Chasing the Monkeys.

I  have been waiting for days to get to seen the monkeys here in Jundai. They run around just like squirrels do by us, but are only active certain times of the day.  I had gotten up early to try and see some, but today they appeared about two hours later than yesterday. They make a real high pitched squealing noise, so it is a matter of following the noise to find them. They are not real friendly, but are a sucker for treats. We had a hard time getting good pictures until we baited them down the tree with a banana. We put a banana in a tree, and it took them about thirty seconds to decide that the banana was worth the risk of getting close to the humans. They run on the wires like squirrels and like squirrels, sometimes get zapped. Poor monkey...

Update: The father monkeys carry their babies on their back. Yesterday while we were in the park, a daddy with two babies on his back ran right in front of Dale's feet. Unfortunately by the time my camera was on, the  daddy and his babies were well up in the tree protected.

A Brazilian Casa

The houses in Brazil are a fascinating contrast to ours in the US. Everything in this large metropolis is kept under lock and key, because of high crime. The houses are mostly concrete with tall concrete fences and iron gates. The house takes up the whole land area and one house adjoins the next. Eryka's family has a very nice house that her Dad built. From what I have observed, it is higher than average standards, but not lavish enough to make it uncomfortable. There are no closets but beautiful wardrobes and cupboards.  It  includes three bathrooms, three bedrooms, dining room, living room, sewing room, laundry, and kitchen.

 There many of the houses have carports for their cars within the compound behind the gate. When a family member arrives, they drive past the house, give a beep and turn around to back in when a family member who is at home comes to open the gate. There are no automatic gate openers in this neighborhood so if no one is home, you get to open the gate yourself. After some criminals tried to get in  once when Eryka arrived home,  an electric fence was added to the top of the 8 foot high concrete fence.

The outside area seems to be part of the house with an open tiled area that surrounds the house. One side has an open roof where you can sun,  with a beautiful barbeque oven and outdoor kitchen. The other side in enclosed with a roof with fiberglass panels where the clothes can be hung in the event of rain.

 I was very much amazed as I was expecting lots of creepy crawlies, knowing that this place in tropical.  The windows have no screens and are open most of the day. The only evidence of bugs that I have seen, was and occasional fly and a few fruit flies surrounding some aging bananas. I guess there are times of the year when the mosquitoes can be a bit bothersome, but apparently right now is not the time. Perhaps the reason for the lack of bugs is the cleanliness of the home we are in and the lack of surrounding dirt. The only patch of grass is a six by six foot concrete patch that welcomes you, between the carport and the formal entrance to the house.

My favorite area of the home is to sit is the alphpendre and the sacada (balcony). Alphpendre is rather like and outside area this is under the roof where you can enjoy the balmy weather without being in the sun. You can sit there and enjoy the cooling breezes in the heat of the day. The only thing I can say about this balcony, is that it is right out of Romeo and Juliet and it soothes my romantic soul. It looks out over the carport to the street.

We feel very lucky to have landed in such a nice place with such hospitable hosts.

Friday in Aparecida do Norte

Friday, we explored a neighboring city a little bit with Eryka. She needed to look for a few things for the celebration next week, so it was time to explore her city. The first stop was a Passarela shoe store. I admired Eryka's collection of unusual and amazing boots and shoes when she visited the US. I think she put that high on her list of places to take me when I came to Brazil.  If any of you ladies wish to check out their shoes, here is a link.I bought an awesome, comfortable pair of boots for my souvenir. Here are some pics from the shoe store. It was shoes from wall to wall as far as you can see. There are sales people standing, waiting to serve you. I found out that many people are still employed in Brazil because they are serving others, whether it is fitting shoes or filling gas tanks, and putting air in tires. Not much self service here in Brazil yet. I rather like that.

 

 

We checked out one of the many Catholic cathedrals in Brazil. There is a strong Catholic heritage in Brazil with many cathedrals.

 

 

Brazil 2013 Traffic in Sao Paulo

We are enjoying our vacation in Brazil to the fullest. We arrived on Friday morning after a 11 hour flight, via Green Bay to Detroit to Sao Paulo. We left cold and snow and flew to balmy tropical fall temperatures. 75*F and beautiful. It is fall here in the southern hemisphere and that make the temperatures very comfortable. It can get hot in the heat of the day but the house seems comfortable enough even though there is not air conditioning.
Our first impression in Sao Paulo the largest city in the Americas was that the traffic was very interesting. Over all the drivers are much more polite. There is one thing that makes driving challenging. It is called motor cycles. As we were on our way home from the airport, we hear a beep, beep and a motor cycle comes up riding the white line at a great speed between two lanes of traffic. They dodge in and out of cars, passing left to right and right to left. You do not want to be hugging the white line and we narrowly saw a motorcycle avoid getting hit. He yelled at the driver and drove away. After he was gone, we realized the passenger mirror was broke. Apparently this is a common practice if the motorcyclist don't like the way a motorist in driving, they break their mirror. This is quite common. These people are like a gang, so laws really don't matter to them even though what they are doing is totally illegal. They do serve a purpose though. If someone has to get someone or something across town in a hurry, they get hired to do this. It doesn't matter if there is a traffic jam as they just keep moving. These are not real big motorcycles so they look dangerous weaving in and out of traffic with two passengers.

There is so much traffic in Sao Paulo, that you are only allowed to enter the city during certain times on certain days or you will be fined. You have to plan your work around this so employers have to schedule their employees around this. This morning Eryka's brother went to go to work and all the buses were full, so he had to wait until after 10 am to take his vehicle to Sao Paulo. He cannot travel home until after 8 pm tonight.