Belem

[Sperto]

Trust me, this is an asshole of Brasil.

We all have different experiences of different places. To me the experience depends very much on what people you meet and if you're having a good time.

I wonder... if Belém is the asshole of Brazil what would Boa Vista, Palmas, Aracaju and Teresina be? IMO Belém would be in the middle of a brazilian caital ranking.

Quoting one of my old reports...
"I made a ranking of the 27 "capitals" in Brazil, based on my experience and in my humble opinion. This ranking is a very individual thing.
I have given points from 1 to 5, regarding 6 aspects:
GPs, Non-pro's, Nightlife, City being pleasant or not, Beaches, Sights.

1. Rio de Janeiro: 5, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5: Total=29
2. Manaus: 5, 5, 5, 4, 3, 5: Total=27
3. Fortaleza: 5, 5, 5, 4, 4, 3: Total=26
4. Salvador: 4, 5, 4, 4, 4, 5: Total=26
5. São Luís: 4, 4, 4, 5, 3, 3: Total=23
6. Belo Horizonte: 5, 5, 4, 4, 1, 3: Total=22
7. Sao Paulo: 5, 4, 5, 3, 1, 4: Total=22
8. Macapá: 5, 5, 5, 4, 1, 2: Total=22
9. Florianópolis: 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4: Total=22
10. Curitiba: 3, 4, 3, 5, 4, 3: Total=22
11. Rio Branco: 4, 5, 5, 2, 3, 2: Total=21
12. Maceió: 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 3: Total=21
13. Natal: 4, 4, 3, 3, 4, 2: Total=20
14. Vitória: 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 3: Total=20
15. Belém: 4, 4, 4, 3, 1, 3: Total=19
16. Porto Velho: 4, 5, 3, 4, 1, 2: Total=19
17. Porto Alegre: 3, 3, 3, 4, 3, 3: Total=19
18. Recife: 4, 3, 3, 3, 2, 4: Total=19
19. Cuiabá: 2, 4, 3, 3, 1, 5: Total=18
20. João Pessoa: 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 2: Total=17
21. Goiânia: 2, 4, 4, 3, 1, 2: Total=16
22. Brasília: 3, 2, 3, 2, 1, 4: Total=15
23. Aracaju: 2, 4, 3, 2, 2, 2: Total=15
24. Palmas: 4, 3, 3, 1, 1, 2: Total=14
25. Teresina: 3, 4, 2, 2, 1, 1: Total=13
26. Campo Grande: 3, 3, 3, 2, 1, 1: Total=13
27. Boa Vista: 3, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1: Total=11"

[Golfinho]

Ok. Let's define first what I think is good.

I like restaurants where you can get a good meal and where there are not too many yuppies. I just can't stand "rich" people, showing off etc. Ties, suits etc. just for me means uptight assholes who think that world goes around them.

Now, I have already been in quite a few italian restaurants here, nice but gets boring after a while. I went a few kilo restaurants, cold food and bad selection, basically inedible. Especially Spazio Verde is a shithole.

Another thing they have here is that many better restaurants are booked for private functions, especially during the week.

There are no good churrascarias. No good seafood restaurants (seafood, no fish).

I just wouldn't even think of eating japanese food, raw fish just is not my thing (or other seaweed etc.).

So all in all the options are quite a few.

What would I like to find is a restaurant that serves fresh chicken dishes, meat, some salads etc. Here all is stale, burnt or otherwise poor quality. Even in the hotels, Hilton, Crowne Plaza and others the food is simply subpar.

For sure there are plenty of bars if you can stand local BS music and BS people. I'm tired of explaining who am I and where I'm from. It sucks when you are being harrassed by curious bastards with whom you wouldn't talk anyway. I'd tell them to fuck off, but there is still only one of me and thousands of them.

Another problem is taxi drivers. They think that they are so fucking smart or they do not know where the addresses are (I'm talking about well known buildings etc.). Its tiring when everybody is trying to rip you off.

Trust me, this is an asshole of Brasil.

Life can be a moveable feast. You get out of it what you put into it. Sorry to hear about what a miserable time you had for yourself in Belem.

[Perkele]

Yeah I meant Nazare - typo - can't imagine why you find it shitty (apart from lack of work amenities. The Japanese restaurant is good, the kilogramma is one of the best. The other thing I'd do for food was follow events - if there was a good band on at a trendy bar somewhere, there was usually decent food. But most things suck and taste shit if you're not having fun.

Ok. Let's define first what I think is good.

I like restaurants where you can get a good meal and where there are not too many yuppies. I just can't stand "rich" people, showing off etc. Ties, suits etc. just for me means uptight assholes who think that world goes around them.

Now, I have already been in quite a few italian restaurants here, nice but gets boring after a while. I went a few kilo restaurants, cold food and bad selection, basically inedible. Especially Spazio Verde is a shithole.

Another thing they have here is that many better restaurants are booked for private functions, especially during the week.

There are no good churrascarias. No good seafood restaurants (seafood, no fish).

I just wouldn't even think of eating japanese food, raw fish just is not my thing (or other seaweed etc.).

So all in all the options are quite a few.

What would I like to find is a restaurant that serves fresh chicken dishes, meat, some salads etc. Here all is stale, burnt or otherwise poor quality. Even in the hotels, Hilton, Crowne Plaza and others the food is simply subpar.

For sure there are plenty of bars if you can stand local BS music and BS people. I'm tired of explaining who am I and where I'm from. It sucks when you are being harrassed by curious bastards with whom you wouldn't talk anyway. I'd tell them to fuck off, but there is still only one of me and thousands of them.

Another problem is taxi drivers. They think that they are so fucking smart or they do not know where the addresses are (I'm talking about well known buildings etc.). Its tiring when everybody is trying to rip you off.

Trust me, this is an asshole of Brasil.

[Jan 156]

Chris.

I'm working in Nazare.

I'll be going back home, Rio de Janeiro. Can't wait getting away from here.

Yeah I meant Nazare - typo - can't imagine why you find it shitty (apart from lack of work amenities. The Japanese restaurant is good, the kilogramma is one of the best. The other thing I'd do for food was follow events - if there was a good band on at a trendy bar somewhere, there was usually decent food. But most things suck and taste shit if you're not having fun.

[Sperto]

To Sperto, no Vittu is not my brother but considering his nick we may originate from same country.

I wonder if the forum has a member with the nickname Saatana?

[Perkele]

Chris.

I'm working in Nazare.

I'll be going back home, Rio de Janeiro. Can't wait getting away from here.

[Jan 156]

Perkele, what part of town are you working in? Lazare has good restaurants for everyday stuff, much better than say Copa. Estacao I mostly like for the ice cream (especially cupuacu which is hard to find anywhere else). I agree, working in Belem might be difficult except for certain professions. There just aren't the conveniences that we take for granted so readily available. I quite like the feeling of 'slowing down' - but if I was working there with deadlines to meet and so on I would probably be less ok about it! I do feel the best source of info about places is probably local people - but the problem is often that they have no idea about western tastes and so make mistakes recommending things.

I do hope you find a glimmer of hope somewhere before you get out of there. Where are you off to next?

[Perkele]

First of all I do not have that much time for "fun" since I'm working here. For anyone who travels for his work this place is really terrible because there is no way to cook your own food and as we already agreed the restaurants simply are terrible. Imagine that you have to eat in the same crappy restaurants 2 times a day for almost a month (yeah I don't even know when can I just fuck off from here).
I have been everywhere, Estacao das docas can be done only once. Not very good food at all (sorry) and since I do not eat fish, your recommendation is not really of any value.
Ver-o-Peso, can be done maybe twice. Full of lowlife scumbags who want to talk to you all the time. I want to enjoy my meals and my beer in an environment without some guys trying to [CodeWord140] me off.
Honestly this city is extremely depressing and as Sperto said, it rains every single day.
I'm sure that someone who hasn't traveled all around Brasil even Belem might be interesting.
Just a sidenote, there are more people dying violently here almost every day than in Rio. Local paper is full of these news.

To Sperto, no Vittu is not my brother but considering his nick we may originate from same country.

[Jan 156]

ROFL. Well since two people have asked . . .

I had taken an excursion out to the forest. I was on my own with a guide. He shimmied up a tree to pick some exotic looking fruit which he then invited me to try. But I was thinking (duh) what a good photo opportunity(!), especially as the tree was overhanging the river, and gave him my camera while I . . .

After a very rapid descent from a tree with very slippery bark, I landed in the water. Rapidly groping onto the bank (there weren't any crocs but we'd been teasing some a few minutes previously so I wasn't taking chances). I had only minimal first aid with me and a long gash along my arm.

The photographer in me insisted we still took the photo. I sat on the curved base of the slippy tree, keeping my bloody arm out of sight.

It wasn't a long excursion but I enjoyed discovering an unknown environment and how easy it would be to get out of one's depth. I think that's something I like about Belem too. It can be more of a challenge than the homogeneity of the more interconnected towns of Brasil. I used some of my water to wash the wound and a bit later we found someone who was able to clean it a bit more thoroughly. The fruit tasted ok too.

And you all were maybe thinking I was high on drugs trying to escape from Altas Horas uglies!

[Sperto]

I never thought that I'd ran into a place that I don't like in Brasil, but now that has happened. I've been here 3 weeks and this place simply sucks.

Not to mention that it rains every day.

Regarding restaurants. Try the restaurants in Estação das Docas. A cheaper option is Ver-o-peso, with several dozens of lanchonettes. Those places looks very simple but you can get all kinds of delicious fresh fish.

I share Christopherd feeling about Belém. However I can understand that visitors that only explore centro can find it depressing at night-time.

P.S Christopherd, what did you do up in the tree?
P.P.S Vittu Perkele, are you brothers?

[ButtLover]

I never thought that I'd ran into a place that I don't like in Brasil, but now that has happened. I've been here 3 weeks and this place simply sucks. All that one can do is done in 2 or 3 nights and then that's it. Hardly any decent restaurants and ones I found are italian, which I'm not too fond of.
People are simply SLOW in all meanings of the word. Streets full of crap and all kinds of dwellers. I'm not afraid anywhere, but here one needs really stay alert. Bums EVERYWHERE.
Women are unattractive, but easy.
General knowledge amongst locals is nonexistent. They know a shit. Very boring people.
Honestly if one can avoid this shithole, please do.
My 2 centavos.

I loved Belem
BL

[Vittu]

Christopherd -- That tree, what was that all about? Carnal pursuits, I trust.

[Jan 156]

I'm so pleased that some don't like it - more for me! Perhaps I am biassed. I not only love the unique culture, the music, the dancing of Belem, I love the people, the lack of external (including trans-Brasilian) influences, and I have a preference for staying in the more upmarket, designer-store areas where the streets are most definitely not full of shit, and a damn site cleaner than Copa in RJ. (In other areas, the shit can indeed be so high and the stench so bad that even walking becomes difficult.)

Far too far to go for mongering alone, and although there's plenty to do you have to be picky as they are not very marketing-aware and tend not to differentiate between worthwhile attractions and rather pathetically invented ones. I have found the P4P supply more than adequate - some very beautiful girls in fact, though the bottom end can be as rough or rougher (in different senses of the word) than Rio's Mimosa. And yes, there are plenty of areas that would be dangerous to the unwary.

The people ignorant and slow? Ignorant about things outside of Para and Amazonia, yes.* But very knowledgeable about stuff inside Belem, which can otherwise remain quite mystery to the outsider. They've shown me amazing kindness. A shop assistant who walked many blocks with me to make sure I found the dance school I was looking for. A villager who attended to my wound when I (stupidly) fell off a tree. People who helped me when I got lost. People who, without making me feel small, saved my embarrassment when it came to showing me ways of eating or dancing that they took for granted. And that's even before I think of the garotas who impressed me with their generosity.

I do agree about the food though. It can be hard work finding top notch grub. Even the Hilton is no better than mid-range with added pomp. It takes quite a while, I think, to compile a list of good quality places. All the more harder until one's palate accustoms to local delicacies - some of which are pretty off-putting at first glance. It'd probably be quite true to say Belem is much harder generally than most places in Brasil (though I'd guess nothing compared to the outback forest areas of the NW, but I haven't been there).

I'll try not to laugh at Mr P being there for 3weeks and being miserable - honestly, I wouldn't wish that on anyone.


*just as most people from Rio and SP - and maybe with rather less excuse - seem to me incredibly ignorant of Belem

[Perkele]

I never thought that I'd ran into a place that I don't like in Brasil, but now that has happened. I've been here 3 weeks and this place simply sucks. All that one can do is done in 2 or 3 nights and then that's it. Hardly any decent restaurants and ones I found are italian, which I'm not too fond of.
People are simply SLOW in all meanings of the word. Streets full of crap and all kinds of dwellers. I'm not afraid anywhere, but here one needs really stay alert. Bums EVERYWHERE.
Women are unattractive, but easy.
General knowledge amongst locals is nonexistent. They know a shit. Very boring people.
Honestly if one can avoid this shithole, please do.
My 2 centavos.

[Jan 156]

Went to Altas Horas on Friday and I must say that it was a dump. Looked like VM but girls were uglier.
So I had to leave immediately.

Of course it's a dump. Paraiso is only a slightly better class of dump. Like VM, both contain gems. For straight forward non-dump, please get yourself to Locomotiva without delay!