Porto Alegre

Our plan was to use Porto Alegre as a bit of a stopover in getting north to Rio, as the domestic flights are much cheaper than the international ones. We hadn't heard anything of note but booked to stay a couple of nights and ended up stumbling upon a gem of a city and a hostel to match.

It was also our first taste of Portuguese, of which we knew about three words on arrival. We struggled a bit at first, but we've quickly found that there are a number of verbs which are similar to Spanish (the conjugation is really similar too), and so if we speak enough Spanish with a few Portuguese words thrown in we are somewhat understood. Trying to understand the response is proving pretty difficult, though, as words often sound completely different to what we might expect.

And it was also really warm, which was nice. Got my shorts out for the first time in a while!

We stayed in a place called Solar63 in Cidade Baixa, which is an area with loads of bars and restaurants, and is one of the older parts of the city with a large number of the houses having been built to house the former slaves after slavery was abolished.

Our first afternoon we relaxed in the local park, wandered the streets and visited a small museum in an early settlers house (although it was all in Portuguese, so we didn't get more than the general gist), with our Dutch friend, Etienne.

The second day the hostel owner, Berto/Paulo/something else, offered to take us and a couple of Irish girls on a tour of the city. He said he hadn't done one in about a month, so it seemed like we were pretty lucky with our timing. We expected a couple of hour wander of the main sights, but he ended up taking us around for around eight hours, and we covered about 17 km, which was a fantastic way to see a city. He brought mate along to sustain us, and in addition to seeing the main city sights we visited a couple of galleries, the main park, had lunch and coffee at the markets, wandered the waterfront and took us into an old power station.

Cat sippin' on some mate:

 Some steps to rival Rio's Escadaria Selaron:

 The catholic cathedral. Just behind it there used to be a butcher's shop, and for around 30 years the butcher's wife would entice sailors up from the port, the butcher would murder them and then use the meat for sausages! Eventually he got caught as when the economy dropped and there were a lack of sailors they killed a local. The local owned a dog that followed him everywhere and the dog sat outside the butcher every day until eventually the police cracked onto it (or so the story goes)...

 A couple of exhibits in a really spectacular (and free) gallery which is set in an old bank. There is a movie theatre in the vault:

 Cat hearing secrets from a poet:

 There is an air-propulsion train in Porto Alegre, which runs a short route out to the airport. However, in the centre of town there are some disused tracks which stop abruptly, seemingly a huge waste of money. Apparently they have sold the technology to a couple of countries in Asia which now use the system too.

 Cat enjoying a late afternoon mulled wine. We heard that Porto Alegre has the best sunsets in the world, but unfortunately it was cloudy when we were there.

 One of the many bits of street art in Cidade Baixa:

 Old buildings in Cidade Baixa:

I'd mentioned to Berto during the day that we were keen to see a band play in a local club. So later on that night he took us and a few others to a bar on the main street (not many were pumping on a Wednesday in winter), where a samba group were playing. We enjoyed plenty of beers, a couple of nervous samba steps, and ordering early morning takeaways in Portuguese on the way home.

Overall Porto Alegre exceeded all of our expectations, and if we hadn't already booked a flight to Rio then we would have stayed longer.