Our last day in Porto Alegre, a bunch of us went to the open-air market at Brique da Redençao, which runs every Sunday from 9 or 10 am. The official booths even take Visa, though you have to go to one of a handful of special stands to use it, and ONLY Visa is accepted (this is true of many places in Brazil, as we had found).
It’s a combination of artisans’ fair and flea market, with some very interesting things. I bought a mate cup (cuia), a little wooden carving of a jaguar, a stunning jasper necklace, and something very special for my daughter – all of which got me grief upon arrival in Australia (they’re very strict about quarantining wood and animal products, to protect their fragile ecosystem). But nothing has been confiscated. Yet.
