South Brazil: Porto Alegre

The border crossing at Chuy to Brazil was completely unproblematic. Our bus driver kindly took care of the formalities for us. 

Upon arriving in Porto Alegre, we quickly realized that things would be much easier for us here. Our hostel was located in a very quiet and safe district, close to a large park.

We were warmly welcomed there, and many young Brazilians in particular speak English, which of course makes communication much easier. And where that is not the case, they make every effort to make difficult things, such as the menu, understandable to us. This is done by speaking Portuguese very wordily. Even if I hardly understand a word (yet), I could listen to them for hours because it just sounds sooo incredibly beautiful! Even the menu sounds like a love letter;).

Now, of course, we need to quickly acquire at least basic language skills - and it's a lot of fun!

Porto Alegre is the capital of the state of Rio Grande do Sul and with about 1.4 million inhabitants, it is one of the largest cities in Brazil.

This is also where we first see how many homeless people are trying to get by somehow. They sleep on the street or in parks, and some of them are very young. It is distressing to see how hopeless life seems to be for these people.

Others earn just enough with recycling to get by.

By chance, we came across an exhibition opening of a local contemporary artist Beatriz Balen Susin at the Museu de Arte, which I particularly liked.

There is also a photo exhibition of Czech photographers, which showed very impressive images, among others by Vaclav Havel.

Despite being a big city, the people here do not seem rushed and hectic. While we were not always in agreement about the right way and may have had a slightly desperate look on our faces with the city map in hand, we received suggestions and recommendations from helpful and friendly locals;). We enjoyed our time here and felt very comfortable.