Parkour in Belo Horizonte

 After delaying my bus 12 hours so that I could try to sleep off my sickness, I finally took the bus to Belo Horizonte on Monday afternoon.  I met Bruno at the station, and he gave me a ride to the hostel where I’d be staying for the week (since he’s now living in London he couldn’t host me because he doesn’t have a house in BH).  After dropping my stuff off we headed off for a quick tour of the city followed by a light dinner and açai (I was maintaining my average of about 1 açai/day).

The next day was pretty chill and I spent it hanging around the hostel and going for a walk around the city.  The huge hills that are all over the city (a lot of BH’s streets are as steep as the ones that I encountered in Sao Paulo) made the “light walk” into more of a workout, but it was good to see the city from the ground.

Not my most picturesque face but I´ll sacrifice my spotless internet image for a good shot of the city.

Bruno's group, PkMax, is the primary parkour group in BH (check out their website HERE, it's really well done)  so we went to a training session later in the week so could I meet a number of the other BH traceurs.  While it wasn’t the largest training session that I had been to in Brasil with only a few people, it was clear that Bruno had been sending home some of the stuff that he learned in London, since the session resembled a PKGen session in numerous ways.  While the few training sessions that I did in BH were really good (a trip over to the University with Bruno and Arthur went really well), the recent stomach bug and general lack of rest seemed to be catching up with me and I spent a lot of the week resting at the hostel and trying to get caught up on the big decisions that I’ve been able to avoid for the past 9 months (grad school, life plans…)

As weird as it was to be staying in a hostel again after more than a month of staying with traceurs, it felt kind of good to be back in such a social environment again.  While having to sleep in a room with 11 other people wasn’t so great, the hostel was a pretty quiet one which made the stay pretty enjoyable.  Bruno and his wife Rafaela were also really great about bringing me along to stuff, like a big family dinner, which made my time in BH even more enjoyable.

One of the highlights of the week was definitely spending a day with Bruno, Rafaela, and her sister and her husband at a really beautiful cachoiera (waterfall) about 30 minutes outside the city.  Bruno and I spent the afternoon exploring the river and climbing around on the rocks, which was a nice change from the concrete jungle that I’ve been playing in for a while.  There was a family-run restaurant nearby which served a really big meal of traditional Brazilian food (rice, beans, meat, lots of fruit- all very good). 

Just a day at the cachoiera.... aka paradise. (Photo courtesy of Rafa)

The longer the trip goes on, the stronger the Mowgli/Tarzan resemblance seems  to get. (Photo courtesy of Rafa)

Once we determined we wouldn't brain ourselves on any rocks, this made the perfect jumping spot. (Photo courtesy of Rafa)

One of the best parts about being in BH with Bruno was that he was able to explain a lot of the things that I had questions about but didn’t have the language skills or opportunity to ask my previous hosts.  The topics of these questions ranged from how the favelas worked to various ins and outs of Brazilian parkour politics, but the result was that I came away from BH with a much firmer understanding of life in Brazil.  And of course it was great to hear the latest gossip from London…

After a week that seemed to fly by with Bruno in BH, I took (yet another) all-night bus ride to Brasilia…

Rio de Janiero: Part I

My introduction to Brazil was 5 days in Rio de Janiero. I’ll admit that I arrived in Brazil with a lot of mixed expectations and really no idea what to expect. Some people had told me that it would be super expensive, others had said that it was really cheap compared to places like Chile. Some people told me that I’d be screwed over if I didn’t speak Portuguese, since Spanish wasn’t close to it and no one spoke English; others told me that I’d be fine speaking English most of the time, and if all else failed I could speak Spanish and people would understand. Some people told me that Brazilian women were way overrated and in fact Chilean and Argentinean women were much more attractive, while others (the majority) told me that Brazilian women were by far the most beautiful women in the world. Some said that the food was bad, others said that it was amazing.
So needless to say, I arrived in Brazil with lots of things swirling around in my head, and no idea what to expect. Since the 6-hour flight from Chile hadn’t included food of any real substance, my first act on Brazilian soil was to go to the food court and pay outrageous prices for sub-par food (at least some things are the same wherever you travel). Feeling somewhat sated, I dodged the crowd of taxi drivers vying tooth and nail to overcharge me to go where I wanted to go and took the public bus into the city. A few stops later another American got on and happened to sit next to me, and we started talking. An hour later we realized that we had missed out stop 30 minutes ago so we decided to stay on the bus and wait until it reached the end and then ride it back, essentially getting a free tour of the city (we got to see all of the beaches and the city center- not bad for 3 reals).

The first thing that struck me as I watched the city pass by outside was just how active and athletic the city was. Since it was the early evening, people were just getting out of work and it seemed like everyone’s first destination was the beach. Volleyball, soccer, jogging, and these “exercise stations” every kilometer along the beach that we full of people doing pull-ups and situps between bouts of flexing at the traffic. Of course I was impressed by all of the Amazon-looking women (not referring to the river) spiking volleyballs or biking around in their bikinis, but I was also impressed by all of the “normal” people that seemed to be engaging in an athletics activity that they seemed to do on a regular basis.

Checking into the hostel 4 hours after leaving the airport I found that despite it’s great location in the Botafogo neighborhood, the tiny AC in the room did little to cool the nighttime temperature of 39 degree (Celsius) and I woke up multiple times covered in sweat.

The next day I met my first Brazilian traceur, JJ, one of the first traceurs to start training in Rio. He showed me around the city a bit and we made plans to meet up the next day to train, and also set up times to meet with other traceurs in Rio. I spent the rest of the day wandering around Rio and trying to get my bearings in the city (stopping every few blocks to try one of the many different types of fruit juice available- so good, so cheap!!!).

The next day I met up with one of the local guys, and he showed me one of the best spots in Rio, which just happened to be a 5-minute walk from my hostel. After an hour of training in the sun, I was ready to stop for food, and we stopped for my 3rd acai of the trip (in 2 days). For those of you that don’t know what acai is- it’s probably one of the best foods on earth. The berry is frozen, blended with guarana juice, and served with sliced banana and granola.



Acai in berry form.




Acai in delicious form.


I spent the rest of the day resting up before meeting the guys in the center of town for an “All-night Training session”. This session, run by JJ from midnight to 7am, is a conditioning session designed to bring a new level of intensity to training and to give both a physically intense workout, but also a mental workout. I didn’t find the session itself to be too bad, mostly because JJ couldn’t ramp up the intensity too much because there were a number of beginners participating, but I did find myself badly in need of some caffeine around 5am. Just after watching the sun rise over the beach we called it quits and went home to recover.

Not too sure I was very concious of the beautiful scenery at this point.

Sunday I met up with JJ and a bunch of the other traceurs in the center of town to go on a training excursion into the hills around Rio. After a 30-minute bus ride, we found ourselves at the head of the trail. The hike itself was pretty intense, and in addition to the 3-hours it took us to reach the top, there were a number of places that involved climbing techniques and steep drops as we neared the top. The view from the peak was pretty amazing, and shows one of the coolest parts of Brazil- the fact that you have a city with 11 million people surrounded by hills and forest that looks like this 30-minutes away. We jumped around the rocks up top for a while before heading back down the mountain.


On the way up.



At the top (notice the significant loss of clothing).



Only a few miles outside of Rio.


En route to the bottom we stopped at a “cachoeira” (waterfall) for a very refreshing break before the trek down the rest of the mountain.



At the cachoeira, a very refreshing break!

Next stop Florianopolis!