Tag Archives: Travel

Food in Brazil

Posted on by under Food, Travel

Third on the list of things I love after numbers and plans is food and this was always going to be a major part of our experience.

Before leaving we were intrigued by what we would and wouldn’t find as we went from country to country. Claire and I love food, from the odd Michelin star treat to a hungover Burger King, so we were both excited about the new foods we would discover and how we would adapt from place to place.

The other major factor in our food journey was always going to be what the hell would we feed Amber. It’s safe to say Amber is a typical toddler (it’s taken me quite some time to accept and understand that) in that her preferences seem to change on a daily basis. Just when you think you can always fall back on some bread and cream cheese suddenly both are off the menu and you’re scrabbling around the fridge searching for something she will like. New foods, even new brands of old foods, are treated like extra terrestrial objects – probed, poked and if you’re lucky they may touch the lips before somewhat inevitably being rejected.

So take that fussy toddler and drop her into Brazil with two hyper-sensitive parents and you have a recipe for a rather emotional start to our trip, at least when it came to meal times.

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Barra da Lagoa and our plans for the next few weeks

Posted on by under Travel

As well as numbers I also love a good plan and this trip gives us plenty of opportunities to scour maps, AirBnB and flight / bus schedules in order to arrange the next phases of our trip.

With 2 weeks in Rio behind us (see Claire’s blog here) we want to lay out what we have planned over the next few weeks as well as quickly comment on the week just gone.

26th August – 2nd September: Barra da Lagoa

This week we have been in the fishing village of Barra da Lagoa (not quite as small as it sounds with the plethora of hostels, surf schools and restaurants around but that said it is still very quiet and relaxed) near Florianopolis. This is a tranquil, serene and beautiful place that sits at the southerly point of a seemingly endless beach on the east side of Isla Santa Catarina. Our days here are simple – playing on the beach with Amber, drinking Brahma beer, keeping our costs down and trying (sometimes succeeding) to make meals that Amber will eat (more on this to come but it’s been emotional to say the least).

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Barra da Lagoa

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8 things to do in Rio with a baby

Posted on by under Travel

We knew before arriving in Rio that visiting with Amber in tow would be very different from the trip we would have had before becoming parents. For this visit at least, the city’s infamous nightlife would remain out of our reach.

But caiprinha fuelled samba parties are not all there is going on, and after two weeks in the ‘Cidade Maravilhosa’ we feel that we got a great taste of what it is about. Stunning, massive and fascinating, it had more than enough to occupy us, and despite thinking we were taking it relatively easy, we covered a lot of ground.

Rio is far more accessible than you would think given its reputation. Where we were staying in Barra Copacabana was safe and secure, and easy to get around by foot. The metro system is handy and linked us to various points of interest. Taxis are in abundance, and with Ubers as cheap as they are it often cost less to travel by taxi than by metro.
Here is a list of the things we did that we particularly enjoyed, and that we found to be either baby friendly, or at the very least baby accessible.

1. Parque Lage. The place we loved the most during our whole stay and the scene of Amber’s first official hike. Once the residence of a rich industrialist and now a public park, it has an abundance of fish ponds, woodland paths and, most enjoyably, grottos and caves to explore. As enthusiastic but novice spelunkers, we could barely contain ourselves.

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Spelunking for beginners

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Inside Santa Marta Favela

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Favelas (slums in Brazilian urban areas) are synonymous with Rio. And despite at least one favela being visible from most points in the city a tourist has no real need to visit or even go through one such as they are positioned high up on the hills overlooking the offices, homes and beaches below.

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View of Santa Marta favela from its base

That said and in a similar way to the slums of Mumbai some favelas are now open to tours to give outsiders the opportunity to witness first hand what life is like for the residents who live there. With our knowledge of favelas limited to watching City of God (also set in Rio) this was an opportunity we wanted to take and would further round our experience of this city as our time here drew to a close.

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Our first week in numbers

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I love numbers. And so what better way to mark our first week than a run down of some of the key facts and figures from our time in Rio so far. So in no particular order:

Twenty
The number of minutes spent at Christ the Redeemer where cloud cover meant we only saw a fraction of the famous views. Also the number of times we got annoyed by tourists pushing and shoving to get their perfect photo. Not that we’re bitter.

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Christ not doing much to redeem the view. Out of shot are a million tourists lying on the ground taking photos.

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Rio 2016

Posted on by under Sport, Travel

The main reason we started this trip in Rio was because of the Olympics. Such a massive and daunting city, without any knowledge of Portuguese, would have otherwise probably not been the best starting point. But we committed to the Games and bought tickets to a morning athletics session before we even booked our flights.

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First impressions

Posted on by under Travel

With 48 hours in Rio now behind us here’s some of our first impressions:

1. Natural beauty. To state the obvious the geographical setting of this city is absolutely majestic. Mountains, lagoons and beaches merge seamlessly with the city which wraps itself around its landscape in a natural, unimposing way.

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The journey

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It’s safe to say that we thought taking a 16 month old on a 3 hour car journey and 2 flights including one of 11 hours all on the same day was asking for trouble. However yet again Amber proved that she typically handles things far better than her parents do (see vaccinations, sleep and hot weather for further examples).

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