Trindade - the way it was before

The secret to traveling in Brazil is to get to these bars before they put in a floor, walls and air conditioning!

Brazil is changing year after year. Some say for the better; some say otherwise. As travelers throughout Brazil, Luiz and I have seen a lot of “evolution” at the natural places we love to visit. What I have witnessed over the past 15 years, in terms of the development of previously rural or sparsely populated coastal areas, is a fraction of the changes Luiz has seen since his early adventures as a teenager. He and his friends were frequent campers on beaches and in tiny towns long before comfortable pousadas appeared on the scene.

Sorry Cabo Frio. Not my favorite beachfront view.

Sometimes the “progress” is stark and ugly. I think it is safe to say that Cabo Frio is a fail, having lurched blindly into the fast lane of tourism development. While the beach has stayed clean and the water remains spectacularly clear and crystal blue, you need only look behind you to the burgeoning little city and its wincingly soulless, crowded and chaotic beach-town tourist lowest-common-denominator “development.” Hint: if you want to visit the beautiful sea near Cabo Frio (without doing the whole European upscale thing of Buzios) set your sights on neighboring Arraial do Cabo.

Arraial do Cabo: still a small town - with lots of beaches, and just a cab ride from Cabo Frio.

This post, however, is meant to focus on the success story (so far) that is Trindade.

Luiz and I have been to Trindade in the past. You can learn more about our first visit (and see photos of a very fat Jim) here. At that time we enjoyed a small coastal hippie town that was slowly morphing before everyone’s eyes into a burgeoning (on a tiny scale) coastal getaway for the Paulistas escaping their urban zoo for a weekend. We felt lucky to have been there before it was totally overrun.

During our first visit to Trindade we loved the fact that the tiny, winding access road that enters the village literally traverses a stone waterfall/spillway where the forest meets the sea. No bridge, just a shallow stream of water easily driven through. This bit remains exactly the same.

That wonderful lunch from years ago.

It was our birthdays when we first visited (as it was, again, this second time around) and we ate a spectacularly generous and delicious seafood pasta in a clay pot lunch at a beachside restaurant. I remember thinking at the time that the restaurant was clearly a “temporary-turned permanent” type of structure plopped down on the sand just out of reach of the tide. It was convenient and had great views/ambiance, but it was also an eyesore on an otherwise pristine tiny beach in a natural area. There were several such invasive restaurants lining the shore.

This past May we revisited Trindade on a day trip down from a beach house retreat just outside of Angra dos Reis. It was our birthdays and we were spending a long week touching base with some of our favorite local gems: Ilha Grande, Paraty, Angra do Reis and Trindade.

I had my heart set on a return visit to the restaurant for that amazing seafood pasta.

Imagine my surprise (and heartwarming delight) when we hiked out to the little beach and found it totally bare of any built structures. None. Nothing. Just a woman selling cold beverages from a cooler – and a beautiful natural beach!

Could it be? Is it possible? Could IBAMA (the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) actually be enforcing environmental laws? Did IBAMA actually kick squatters (even delicious seafood pasta making ones) off of environmentally sensitive national forest land? According to the itinerant cold drinks saleswoman that is exactly what happened.

No buildings... yay.

I am standing where the restaurant used to be.

Cue swelling music. Yay! Thank you IBAMA. Thank you Brazil. Yay!!

The beach at Trindade (one of them, there are many) the way it was 20 years ago! Go visit. Go see for yourself.

Looking up from the water - Luiz is where the restaurants used to be. There are small traces of cement floors still in the sand.

Now if we could just put a limit on how many Paulistas can override the place on a holiday weekend. But hey… I don’t blame them. It is a beautiful place.

I love this shot of the bus stop at the edge of town.

And speaking of beautiful getaways that remain natural - don't forget the Juatinga Ecological Reserve that is located along the coast between Trindade and Paraty. We have had some great times there too.

Red Bull cliff diving comes to Niterói

Who says the best thing about Niterói is the view of Rio? (OK, maybe everybody… well, at least every Carioca.) We Niteroiense (folks from Niterói) know better. Can I get a shout out from my brothers in Oakland, CA?

It would seem the folks at the Red Bull cliff diving championship know it too. Niterói is one of the sites hosting the Red Bull 2013 Cliff Diving World Series. They will be here September 27^th and 28^th on Icaraí beach – just three blocks from our apartment.

According to the official website, they are very excited. “For the first time in the history of the World Series, the world's best cliff divers touch down on the South American mainland. The place chosen to host the high diving elite is the beach of Icaraí  in Niterói,  a city in the state of Rio de Janeiro, with which it shares the Guanabara Bay. The name of the beach means "holy river" in the native language (my note: indigenous people, not the Portuguese) and used to be a place where people jumped from a platform during the 1950s.”

Actually, the diving platform on Icaraí beach, which was built in 1936, remained there until demolished in 1965. Luiz tells many a tale about skipping grade school with his little buddies and going to the beach to jump from the lower platform while his parents were unaware of his shenanigans.

The cliff diving folks at Red Bull will be constructing a temporary diving platform that reaches 27 meters above the water, significantly higher than the historic beach attraction. 

Sounds great – but did their advance team check on the water quality of Guanabara Bay and the healthfulness of swimming at Praia de Icaraí? I don’t mean to be a wet blanket here, but the official recommendation from the city, posted daily, regarding the water safety for bathers is typically “not recommended.”

Don’t get me wrong. Luiz and I swim at numerous beaches in Niterói, but they are the ocean beaches. We have yet to venture any further than ankle deep into the bay beaches, including Praia de Icaraí. But hey, they are the professionals.

The event is going to be super cool for us, but, dare I say it? It would seem the best thing about the location choice would be the view of the Christ the Redeemer statute and Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio across the bay. Ouch.

Come join the party. While you are here you can visit the landmark MAC Museum (contemporary art) just a few hundred meters up the beach (and a part of that spectacular view).

Innovative flower designs at Flor de Luiz

click to enlarge images

As the persistent and inspiring street protests by Brazilian citizens demanding cleaner government and improved social services enter their fourth week, things back at Flor de Luiz continue apace.

Luiz has introduced a new line of flower arrangements utilizing pieces of drift wood collected from the beach near our apartment.  These natural beachscape pieces combine flowers, mosses, insects and nesting bird details to produce stunning results.

Introducing these innovative designs is meant to both feed and inform the curious public that comes to his booth at the weekend art fair. Luiz has earned a reputation for unique and unusual designs. So many  local florists follow a tired old (perhaps tried and true, in their opinion) formula for arrangements that amounts to little more than “chop and drop” simple pieces that everyone has seen a hundred times before.

Luiz is never content to stay on the beaten trail. He feels best when he is on the path less traveled. It has been an uphill struggle, slowly teaching those who visit his booth that innovation is not only possible but beautiful when it comes to flower designs. He invites people to join him in thinking out of the box and to value design over sheer volume of blooms.

We have witnessed the steady morphing of his clients from elderly women looking for that simple bunch of roses in a pot for their bathroom vanity into a younger set of urban professionals excited by innovation, seeking to lead the pack with feature designs that light up a room rather than just fill up a space.

It has not been easy to convince the inexperienced consumer to eat their vegetables (even when they taste so sweet). Luiz definitely has a selection of the tried and true designs available as gifts for grandma. But slowly his booth is blossoming into a weekly destination visited by curious neighbors out for a stroll in the park on the weekend.

Weekend hike in the Juatinga Ecological Reserve

Luiz and I really enjoy discovering new places. We especially enjoy it when they are very close to home, outdoors and beautiful. This time around we discovered a tiny but stunning slice of the Juatinga Ecological Reserve (ReservaEcológica da Juatinga) located in the Atlantic Forest (Mata Atlântica) just a few hours south of Rio.

We have previously been to, and I have blogged about, Paraty and Trindade. Both are beautiful destinations with history, natural beauty and comfortable pousadas.  This weekend trip was to a place between those two coastal towns featuring incredible natural beauty, but since the area is only accessible by trail or boat, accommodations were a bit more rustic.

I’m going to let the photos do most of the telling in this post. We took more than 180 images in our short visit. The place is really a delight.

The hike and accommodations were arranged by our friends at RJ Adventura. We rendezvoused with 10 other people (including three guides) early on Thursday morning at the Nova Rio bus terminal where we loaded our backpacks onto a mini-bus and set off for the Reserve. The trail-head that was our destination is also available by bus. To get there, take the bus to Paraty, then transfer at the terminal to the local bus, number 1040, for an additional hour or so to the tiny town of Laranjeiras/Vila Oratório, just north of Trindade. The bus will terminate very near the trail-head.

From there most of the group hiked the 1.5 hours trail to Sleep Beach (Praia do Sono). I, on the other hand, volunteered to take the heaviest bags from everyone and join with our guide Cristiani on a sweet 15 minute boat ride to the same destination. (No sense breaking a sweat, I say.)

A quick shower on the beach to wash the salt off.

Praia do Sono is a beautiful beach and a cute little village of about 400 people featuring Gilligan’s Island-style beach restaurants, camping areas and a few chalets for rent. Overnight visitors have the luxury of electricity, if this is your final destination.

Who says your bamboo and mud house can't look fabulous?

It looks just like how Luiz would do it up.

You can take the boy out of being a waiter, but you can't take being a waiter out of the boy.

After lunch we continued past two more beaches to our nighttime destination of Black Point (Ponta Negra). Walking onto this remote little beach we were immediately ducking soccer balls being kicked about by the village youth on the futebol pitch on the sand.

The neighborhood.

We stopped at this house to ask if we could buy some rice and salt. The girl is showing us where in the forest we can look for fresh limes.

The family's bath tub.

The village fish market - which we took good advantage of.

Just a few modest restaurants lined the beach. Mostly we saw fishermen mending their nets sprawled over the sand. We got the key to the house we were renting for the next two nights and headed up a wisp of a trail to find our temporary home. BTW, there is no electricity in Ponto Negra.

The house we stayed in was amazing!

How's that for a balcony view?

Friday lunch.

Cooking up the fish.

Tasted great!

All that hiking (and a great meal) will put you out.

Between the hiking, lifts in the boat, swimming, fresh seafood meals, great friends, a fantastic rental house and pitch black nights – this place was wonderful!

View from the second floor of our house.

Moderate to challenging hiking for about 5 hours total (or pay a guy with a boat), two waterfalls, four beaches, two villages, fresh seafood at beach-side restaurants and super friendly locals. Brazil at its best.

There is nothing like a true getaway weekend to sooth the soul. This trip is very doable and highly recommended. Another option is to spend several nights in Paraty and one morning take the local bus service to the Juatinga Ecological Reserve area trail-head (or connect with the guys with boats) and spend the day at Praia do Sono, returning to Paraty for the night.