Spent a couple more days in Lencois. Went to see some more waterfalls, climb a ‘mountain’, see a couple of caves. One cave has water which turns bright blue at a certain time of day. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) – the model that was rumoured to be in town – was indeed in town. And she was having a photo shoot at the cave. Sorry lads – didn’t get any decent photos. A couple of bad ones – but the light in there was awful. And she wasn’t a particularly attractive model. Amusing though – watching her at the local cafe – with her little retinue of bootlickers following her around. One guy whose job it seemed to be to carry her iPod with speakers.
25 May
Anyway – caught a bus to Brasilia. 24 hours after getting to bus stop in Lencois, arrive at bus stop in Brasilia. The city of the future., Everybody had told me not to bother coming – nothing to see. But, a city that was created because some Italian guy dreamt about a new civilisation appearing with it’s capital in a certain place – “So, let’s build a capital in that place…”, seemed like it could be interesting. A city built from scratch in three years. Well – got here, and was pretty quickly annoyed with it. Back to the Brasil of beggars and touts. Also – planning a city from scratch seems like a good idea. But only if you remember that there are pedestrians. Maybe they did it on purpose, foreseeing the futuristic Segways. Also – all hotels in one area. Nice idea. Except only expensive ones get built there. So, after a short time looking for a hotel, deciding it wasn’t worth going out to the suburbs for a cheap room, I figured I’d catch a bus out that same night.
Went to a shopping mall. Brasilia loves shopping malls. Very futuristic, in a Clockwork Orange or Brazil kind of way. Exterior wall of shopping mall covered in external air-con units. Inside – cubicles. Whole thing – flat, ugly. I figure that this mall wasn’t designed by Niemeyer. Seen a couple of buildings that I assume were done by him (I think all the public service buildings were) – and lots more curves. All curves, really.
Anyway – stopped for snack & cervejas in the mall. Watched a homeless woman (in front of her two young children) snatch a bottle (empty, phew) off my table, as she wanted to use it as a weapon against a large woman she’d been having a yelling match with. Figured this was a sign that my decision to leave was the right one. Caught bus from central bus station (huge. Unbelievably massive.) to the long distance bus & train station (lots of buses, no trains), and got the next ticket to Belo Horizonte. Where I am now, and have a ticket for one hour from now to Ouro Preto. Another small pretty colonial town, apparently. Accommodation looks expensive, so will probably spend little time there, then onto another small town, then Rio de Janeiro. Am hoping the accommodation in Ouro Preto isn’t too expensive, as I will have been travelling for maybe 48 hours by the time I get there. And would like a shower, and to sleep in a bed.