Usually when we write a little summary post of a country we do so at the end when we’re already in a new county. Right now though, that wouldn’t seem quite right. Brasil is so different from where we’ve been that we really just need to share that now.

First off, they don’t speak Spanish here. Not since our first days in Mexico have we felt this lost when communicating with people and it has been very frustrating. We hear the Portuguese, respond back in Spanish, and everyone just looks at each other like they don’t know what happened. I have vowed that I will not be traveling like this in Africa…Swahili lessons here I come.

Constantly we get and give a thumbs up to show that we understood the Portuguese…initially we assumed this was just the international symbol for “you got it?” or something like that. Looks like it’s more the Brasilian sign for “we’re all good” because it is used all the time here.

When we first got to Brasil (they spell it with an ‘s’ not a ‘z’ so we’ll leave the ‘s’ in for now) we entered from Bolivia which is probably (not looking at economic statistics, just going by what I saw) the poorest country in all of South America. If ever we saw a case for not being land-locked I think this would be it. From the pobreza of Bolivia (with 0 coastline as compared to Brasil’s 7400km) we were shocked to see our first Brasilian city even had a skyline! When we entered the country, two brothers that had helped us said “Welcome back to civilization.” I didn’t realize how much I had missed that civilization for the prior few weeks in Bolivia.

It was here in that first city of Cuiaba that we first had our real taste of Portuguese. The accent in that region sounded more like a Swedish version of Spanish than it did a Portuguese accent. So strong was the Swedish that whenever someone opened their mouth I felt the need to point, say “Swedish Chef”, and walk away. Luckily the Swedish sounds went away with the countryside and now the accent sounds like a mix of Spanish, French, and Italian.

For us, the challenge of spending here has been just as great as the challenge of speaking. Brasil is fully a 1st world country and with the prices to go with it. The Metro in Rio costs almost to the penny what the metro in Washington, DC costs, and city buses are similar. The long distance buses are expensive and domestic airlines know this and price their flights just a touch higher. We actually flew from the Pantanal to Rio, it cost double what the bus would have cost but took an afternoon instead of 40 hours. At least the beer and wine is still affordable!

Bathrooms all have toilet paper and paying for the bathroom seems to be the exception rather than the rule. We’ve spotted water fountains in a variety of places (that means the water is treated) and our faces are stuffed with more food than we can handle EVERY time we go out to eat.

One negative though, my arms hurt. There are VW Beatles all over the place and every 2 minutes Jill puts her fist into my arm and says “Punchbuggy whatever, no punchbacks.” Luckily this has frustrated me immensely, disturbed my sleep, and I now hit her and say “Punchbuggy imaginary, no punchbacks.”