Heading further South from Belo is the capital city of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre. The city is on a delta resulting from the junction of five rivers, officially called Guaíba Lake (popularly mentioned as a river, too)
The flight out of Belo was late in the night, landing in Porto Alegre at 12:45 am on Sunday. Luckily, the hotel I was booked in was very close, I mean really close, essentially the backyard of the Airport. So, it didn’t take much time for me to get checked into my room and crash. The plan for the day was to head to the beautiful twin cities of Gramado & Canela in the mountains. After catching up on some sleep, a shower and a good breakfast, I was ready to hit the road again with a couple of my dear Thoughtworks colleagues from Porto Alegre.
The drive to Gramado & Canela was through beautiful countryside surrounded by lovely hills. The weather was very pleasant and enjoyable. I was expecting it to be very cold and had carried a sweater made of Alpaca wool which I had bought in Ecuador, never needed it, so it stayed in the car 😃 The day being Sunday and the season being winter with vacation for schools, seemed like most part of Brasil had landed up in Gramado & Canela 😀 The place was packed with people and cars! Nevertheless, the cities were charming. These cities have a lot of German influence and the buildings and the people kind of displayed that vibe. The whole place was decked up like it was Christmas, all in a festive mood around. The streets, the architecture, the street lights brought in the feeling of being in a Harry Potter movie 😀 and you wouldn’t be far off thinking that you were somewhere in Northern Europe 😄
The first stop was to be at a beautiful park called the Parque do Caracol to visit the Cascata da Caracol, a popular and beautiful waterfall located in the park. This park was situated close to the city of Canela. A very well-managed park with nice hiking paths to walk around and savour the amazing sights. This waterfall especially reminded me of the Krang Suri Falls in Meghalaya or even the Nohkalikai Falls for that matter.
Gramado & Canela are beautiful little cities where one could spend a whole day or two at ease. There is so much one can see and do there not even counting all the shopping opportunities. The place is full of theme parks, shops, restaurants, cafes, bakeries, chocolate stores etc and the list goes on.
Owing to the limited time we had, we drove around stopping for lunch, some souvenir shopping, short strolls and finishing it all with a hot cup of coffee at one of the lovely cafes. The place really looks more striking as the sun starts to go down and the street lights start coming on.
After that lovely experience, we headed back to Porto Alegre. It was time to rest before getting to the office the next day.
Thoughtworks office in Porto Allegre is located at a place called TECNOPUC, an innovation hub within the campus of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul. This hub houses more than 136 organizations, totalling more than 6300 jobs, very interesting right!
The weather in Porto Alegre was quite unpredictable. The day we went to Gramado & Canela, it was all sunny and warm. The days following were cloudy, breezy, chilly and rainy, now what do you say to that? This place seems to see summer, winter and rain, all in a single day, very similar to Bangalore 😃
Lunch with fellow Thoughtworkers…
Whose room am I sitting in ?! 😃
With the team…
Me with the traditional Brazilian drink - Brazilian Erva-Mate (Chimarrão, pronunciation: shim-ah-haum) - This is tea and non-alcoholic, just to clarify before you start coming to conclusions 😃
Some tidbit I found online about this tea :
Mate, which is also known as chimarrão in Brazil, is a caffeine-rich tea with antioxidants. This tea is highly consumed in the south of Brazil as well as in our southern neighbours – Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay.
Chimarrão is the hot infusion of Ilex paraguariensis (Portuguese: erva-mate), a South American herb, in a gourd (Portuguese: cuia).
To drink it, we use a specific stainless steel straw called bomba that also works like a sieve.
A sumptuous lunch with the Thoughtworkers from Porto Alegre…
Wonderful interaction on DAMO which was followed by yummy food as a part of the Happy Hour 😃
Some last minute shopping for football jerseys and Havaianas 😀
View from the office, noon of the last day at Porto Alegre.
Up early to head to the airport, bye bye👋 👋 Porto Alegre.
After the intense three weeks (with a fair share of fun of course) at the three different Thoughtworks locations in Brasil, it was time for the last leg of my tour, which was to spend some time in the Brasilian wilderness 😄
Post that I am back home.
No comments yet!