The Clark Family's Amazing Adventures

We’re in the idyllic island gem of Boipeba. Mum and Lara, age 4, are swinging in the hammock… its a far cry from the two cities we’ve just spent the last 5 nights in…

Lara : Mummy I want to do a blog

Mum : Ok, let’s see of you can remember about Brasilia? Tell me about losing your hat?

Lara : I losed it at that church and it was really nice it was the dark pink one that I always took to school on a sunny day

Mum : What was the church like?

Lara : Don’t know

Mum : Remember what the walls were like?

Lara : No?

Mum : They were all made of blue glass

Lara : Oh!

Mum : Don’t you remember? it was huge, square and really beautiful with the giant light with hundreds of crystals in the middle that Daddy paid R$10 to light for 1 minute!!

Ben :Mum  – it was two minutes. They said one minute but we got two, remember?

Lara : Oh yes – I really liked it though. It was a lovely hat – why didn’t you tell me to pick it up?

Mum : Lara,  do you remember going on that tour with Billy who drove us round?  What would you like to tell your friends about it?

Lara : Nothing, can’t remember anything!

Mum : What about the little church that was the first one in the city. Billy told you the first time you go in a church you can make 3 wishes so we all did

Lara : Oh yes!

Mum : And that little church was 50 years old which is really old for Brasilia and we said that’s funny because our house is nearly 100 years old back home… !

Brasilia is a fascinating capital for a short visit, just maybe not for a 4 year old! I’d compare it to Canberra – a purpose built  seat of government but with better architecture. Built up from nothing in the central plateau of Brasil, it was only founded in 1960 by President Kubitschek, having been built in just 41 months – by architects, city planners and landscape designers according to the winning entry of a competition for best design! It’s shaped like a bird or an aeroplane body and is organised into living sectors along the wings and government, banking, hotel and entertainment sectors through the central body.

There are no street names as the locals are proud to tell you, instead there are futuristic codes that indicate different sectors, South or North, that takes some getting used to and apparently confounds Sat Nav!

Brasilia is, apparently, the only city in the world built in the 20th century that  has Unesco World Heritage designation, but it was planned since the early 19th century and its location fixed after Italian priest Dom Bosco prophesied that a new civilisation would emerge in Brazil between the 15th and 20th parallels!

There is a huge beautiful lake hugging the nose and the front of the wings! We had a brilliant half day tour with Brasilia tour guide Billy Deeter, who moved from the US as a boy and has seen the city develop from it’s early days. He told interesting stories of the city and showed us the best sights, making it great for the kids as well as us – well…maybe not quite for our 4 year old, who was pretty eager to stop for ice cream and nothing else really mattered to her that afternoon. But Ben and Zoe were fascinated.  Between visits to different parts of the city, the kids had a fab time in the hotel pool.

We stayed in the North Hotel Sector after a complex negociation in the hotel originally booked in the South Hotel Sector decided it was against the rules to let us stay in a 3 bed room and we must be moved to another hotel. Since the girls have become accomplished at sleeping ‘top and tail’ and we are equipped with a couple of sleeping bags and mats, we would have been fine but we ended up in a lovely suite at a 4 star hotel with a significant discount so no complaints about the rules! We had a brilliant view from our balcony along the ‘centre’ of the city.

The Cathedral, Palace of Justice,  National Congress and various memorials are all carefully positioned and designed in spacious contemporary styles.

On our second day, we headed to the Banco Centro Do Brasil housing the money museum which we all loved! Great displays showing the origination of money in Brazil and worldwide, with English transation leaflets, a display of currencies from every country in the world and alot of gold bars!

Ben : Oh yes! Mum, I really wanted some of that shredded money. Billy said they gave it out in a little bag when he visited…but we did get some coins!

There is a display of shredded notes, each denomination separated in different glass cabinets,so you see all the different colours. It represented   a fortune of money. Again the kids were facinated!  Our day ended with a trip up the tv tower to the viewing platform right in the city centre where we watched the sun set, then headed down to the huge water fountains where the kids raced around and got drenched!

We had read that Brasilia is a bit of a foodie’s delight and quickly checked out the best reviews on Trip Adviser. In the end we stuck  with the simpler dining options in the shiny shopping mall nearby, as an expensive cab rides out to the lake for a la carte dining on the shores seemed over optimistic with 3 kids under 10 after a day in a hot city and all dressed in our hippy traveller attire!

Mum ; Ok, so what do you want to talk about for the blog then ?

Lara : Don’t know! Mum where are my Barbies?

A little later….

Mum : who remembers where we went after Brasilia and how we got there?

Zoe : We went to Salvador and we stayed for one day. The first night we looked for a sushi restaurant but it had turned into a different
restaurant so we had pizza there!

Ben : we went to the city – I remember we went in this huge elevator from the old high town to the port and then straight back up! And the town was all cobbled streets and really old – its one of the oldest cities built by the Portuguese. We got a bus to the old city and a taxi back – the man said 20 Real but Dad asked him to use the meter thingy. It came to 18 real and Dad gave him 20 Real with the tip!

I watched the meter going up  the whole time and I thought we would have to pay more – in the end Dad said it was still better because he would have to pay him a tip on top of the 20….!

Mum – Lara do you remember in Salvador ?

Lara – Can I go swimming?

[Salvador is a huge city. We flew in late afternoon – an easy 1 hour flight from Brasilia.  We immediately noticed that we were in a warmer climate, each stop we’ve made since Rio, it gets a bit warmer, we took a £35 taxi through the sprawling city to the smaller city beach resort of Barra, said to be one of the few ‘safe’ districts in Salvador and to a small simple pousada tucked away and securely gated.

We had just two nights before we had arranged to head south to Boipeba so the following day decided we should look at the city. The obvious destination was Pelourinho, the colourful, cultural, centre,  another Unesco declared World Heritage sight. Very different from Brasilia. Lonely Planet describes Salvador and Pelourinho as having an energy and unadorned beauty that few cities can match.  It also lists under ‘Dangers and Annoyances’ the city’s reputation for theft, mugging and pickpocketing, so we were a little paranoid and after leaving everything bar a little cash back at the pousada we set off somewhat nervously to catch a bus to the ‘Pelo’.

From what I’d read, I expected music & dancing on every street corner, huge bustling noisy, colourful crowds. But it was deserted – turned out it’s quieter on Sunday’s but it was also Fathers day!  Police presence still quite high, perhaps more noticeable due to lack of crowds and after a wrong turn that look us into some too quiet streets and rapid u turn, we felt much more comfortable wandering around, but like we missed out on the real experience.

The highlight was looking around the Igreja e Convento Sao Francisco, completed in 1723, simply dripping inside with gold and with a simple convent courtyard with a series of fresco where Martin, Ben, Zoe and I spent a while working out the proverbs and wise sayings  and searching for the distorted faces of cherubs and angels with dubiously large ‘organs’ painted by disgrunted African slaves who were prohibited from practicing their own religions.

This is a city that needs more time or might be easier to get to know without kids. We didn’t give it that much of a chance, although chatting and emailing with new friends with young children who we met in Boipeba who stayed in and around the Pelo before and after their island getaway, its possible to enjoy alot more!

After that R$20 ride back to Barra, we wandered along the unbelievably crowded city beach – I think many of the folk normally in Pelo might have come out for Fathers day! We went into the oldest fort and lighthouse in Brazil containing a small museum of Brazil’s nautical and lighthouse history – Ben fascinated and eager to look at everything and the girls happy to run around and play hide and seek. Another brief paranoid moment for Mum and Dad when they strayed briefly out of sight!]

Mum: The next day we had a long  journey – who remembers that?

Ben – taxi – then ferry – then car –

Zoe – Mum! Remember when we saw that cow and you said ‘I think it’s actually buffalo’ and Lara sat up and said  ‘Where’s the Gruffalo?!’

Mum – and the lovely speedboat ride was after that?

Lara – yes, I was standing right at the front!! Mum pleeeeeease can we go swimming now?