Baden Baden, Part I

Cervejaria Baden Baden is small brewery located in Campos do Jordão, about 3 hours from São Paulo. Baden Baden hand crafts what is considered the beer from Brazil, their famous Red Ale, among other flavors. Following the advise of our all-things-fancy guru -Josh- Manuel, Rutul, and I embarked on this journey. Oh, Josh was there too. This is the story of our adventure to see this magical place.

We begin our journey relatively early (9am). Of course, no one made it to the car rental place at 9am, but it's cool; we're going to be drinking beer all day. After some complications in getting the rental (no availability of cars, no GPS, missing passport, missing people... the usual), we finally get our "car." Popularly referred to as the Clown Car. Our journey begins (closer to noon at this point).


Josh was pretty much sitting in the back seat...


Campos do Jordão is located about 175kms north east of São Paulo, in the mountains bordering the Minas Gerais state. It's easy to get there; pretty much a straight shot, but if it weren't for the GPS with English text and Portuguese voice, we would've probably never made it.

This place looks like it's straight out of the Swiss Alps! It was interesting to learn that this is where Paulistanos go to wear hats and gloves, since it gets pretty cold here in the winter.

We arrived at the brewery (after literally following one of the delivery trucks) and surprise! The brewery is closed! No tours today! We just happened to go on the ONLY non-national holiday that the brewery is closed. Turns out it was the town's anniversary. Happy Birthday Campos do Jordão!!!


At least we got a picture in front of the building...


Much to our luck, the brewery also has a restaurant where we can sample the beer along with traditional German fare.

The menu...


The better menu...

Correct way to pour a Weiss

This is a veggie burger...

Stout vs. Stout


House Specialty - Baden Baden Red Ale

The Crew
More goodness...
I couldn't pronounce the name of this dish, but Manuel ordered and it was AWESOME!


Random sock store. All they had were socks...

So, why part I? Because we are going to try and visit again, but this time when it's actually open!

Videos of Iguazu Falls

The side view




I know we are dorky...





Find Edwin in the mist! He's walking back...




The view from the helicopter ride!

Welcome to the Jungle

Iguazu means Big Water (Igua = Water / Zu = Big).

Understatement of the century.

Located in the border of 3 countries, with the most spectacular views coming from Argentina and Brazil (Paraguay is the third), the Iguazu Falls make Niagara Falls look like a bird's bath.

I will warn you the pictures and videos we have provided will do no justice to the magnitude of this place. To the feeling of standing just a few feet from a cliff so frightening you walk across the rickety passageways as if you were holding on to a quarter between your butt-cheeks.

With that said, we visited Iguazu in a very unique moment. This is good and bad.

The normal amount of water that goes down the falls is generally 2 million liters a second.Yes, 2 million a second, which if I calculated correctly by the time I finish writing this post 3,600,000,000 billion liters (roughly 30 minutes) have gone down the falls. Try to get your head around that.

During our visit water was going down at a rate between 8 and 11 MILLION LITERS A SECOND. Which made it 11 million liters a second MORE IMPRESSIVE, more scary, more beautiful, more powerful, more... (none of these words are enough to describe!)

The bad news is we were unable to stand over the most famous and aggresive fall, Garganta del Diablo (Devil's Throat), which funny enough looks just like a throat. It's basically the reason people come to visit. The level of the rising water forces both national parks to close the passageways because they were flooded and dangerous. Needless to say, we were bummed.

However, we decided to invest on a breathtaking helicopter tour to fly us over the entire area, knowing that we would probably be unable to return to see the Garganta in a long time, if ever again. The tour was well worth it.

*The mist you see in the picture below are the falls*

This magical place also has countless morbid stories. As I was walking over the falls on the Argentine side, I noticed the only thing protecting me from falling is a 4 foot metal fence. My dark side wanted to find out if people have jumped over. ( I don't really have a dark side, it just seemed appropriate to say it like that, adds to the drama)

The answer is yes. There is an average of 3 suicides in Iguazu every year. It just so happens, a little over a week ago, a girl (my age) jumped from Garganta do Diablo. She gave her belongings to a tourist standing next to her, asked her to please return them to her mother, the tourist try to hold her back but she slipped and faced her destiny. People fly from different countries to end their life here, and believe me it takes some balls.

It is said the falls hold some sort of magnetism towards people and I absolutely believe it. It was hard to look away, hard to take a bad picture and even hard to leave them behind. We will be very lucky If we ever return to this corner of the world again and I urge everyone to make this trip.

At the end, I really have no words to describe the falls, except..... you had to be there.

The Paris of South America

Oh lovely Buenos Aires. It is Edwin's third time here and my first.

We were only here for a few days, so we had to hit the most important places quick!
Gracias a Giancarlo y familia por hospedarnos :)

Don't cry for me Argentina! (Yes, I was singing it everywhere) At la Casa Rosada, presidential palace where Evita performed her famous speech. In front of the Plaza 25 de mayo where protests are held EVERY day, no joke... every day.

 Here it is!

It takes two to tango!

 if she can do it! I can do it too!

These two chubbies trying their best at the tango.... nice try.

It's all about Tango, Maradona (soccer player) and this man right here Carlos Gardel, tango singer.

La mano de Dios! Maradona!

Below is a parillada for 3 people, which included all sorts of meat (of course). Believe it or not this picture was taken AFTER we ATE!! good grief!!

This rather fallic looking bridge is called Woman's bridge.

We paid our respects in Evita Peron's tomb.

We found a bar that asked me to sign their Puerto Rican flag hangin' by the kitchen...random!

NEXT STOP: Cataratas de Iguazu!