Welcome, Gringo!

We have been planning this section for a long time. It can be a bit hard to write in English for a non native speaker, but we will try to take this challenge. But for this we have Denise´s husband – Joel, our consultant for English language and our gringo model or “victim” he might think.

We  are three girls – Roberta, Denise and Giselle – living in Brazil and having in common the love for travelling. We have decided to have a blog to share experiences, travels and stories that we believe can help and entertain travellers from different backgrounds. Of course that being girls some of our experiences will apply to a more feminist world, BUT OUR INTENT IS NOT TO BLOG ONLY FOR GIRLS.

Chicas Lokas (from spanish “crazy girls”) was a title received by Roberta and Denise, given by a taxi driver in Buenos Aires, when they travelled together some time ago. They thought it could apply very well to their happy and funny way of being. That is why they have named the blog as so. Little later they have invited Giselle to also  be a “chica”.

Also, as a start for this section,  we thought it could be of a good help to have a gringo definiton:

A gringo can be anyone coming from abroad, usually the USA or Europe. But can also be from Africa (in this case, if they are black they are just our brothers and usually we think they are also brazilians), Asia (but at first we will think they are from Sao Paulo) or Latin America (in this case we will say they are from Argentina). Usually a gringo steps out of the plane wearing a flower shirt, shorts and flip flops, no matter they land in Rio, Sao Paulo or in Curitiba during the winter (they can freeze to death when this happens!). They are also amazed that not everybody in Brazil is an indian, not everybody can dance samba and not everybody here wears flip flops all the time. They are amazed that the Rain Forest is not in Rio and not even in the center of Brazil. They will find out – with some surprise – that here we speak Portuguese (not spanish), that Brasilia (not Buenos Aires or Rio de Janeiro) is our capital and that brazilians  do not necessarily speak like cariocas (people who live in Rio). But they leave Brazil always with at least two passions: Brazilian happy way of life and caipirinha!

We hope that keeping this concept in mind will help you to understand why sometimes a Brazilian can look at you with that weird look and why they can sometimes just speak Portuguese to you as if it was normal. We have also to make a confession: sometimes Brazilians may think that just by speaking out loud a good Portuguese it means anyone from anywhere will be able to understand what they say.

So that is our welcome to you!

We hope  you will enjoy our blog and that we will be able to give you nice hints about Brazil and other destinations, and at the same time to provide you with some fun while telling about our adventures in Brazil and abroad!