Touristing in Curitiba

Although a lot of people back home might not know much about it, Curitiba is quite a large and significant city in Brazil. The city has about 1.8 million people, 3.2 million in the metro area and is the state capital of Paraná, one of the 26 Brazilian states.

Curitiba is also an especially environmentally friendly city. They have an incredibly efficient bus system, a model that has been replicated around the world, a very comprehensive urban recycling and composting system, and a lot of preserved green space in the city.

The first few days I spent seeing a bunch of the neat touristy things in the city with my host brother, Bruno, and it was amazing!! Bruno is so great to take all this time to show me this amazing city, I had such a great time! Some of the neat places are below-

Jardim Botanico (Botanical Gardens)

Jardim Botanico (Botanical Gardens)

Araucaria tree- the city symbol, unique to the region

O Olho (The Eye) Museum

Base of O Olho 

Bruna and me in the Panoramic Tower

View of the city from the Panoramic Tower

Wire Opera House 

Wire Opera House

Tangua Park

Tangua Park

State Museum of Paraná

Arrival in Curitiba, Brazil

I made it here to Brazil, safe and sound last week. I took a flight Santiago, Chile to Sao Paulo, then Sao Paulo to Curitiba, where I will be living for the next three months.

I was greeted at the airport by my host parents, Jose Carlos and Marta, brother, Bruno, and the District Chairwoman, Denise. It was really sweet!

Bruno, José Carlos, Marta, me and Denise at the airport 

I couldn't understand a lot, but I tried my best to communicate. Luckily, Bruno speaks English so he could translate the important things. 

We went straight to Jose Carlos' mum's house for her birthday party. The whole family was there so I met loads of people although I could barely speak to them. I got to meet my other two host siblings that do not live at home, Matheus and Camila.

By the time we got home I was pooped, but got to unpack and have dinner with the family. They are very sweet, always explaining everything to me and taking special care to make sure I have gluten free and vegetarian things to eat, which is quite difficult here in Brazil. I feel quite comfortable and part of the family now, and I hope it continues this way for the rest of my time here! I am very lucky to have such a great family here!

Peñaflor Viejo- In the Country with Belén

I got to spend a day out in the country with Belén (my best friend in Chile) where her parents live and where she grew up. I took a rickety little bus from Curicó an hour out into the country to Belén's street. The ride out was beautiful- surrounded by vineyards, fruit fields and small quirky towns.

Belén is great at art and photography and everything like that so she taught me how to use my new camera so hopefully the pictures in this blog will be better from now on.  We went out and biked in the country towards the Andes for a few hours, over rivers and through vineyards. It was beautiful and so great to spend time with my best friend here!

Belén in the country

Me too

Belén in the vineyard

Vineyard

I will miss her so much!

Las Buitreras- Waterfall Finding Expedition

Su, Manolo and I went on an adventure to las Buitreras. A waterfall tucked away in the cordillera (mountains) that their cousins had gone to earlier in the summer and told them about. We didn't really have any directions so we asked people along the way and made educated guesses to find it.

Once we got up a little into the mountains, it became a one way road and very curvy and steep, so that was interesting. We ended up going way to far and being sent back to find thae trail and it was marked with a blue plastic bag. No sign. A blue plastic bag tied to a bush.

We made the long trek up and down through the forest

Manolo and Su, ready to hike

Monolo and me

Me in the forest

Su and the safest ladder I've ever seen

And finally came to the waterfall!

Waterfall :]

Tried to get a picture of all of us, but the water was so so cold and the timer on the camera not long enough.

Su, Manolo and me in icy waterfall water

We finally had had enough and wanted to get back to town to see our brother, Pedro, who came into Curicó that night.

Su and Manolo were very sweet and took me to a vegetarian restaurant, which is extra sweet since they eat so much meat and it is not common in Chile for people to be vegetarian. I had my first completo (popular Chilean food- a hotdog with avocado tomatoes and mayonnaise.

Finally back to Curicó, Chile!

After coming back from Pucón, I spent the rest of my time in Chile in Curicó. The city isn't really a tourist destination so there isn't all that much to see, but it is very important to me because it is where I lived for a year during high school. 

I stayed with my host family that I went to Pucón with for a few days and then spent the rest of the time with my first host family. They are very sweet and have always taken me in as part of the family. My sister, Su, and brother, Manolo, and I went to the mountains to find a waterfall, but I will write about that in a different post. My sisters, Cata and Su and I went to visit their cousin who had been in a bicycle accident. Pedro, Cata and I also went to another cousin's house and had an asado (Chilean barbecue) with his parents and a bunch of cousins. 

Their house is beautiful and very different. It was very rustic, with the wood treated but the natural shape of the trees in came from. The mantle/fireplace was a tree, and the floor was inset with slices of a tree. It was really neat! 

On my last day the whole family (except Naty who was in Santiago) and I went to a restaurant that served typical Chilean food- in enormous portions. I had humitas (ground corn, seasoned and wrapped in the husks and boiled). 

It was really hard to say goodbye and I wanted to stay longer, but I had to leave and go to Brazil.

Susana, me, Manuel, Pedro, Manolo, Su and Cata

Manuel, Su, Cata, me, Pedro, Susana, and Manolo

I also got to spend quite a bit of time with my best friend here, Belén! We became friends in the school I went to during my exchange and have stayed in pretty close contact over the years. We hung out and cooked and watched movies and met up with some of our other high school classmates. It was so great to see everyone! I also went with Belén to her family's country house, but I will write abou that in another post. 

 

Stuffed peppers and wine with Belén

High school friends, Valentin and Diego

I caught up with Ernesto, my Rotary Youth Exchange counselor, and other friends Joaco, Valentin, Diego, Jesus, Montenegro, Simón, Richie, Dodo, Pabloski, and Yaye-- after a couple years this was so great!! I really missed them all so much!

Arrival in Santiago, Chile and travel to Pucón and Villarica

After my loving mother took me to the airport in Detroit, Michigan, it started to feel real that I was on my way to Chile and Brazil. My flights went by smoothly from DTW to ATL and ATL to SCL. My second flight was the long one, and luckily there was no one sitting next to me, so since I am so small I was able to curl up and lay down across two seats. The girl on the other side of the empty seat was on her way to South America for the first time and was going to do a mission Chile, as she is part of the Mormon Church. There was a big group of them in their early 20s. I wonder how successful it will be since the grand majority of Chileans are Catholic, and it doesn’t seem that some of the conservative traditions of the Mormon Church would fit with Chilean culture.

By some stroke of luck, my sister from my first host family of my high school exchange, Su, was arriving at the airport in Santiago, Chile just an hour after me at about 11am. Because of this my host mum, Susana, father, Manuel, and sister, Naty all came to the airport to pick us up.

They took us into the city where Naty has an apartment and we had lunch together and caught up. Susana and Manuel left and I spent the day with Naty and Su. It was really great to catch up and hear all about what they had been up to over the past 2.5 years since I was last here!

Naty, Su and me

That night there was a futbol (soccer) game of Chile vs. USA so we watched that with a few friends.  At halftime I was sent off to the metro to make it to the central bus station that was across the city where I would take a bus to Pucón to meet with my other host family who was on vacation there.

The bus to Pucón was an overnight bus that was to leave at 10pm. I arrived in Pucón at about 8am. Normally this would be a really long bus ride, but thanks to the great blanket they gave out, sleeping mask I got on the plane and the lack of sleep I got the previous night I spent traveling, I slept the majority of the ride.

Pucón is a neat city situated in the lake region of Chile. It is known for the volcano that is nearby and the beautiful lake and is bordered by mountains/hills on one side.  The sand is black and course as it is made from volcanic rock. My family had rented a house there, the same one they rent every year and it was right on the lake.

I stayed for a few days and we spent the days outside on the beach. I caught up with my family who was all there except one of my sisters, Xime, who was working in Santiago and took her vacation days the week before. I got to see my host father, Adriano, mother, Ximena, sisters, Cami and Nachi, and brother, Adriano. Adriano’s friend Lucho was also there as he came on vacations with the family.

Adriano, me and Nachi

One evening we went to downtown Pucón for tea. It is traditional in Chile to eat a large almuerzo (lunch) in the afternoon around 1pm-3pm and then have once (tea/ coffee and light snakcs) late in the evening. We ate on the patio of a café and were waited on by the four and five year old daughters of the owner. As they took our order, they drew pictures of what we ordered- it was very cute!

Nachi, Cami and me with coffee shop owner's daughter in downtown Pucón

The second night Ximena and Adriano went out to the casino in town, and we (the kids) had an asado (a traditional Chilean barbecue) and drank ponche (a traditional Chilean “punch” of wine fruit and sugar). Cami was very thoughtful and made sure we grilled some veggies that I could eat since I am vegetarian. Cami was especially sweet to me the whole time I was with the family picked me up from the bus stop, made sure there were things for me to eat and talked to me a lot :].

Nachi, me, Lucho, Adriano and Cami having an asado

After a few days we headed back to Curicó, the city my family lives in and where I studied on my Rotary Youth Exchange in 2009-2010 during my senior year of high school. I went with Ximena and Nachi in the car and since I had never been, we stopped at Villarica, the other city situated on the lake. From the boardwalk there you can see the volcano and it is very pretty!

Me and Nachi on the boardwalk in Villarica

Me and Ximena on the boardwalk in Villarica