Two Beers and a Pretzel

Just outside of Canela there is an alpine slide, arboretum, another crescent shaped canyon and a very neat looking waterfall.  My uncle and I visited the alpine slide first, but they wouldn’t let me take a video.  It turned out to be a pretty short ride and my still photos of the track were not impressive enough to post.

Next, the Parque Das Sequoias.  They had some 50 year old Giant California Redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) and Chinese Dawn Redwoods (metasequoia glyptostroboides) among many other trees.

A Giant Sequoia (Sequoia gigantea) was listed in their literature, but I didn’t see one.  After seeing them in California 2 years ago, I was wondering how they could live in this relatively mild climate at a much lower altitude.  Apparently, they can’t…  The park had one for about 50 years that just recently died.  If you haven’t seen a Giant Sequoia in person, you owe it to your self to go to Sequoia National Park and see the General Sherman Tree.  It’s the largest (by mass) single living thing on Earth.  Here’s my pic from 2 years ago.

Yes, those are fully grown people near the base (it’s 275 ft tall), and the trunk of the tree would take up 4 lanes of traffic on a typical US freeway.  So hearing they had Sequoia’s here in Brazil, I was expecting something like that.  Oh well, they had some nice trails and over 120 tree species from all over the world.  They actually had the young redwoods, which are in the Sequoia genus and already towered over the other trees, but that was still kind of dissappointing – like going to see a humpback whale and they say “Oh, sorry, it died.  But here are some nice dolphins to look at.”

From there we drove to the Crescent Canyon park for some hiking and finally on to the iconic waterfall.  It’s about 400 meters tall and flows over a large cave-like opening.  We rode a chairlift up to a high vantage point, but the best views were from the path below the lift.

After all that exhausting riding on an alpine slide, walking thru a tree park, and sitting on a chairlift, we decided to get some food.  Actually we hiked up and down about 300 steps in the crescent canyon, so we really were tired and hungry.  Fortunately, we met a local the previous day who recommended the “best Apple Strudel in town”.

This was my kind of place.  A number of my friends would appreciate that the rafters were lined with cans of every beer imaginable…

The owner and head chef, Norbert, chatted with us and recommended the smoked pork chop, schnitzel and sausage with some sides from his home region of Germany around Ramstein, including a homemade spicy mustard and some decent saurkraut.  In what has become a recurring theme, he fell in love with a Brazilian girl and moved here.

Of course, the finale at a place named the “Strudelhaus” was his Vienna-style Apple Strudel with heavy sweet cream and vanilla ice cream on the side…

Yummy!!!

We then left for Porto Alegre via New Petropolis.  Continuing the German theme, New Petropolis has a park at its’ center that preserves the original buildings of the early German immigrants.

On Sundays (which it was), a polka band plays for beer as a surprising number of people show up to socialize, listen to polka, eat German food, drink beer, and dance.

Needing to wash down the Apple Strudel, we opted for the beer, splitting a potato pancake and listening to the music..

Considering that my “Lonely Plant – South America on a Shoestring” book dedicated barely one page to Canela and the National Park, and did not really mention Gramado or Bento, I had a great 3 days in this beautiful region.  It may not fit their criterea for ‘shoestring’ travel, but it just goes to show that it’s always worth it to use a guidebook as a simple guide, not as a travel bible, and make friends with the locals (even if he is already your uncle).

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.