Our road trip back north from Florianópolis ("back" for Luis, Bruno and the car; a whole new world for me) began first with a drive around the northern part of Ilha de Santa Catarina - accompanied for one last hoorah by our loyal Aussie sidekicks. Armed with an excellent addition to his English vocabulary thanks to certain clientelle of Tucano House, Bruno reliably informed us that the north of the island was where "Brazil's rahs" live. It is not hard to see why - the streets are bordered by vast palace-come-mansions running adjacent to the beach, but obviously protected from the riff-raff by towering gateways and spiky-topped fences that give a feeling of The OC mixed with Fort Knox.
We had a walk down the beach and got our one and only "Team Photo" (which will appear shortly), before heading back down the island for an incredibly emotional parting of ways with the Aussies (naturally, we were all in tears). 4 hours up the road - through a mahoosive thunderstorm as we scaled the hills - and we were in the hilltop city of Curitiba, just a shade under 1km above sea level. Yet another wonderful example of Brazilian hospitality came in the form of Luis' mother, who immediately had me feeling right at home with delicious food on the table (including an awesome meat-loaf style dish traditional to her hometown area), clothes straight in the wash, and plenty of good banter. Evening is evening, however, and we were straight out to a bar to meet up with Bruno and a couple girls he knows from the language school where he works/Luis knows through university. Thanks to yours truly, all conversation took place in English, and as the drinks went down and the night went on I found myself in the surreal and slightly embarrassing position of sitting adjudicator in a deep philosophical/moral debate-come argument that, despite its serious content (ranging from homosexuality to parent-children relations to the nature of sex), was taking place in a language foreign to 80% of its participants. A surefire way to make you feel lingusitically inferior.
Somewhere in the middle of all this high-brow chat, however, came the distraction of a bunch of girls singing a Portuguese version of "Happy Birthday to You!" to one of their friends (it never ceases to amaze me how many alternative languages can be squeezed into the same musical straitjacket). They'd all had a few and were generally loving life, but for whatever reason one of them decided to come over and strike up a conversation. Me being English went down amazingly well, and she proceeded to tell me everything she knew about South America to inform my upcoming travels - including "finding herself" in Bolivia's Uyuni desert. Lovely girl, but her excitability soon drew another friend over to attempt to steer her away (I guess she incorrectly thought her friend was annoying us). This latter girl will be remembered for a long time.
I have no idea what the first words she said were, but I immediately was lost for words. She's Brazilian, from Rio, but listening to her speak English was like listening to Kate Winslet or something. I guess it was shock, but I just sat there flabbergasted at this girl who one minute appeared to be like any average girl conversing in Portuguese, but the next minute was talking like a young debutante in Home Counties England. Oh, and she was stunning. It turned out she was an actress - as were all of them - and they were in Curitiba for a few months for a production they were all involved in. Her perfect English elocution made some sense when it emerged that she'd spent 2 years at RADA... but the real surprise came 24 hours later when Luis and I were watching TV - who should pop up in an advert for a prime time serial but the very same girl!!! Amazing scenes... but more memorably, an amazing voice. Arguably, the perfect voice.
Anyway, back to reality and the weather was very much against us, but rain showers would remain the order of the day for the length of my stay. As such, Tuesday saw us take to the city and check out the sights. Most stunning, but for some reason totally ignored by the LPG, is the Curitiba Wire Opera House - a massive auditorium resembling London's Royal Albert Hall in shape and size, but built in the heart of an old quarry, surrounded by jungle and accessible only by a bridge over a waterfall fuelled river, and held together by the intersecting network of wires and glass that allow you to simultaneously feel indoors, but surrounded by stunning nature. 8th May 2010 sees a whole bunch of us Pembrokians graduate, and objectively speaking Oxford's Sheldonian is one of the best places you could hope to have your ceremony. Hearing that Luis' sister's graduation was here, however, made me more than slightly jealous. One way or another, it was clearly a fantastic place for Luis to add some Brazilian Backing of the Bid (right)...A good walking trek around one of Curitiba's parks saw us encircle a man-made lake and built up a good appetite for another excellent home-cooked meal, and we also had time to wander around the city's Botanical Garden - centred around an architecturally stunning glass house that would be right at home at Kew, and whose two-tiered internal walkways in amongst the palm canopy were a (surprisingly) novel experience. A big Tuesday night was always the plan, however, and we met up Bruno and the girls again before us boys went our own way for a fairly unique sample of Curitiba's nightlife.
As future blogs will make clear, sleep was quite spectacularly thrown out the window that night.
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