Two Beers and a Pretzel

On Thursday the 22nd my uncle and I headed North from Porto Alegre to visit the hill country of Southern Brazil.  We made a brief stop at the airport to change my ticket back to Buenos Aires from the noon that day to February 4th.  TAM airlines told me to contact the issuing agency.  Expedia said it was not possible to change, but I could book another fare for $250.  The TAM office at the airport was more than happy to change my fare to the 4th only 2 hours before the flight for a whopping $30.
The airport in PA has a huge mural depicting the history of flight

Brazilians credit Santos Dumont (a Brazilian) with inventing the airplane.  Being from Ohio, I checked up, and Santos apparently built and flew an airplane in Europe 3 years after the Wright Brothers’ Kitty Hawk flight, but he had more witnesses and launched without a catapult.  You can read about the controversy here.  Besides, their mural actually has 2 Tie Fighters in it.  Seriously, George Lucas may want more say in his role regarding the history of flight.

Of all the things in the airport, I found a GAP authorized retailer.  One of the duty free shops has a taxable store near the entrance.  An extremely limited selection, but it is there…  The actual area containing GAP clothes can be completely seen thru the window – about 10 ft by 10 ft.

After settling my ticket woes, we hit the road to Gramado.

See the Google Map Here

German immigrants settled in Gramado in the late 1800′s and seemingly convinced the original Portuguese settlers of the benefit of Bavarian architecture, then invited the Italians over.  So what you get is a Bavarian village where they speak Portuguese, full of furniture makers, Italian restaurants, a growing eco-tourism industry, and loads of beautiful scenery reminiscent of the Rhine River Valley in Germany or Gatlinburg Tennessee.  And, it actually does snow here occasionally in July because the altitude is around 850m (2,700 ft) above sea level

We spent much of the day checking different ecotourismo companies for whitewater rafting trips.  Some companies advertise 4km, others 8km.  The river here that is about class-3 or 4 for about 4 km; after that, you could take a canoe with little trouble.  Considering the price and that it would eat up hald a day, we decided against the rafting.

That night we dined at a Brazilian Churrascaria (chur-hask-area) serving traditional Brazilian food (something like rotisserie barbecue over a wood fire) along with cultural music, costumes and dancing.  Since this region was populated by Germans, there’s a lot of half-samba, half-polka music.

Before the food and the main show, a guide explained the traditional Southern Brazilian tea – Yerba Mate (also called Cha Mate when the leaves are toasted).  The tea is held in a gourd and sipped thru a metal straw with a filter on the end that goes into the tea.  In my opinion, it tastes like crap, but I’m not a fan of tea in general.  The Brazilians love it.  You’ll see them carrying a gourd with the metal straw, and a thermos of hot water.  On Sunday’s in the park in Porto Alegre, you’ll be the only person without a gourd in your hand.  Drinking this tea is a social experiment in germ warfare…  They share the same straw with everyone and anyone in the vicinity of the gourd.  It’s a social bonding activity in Brazil that goes against the common North American behavior of “this is mine, that is yours, and we don’t drink from the same cup.”

With that in mind, I donned the Goucho hat, found a dancer and a gourd of tea and paid about $4 for this picture.  No, I didn’t drink it.  I’m sure that particular gourd was in the hands of about 50 people that night.

Then there was a lot of dancing that reminded me of German dancers wearing cowboy costumes instead of lederhosen.

The show also included the Gaucho (South American cowboy) skills that you often see at North American theme parks where a guy takes ropes with balls on the end and dances with them, then lights them on fire and gets his groove on…

The rope with the balls is essentially a type of lasso.  The Guchos would throw the rope to lasso the legs of the cattle.