Você fala português?

That's right, Portugues looks and sounds nothing like Spanish. The title is: do you speak Portuguese.

Anyways, today we enter Brazil and are faced with a few new challenges. First the official language is Portuguese, and we speak, read, or write not a word. The next challenge is the traffic, Brazilians live by the rule that if you hesitate you lose and of course speed is your friend. Maybe the biggest challenge of all is the food, it is customary to eat cake and sweets for breakfast along with super strong coffee and fruit. 

Okay, maybe this is not so much a challenge as it is a test of willpower, how many days can we resist chocolate cake for breakfast? I will keep you posted. In the meantime we are crossing the border at Chuy and it is the most relaxed border ever. After being ushered through a checkpoint we proceed onto what we think is the Uruguay border station, wrong, this is the Brazilian border and they just stamp our passport and look at our Alberta bike registrations. That is it, nothing else and we are done. Well except now we have to go back and find the Uruguay customs and border control, as it turns out it is back 2km where the guard ushered us through the checkstop. I guess they rely on the honesty of people to declare if they are leaving the country or just going into Chuy for some shopping. Chuy is actually in the free zone along the border. In any event we go into the office and get check ourselves and the bikes out of the country then head back to Brazil, I guess this is now the second time we have been to Brazil, the first time was short but pleasant, plus this time Brenda catches me under the Welcome sign.

Not a very busy immigration office.

I suppose the most common question we have been asked, and in preparation for this trip it was no different, is “Is it safe there?” or if after the fact “Did you have any security issues?”. This usually brings an inner chuckle and on occasion an outer one as well. I would be lying if I said that we are not worried about such things happening, but we have educated ourselves about where/when to go places and ultimately people are the same everywhere. The majority of people are just going about their day in the usual routine of work, taking care of daily duties, spending time with friends and family, and most importantly trying to make some sort of connection to their world. Then we come along and totally mess with their routine for what can only be considered a millisecond of their life. Our interactions with people are fleeting but they seem generally curious about where we are from, how far we have traveled, and of course are we enjoying their country. Which really they are asking if we are enjoying their little corner of the country. 

The first city  we visit in Brazil is Pelotas, a fair sized city of approximately 350,000. It was founded around 1758 and is home to some of the best pastry chefs. There is a festival here to celebrate their Portuguese heritage that involves preparation deserts and other sweets, and is attended by hundreds of thousands of people. We see some of these treats for sale on the market street and manage to resist but when Brenda sees the popcorn vendor there was no discussion. 

Yes those are live bees on the sweets, not sure if they are part of the toppings or just a nuisance.

Fresh popcorn is one of her favorite treats and it is better than a bunch of sugar. Inside the market we found a bunch of people gathered around a dance floor listening to a Samba band. This is Saturday lat e afternoon so there are lots of people drinking beer and enjoying the band, some couple are dancing and lots of little kids just dancing and playing on the dance floor area.

There is not much time for exploring all of the city but the downtown core is bustling with shoppers and they even have a few pedestrian streets to allow for lots of local artisans to display their goods amongst all the bigger retail outlets. We decide on pizza for supper as there is a locally famous family pizza place very close to our hotel, and after dining there we understand what the fuss was about. Absolutely delicious pizza and a large pie is about 3 times as much as we can eat in one sitting. Yay, leftovers for lunch.