| The other
disadvantage is that you will still have to spend time learning how to
read Portuguese and correctly pronounce what you have read. Be sure
to purchase the correct Portuguese Language course; Continental Portuguese
of Portugal is significantly different from Brazilian Portuguese and the
good language programs have separate courses for each. The program
is relatively expensive, but I think worth it.
You can sell
back your program to a number of websites (Google for “Pimsleur Buyback”)
when you finish if you so desire.
Now the
trip: - Based upon our internet search, although there are a number
of smaller quaint towns along the Littoral, we e-mailed arrangements with
real estate agents in Guaruja and Angra dos Reis since those cities seem
to have sufficient infrastructure to meet our desires. We found the
real estate agents of both Casa Da Praia in Guaruja and Angraimoveis to
be very helpful and willing to show us around, even though they knew that
we were only investigating possibilities for a future purchase. The
two days that we spent with agents in both Guaruja and Angra was sufficient
to give us a sample of the home types available. To give some perspective
of distances, it is about 400 kilometers or 250 miles between Sao Paulo
and Rio de Janeiro.
Our first stop
was Guaruja, a medium to small coastal city about an hour and half south
from Sao Paulo on an excellent highway with numerous tunnels through lush
coastal mountains. It has a large number of high-rise apartment buildings
along the city center beach with the support infrastructure (stores, banks,
etc.) ranging from six to ten blocks behind the apartments. We visited
Guaruja in July (Brazilian wintertime), so there were not the throngs of
Paulistas the real estate agents told us visit the city in summer.
To the Southwest of Guaruja is the Paulista seaport city of Santos, which
we steered clear of. To the North are the mountains, and to the East,
along the coast, are the single-family homes we were interested in seeing.
The Guaruja
cityscape along the coast is pretty, lined with high-rise apartment buildings
with the mountains as a backdrop. The city blocks behind the coastal
area are standard and unspectacular two and three story buildings.
There is very little of what would classify as ‘favelas’ in the hills beyond
the city. Guaruja is relatively clean (we saw the sanitation department
combing the beaches for litter in the evening) and safe with a visible
police presence. There are several nice restaurants, which charged
tourist rates of R25 to R75 per entr?e. Certainly, if we lived there,
we are confident that we would find descent and reasonably priced restaurants
that cater less to tourists and more to local clientele.
In Guaruja,
we concentrated our house hunting to the condominiums of Acapulco and Peninsula.
Condominiums in Brazil can mean an apartment or flat owned by the resident
in a high-rise building, but it can also mean an enclosed community of
single-family homes with restricted access controlled by security.
Our interest was in the single-family homes.
Acapulco
is a large, relatively new community of Florida/Mediterranean style homes
on 600-1200 square meter lots located a half kilometer from the beach.
We also looked
at homes in a more established gated community called Peninsula.
Although we liked the Acapulco homes, they lacked the gorgeous views of
the ocean and Guaruja cityscape offered by the Peninsula homes. These
homes are perched along the bank of the Peninsula jutting out into the
ocean east of the city. They were often three and four levels terraced
into the side of the peninsula; not on support legs like some of the California
homes that slide down the hill in a mudslide or earthquake. Some
of them had elevators. These homes were typically older and more
expensive than the Acapulco homes.
For those individuals
accustom to American homes, it may be useful to describe typical Brazilian
homes. Brazilian builders typically construct homes of plaster on
hollow bricks and tiled roofs. Windows are usually trimmed in varnished
wood. Most floors are marble, granite, or similar tile, some wood
and throw rugs, no wall-to-wall carpeting. We were surprised that
most of the used homes for sale included the furnishings.
Kitchens are
usually spartan and the domain of the maid, vice the gathering place in
America-style home, although some of the newer homes had American-style
cooking islands. A typical new home will not have cabinets and major
appliances installed as is customary in American homes. Also, be
prepared that Latin American appliances are the diminutive Asian and European
style (think Mini Cooper) vice the large American SUV standard. In
this region of Brazil, they use 110 current, though I did notice some wall
outlets that also accommodated 220-volt electricity. Cooking is primarily
done with propane.
Most homes
have maid’s quarters (some include bedroom, bath, and living room)
next to the laundry and kitchen. Customarily a ‘Casero’ and his family
will live there, with the husband tending to the exterior (garden, pool,
security, car, etc.), the wife caring for the interior (cleaning, laundry,
childcare, cooking, etc.), and possibly with their own children.
A R1500 per month salary is common for the Casero and his family.
Since the government
taxes residences by the number of rooms, and count closets as rooms, most
Brazilian bedrooms have wall units to store clothing. A large number
of the bedrooms in this price range had their own bathrooms. I have
been in some Latin American and Asian homes with the electric coil heaters
above the showerhead, but I did not see that type in these homes.
Frankly, I did not notice water heaters, so the electric coils may be installed
in the walls.
As well as
the living room, dining room and family room, the gathering or entertaining
area was the outside deck. Some of the outside deck flooring was
granite; others were wood. In addition to the pool, many residences
had Jacuzzis, saunas, and sometimes a waterfall. All homes had a
’churrasqueiras’ or outdoor kitchen barbequing area; some included a pizza
oven and outdoor beverage bar. I was surprised that new homes had
mature landscaping with full size trees as opposed to the ‘starter’ vegetation
typical of new American homes. Grass is similar to the Bermuda variety
(no putting greens) without a sprinkler system. High plaster and
brick walls for privacy enclosed most backyards. Some of the front
yards were enclosed and included automatic vehicle gates. I do not
recall seeing any garages, just carports that could often hold four vehicles.
Most of the
homes we looked at in Angra dos Reis were on the water, some with wharfs.
Though they were beautiful, and tended to be less expensive, they were
rather remote. Residents of Angra are typically the actors, soccer
stars, and socialites from festive Rio, whereas Paulista industrialists
tend to make their vacation homes closer to Guaruja. The problem
is that Angra does not offer much attraction. The city center of
maybe 50,000 people is a drab locale primarily comprising of the service
industry that supports the upper class homeowners. The condominiums
of nice Angra homes are spread out from the city center along the coast
for some twenty miles towards Rio. Rio is a two hours drive past
the coastal condominiums, some farmland, and through a lower class suburb
from Angra dos Reis.
Our real estate
agent explained that many people live during the week in Rio, or Barra
da Tijuca, which is to the west of the older Rio de Janeiro zones, and
then go to their Angra homes during the weekend. We drove to Barra
for a quick look. It is a flat coastal land experiencing a wave of
construction. High-rise apartments and sprawling shopping malls give
the area a far more Americanized feel than the Rio city center. The
large beaches of Barra da Tijuca are very popular. However, we are
not too keen on commuting each weekend from an apartment in Rio, or Barra
da Tijuca, to a country house in Angra dos Reis.
Although four
bedroom apartments facing the beach are reasonably priced at R200,000 to
R800,000, my wife was concerned about the crime spilling out from Rio.
Her concern was validated a week after we left when a Rio gang seized a
Barra da Tujuca apartment building and robbed the residences. Another
disadvantage of Angra is that you have to drive past Rio favelas to get
to the airport. Last month, another gang blocked a tunnel on the
airport highway and tried to rob everyone stranded in his or her cars.
For some reason, much larger Sao Paulo, and its environs, has significantly
less crime than Rio. I also read that crime is significantly declining
in Sao Paulo.
We are leaning
towards retiring in the Peninsula Condominium of Guaruja, rather than Angra
do Reis. Homes in Angra tend to be cheaper and right on the beach.
However, Guaruja is safer. Additionally, all our necessities are
available in Guaruja, a five-minute drive from Peninsula. Running
errands or grabbing a bit to eat from the rural Angra condominiums is a
forty-five minute drive to Angra dos Reis, or a one and half hour drive
to Barra, near Rio. Both Angra and Guaruja has great weather and
beautiful vistas, but we think there will be more to keep us entertained
in Guaruja than Angra dos Reis. However, since we have ten years
to decide our ultimate retirement destination, we plan to visit more sections
of the long Brazilian coast; perhaps we will visit Florianopolis next year.
We hope
our insight is helpful to other people considering moving to the beautiful
Littoral Norte or Costa Verde. |
