Brazil Recap 10/1/12 - 10/20/12

Recap of Brazil:

Time in country:  20 days
Money spent: approximately $1500 USD each (includes cost of Visa)
Currency:  Real
Conversion Rate: approximately 2 Reais per USD

Food:
There are two popular kinds of restaurants in Brazil.  First, is the churrascaria.  This is where you pay a flat price and then an unlimited amount of meat is brought to the table on meat skewers, plus a buffet of sides, salads, dessert, etc.  Just like the Texas de Brazils back home, but better ;-).

The other is the "per kilo" restaurants.  There's a buffet of veggies, sides, meats, etc, and you pay a price based on its weight.  

We enjoyed both of these!!

Card on the table: green means bring more meat, red means I'm done!

As far as drinks (alcoholic) in Brazil, they are known for their capirinhas (with cachasca) and caprivoskas (with vodka).  

Places Visited (in order):  Corumba, Bonito, Campo Grande, Rio de Janeiro, Paraty, Sao Paulo, Foz de Iguacu

Random Thoughts:  
There are so many great things about Brazil including the following:

  1. Brazilians are super super nice.  They go out of their way to help people and are so friendly.  The towns / cities we visited had such "good vibes" about them.  Brazil was great!   

  2. The bathrooms! (Per Kristin)  The bathrooms were very clean, they actually flushed, there was toilet paper, hand soap, and even a hanger on the door for backpacks!!  One might assume these things would be in all bathrooms, BUT, I had not seen a lot (okay, most) of these items since Colombia. Oh happy day!

  3. The music, it's very energetic and has a good beat.

  4. Vegetables.  Brazil is the first country in South America that actually serves a variety of vegetables in restaurants.  The veggie choices in the buffets was appreciated!  

  5. The meat! Brazil sure knows how to cook meat and serve lots of it.  In general, the food in Brazil was some of the best yet.

  6.  Matt says Brazilian bathing suits should be on this list.  They are quite a bit smaller than the typical bathing suits back home.


The only downside that we encountered about Brazil was the cost.  It's the most expensive country in South America.  And since we came from Bolivia (one of the cheapest countries), everything in Brazil seemed so much more expensive!  We spent a lot of money, but we had fun doing it!