Brazil

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.

Well – left Salvador.  On a hungover 6 hour bus ride.  I know I’ve been travelling too long here when I saw a 6 hour bus trip, and thought it was too short – maybe I should go somewhere different so that I’ve actually moved a decent distance in my generally intended direction.

Lencois – nice.  Small.  Cobblestone streets.  Horses roaming around streets.  Drum bands roving streets.  National park next door.  Went on a daytrip to Brasil’s tallest waterfall.  Not much water, but plenty of fall.  Had to lean over a rock outcrop to see it from the top.  Little pool at the bottom.  Then – last night looked at some photos taken by guys who’d done a 3 day trek – including visiting the bottom of the waterfall.  The little pool is actually quite big.

Otherwise – haven’t done much.  Today – slept in.  Got a cold, ate some soup, drank some cerveja, had a siesta.  Oh – and my pousada here has a hot (well, warmish) shower.  First warm shower I’ve had since Venezuela.  Celebrated with a shave.  Plan for this evening – more soup, more cerveja.

Am in Salvador.  Everytime I’ve met somebody in Brasil, they’ve asked if I’ve been to Salvador yet.  Now I can say yes, and then respond to the further couple-dozen questions it entails.

Yes – it’s the oldest city in Brasil.  Yes – it was the capital for 200 years or so.  Yes – it’s got the largest african influence.  Yes – it’s a musical mecca.  No – I haven’t gone dancing.  Yes – I went to a Candomble ceremony.  Yes – interesting, but repetitive.  No – beaches were pretty average.  Yes – a heap of hawkers.  Yes – very annoying.  Yes – historic centre pretty cool.  Yes – nightlife is ridiculously long and intense.  No – didn’t like it when guy telling me he had The AIDS asked for money for food, then snatched rest of cash out of my hand – and refused to give it back, pretending to be angry because I didn’t want to pay for his ‘medicine’.  No – I don’t think there is a medicine for The AIDS.  Yes – I think he did use the term “The AIDS”.  Yes – did watch some Capoeira.  No – it was shit.  Yes – they did ask for money, and got angry when I wouldn’t give a ‘donation’ for the second time.  Yes – I thought I was going to have to give a demonstration of drunken brawling vs Capoeira.  Yes – festivals constantly, including one tonight (something to do with museums?  Told by AIDS man that there would be a good Capoeira demonstration here.  Hopefully by same crew that they & I got mutually angry with this afternoon.)

Any more questions?  Hopefully leave tomorrow.  But lady who conned me into overpriced ‘trip’ to see Candomble ceremony (no, not going to explain – look it up) reckons buses to my planned next stop are either early in morning, or late at night.  And only a 4 hour trip or so.  So – either have to get up ridiculously early, or arrive in town in middle of night.  Might break up this 4 hour trip a little, and go to town where the old ladies roll Brazil’s best cigars in the basement of some old building.  I’m certainly sick of Salvador’s hawkers, ‘offical tourist vendors’, beggars, and young girls wanting me to go drink with them.

So, skipped old lady who talked me into overpriced Candomble wanting to walk me around town today – and probably gonna skip her offer of an organised trip up the coast, and then the next day a sailboat around the harbour.

In other news, have been mistaken several times for a german.  But never for a scot.  Make of that what you may, Nathan and other doubters.  Although – to be fair, I resemble an albino a lot more than I did when I arrived.  A lot of sun here.  And the strawberry in my hair has never liked the sun too much.

Well – got to Olinda.  And it’s pretty cool.  Beautiful town.  From the hill, a great view of the town – all tiled roofs, heaps of trees, old cathedrals popping up everywhere, the ocean, and across the bay – the high-rises of Recife.  I arrived yesterday morning, and was immediately informed that there happened to be a festival that night.  So – a siesta in my pousada which has a pool.  Then – a little exploring, some seafood and cerveja at restaurant with a view – and then festival.  Watched 30 police raid a bar.  Then, was taken to the bar by a local who’d accidentally stolen my beer – and proceeded to replace it many times over.  Bar had live band – including children.  But, then the crowd consisted of many families with babies and young children at all.  When I left, rather intoxicated, I realised it was only 8:30 – so not as irresponsible parenting as I had thought.

I then watched some capoeira on the street.  Awesome.  Open circle – so anybody can walk in, and ‘fight’ somebody else.  Nathan would have loved it.  Usually, the fighting was more show than actual fight, and never any actual contact.  But occasionally, there’d be two folk who obviously had an actual grudge.  Twice it descended into actual full-scale blows.  Each time, when push came to shove came to punch – the capoeira seemed to turn into normal drunken brawling.  The big guy running the circle sorted people out pretty quickly.  A couple of times he took a dislike to somebody’s attitude – and tagged in to teach them a lesson.

After this – back to the pousada, for a night-time swim.  And today, eight bloody hours catching up on uploading all my photos & videos.  Should all be there now.  Tomorrow – the plan is to spend all day in or beside pool.

Made it to Fortaleza.  Pretty much on the 18 hours it was supposed to take.  Which gave me 8 hours to kill before getting ready for next bus.  First priority, of course, was cerveja.  Done.

Then – a little internet research on stuff.  Rugby World Cup tickets don’t seem to be in huge supply on TradeMe.  Flights to the ‘Brazilian Hawaii’ seem to be expensive.  As do flights to Easter Island.  All ex-girlfriends I could find on OldFriends seem to be the same as last time I’d heard.  And boring old America’s Cup is still boring.  But Wanganui’s livened up a bit, at a rather expensive price of a toddler’s life.

Have another three hours to kill.  Will try to call my ma for Ma’s Day.  Not Mai’s Day here – but will be back in NZ.  So – Ma, if you read this before 9am NZ time – get off the internet, as I might be trying to call.

No photos so far of Fortaleza.  Only thing I’ve considered photographing so far is an extremely large arse on a lady.  Spectacular size/shape.  But, nice man came to see if I was wanting another beer when I stood up hoping for one clear shot.  Fingers crossed more oppurtunites will arise.

Also fed the local-shoe-shiner.  Felt good about giving leftovers to homeless poor folk, especially those who work.  Until he was sitting there wolfing it down, and I half-laughed to myself as I looked up at TV screen to watch ‘DVD’ symbol bouncing round – and hitting bang-on the corner of the screen.  Nathan will understand.  Later on I wondered how would I describe to such a chap, if he asked, and even if I spoke enough Portuguese, what I was laughing at? ”There was this one time in Melbourne – a little dunk (on booze you can’t afford), watching a DVD player’s symbol bouncing round on a TV screen (both DVD player & TV which you can’t even imagine owning), and finding it amusing to guess when it’s going to hit the corner?  And the reason we were doing this was we couldn’t get the Playstation or Nintendo (again – don’t try to comprehend how much these cost) games to work.”  And then I might be tempted to describe my week in Colbinabbin – a series of anecdotes which in a large part consists of how much money I spent thoughtlessly.

That’s about it – was going to use this little session of very little news for general descriptions of Brasilian, and Latin American in general, life/attitudes.  But managed to flesh out very little a little too much.  Probably the cerveja has given me the babble.

Am in Sao Luis.  And am actually getting bored of these old colonial towns/cities with beautiful classical architecture.  Can understand Nathan’s views on my early photos of buildings.  So – read about Fernando De Noronha – and am heading towards there.  “One of the most stunning places in Brazil, if not the entire world.”  Expensive but.  And at least 30 hours of bus trips away.  And seeing as my 12 hour bus trip from Belem to Sao Luis turned out to be substantially more – am not looking forward to it.  Am catching bus today, hopefully, to Fortaleza (18 hours).  Then, depending on timetables, get on one tomorrow onwards to Recife (12 hours).  Sweet.

Not much else to report really.  Shaving off my beard hasn’t seemed to have the effect I was hoping for.  Brazilian girls still calling me “lindo”.  Pope (sorry, the Catholic pope – having reading an article recently reminding me there are several popes) is in town, and all over the television.  And I thought yesterday, that anybody who needs so much security to keep him alive – probably shouldn’t be alive.  It’s preventing democracy, in a way.

Hopefully the bus station in Fortaleza will have some fast internet available, and will be able to upload more photos.  Caio.