Curitiba, Parana: Orchid Farm and Rural Tourism

When Eliane learned that I was interested in agriculture, she reached out to her friends and family to get ideas of acitivities that might interest me. Luckily, one of her best friends, Elisangela, is a biologist and one of her friends from university now owns and runs his own orchid farm in a rural polish colony area just outside of Curitiba. Sunday we drove out for lunch and a day on the farm named RF Orquideas.

The best part of the visit was learning about how orchids are produced given that they are such complex plants. The only knowledge I have of them in Canada is that people marvel at their beauty, they sell for $20 and up per plant and that they die easily.

Here you can see an orchid pod. Each of those white particles is a seed. The seeds are first sanitized in a solution for a few months to ensure that there is no bacteria or viruses that would compromise the growth of the plants. Next, the seeds are tranferred to a sugar, banana, coconut water jelly solution for four plus months to germinate. During this time the jars are kept sealed so that no external particles can disrupt the growth of the orchids. At 8 months, the seeds have turned into an algae like growth, still not at all resembling a plant. Thereafter they are fed again and this process occurs in jars until the plants are two years old at which time they are separated and put into a moss/nutrient starter and allowed to start growing.

Rogerio, the farmer, is actually a biologist by trade. For this reason, he says the seed harvesting, growth and development, when the plants are most fragile, is the part he enjoys most. I definitely felt like I was in a science lab. Once the plants are able to grow on their own in natural conditions, he interest waynes though he is still able to make a good sell to his customers at markets and the majority of customers that buy right from the farm.

In order to fertilize the flowers, Rogerio demonstrated 'flower sex' for me. The orchid has both male and female components on the same flower. You remove the pollen with your finger from a flower and put it at the base of another flower so that the seed pod can form and grow. You can create a variety of hybrids by mixing the flowers, though Rodriego keeps certain rare varieties pure to help preserve their species.

Orchids are very diverse. At the farm alone there are about 1000 varieties grown. Some are large planted orchids, others are small tree side orchids, and some too are hanging varieties that don't even need soil. Rodriego apparently has an orchid that is 30 years old.

At lunch I also got to try some different foods including cactus fruit from a gigantic cactus the grows in the front yard and herba matte. This drink is served very hot and you drink it out of this special vessel with a metal straw that prevents the larger particles from being consumed.

Curitiba, Parana: Bus Tour, Oscar Niemeyer Museum and Sunday Market

Three days in Curitiba. Known as an eco-friendly city because of the work past mayors have done to promote responsible waste disposal and ample green space within the city, this town of 2 million does have a lot to offer tourists. I am no longer on the coast of Brazil, but inland. The climate here is much cooler though it has rained a lot more than the other cities I visited. The vegetation is dense and lush - a tropical rain forest.

On the first day Eliane suggested that we do a bus tour of the city. For 25R you get to ride on a hop-on hop-off double decker bus that has stops at 23 locations. You however only get to choose 4 locations to disembarque and embarque from the tour. Because the sights are so far apart and some at which you could stay for a significant amount of time, you can use the tickets over multiple days or all in one day.

My favourite destination was the Oscar Niemeyer Museum. Designed by the famous communist Brazilian architect, it houses many art exhibits. Upon entering the museum, Eliane and I agreed we wouldn't spend more than an hour there, so that we had ample time to visit other destinations. I then shared with her a story about how my Mum and Dad were meant to tour together, because they have a similar approach to museums, which is to read every panel in a museum. As a result, going to a museum with my parents is usually at least a half-day committment.

Eliane and I breezed through the first exhibit, primarily modern art, and then upon entering the second exhibit my interest skyrocketed - it was a seemingly never ending collection that has been amassed by the Itau bank in Brazil about the discovery and documentation of Brazil and the Americas.

The first room consisted of original maps from the 1500s showing the various bays and hazards along the Brazilian and South American coast to be used by European navigators in their explorations. It was particularly interesting to how the maps became more refined and those that included Canada. In all maps, Canada's west was a big questions mark and in one particular map, California was documented as an island because voyageurs had not gone far enough north to know it was attached to North America.

After the maps, in the 1600s and 1700s the focus of investigation turned to documenting the flora and fauna of the country. The images of the birds, reptiles, flowers and trees were exquisite. Once the 1800s was reached, focus turned to studying the native groups and last the end of the 1800s and early 1900s focused on city planning, culture, society and slavery in Brazil.

The exhibit was so fascinating I couldn't leave!! I loved it so much and must have spent at least two hours viewing the collection. I apparently am turning into my mother.

We still hadn't even seen the rest of the museum designed by Niemeyer himself, which we decided to race through in 30 minutes.

Other destinations on the bus tour included the botanical gardens, the downtown square, the Italian quarters and many other ethnic neighbourhoods.

This is the provincial tree. It is protected by the state and so you are not allowed to cut them down whether they are on public or private land. I saw a number of properties that were half covered in these trees which certainly makes the property value decrease since the land cannot be used to build or cultivate as long as the trees exist.
On Sunday morning we started at the famous Curitiba Sunday market. Below you can see a man squeezing the liquid out of sugar can stalks for a popular beverage served here - sugar cane juice.
At the market, I got to see lots of tropical fruit including these jabuticaba of which I had heard lots about but was advised their season was only in November and December. They are so popular that in Brazil it is a complement to be told that a person has dark brown eyes like a jabuticaba.

Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais: Mercado Central

Food markets are one of my favourite activities when I travel. Food is something that brings people together in many ways - it brings traditions from the past to the present, it brings people together to cook and share, and it exposes different nutritional habits.

We spent two days this week walking in the mercado central of Belo Horizonte. I was grinning the entire time. The best part of going to Belo Horizonte's mercado is that this town is really not a tourist town, so I think I was the only non-brazilian there. This is beneficial for my experience because I am able to really see how people go about their food shopping and selling without worrying about a 'show' being put on for tourists.

Here are some of the highlights:

Candied fruits. My favourite were the candied whole figs.

Here we bought mandioca flour which we often eat at lunch in a fried rice and vegetable jambalaya. Mandioca is also known as yuca or cassava in other parts of the world and has typically been a food of poor people.

Here you can see the mandioca root which this seller efficiently removed the skin with his machete so it was prepared for us to cook. We enjoyed the mandioca fried in oil which makes it take on a french fry like consistency.

What is this you ask? Pig tails. Pig tails, feet and ears are popular ingredients as they are used to make feijoada which is one of Brazil's most popular dishes, though I have not yet been able to try it.
Tabacco rolls for all my smoking friends.

The actual biggest hat I have ever found. I have a similar one at home but maybe 3/4 the size of this one. It was fabulous!

Then we got to the live animal section which was a clamorous site of activity. Cages upon cages were filled with thousands of birds of every type you could imagine, dogs, cates, rabbits and other rodents. Birds were the most popular and they are one of my favourite. Though the conditions were questionable, all the birds did look quite healthy. The parrots were cheap but some of the more rare birds quite expensive. For example in Canada last I checked you could buy a cockatiel or lovebird for $180. Here you could buy a cockatiel for $45 or a lovebird for $30. For the more exotic birds - namely the Canada goose - the price was 5000 R or $2900 for the pair.

Being in the market I obviously assumed that some of the birds were for pets, but that some of them were for consumption like the ducks, the chickens and some of the geese. When I told this to Gigi she was horrified that I would think such a thing and so maybe they are all just for pets. I wish I would have asked. Apparently I continue to only see cooked meet when I look at certain animals.

A variety of bulk spices. Attractive displays are definitely most eye catching and effective and bringing in customers.

Bottle of Cachaca (said ka-sha-ssa). This is a typical sugar cane alcohol of 40% proof. I was given some to try pure at home, which went down very easy but then slammed you with its alcohol a moment later. Really took my breath away. In a lemon-sugar cocktail, it was much more apetizing.

Here are pequi fruit. It is native to Brazil and very popular in Minas Gerais. Its seeds can also be used to produce an oil.

The last two stalls were for hot peppers, pimientos, for cooking and preserving, as well as a collection of dulce de leites.