It was too dangerous to hitch-hike. I never felt like that before. Just imagining myself posting next to the favelas surrounding Porto Alegre turned my blood cold. But I was too proud to take a bus… what do you find in that limbo in between? The carpooling-device Blablacar. A door-to-door-service straight to Gramado for a lousy 4 bucks. 

I needed some nature, I wasn’t doing well in between the concrete.  

The green highway lingering through the lush and fertile woods leading to Gramado already promised many forest adventures. Besides visually conquering Mother Earth’s treasures, I was also looking forward to meet Carlo.   

This well-traveled lad, the type that wears high-end design Arabic pants combined with the col-sweaters you only find back on the catwalks of Stockholm, had decided to open his home for me. When this upcoming film producer stuck his face out of the door he apologized for the mess… I looked around this clinically cleaned rustic-style chalet (even a hardcore OCD’er would happily lick the floor here)…  

… resurrected from wood and natural materials with a décor you usually only find back in interior design magazines or on instagram, and said he shouldn’t be worried, I would manage. I installed myself on his couch (Rietveld, June 2015, summer issue) and started watching his Korean art-house movie collection while he provided me with the alcohol he was fermenting with the produce out of his organic garden, flushed away with some vintage wines.  

That moment you realize you and your Couchsurf-host are an excellent match 

Yes, indeed. This guy is basically me with a dick, but just richer and more fashionable.    

After I endured the freezing night in the mountains, it was time to actually go out and see where I ended up this time. My goal of the day: Don’t spend a dime in this pretty but extremely expensive municipality that can only be defined as the ultimate tourist trap, mainly popular among Brazilians. From indoor snow domes to miniature amusement parks and chocolate museums, everything you intend to do here will instantly drain your funds. But don’t lose faith, you can have fun while keeping your wallet intact. Just walking around here is already rather satisfying.  

While looking at the white-with-wooden-log-cabin I couldn’t help but wonder if I didn’t accidentally took the bus (incl. ferry) to Austria…   

Gramado had all the feels of a typical wintersport village, references to Christmas and Papai Noel only underlining this statement. And the people were so well-behaved, I only had to look at the perfectly painted zebra crossings or any car instantly stopped to give me right of way. Try that anywhere else in Latin America and that would be the instant end of your trip… and your existence.  

You can admire everything that exists in this world but then made out of chocolate, the Gramado specialty. Tasting is free everywhere, and as they even make lactose-free and soy-milk-versions also the sensitive and vegans among us can fatten up nicely. You know what you can also taste for free? Wine. I don’t know if I always find wine or it always finds me. Truth told, I don’t think Brazilian wine will make my top #10 world ranking, but after the third glass that seemed like an irrelevant detail to me.   

I visited some churches and photographed the sights that were solely made to be photographed.   

I flourished quite well in that role of tourist, but we all know that’s an act I can only keep up with for an hour tops. I needed to step out, do something weird. So I entered the nicely designed tourist office (where they don’t speak any language but their own b.t.w.) to inform about that thing I came actually here for: nature. Upon which I got presented a neatly typed out overview of all the man-made parks in Gramado, on alphabetical order. While sliding the piece of paper back to the lady behind the desk I explained I meant REAL nature, the wild outdoors in all its roughness, not human’s pathetic attempts to control flora and fauna. “Não”, she said stoically, wiping all my hopes away with one single word.  

But that’s just a green light for creativity, I realized while looking around me to explore my options. My stare froze when my eyes met the high metal television tower on top of the highest hill, soaring above the cityscape. The view on top of that must be glorious. I instantly decided my stay in Gramado wouldn’t be complete without illegally climbing this bad boy. So I started walking into its direction, never letting my prospect out of sight.  

It’s good to be a foreigner, you can always pretend not being able to read signs or hear warnings when climbing gates, and just play stupid when guards ask what you think barbed wire is made for (“Oh, they use that for decoration in my country”, I remember once answering in Dutch to a screaming Panamanian officer). But no one noticed me. Every time a car passed I ducked down into the high grass, lying on my belly. And once I was up there no employee bothered to look up if there possibly would be some rebellious backpacker hanging from the iron bars at the highest point of town.   

And? Of course: Phenomenal! The best view of Gramado, period. It must be said, the rusty state of those tiny stairs caused the necessary dose of adrenaline, as there seemed to be a reason to believe that this could have been the end of the Budget-Bucket-List-blog (in the sense that there wouldn’t be an author anymore), but the rewards where overwhelming. I had to sacrifice my sunglasses for it, as they blew off my face on the top, but it’s a fair price to pay for a panorama like that.  

I concluded this rather successful day sharing a mate  in the artificial Lago Negro with Marco, who opted to drive me to Canela the next day. Sure, let’s go crazy.  

Conclusion: If you’re really hot for Easter bunnies and putting-your-face-in-photoscreen-and-polyester-creatures-pictures, wait no longer. Canela is your promised land!
 

I decided to dive a tad deeper into nature, so I hitch-hiked to Cambará do Sul. 

… to be continued!  

Until we meet. 

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