Archive for the ‘Brasil’ Category

San Ignacio in the Misiones Province of NorthEast Argentina is best know for the remains of the San Ignacio Mini Jesuit Mission.

Founded in 1632, the Mission (along with 29 more spread out over modern day Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina) was an attempt to provide the local Guaraní Indians with a community that would enable themselves to better themselves to Western standards and devote their lives to God, whilst at the same time allowing them to keep their traditions (only the ones deemed appropriate, of course) alive.

At its height, San Ignacio Mini was home to over 4,000 merry souls but towards the end of the 1600s, as with all good things, its fortunes began to suffer and the Jesuits withdrew from the site in 1767 and in 1816 the mission was destroyed.

Its ruins slumbered untouched in the jungle until 1903 and a full restoration process began in 1940, leaving a well-preserved historic site, named World Heritage by Unesco in 1984.

We arrived in San Ignacio in the late afternoon, after a 4 hour bus ride from Puerto Iguazu. We had 24 hours in the town, so we dropped into a tour office to see what our options were. After being told that the Mission itself would only occupy an hour of our time we happily signed up for a 5 hour jeep trip into the nearby Teyú Caupé Provincial Park. The tour, we were merrily informed, included a guided walk through the jungle to visit Martin Bormann’s house.

I paused at the name Martin Bormann. My first thought was the film director John Boorman, which didn’t really make sense, and I was just about to query this when my dad piped up, “Martin Bormann, the Nazi?”

Sure enough, it turns out that Martin Bormann (who from 1943 was the head of the Nazi Party and Hitler’s Private Secretary), fled Germany when things started to get a little bit hot and ended up, like many other Nazis, in South America. And out of the blue, we were going to get a chance to visit his house.

Teyú Caupé Park, named after a local Guaraní Dragon of legend, is on the banks of the Paraná River, South America’s 2nd longest river after the Amazon. At the start of the walk we climbed to high bluffs overlooking the river towards Paraguay on the far bank. Further into the jungle we were taken past 600 year old cacti and strangler figs, parasitic vines which take over full-grown trees and ultimately smother them.

We descended back down towards the river on a narrow path in otherwise undisturbed jungle. The occasional butterfly flitted past and lizards could be heard rustling through the undergrowth. After about 20 minutes we came across a solid-looking but somewhat delapidated wall – we had arrived chez Bormann.

The story goes that Bormann fled Europe at the end of World War II and, like many of his colleagues, made his way to South America and in particular Paraguay where the military dictator Alfredo Stroessner was only to willing to help and hide them. To confuse the trail, Bormann built his house on the Argentine side, linked it to the river bank by a tunnel and received all of his supplies from the Paraguay side, cut off from prying Argentine eyes by a thick jungle and high cliffs.

He lived like this from his arrival in 1946 until 7 years later when he mysteriously vanished, our guide’s theory being that the Israelis caught up with him and dealt with him directly, not worrying about the niceties of a trial. The inhabitants of San Ignacio were not totally unaware of him and it’s said that amongst others, local boy, author Horacio Quirago, met Bormann and only 2 years ago the last living person to have known him died aged 104.

It’s a fascinating story, and something you would never expect to come across. When I got back to Buenos Aires I started to look into Bormann’s life a little more to understand how he ended up this way.

And there I discovered a major problem with the story of the house near San Ignacio. After many years of uncertainty, rumors and unconfirmed sightings, remains discovered near Hitler’s bunker in Berlin in 1972 were DNA tested and in 1998 they were confirmed as being those of Bormann. So it looks probable (some people have suggested the body was not actually found in Berlin at all, pointing to the fact that the exhumed body contained traces of red clay not found in Berlin, but everywhere in this part of South America) that the person who lived in the house in the jungle was not Martin Bormann.

Which of course, begs the question. If it wasn’t Bormann that lived there, who the hell was it?

Today’s photo was taken the day after Brasilia’s 49th Anniversary celebrations outside the iconic cathedral. I’d already done the tour of the buildings a couple of days before and I just liked the look of this guy taking a break from his work.

One of the joys of travelling in a country where they don’t speak your language is that occasionally you’ll come across a name that has one meaning for the locals and another entirely for you. And you can take a picture and giggle at the crazy foreign names.

Spotted this one in Salta, Moron Firekillers (fire extinguishers). Quite a common one this, it’s also a town in Buenos Aires province.

A chain of chemists in Brasil. Saw this in the bus station in Sao Paulo which is not normally the sort of place I would recommend walking round with your camera, but I had to make an exception for Farto. Had already spotted it a couple of times, but had been unable to get a picture, so was very happy to catch this example. Kind of like trainspotting – patience and a little bit of luck. You even get a bonus shot of Laura with her backpack.

I purchased these fine burgers from my local supermarket here in Buenos Aires, based solely on the name, a mistake I will not be committing twice. Rarely have I come across a product that so ably Does Exactly What It Says on the Tin. God, they were awful.

I was kind of at a loss with this one. Spotted on a tour of bodegas in Mendoza last year. Not my first Wanka spot – there was a poster in the street advertising a Peruvian music concert which featured this word heavily. Was unsure if it’s the music or the group. But again, Google comes to the rescue.

Like the BarfyBurger, I bought this one simply for the name – it’s tinned tuna, it’s called Fanny. This is going to be funnier if you’re English more than if you’re American…

A quick update from Leticia – got back here last night from a few days in Puerto Narino, which is 70km up the Amazon towards Peru. Tomorrow we’re getting a fast boat from Santa Rosa (an island across the river in Peru) to Iquitos (also in Peru). To buy the ticket we had to go by taxi to Tabatinga (in Brasil) and then back to Leticia airport (in Colombia) to get our exit stamps in the passports. Before getting on the boat we have to go to Peru to get our entry stamps otherwise we’re not allowed back into Colombia and will have to go to Brasil.

All clear?

But on a less bureaucratic note, this really is an incredible region – the jungle is all around and it’s very simple to take little excursions away from the town to get a taste of what the jungle really is like. There is life everywhere, lots of it creepy and crawly, but the air is buzzing with birds and the rivers are full of fish. And pink river dolphins, we even got to see a few…

More detailed accounts will follow when I have a little more time, but now I have to dash to Peru, or maybe Brasil. I’m not sure.

The Guardian has published its Readers Travel Awards 2009 – of the 5 winners in the Best Overseas Travel Destination:

1. Iguazu Falls
2. Macchu Pichu
3. Ankgor Temples
4. Grand Canyon
5. Great Barrier Reef

I’ve been to 3 of ‘em in the last year.

My Top 5 is, in approximate order:

1. Macchu Picchu, Peru

2. Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

3. Perito Moreno Glacier, Patagonia

4. Monument Valley, Arizona

5. Ilha Grande, Brasil

Ok, so a little out of synch chronologically speaking, but hey, you get what you pay for right? And you’re not paying for it, so there you go.

After Ilha Grande, we spent 4 days in Rio. Now, Rio is a must-see place, you can’t go to that part of Brasil and not go to Rio, right? I must say, for reasons already mentioned in my earlier Brasil post, I wasn’t that excited about going there. I was enjoying the more rural places in Brasil more than the cities and I was convinced I was going to get mugged or killed or something. But neither happened thankfully. Although my camera died, a freak wave came up over the 5 meter wall i was standing on and drenched me and the aforementioned camera. So, that was the end of that.

I did enjoy Rio in the end. It’s one of those places you feel like you already know, having seen all the pictures. And let’s face it, it is beautiful. As in stunning. On the first day we caught sunset from Sugarloaf mountain and the next day went up to Cristo Redentor and had a tour of the city.

Laura left on Saturday morning to go back to Buenos Aires and I stayed another day, most of it spent wandering up and down Copacabana watching the waves (and getting soaked by them) and in the evening had a very interesting night at a Brasilian Burlesque cabaret complete with strippers (male and female) and an oversexed Belgian couple. I can’t go into details, but it certainly was memorable. The next day, feeling like death (one too many caipirinhas the night before) I headed off to Petropolis where I bought a new camera and then onto Ouro Preto, the jewel in Brasil’s colonian crown.

Like all old, beautiful places I’ve been in South America, these places are not the sterile tourist traps you find in Europe. They are real, lively towns that people actually live in. There are tourists of course, lots, but you meet a lot of people who live there, and have lived there all their lives, and it adds an extra element to the place. I liked it. The buildings were incredibly beautiful, the roads ridiculously steep and history was all around.

Ok, so I haven’t given you a Brasil part 2 yet, but it’s on the way, honest. So, if you’ll allow that little omission I can continue with my dispatches from my current location in Bolivia. Have had a very busy week here and am having a day off from all the madness in La Paz. I’ll fill in all the details when I have the photos, but the highlight has been the 3 day tour of the Bolivian desert and Uyuni Salt Flats which were truly out of this world.