These are photos I took on a 2-week trip to Brazil and
Argentina with my dad in May of 2002. He was feeling kind of down,
so I decided to take him away from it all and make use of Vivian's
flying priviledges. We flew from Vancouver to São Paulo via Toronto.
SP has a bad reputation, but I quite liked it. After a few days to
collect ourselves, we headed southwest towards Iguaçu Falls on the
Argentinian border (and very close to Paraguay). Dad had had enough
of overland travel, so we caught a flight to Buenos Aires.
The recent economic fiasco had made air travel in Argentina very affordable.
A cab ride across BA was cheaper than a bus ticket in the northern hemisphere.
We stayed in a beautiful room at the Hotel Congreso Nacional (US$20/night),
which was right near its namesake. We saw lots of protesting and were questioned by
a Porteño outside the Bank of Nova Scotia on the reputation of said bank. BA is
a beautiful city. We visited the Recolleta Cemetary on Eva Peron's birthday
(by chance) and went to the Señor Tango dinner show, where we met a Japanese girl
who had traveled overland from Peru. She said she'd spent 3 days and two nights
on a broken down bus in the mountains of Paraguay. Talk about hardcore!
We then caught the first return leg of the Air Canada Toronto - São Paulo -
Buenos Aires flight we started on back to SP and made a connection to Rio de
Janeiro (River of January). The Cristo Redentor statue (Christ the Redeemer)
atop Corcovado (Hunchback Mountain) and the view of Pão de Açúcar (Sugarloaf)
and the city was the highlight of our visit to RdeJ.
The connector back to SP got us there in time to catch our flight to Toronto, but there
weren't any seats available. So we had an extra day to see some of the things we'd skipped
on our first stop, like the Museu de Arte São Paolo (MASP). The natural beauty of
Brazilian women was a great distraction from the Renoir exhibit on display.
Both countries were beautiful and culturally rich and deserving of a longer visit.
Maybe next time!
