mark didn't already have an excuse to slurp, he had one now! I secretly prayed that he wouldn't like it, so I wouldn't have to listen to him slurping at all hours throughout the day! It turns out that I was the one who actually liked it, so slurp away!! The cups are rather small, and only take a couple of sips to finish the warm beverage. This process repeats and continues in a circle, with everyone drinking and slurping from the same cup and straw. Don't worry, friends, we had our own mate and bambillas for our experience. When walking around Buenos Aires, you will see many people enjoying yerba mate in the parks, but you can not order it in a restaurant or cafe, which we thought was very strange. It is not an easy drink to enjoy on the go, but so many people do. Some carry their materials in a leather case, while others just carry their mates and a thermos around under their arm. We bought some yerba to bring home and are now on the hunt for our mates and bambillas.

The kettle, mate and bambilla in our little apartment.

Even Staley is in on the yerba mate experience; this set cost about $50

On our way home from our mate experience, we met Laura and Jim, who helped us to enjoy the traditional Argentinian meals we were looking for and some amazing sites around Buenos Aires. They were both so welcoming, and Laura quickly became our go-to expert for our time in Buenos Aires. Stay tuned for our next adventures!

Home Sweet Home!

I started writing this blog on our way home and it has taken me this long to finish it up and get it posted. Once we made it home, we just got busy with life. People often say they are busier in retirement than when they were working, and since I'm practicing being retired with Mark this year, I'm sticking to that story!

Mark is like a horse heading for the barn when he decides that it is time to head home. The last three days of our trip consisted of all driving, with stops for meals, gas and washroom breaks. I did convince him to stop at the giant Van Gogh painting in Goodland, Kansas and the arch in St. Louis so I could get some pictures of this leg of our trip. Otherwise, I was going to be left with pictures of the highway and the never-ending roadkill, which usually consisted of deer. We had seen so many deer in the last couple of days of our trip, both dead and alive, and Mark was dealing with a little PTSD from the last deer. He really didn’t want to hit another.

I have been collecting fridge magnets all along our trip. It is something that I started a long time ago when travelling and I have got quite a collection. As we were making quick progress home, I had to keep on my toes to ensure I bought a magnet from each state. I had Utah and Colorado, next I would need Kansas, then Missouri. We popped into a travel centre for me to grab my Kansas magnet, but we noticed that all they had were Missouri magnets. I asked Mark, “Why do they not have Kansas magnets?” His response was, “I guess we are not in Kansas anymore.” Okay, Dorothy… what do you mean we are not in Kansas anymore? I didn’t get my Kansas magnet! Clearly, Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas are not the same thing! So I picked up my Missouri magnet, and we headed out. I would like you all to know that there is a magnet missing from our travels. We are definitely not in Kansas anymore, and I am short a magnet! So friends… should you find yourself passing through Kansas, could you pick me up a fridge magnet, please?

My magnet collection is currently in a bin, as I'm waiting for Mark to find time to build a display for them. However, he is swamped being retired at the moment.

Once we arrived home after a quick stop at Trader Joe's to pick up the American essentials, it took us a couple of days to unload everything from the trailer, winterize it, and do the never-ending loads of laundry. It was a busy time getting back into the swing of being home. We had people we needed to connect with, I popped into the school to help out for a couple of half days, we hosted Christmas with my mom before they headed to Mexico, which gave me a good excuse to get the Christmas decorations up. Finishing up our travel blog had taken a back seat. I started to really buckle down and get ready for Christmas, and Mark was busy booking things for the next leg of our travels in South America. The next two months being home were going to fly by, I was sure!