any advice on a planned month tour of Brazil this August

gulliver · July 4, 2003

myself and Floridarobb have decided to check out Brazil in a little more detail and Carlo will be our booking agent. He has already proposed a trip knowing we are not the worlds biggest sightseeing duo but take after our mentor Tomcal (in other words BOYS). Here is a proposal on how we split up our time:

Porto Alegre 3 nights Mon-tue-wed

Curitiba 3 Thu-fri-sat

Brasilia 3 Sun-mon-tue

Manaus 2 wed-thurs

Recife 3 fri-sat-sun

Salvador 3 mon-tue-wed

Belo Horizant 3 thu-fri-sat

Wonder if some of you guys who know these spots and who know us (like Gringo, Tri, etc) would give us the pleasure of looking at this schedule and giving us some feedback. Have some doubts about a 3 night stint in Brasilia especially not on weekend. How would you guys do it differently. We will have a week in Rio with Tomcal before we start and will end in Sao Paulo. We will do the Falls and more sightseeing stuff at another time.

trilingual · July 4, 2003

Well, the non-tourist cities are always more interesting on weekends, but obviously you can't have a trip made up of ALL weekends! I've been to all of the cities you plan to visit, and, depending on when flights are available, I think I might do it like this:

Porto Alegre 2 nights Mon-Tues (Not that many sights to see, and even early in the week you can have a good time at the Plataforma sauna)

Curitiba 2 nights Wed-Thurs (One day, at least, doing the about town tour on the municipal tourist bus circuit, maybe one day doing the Litornia train. Late afternoons/evenings at the saunas.)

Brasilia 2 nights Fri-Sat (The local Gray Line tour takes you around to an awful lot of the sights in a single day. Another day you can see whatever you missed and cruise the mall at Conjunto Nacional. Check out the saunas in the late afternoon.

Manaus 4 nights Sun-Wed (First two days at a nice jungle lodge, the other two days seeing Manaus, including opera house, floating market, nice residential areas, and the mall, plus the sauna in the late afternoon.)

Belem 2 nights Thur-Fri (This is an additional stop. See the older parts of town, soak up the atmosphere on the mango tree lined streets, cruise the Praça da República, see the pink opera house, check out the saunas, etc.)

Recife 3 Sat-Mon (Enjoy the Miami-like beach in Boa Viagem, visit the old parts of Recife including the first synagogue in the New World, spend another day touring neighboring Olinda, do the saunas.)

Salvador 3 Tue-Thu (Explore the old town, eat Bahian food at SENAC and other restaurants, see some of the newer neighborhoods from Barra outwards, do the saunas)

Belo Horizonte 3 Fri-Sun (Friday afternoon hit the Hot House sauna; explore the green leafy part of downtown around the governor's palace, cruise the Parque Municipal, check out the malls like the Shopping Cidade downtown, take a bus from the bus station to neighboring Sabará to explore an old colonial mining town that's now become a suburb, eat mineiro food, and visit saunas after asking at Hot House which ones are best on which days.)

If you're doing this kind of trip, be sure to buy a Guia Quatro Rodas Brasil, which will list local sights and restaurants in a Michelin style format. It's invaluable. Also learn to use http://www.netgay.com.br and http://www.guiagaybrasil.com.br so you can look up essential addresses (like the saunas and bars) in each town.

Have fun. This sounds a lot like the kind of trips I took when I first started going to Brazil. It's a good way to get a taste of the different regions of the country and see places that don't get a lot of foreign tourists, or at least not a lot of American ones!

July 4, 2003

I think you will have to shorten the itenerary! since only you, Robb and I are going to be there in Rio in August, we are going to take over the slots of the other guys, which means we will each be faced with the burden of doing a few extra boys each day on top of what we would normally do!! Which means you are going to need alot of rest time at the end of this first week in Rio before you head out into the hinterland! lol

gulliver · July 4, 2003

thanks for your comments tri. I am glad I made this post. carlos knows our interests and this will be a fun trip to plan but since you know robb and I, your comments will make a difference. Checked the gay guides you mentioned in your post and noticed that some cities (Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre, etc) list multiple saunas but do not have the ES mark indicating that there are escort boys. Can you or some of the other posters let us know whether the guide is accuratein this respect. Carlos is contacting sources in all of these places so we dont have to worry about where to go on what night NOR going to a sauna where there are no rentboys but still wonder about the guide.

Tomcal, you can DO THE JOB. I will sit in the Atlantico lobby with my calculator and keep track. Remember that seminar in "Daytimer Use for the Busy Executive with Rentboy Scheduling Problems" i mentioned.

My doorman in NYC has been turning away rentboys asking for Tomcal ever since you were here last weekend!!

Any posters who are interested in joining us for any segments of this should email me or Floridarobb.

Am eagerly awaiting Gringos suggestions. By the way Gringo,it looks like Cuba again in September. Interested???

firecat · July 4, 2003

Gulliver,

Still wondering if you got my email about Montreal?

firecat46@cox.net

July 4, 2003