Brazil '08, Day 6 - Morretes, PR

Adventure! Excitement! We certainly got plenty of those things.

It rained in the night, as I suppose it should in a rain forest. The floors in our cabin are moist and the wet stuff from the beach is probably rotting. Also Husband seems to be getting the evil cold I have been incubating. Maria and Nikolas served us breakfast right on the table outside our cabin. Delicious!


The pousada has an hour-long trail on its grounds which we were thinking of undertaking first thing in the morning, but I was so tired that I fell asleep immediately after eating breakfast. So instead, we decided to do a hike off the famous Estrada da Graciosa which Nikolas told us about and which he would normally have accompanied us for but alas not today.

Our plan was to take the 12:15pm bus to Morretes from “just outside the pousada”, have lunch and buy supplies for dinner, take a 1:30pm bus to Sao Joao, walk “about 2km, over a bridge, past the old grill” and find the trail used by local bushwhackers and banana pickers, and return on the 7pm bus. Few things actually went according to this plan.

First we waited for the bus in the wrong place, so naturally it did not come. At some point a young girl appeared out of the forest, gave us an odd look and keeping her distance appeared to wait for a bus as well. Husband asked her if a bus to Morretes is on the way, which she affirmed, and which did in the end come. Except it was a school bus. We asked the bus driver if he would mind giving us a ride, and thus we found ourselves with our little backpacks, and about five children on a bus which after a half a mile in the direction of Morretes did a U-turn and headed into the opposite direction. Oh well.

Some time later the bus stopped to deposit a child on the first intersection we’d come across, and which by a lucky coincidence turned out to be the town of Sao Joao. I tried to capture the entirety of this village (some may say hamlet) in this picture, and I think I’ve pretty much got it all. It consists entirely of three side-by-side stores, all selling the same exact thing – bananas (fresh, dried, broiled etc) and salty deep fried pork skins/lard, as well as a pizza type place that was closed, and a store that sold pieces of wood from the forest (local specialty, looks like driftwood but never rots, used for decoration.) It is, however, situated on the Estrada da Graciosa, an old and beautiful road that winds through the Sera do Mar and is both scenic and historic.


We walked what we thought were 2 km away from Sao Joao. We crossed a bridge and came to an abandoned urine and graffiti colored structure that we guessed to be the grill. At this point we realize that neither of us knew where to go next. There was a kind of muddy spot across the road that could be considered a path (by, perhaps, a wild donkey), so we took it. Slipping and sliding we arrived at a stream a few yards away. A beautiful wild completely untouched and uncrossable stream. The current was strong and the rocks wicked slippery, so after taking a few pictures we decided that this must not be the place and went back to the road.



In the end we tried a number of similar paths, all ending at this same stream. After walking up and down the road for a while and feeling like fools, we decided that we would simply walk along the stream and see if we come across a suitable crossing spot. Now this is not like walking in the woods in Northern United States, where there is always a place to step even off the trail. Here vegetation is so abundant that as soon as you step off the beaten path (such as it is) you are pretty much in the jungle. As a precaution we put on rubber tubing to cover our calves from possible snake attacks, and trudged on through the wilderness. A wilderness a few feet away from the road, but we felt like crazy explorers anyway.


After some time we came to a smaller stream forming a Y with the bigger one, and conceded that we were stuck. As we took a rest and a snack (dried bananas, yum) it began to rain. By the time we made it out of the forest and onto the road it was a complete downpour and we were so soaked that our rain gear was not making any difference. And thus we arrived back in Sao Joao around 3pm and contemplated our options. The one and only bus to Morretes was not till 7pm, a chance of a school bus was remote, we had no food besides bananas and we were completely soaked and therefore cold. So we asked around for anyone who may own a car and offered the man R$20 to drive us to Morretes.

Hungry, wet and cold he dropped us off at the train station where we discovered that all restaurants in town were closed till 7pm. The town itself was weird. It's like a colonial ghost town, still beautiful but creepily empty. We wondered the streets and found a beautiful old cemetery and old train tracks.




For dinner we had what the Brazilians call a pizza, which is indeed circular in shape. We then caught a bus heading towards Antonina, got out in what the bus ticket guy assured us was the place we wanted to be, and wondered in the darkness, towards the pousada (we did of course have a flashlight but what good is that in unfamiliar forest territory?) All in all, an excellent day.

Brazil '08, Day 5 - Morretes, PR

The bus from Sao Paulo to Curitiba (capital of Paraná state) was spacious and included blankets, pillows and snacks, but the six hour ride itself was bumpy at times, which kept waking me up. We arrived in Curitiba just before sunrise and set out to find the office of the Serra Verde Express, the scenic train that goes to Morretes and Paranguá through the Mata Atlantica (Atlantic rainforest) and the Sera do Mar (“mountain range of the sea”). The office and the train station itself turned out to be in the building right across from the bus station. It was, however, locked. There was no sign to indicate the hours of operation but around 6am we saw a man moving around inside turning on some lights. This made us hopeful and so we spent about half an hour thinking that the office would surely be opening soon. We asked a number of different people, passerbys as well as employees of the bus station, when the office would be open and each, speaking with conviction, gave us a different time. One person even went as far as to suggest that the office was closed on Sundays. Bummer. Eventually we went and got some breakfast – hot cocoa and cookies, and looked into buses to Morretes, which take about and hour and half to reach the destination, as opposed to the 3 hours by train. When we returned to the train station a line had formed, and the doors were opened at 7am. While waiting in said line we met two men from England traveling with their Lonely Planet guide. They were planning to take the Litorina, which is the more expensive tourist train that runs only on Sundays at 9:15am, as opposed to the daily tram that departs at 8:15am. We opted for the less expensive tram (R$55 per person) and got some of the last seats available. The Litorina, we heard, had only four seats left as well. It is therefore advisable, I think, to make reservations in advance.

The train ride was definitely an experience. The train shook a lot and emitted a brain damaging screeching noise, which is apparently due to sand being applied to the rails for extra traction. The car, in which we had the last two seats, was filled primarily with students on a field trip. Our senses were suitably dulled by sleepiness, however, allowing Husband and myself to not go mad. In fact the ride was still worth it, I think, for the close up look of the Sera do Mar. When leaving Curitiba it is immediately apparent that not a single mountain is in sight. This is due to Curitiba being on an elevated plateau, and the train is therefore a descent through the mountains. A guide at the front of the car told many interesting stories about the construction of the railroad and the forest itself, none of which was understood by me. What I did glean from Husband’s translations was that the railroad is one of very few in Brazil, built by about 9000 men, half of whom died during construction. As far as the flora, two things are of interest. First are the pinheiros (pine trees), at least that’s what I think they are called, the official trees of Parana (or so I believe anyway). And the second is that the bananas here grow up instead of down, and half pink flowers instead of purple. Pretty cool!




All along the railroad are squatters (it is no longer politically correct to call them favelas). We were asked to please not though food or money at them because it encourages kids to come too close to the moving train, a potential disaster in the making.

The only other stop before Morretes was the station of Marumbi, which is accessible only by train or foot and is the drop off point for hikers and mountain climbers intent on scaling the rock faces in the Parque Estadual Marumbi. We could see a campsite right by the train station, and I am not certain if any other amenities were available.


The train ride ended up taking 4 hours and by the time we rolled into Morretes we were at our wits end. Tired, hungry, disoriented, and entirely unclear about what our plans were, we looked out over the 10+ buildings that were apparent on our ride in and I honestly thought, “What the hell did I get us into?” My only hope was that we might be able to catch a bus out of town back to Curitiba or something.

As we exited the train station I was approached by a woman who asked me, in English, if Husband (who had gone ahead to sit down on a bench) was Frank Muller. "No," I told her, and went to join Husband. As I was telling him about my encounter the woman came back, and began telling me, this time in German, that we needed to go catch a bus that was leaving in 15 minutes and that it was the last bus today etc. Now technically I speak German, but at this point I began to suspect that what with the sleep deprivation and the hunger and the heat, I was beginning to hallucinate. Cautiously I asked the woman if she wasn't perhaps confused and was she looking for someone in particular. It thus transpired that the woman in question was the owner of a pousada outside of Morretes, that she was at the station waiting for an American guest, Frank Muller, whose physical description she did not have. While initially thinking that we looked American she inquired if we were of the Frank Muller party, but after talking to me she had run into some German tourists who were horrified at finding themselves in Morretes and eager to get out of town. She had then assumed that perhaps we were in fact part of the German tourist group (because of our backpacks) and thought she would correct the mistake by telling us how to catch the last bus out of town. I had seemingly substantiated her mistake by both speaking and understanding German.

In the end it was a stroke of luck because now we had a place to stay - the Pousada Cabanas do Curupira, outside of town but fairly close to a bus route and within taxi range. The woman, Maria, instructed us on where to get some food and not to let a taxi driver charge us more than R$15-20, and then she went to search for the still missing Frank Muller.

The restaurant or buffet we ate at, Rota do Sator, was quite packed and we stood out a bit as tourist, what with our backpacks and my pale skin. A woman asked me, in English, were I was from, and after finding out that I lived in the States she told me that her son was American (little 5 year old hiding behind his mom and giving me dirty looks), because he was born there. "Enjoy my country," she said, " I love yours". Weird...

Morretes is famous, among a few other things, for it's local food specialty - barreado. It is a type of meat dish, cooked over gentle heat for many many hours until it turns to essentially meat mush. I absolutely loved it! It reminded me of a similar Russian dish, called stoodin', which unlike barreado is served cold. We had heard so much about the dish that despite being a vegetarian Husband tried and liked it.

Getting two full dishes of food to go (the pousada does not yet have a kitchen, nor is it near any restaurants or shop as it's in the middle of the rainforest) we took a taxi to our new abode. Once there we proceeded to pass out immediately and slept until dinnertime. While reheating the leftovers in the owner’s home we listened to their life story. Maria and Nikolas come from Spain (Maria’s mom was German which is why she speaks it fluently), where they left 15 years ago to retire and raise children “their way”. They came here and started a farm, which they then lost, along with everything they owned. Since then they have built this pousada and are hopeful that it will be successful. In case any of you are interested, I definitely highly recommend the place.