Brazil Is REAL - "Obrigado"

Updated: Apr 24, 2019

Hello Warriors,

This week, the Adventurous Dynamic Duo is coming to you with our fabulous journey to Brazil. Yes, we went to the land of Reals (Brazilian Currency). This experience was very educational, unique, exciting, fun, and Real. It is going to take several episodes of the, 'Dynamic Duo Inspired Journey," to cover this entire adventure.

The Adventurous Dynamic Duo isn't much of what we call, party animals, 😻🙀 but we are going to do it up and experience another bucket list adventure. We are going to have a little clean fun. This time, we are traveling with a Travel Group call Inforno Travel. Jackie's niece found this group on Facebook, and the Adventurous Dynamic Duo decided to join her in on this adventure.

We decided to experience a Carnival, so why not experience the biggest one in the world??? We are ready, y'all! We have our passports and visa, and we have gone to the Passport Clinic to get the shots and medication needed for this trip. Since, The Adventurous Dynamic Duo, can't speak Portuguese, we have our Google Translate App on our phones, and we have exchanged our USA currency for Reals, the Brazilian currency. Yes, we have plenty of products containing Deet, because we Do Not plan on getting any mosquito bites.

Warriors, it's time for us to get out of here, and yes, we are all packed up and READY 2 GO! 🧳🎒👜 Towards the end of February, 2019, we left the USA for a 6 night adventure to South America's largest country, Brazil. It's a Wednesday morning and we have flown ✈️ all night, now landing 🛩 in Recife for our 2 and 1/2 hour layover. Recife is the 4th largest urban agglomeration of the North/Northeast Regions of Brazil. It's the capital and largest city of the state of Pernambuco in the Northeast corner of Brazil, with a population of over 4 million people. While landing, we were amazed with how many skyscraper buildings we saw. It's a big city, Y'all. Yes, Warriors our layover is finally over, and we are heading to our final destination, Salvador, Bahia. Yay! Salvador, the capital of the Brazilian state of Bahia, with a population of 2.9 million beautiful people. This city was the first slave port in the Americas, and the African influence is very profound there - making it a center of Afro-Brazilian culture. We are too excited to experience Salvador's cuisine, music, dance, and architecture. Salvador is one of the oldest colonial cities in the Americas, and is known for having the largest party in the world during the Carnival celebration season.

We arrived in Salvador on time. We got our luggage and decide to "Uber it" 🚘 to get to our hotel. After riding for a while, we enter into this area, with very small streets, where the buildings look ancient, and mostly deserted. So, so, funny...Sidney is sitting in the front of the car with the driver and he looks back at Jackie and asked, 👀 “Baby, can you look at your phone and pull up the hotel?" Jackie knew exactly why he was asking, because we are supposed to be staying in a 5-Star hotel called, Fera Palace, and neither one of us could imagine a 5-Star hotel being in this area. At this point, we were, both, getting nervous. 🥺 We read of the various stories of cab drivers doing crazy things in Salvador and taking advantage of their customers. Needless to say, our hotel was right in the middle of this area, called Comercio. This area was perfect. All of the historical sites in Salvador were in walking distance, which was really cool...getting our 10,000 steps in folks!!! However, by us just getting there, we were still a little nervous, but it all worked out to our good. God always protects, guides, and keeps us, during our many adventures. It turned out all of the Brazilians we encountered, were humble, friendly and courteous. 😎😍🥰😇

At 7 pm, we had a meeting on the roof top terrace, where the pool was located. We could see the beautiful All Saints Bay from there; it is one of the largest tropical bays in the world. We met our tour group, about 30 folks, for the first time; it was spectacular. We connected right away with them. The Adventurous Dynamic Duo mingled for a while and then, decided to chillax back in our hotel room, so we could be well-rested for our Grand tour, the next day.

It's adventure time, now. So we could get a little familiar with the lay of the land, about 12 of us decided to do an all-day tour. At 9 am, we meet our tour guide in the hotel lobby and start this tour by walking through the original 17th century cobblestone streets. This tour consist of visiting the Barra Square Square, the Campo Grande Independence Monument, Lacerda's elevator, Rio Branco Palace, Cathedral Church Basilica, Church of San Francisco, Largo do Pelourinho, Carmo Church, Flamengo Beach and Stella Maris Beach. As we reached the square, our tour guide starts sharing some of the history of the Candomble, which is an Afro-Brazilian religious tradition; practiced mainly in Brazil. He tells us not to take pictures of the Candomble practitioners - ladies dressed in their big dresses, dressed in white with all of their African garb on, unless we pay them; because, this is their way to make a living, through tourism. The Sao Francisco Church was non-utter-than fascinating. It is a grand 18th century landmark in Salvador's Historic Center, dating back to 1708. The church took around 15 years to complete; with its interiors being added throughout the 18th century. Y'all, the inside of this church is totally dazzled with gold from the ceiling, to the pillars, as well as, the vaults. It was grand, and it was very extravagant with the gilded art and ornaments. Lining the square were cafes, restaurants, and many souvenir shops. Brazilians are selling stuff everywhere: food, water (wa), clothing, art, and leather goods (bags, purses, belts and shoes). 👞👢👡👠👜🧳💼👝

We continue to walk, and we reach an area that Sidney says, looks a little familiar to him and sure enough, it was where Michael Jackson (MJ) filmed his video for the song, "They Don't Care About Us." This video was directed by the famous Oscar winner Spike Lee. How cool was this to be walking down those same streets???? We just started dancing to the beats of drummers playing near this area - so we had a little fun. MJ also used a cultural group percussionist based in the Afro-Brazilian community of Salvador da Bahia, called Olodum for this video. The Brazilians are still excited about this collaboration, and they are still selling videos, t-shirts, and drums, with Michael Jackson and the percussionists on them...fascinating.

It is very hot, so we are drinking bottles of water, one by one, trying to stay hydrated. 🥤 Yes, this is real! We are in Brazil, y'all, living our best life.🤭🤭 We're enjoying the friendly Brazilians and enjoying our new-found family, our travel group. Talking about clicking right away with the group. We had a blast!!!!! We are heading over to the famous Lacerda's Elevator - it connects Lower and Higher Salvador. It was originally built between 1869-1873, by Antonio de Lacerda and his brother, the engineer Augusto Frederico de Lacerda. "In its current configuration, the 191-foot-high landmark with four cabins overlooking Baia de Todos os Santos and listed by IPHAN (the National Historic and Artistic Heritage Institute) dates back to 1930," Wikipedia. We all hop on the elevator and ride down to Lower Salvador, so we can hit the Markets that are right off of the Bay, ohhhhhh, how beautiful is the Bay. As we always say, if you want to Adventure, you need to be in shape, because we have been walking for about 4 hours or so. We are in the Market, buying memorandums to take back to the States with us. We wheel and deal for a while. Then, our tour guide leads us to a van! Great, we can sit down for a while in air-conditioning!!!! Thank you, LORD, for A/C!!! We get to ride for the remainder of the tour.

Now, we are heading to several beaches. It's going to be about a hour ride, so we sight-see along the way. The van gets to a little lake at a recreational park in the middle of the city called, Dique do toro, and it contains a group of Orisha Statues that look like they are dancing in a circle on the surface of the water. The guide goes on to explain these eight statues. He described them as: Oxala (the father of al deities), Lemanja (goddess of the sea and mother of deities, Oxum (the goddess of the rivers, lakes and fountains, Ogum (the god of iron and war), Oxossi (the god of forest and hunting), Shango (the god of thunder and lightning), Nana (the goddess of the deities) and Lansa (the goddess of war and storms). We learned that Salvador is known as a "Black City," The most African City of Brazil. These statues are for the followers of the Candomble African religion. They are all, very beautiful, and just an example of the uniqueness, we experienced in the city.

Such beautiful beaches in Brazil. We stop at the first beach, Flamengo Beach, and there is a light house by it. We walk across the street to get onto the beach, where we take a few pictures, and we climb back into the van, so we can get to the beach of our destination, Stella Maris Beach. This beach is huge!!!! First, we find us a Cabana and pile in, because we are SOOO hungry. It's so funny trying to order food in a country where we can not speak or understand its language. Believe it or not! It took about one hour to figure out what everyone wanted and for the waiter to almost get it right. LOL. 🤗 🤗 Okay, now, we are chilling and some folks are talking about getting into the ocean and swimming. Because we decided not to wear our swimming gear, The Adventurous Dynamic Duo is only going to walk on the beach and put our feet in the water. Maybe, we'll just get into the pool back at the hotel, later that night. Our food and drinks come, we are all happy. The table is loaded with all kind of Brazilian food. Yes, the seafood was delicious, yum, yum!!! With all of our walking, we worked hard for that food. Lol. 🤣🤣🤣 So, Yes, we got our grub on! Lol. 😂

After eating, we walked over to the sandy beach and into the ocean. Awe! The water is nice and warm, and the waves are coming into shore, one by one. So...peaceful. We just stand in the water and look at each other, smiling. We hold hands and start walking together, farther into the water. 👫 We are in the Ocean, in Brazil...it doesn't get any better than this. Stepping out of our comfort zone and exploring, seeing the rest of God's World.

What a long and LOVELY day! We get back to our hotel around 8 pm, and some members of our group are going to a party, because the Carnival is starting. The Adventurous Dynamic Duo decided to put on our swimming suits and enjoy the pool on the top of the hotel, the terrace. Y'all, you won’t believe it! One part of the Carnival was right in front of our hotel, so we watched it from the top of our hotel and took pictures. Exciting! Exciting! Exciting. 🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾 Tomorrow evening, we will experience our first Carnival party, a Bloco. We'll tell you all about it on the next episode of the, "Dynamic Duo Inspired Journey."

Tips:

1. Check with the CDC website to see what shots and medication are needed for your trip when going out of the country.

2. It is too much fun traveling with a travel group, when you go out of the country.

3. Learn more about hotel's surrounding areas, prior to getting there. Lol. 🤣

4. Try different foods; you might just enjoy it. Like, we did.

5. Make sure to do a tour first, so during the rest of your stay, you know what you want to do and see.

6. Get ready to learn, because every country's/city's city history is so interesting.

7. Make sure you exchange some money, either prior to leaving, or as soon as you get there. A lot of countries, only, accept their own currency.

We are ready, y'all, to keep on seeing the rest of the world. Now, Warriors, when going out of the country, we have decided it will be more fun meeting up with a travel group. Why???? Because, we had a blast on this international trip, and it was so much fun connecting with people from other states throughout the USA. We are, now, one big happy family! This traveling thang can get very addictive, but we are keeping it, (yep, we are trying), under control. Life balance is what it's all about, and living our life, intentionally. 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾 We believe in being a witness for our Almighty God, no matter where we go. We must shine, so others can see the Jesus inside of Us!

Warriors, Thanks for checking in...We hope you really enjoyed the first episode of our trip to Brazil. We still have so much to share with you, so, Please, Please, Please come back to read about the rest of this magnificent journey. As always, keep God first in your life, keep it classy, and sign in to join our Blog, with your email address and the code: ZEJFNW. Okay Brazil, "Obrigado," for now, which mean, "Thank You".