Day 19 - Blumen’eck

22:00
Slightly irritatingly, we wake up to azure skies and broad rays of sunshine. It’s a bus for us this morning, up to Blumenau. It’s a c. 3h30m ride. It’s the kind of bus journey that I think of as a cakewalk when I’m travelling on my own, but I worry it might test my travelling companions. Our cab picks us up at 09:45, and we’re at the bus station in plenty of time.

The coaches in Brazil are pretty plush. Lots of legroom, lots of recline. In a couple of ways, this excursion has been inspired by watching Race Across the World. In the second series, a couple ended up in Blumenau for a night’s work at the Oktoberfest, and we just thought it looked like a crackers kinda fun place to go. Equally, those series that have included South America have majored on coach travel as a way of getting around. Now, admittedly, that’s typically overnight, and as a means of avoiding accommodation costs. We briefly considered an overnight ride - largely for the experience, but decided against. So this is to be our one and only coach journey while we’re in Brazil.

Things start poorly. Vicki and I are in the second row. A lady sat directly in front of me has boarded before us, and immediately reclined her seat ALL the way back. What a dick. We’re not sure how busy the bus is going to be, so I’m stuck with her for the time being. There’s so much recline to the seats that it’s actually tricky to get in and out of my seat. I say again - what a dick.

The bus leaves on time, and stops at a couple of places on the way out of Florianopolis. This is our first chance to see mainland part of the city, which is newer, and less pretty than the old town. We’re onto the highway soon enough, and the vivid green rainforest quickly becomes our main viewing. It’s incredible how much of Brazil remains covered by this vast canopy. I spend a joyful hour watching the world go by. The bus stops are infrequent, but do include the driver shutting off the engine, and thus the A/C. It’s a hot day today, and at one of the stops where we’re waiting around 10 minutes, it gets a little uncomfortable. We hit a couple of traffic jams, and are about 20 minutes late getting into Blumenau, for a total of nearly 4 hours. Regrouping with my colleagues, they’ve both found it a pleasant enough experience, but wouldn’t want to sign up for much more than this.

We dump our bags at our city centre hotel, and head straight for Oktoberfest. It is, in a word, crazy. It’s like a full-on Alpine town, rebuilt in the middle of Brazil. Most of the architecture would sit very comfortably in Austria, Switzerland or Southern Germany. I’d say around one in three people are wearing some kind of Alpine outfit, with plenty of folks in full-on lederhosen. Free entry was promised for those in traditional garb, but the entry price was around £2, so I’m not convinced that’s the reason…

There are a ton of beer outlets - fairly unsurprisingly, but we struggle to find drinks options for Tam and Vicki. Food options are a little thin on the ground as well. I manage to find a stall selling some pretty decent Spätzle - one of my favourite mountain lunches.

There are some decent bands on show - from the traditional ‘Oompah’ type affair, to a group doing some kind of line-dancing routine. The crowd are excited, and well into it. It’s a very happy atmosphere, and one of the great people watching opportunities of our trip. I buy myself an Oktoberfest beer mug. I’m not much of one for souvenirs, but I know this’ll get used a lot at home.

We’ve had a pretty long day, and by 21:00 we’re all flagging. We grab a cab back to the hotel, but are distracted by a crazy parade happening at the end of our street. We only catch the last ten minutes of it, but it’s bonkers. Weird float contraptions that wouldn’t look out of place in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but accompanied by thumping hard house. It really needs to be seen to be believed…Weiterlesen