Sunday 30 November 2008

Addresses

A day and half away from my departure, and I still can't quite believe I am leaving. Everything has happened so fast!!! Anyway, just a quick note to say that if you would like a postcard, a letter, a bit of feijoada or something else, please don't forget to give me your address!!! Post it on here or send me an email. Hope to hear from you soon! 

Tuesday 25 November 2008

Itinerary

This is officially my first post on my Brazil trip blog: exciting!!!! (even though I write this from my room in France). I leave in exactly one week and in fact, this time next week I should be flying somewhere over the ocean...

Anyway, I thought I would write up a brief outline of my itinerary or places I hope to see whilst I am there, since a few people have asked me this lately. Like that you can check it out on here and if you're really dedicated or just curious you can go and look some of the places up. (or not...)

So I arrive in Sao Paulo next Tuesday. I plan to stay there for a while training with Mestre Suassuna in his academy. 

After that I plan to go to Foz de IguaƧu, the waterfalls which are on the border with Argentina and Paraguay. 

After that, I plan to head towards Rio de Janeiro, possibly via Sao Paulo again, stopping off on the way in places like Paraty and Ilha Grande. I'm also going to try and stop off in Guaratingueta, a small town in the state of Sao Paulo. This is where some of my capoeira teachers from the UK are from and their families (father, uncle...)  are still out there teaching. It's nice to go and visit them and see what their academy is like.

By the time New Year's eve comes round I hope to be in Rio de Janeiro and to have been there for a few days at least. I will be meeting friends from Europe there, which is a bit weird but cool. A family of friends from Austria will be there, as well as my friend Veronica from Nottingham, and Flavia from London. 

After that I will head to Ilheus in the state of Bahia, for the Capoeirando event. It is a huge capoeira event held every year by Mestre Suassuna and I'm very excited about going there for the first time ever. There will be loads of great capoeiristas and lots of training. Once that's over, I will make towards Salvador, the main spot for all capoeiristas to visit. 

Having spent a while in Salvador I then hope to head up the coast of the North East of Brazil, stopping off in places such as Recife and Olinda, Natal, and Fortaleza. I hope to have enough time left over after that in order to go back down to Rio to visit another friend of mine who lives there and see more of this city. Finally, I hope to be able to spend Carnival in Salvador, once again with Veronica, in order to finish my trip with a blast!!

I will of course write about all this in detail as I go along. Thanks for reading :-)