Haze hangs heavy over the Itajaí-Açu River. It is not yet 9 in the morning, but already the temperature is above 90, the humidity like a wet cloak. Summer is ending in Blumenau, not that my winterbound body understands that. It sweats and reddens in protest.
The heat forces a leisurely pace, time to notice the yellow birds and capybaras grazing in their placid way near the water. Behind, there are the half-timbered vestiges of the 19th-century Germans who somehow found themselves in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, who must have been greeted with a wall of rainforest running right up to the water’s edge when they first arrived. Even today, the impression is of nature barely contained by human effort, palms and fruit trees and a thousand other species I’ve never seen, all visited by jeweled wasps. Every afternoon, a thunderstorm builds darkly in the hills beyond and comes to Blumenau to vent its fury, rain pounding into the pavements like fists.
Still, nothing breaks. In an hour, the clouds will have moved on, the puddles already taken back into the air, the sidewalk bars and cafés full again. When it is no longer too hot to drink, I find my way to a basement bar, a glass of Catharina Sour, pinky and opaque and tasting like tropical fruits I’ve never heard of and could never have imagined.
