Saturday, July 12

Location: Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

Today's weather: 20░C, Sunny

Today I flew from Buenos Aires to Sπo Paulo in Brazil. I then flew to Porto Alegre where I was met by my friend Susi and her six year-old niece, Camilla.

The flight from Buenos Aires was very early. I had to get up at 3.30am – but this was very easy because it had been difficult for me to sleep properly. Even though it was the middle of the night in Buenos Aires it was mid-afternoon back in New Zealand so my body didn’t think that it was time for me to be sleeping. I was picked up by a bus to the airport at 4.30am.

At the airport, there were many of the same people who I’d seen on the plane from New Zealand. Many of them were Brazilians who had been on holiday to Australia and New Zealand. They obviously bought many clothes and souvenirs because some were pushing trolleys laden with four or five suitcases. A few had new surfboards, and one had even bought a brand-new stereo because it had been much cheaper than buying it in Brazil. The flight to Sπo Paulo took two hours, and the flight to Porto Alegre took just over one hour. I talked with several people on the plane and in the airport, and learned about the places that they lived and where they had been on holiday. On the plane, I was served a local soft drink called guarana (pronounced "gwar-rarn-a") which is made from an Amazon fruit and is very popular here. It is a bit like very sweet lemonade.

I was picked up at the airport by Susi and Camilla. We stopped at Susi’s apartment to drop off my bags and to rest for a while. Like many Brazilians, Susi lives in an apartment block shared by many other people. The apartment blocks are surrounded by high fences, and you need a lot of keys to get in. Susi has a key for the gate, a key for the front-door of the apartment block, and two keys for her door. This is because there is lots of poverty in Brazil, and there is a risk of people breaking into other people’s homes to steal things.

In the afternoon, Susi, Camilla, and I went for a walk along a street next to the riverfront. Porto Alegre is a city of 1.3 million people located where the Guaφba river and several other rivers empty into a big ocean inlet called Lago dos Patos. The Guaφba is polluted, but the recently-elected government are now trying to clean it up so that the people of the city have a safe place to swim and relax during the summer. We walked for a while, watched people sailing and riding jet-skis along the river, and helped Camilla to climb trees. Because Porto Alegre is further north than Buenos Aires, the weather is much warmer. The temperature during the day was about 20░C – meaning that I didn’t have to wear my jacket like in Buenos Aires yesterday.

After our walk, Susi drove us to a big shopping mall where we were going to treat Camilla to McDonalds (Brazilian children like McDonalds just like children in New Zealand). But the restaurant was very crowded – so instead, we took Camilla to a Sorveteria (ice cream parlour). Here, you can make your own sundaes with as much ice-cream and toppings as you like. There are many different flavours to choose from. When you have made your sundaes, they are weighed on scales and the shop assistant works out how much you need to pay.

After this, we took Camilla home to her mother, Marli (Susi’s sister), who had now returned home from work. Camilla showed us some of her toys and read us stories (in Portuguese) from her storybooks.