ITAI - BRAZIL

Not exactly on the ´Brazillian tourist route´, Itai was my next destination after an excellent few days spent exploring the colonial gold-rush towns in Minas Gerais. My primary reason for visiting this small town, about 4 hours south-west of Sao Paolo, was to catch up with a group of Brazillians whom I had met during Carnival in Camboriu, however conveniently, the town was more or less in the direction I was heading next, namely towards the Pantanal and Bonito.

In all honesty, Itai and the surrounding area didn´t exactly provide a me with wealth of activities to enjoy or interesting locations to visit, yet I can say that my time there was amongst the most enjoyable of my entire trip in South America. It was great to see how people lived in ´non-touristy´ towns and to engage in different activities such as fishing, which I would not normally have the opportunity to do whilst travelling. However, by far the best part of my stay in Itai was developing some great friendships with some of the local people. Everyone was so amazingly friendly and kind to me during my visit and as a result I formed some great friendships. I found that everyone really went out of their way to make sure that I had a great time there and it really meant that I felt welcome and quite at home.

By far the 2 highlights of my 5 days there were:

1) Going out in the nearby city of Avare. Despite kicking things off in rather quiet style (just a few beers) on the Thursday night, both Friday and Saturday nights were quite massive affairs, mainly because of the potent capairinhas which I consumed on both occasions. Dancing on tables, tactical vomitting and lots of boisterous behaviour and general sheananigans were quite commonplace, not to mention a few stories which thankfully will not make it onto this website. Whilst out I met another tonne of great people, whom were interested in my travels and what the hell I was doing in their part of the world. I think it is pretty safe to say that I was the first traveller they had seen for a while.

2) Fishing. On my second day in Itai, Rodolfo, Felipe, Guilherme and myself headed out to a small lake and spent the afternoon fishing. Before chasing the ´big game fish´ we caught a truckload of small bait fish and then used these to snag 7 reasonably sized fish, which unfortunately I wasn´t around long enough to try. The greatest part of the afternoon was the fact that it was a really different activity not normally experienced whilst travelling. Sitting around enjoying the tranquility of the location made the afternoon a really memorable occasion. (The fact that we caught fish helped alot too !) Of course there was the usual debate over who caught the largest fish, but given that as the editor of this site, I have the final say, I will tell you (truthfully) that my catch was by far the largest.

During the rest of my time in the region, I spent a considerable number of mornings and afternoons just chilling and watching movies as I nursed some pretty wicked hangovers and prepared myself for another night of chaos. Also, there were a great number of afternoon BBQ´s and cook ups, which were also great for helping to clear my head. Curising around town in Guilhermes pimped up ride was also a favourite pastime, as was listening to ridiculously loud music through his outrageous sound system.

I could easily go on and on about the many funny moments, great experiences and fantastic people from my time in Itai, but I think I have made the point of just how much I enjoyed my visit. I will definately be back to visit my mates there as soon as I can. Whilst not incredible from a touristic viewpoint, the experience of visiting a place like that made the trip well worth it.

Lastly, I will say that the majority of the photos I have included in this entry are for the benefit of my friends in Itai and many of the captions may not make sense - sorry but it would take too long to explain and if I did, I would be incriminating myself (alot!).

Photos 1-3: Afternoon fishing trip. (Felipe enjoying the serenity, Rodolfo with one of the 7 fish we bagged and a shot of the very beautiful and peaceful location we enjoyed).
Photos 4-7: Thursday night outing. (Drinks and one seriously large beer).
Photos 8- 10: Friday night. (Meeting the locals... the faces in photo 8 tell the story !).
Photos 11- 16 : Saturday night. (Jabes and Daniella, Seriously good skills ! and more ´carnage´).
Photo 17: Final shot of the group.