Benvindo a Brasil! (part 2)

Brazil photos see here

The famous Rio de Janeiro was next on our adventure line. The same distance as our previous trip from Sao Luis to Salvador, this time it only took us 3 days with constant rides blowing our way with ease; some found at petrol stations (postos) and some while standing on the road and magically stopping for us (magically because drivers are often dubious about stopping for hitchhikers here in Brazil). The first night we slept in the trailer of a truck, in the open air with drops of rain threatening our heads but never quite following through. On the second night we slept in hammocks attached underneath a truck, rocking ourselves to sleep. Making our way through the state of Minas Gerais offered us a changing landscape of vibrant green, bountiful hills and humungous rocks jolting out of the land, arising out of nothing and just us suddenly, disappearing again. We listened to samba, bossa-nova, musica popular brasilaira and forro while making our melodic way to Rio, all introduced to us by our fellow truckies.

Entering Rio from Minas involves a great downward incline that carries on for many kilometres and which challenges trucks with any sort of heavy load. The smell of burnt brakes filled the air as we snailed our way down the stretch of road.

We didn’t stay in the centre of Rio, told many times that Niteroi is not Rio but only a mere 15 minutes away by ferry
from the centre of the famous city, (a very nice way to travel to the centre!). We stayed with a lovely couch who lived in Niteroi, overlooking Guanabara Bay and in the background, Rio. Our first night we drank and ate with our couch and her friends, a cross-cultural couple, the guy being from Oz and the girl from Brazil. They had a beautiful daughter who served to be the basis for some good old dry aussie humour, where nothing is sacred and taking the piss out of everything is part of the everyday chatter… how I have so missed it!

The first four days were overcast and rainy, the complete opposite that is expected out of Rio and offering a different perspective on the city of endless sunshine, parties and beaches. The city appeared grim and dull, abandoned buildings covered in graffiti and used buildings also sprayed by the aerosol cans, from roof to floor. We spent a day with a couch surfer punk in his collective, around the corner from a fabela that had been recently ‘pacified’, i.e. police come in with force and kill all suspected drug traffickers plus others who happen to get caught in the way. Once everyone is either dead, on the run or terrorised and the police have complete control of the fabela, it is then christened ‘pacified’. This is what they are attempting to do with all the fabelas in Rio. Of course, the fabelas are fighting back and many of these communities are experiencing war scenes. The punks braced with their morbid tattoos, black attire, chains and piercings, looking peculiarly like all punks do all over the world, started playing death metal (competing with the fabela who blast funk on Sunday afternoons) which was at the point that we decided to leave.

Copacabana beach showed its rays on the last day in Rio. It sparkled and dazzled its greatness as we drank caipirinha (a cocktail consisting of cachaca, sugar and lime), over looking the coastline and marvelled at why this is one of the world’s most legendary beaches. We stumbled across a samba concert as we were heading home and watched dancers swing their hips in a hypnotic manner that made it seem as if it was a subconscious move, just like breathing. Our last night we hung out with uni students in a square full of outdoor-bars, the air thick with people, laughs, music and excitement, a refreshing shindig to be a part of.

We got very lucky leaving Rio. A couple who never normally stop for hitchers, stopped for us as they were turning onto the main road and offered us a lift all the way to Sao Paulo (which we had decided to go to after we realised how close it was to Rio). They chatted to us the whole way; the guy was a surgeon working in a public hospital in Rio whose work consisted attending to numerous shootings every week and many accidental self shootings. The girl had completed a masters in development studies with the UN in Italy and was looking for work in this competitive field. Both were keen to move to Australia…

We stopped to do a bit of sightseeing and visited the biggest cathedral in the Southern hemisphere. They introduced us to their favourite Brazilian music including to old funk which comes from Rio’s fabelas and some good reggae music. Arriving in Sao Paulo on a Friday afternoon proved to be a trial and tribulation in the immense city (not as big as Mexico DF which is the second biggest city in the world but with the appearance of being much bigger). Traffic piled up on the highway and the multitude of lanes moved at a snails pace. It took us over 2 hours to enter the city, the high-rise buildings endlessly covering the sky scape, with little space in between. I had the impression that I was going to suffocate, buildings closing in on me everywhere I looked, hardly able to see the blue of the sky. Graffiti and tags were just like in Rio, painted all over buildings, often being in the middle of some of the highest buildings with no apparent way of reaching these areas. Helicopters frequently crossed our sky, one of the new ways for the rich and famous to travel in Sao Paulo. Motorcycles screamed past our car, inches away from scraping the doors, they propelled themselves through the middle of two lanes while beeping their horns, some occasionally getting angry when a car wasn’t sufficiently to the left or right side of their lanes and they weren’t able get through smoothly.

We stayed with an old friend who I had met at an eclipse festival in the Oz outback 8 years back! She was exactly as I remembered her; sweet, smiley and a lovely person to be around. She has a beautiful, spacious apartment, tastefully decorated and very closely located to the famous park, Ibirapuera. This great big park has copious amounts of people using it to get away from the concrete jungle and also holds a modern arts museum and consequently, the biennale was exposing. As we walked though the several floors that composed this world class exhibition, we saw a woman with a collar and lead around her neck, being led by a man. Where the man went, went the woman with no indication that this was an abnormal act. Is it art?! We also saw a video on Pixao graffiti (native to Sao Paulo and created as a voice for the most marginalised in society); graffiti artists who climb great heights in the name of tagging high rises, risking their lives for the thrill and adventure. In the video one of the pixadores dies after falling countless metres while tagging. Beco do Batman, an alleyway in the Vila Madalena neighbourhood, has been transformed in an outdoor gallery where you can see lots of very colourful and skilful graffiti.

Thati and her friends took us to some chic Saturday markets in Vila Madalena where we ate cuscus, a savoury cake made with tomatoes, eggs, tuna, olives and spices and pastel, a pastry stuffed with savoury fillings which are very popular throughout all of Brazil. People poured onto the street from all four corners of the market square, bars full to the brim looking very artsy and trendy. What people had said was true. Sao Paulo isn’t a place that people go to for sightseeing but it has one hell of a nightlife.

Brazilians are a very friendly bunch. They are proud of where they are from and carry their flag with beaming smiles. They sing, make music and make a lot of noise no matter where they are. There are many gorgeous people, women who can flaunt it and who normally do and men who are a little presumptuous but can get away with it. As Thati mentioned to me, the men in Australia work very differently than in Brazil. Here they pride themselves on being forward and bold, accosting women at any moment possible whereas in Oz men take a back seat and often women have to do the work. Thati commented that she appreciated the aussie way a lot more as she finds Brazilian men to be arrogant and on the lookout for just sex, with little possibility of friendship. I’m not convinced that aussie men aren’t on the lookout for sex but maybe a mixture of both cultures might be the way forward…!

Going out is a long night affair here in Brazil. Brazilians don’t start moving till very late, 1 or 2 in the morning, unless you’re going to a bar for just a few drinks. Unaccustomed, I struggled to stay awake and retain enthusiasm for the event. In Vila Madalena, once again, streets chock-full of bars with a nice ambiance, people hang in and out of bars, out being more popular, lining the streets with people, obstructing traffic, drinks in hand, often not bought on the bar premises but rather from a cheaper street vendor.

Another thing that Sao Paulo is famous for is for holding the largest Japanese population outside of Japan. There’s a Japanese town in the centre and Japanese restaurants and sushi bars around many corners in Sao Paulo.

Upon advice, we caught a bus from Sao Paulo to the outskirts of the city to give us as much chance as possible to get a ride out of the city. Not a very good spot (we were on the highway with cars rushing past at high velocity) but soon enough a brand new truck stopped and offered us a ride to Curitiba, where we were heading. The truckie was a bickie with a passion for nature; he was definitely not your typical truck driver. His girlfriend is also a truckie, the first time I have heard of a female truck driver in these parts.

A torrential rain appeared as we were dropped off 20 kilometres away from Curitiba. It tainted our efforts to continue to Curitiba by ride. Finally, we were able to go by taxi, a rare occurrence for us these days.

The reason to visit Curitiba was for its reputation for being one of the most ecological cities in the Americas and for its famous and prided public transport system. The city has a bus system which is made to operate like a metro. The buses have partial control of the traffic lights and there are bus lanes all over the city. Space aged bus stops are everywhere where you climb into a clear plastic bubble and pay on the spot before getting on the bus. You can transfer buses as many times as you desire without having to pay again and it’s damn cheap! All of these factors make bus a better option than driving. This has also been maintained by installing pedestrian streets in the centre which cover the majority of the streets, making it easy to walk everywhere and car free. Parks line many of the streets providing much urban green space for its citizens to enjoy including its well-known botanical gardens. Governments from all over the world come to visit Curitiba to see first hand these innovative initiatives in collective urban planning.

Another curiosity is the free environment university which the government installed for the general public. It’s located in a national park and gives free courses to educate the community on ecological issues.

Generally in Brazil, there are many gay people to be seen in the big cities. In Curitiba it was surprising to see many very young lesbians (under 18), walking around hand-in-hand all over the city. It’s not a site that is seen in general and one is more accustomed to see gay guys than lesbians showing affection in public. Go girls!

Leaving Brazil was the same as arriving in Brazil: challenging. 600 kilometres took us three days, the same it had taken us to do 2000 kilometres in previous weeks. Agustin became antsy at the thought of being so close to his country but still not quite there yet. We did get a ride with a trailer that was transporting cars and slept in one of them for the night, something I had always wanted to do for some reason! 130 kilometres away from the border we got caught in the rain again and after quite a few hours we gave up and decided to catch a bus. The bus took us to the border town but it was too late to cross and so we slept outside the bus station, being looked after by the station security guard. The next morning, we finally took the bus and crossed over into Spanish speaking world again, after two months of understanding only bits and pieces and making up the rest.

Puerto de Iguazu was where we landed first in Argentina. One of the seven natural wonders of the world, Argentina shares the national park, Parque Nacional Iguazu with Brazil which holds a number of waterfalls that are an incredible site not to be missed. On the Argentinean side there are numerous waterfalls to be seen, the most spectacular and well known being la garganta del diablo, a set of waterfalls that hold such force and grandness. The spray that emanates from these cascades creates rainbows on many occasions.

Agus felt back at home again, appreciating his countries idiosyncrasies and especially, the food. Being familiar with the way his country functions, the ways of the people, their speech and lingo and reconnection with his culture was what made me feel homesick and out of place. I longed for a reconnection with my country and my culture but was far from being home. The homesickness subsided a little as the new country I found myself in caught my attention me and I became interested in discovering where Agustin was from.

In Misiones, we stayed with some couches whom helped to form my introduction to Argentina. We exchanged trivialities about our countries as we discovered that the couple we stayed with were very different from each other causing some tension between them. The conclusion I came to is that one is to learn to accept differences as they will always arise. This shall be my new challenge thanks to this couple!

We took El Gran Capitan train, an old style train that is up and running again, all the way to Monte Caseros, Agustin’s village where his grandmother resides. It took 14 hours to do the 500 km’s but enjoyable hours they were. The train merely chugs along at a very pleasant and tranquil speed allowing for good countryside viewing. The large windows open widely and so it feels like you're almost part of the landscape, as you are half hanging out of the window. There’s time to get to know people on the train as you walk around looking for a way to pass the time. The train has a reputation of often being held up by such things as cows passing time on the train trucks or a train coming from the opposite direction, etc. We were only stopped for an hour while we waited for a train to pass us, which gave me the opportunity to take photos. Finally we arrived at Monte Caseros. Only a handful of people got off with us, the rest of the passengers wondering what there was to see in this small town. The afternoon sun hit down on us hard as we made our way from the quite train station to the empty streets of the village, everyone being inside for siesta. We were a surprise for his grandmother, not having contacted to say that we were in the country. And what a surprise it was. Tears strolled down her face as she hugged her grandson with joy and gave me a welcoming kiss.

Benvindo a Brasil! (part 1)

For the first time in many a while, I felt a little threat as we walked around the night-lights of Belem port town, looking for a public phone that worked. A big fiesta had taken place in the plaza de la republica square and remnants of teenage Brazilians and rubbish were splattered around the gathering ground. A phone that worked presented itself but Portuguese pronunciations of streets names confused our heads and gave us little to work with. We set off in a direction with unsure feet to find ourselves being followed. We stopped and turned around, the followers walking past us glancing in our direction frequently.

One taxi ride and phone call later we made it to the ‘Aussie in Belem’s' house. Here I was reunited with some distinguished aussie culture and euphemisms…in the Amazon! A 3 storey apartment with a ‘college day’ appearance, beer bottles clattering corners, piles of dishes waiting to be washed and at least a couple of weeks of messiness hanging about. We slept our nights on the roof, under the stars with a glorious view of the city. One night we watched the street light catch on fire after a small explosion took place. It was attached to a fuse box that looked awfully close to the flames to not explode. Luckily it didn’t.

The aussie in question is a singer. She ended up in the port city of Belem by accident after following a band who’d hired her to sing. She has been on the road in Latin America for 5 years and was able to get residency in Brazil by sheer luck, a new law in place for immigrants from surrounding poorer countries, not created for aussies! She has now developed a love for Belem, it’s constant concerts and outdoor events, the heat, the musicians and friends she has met and the night lifestyle that she holds. Without loosing her Australianisms she managed to pick up a Portuguese sprawl that runs out of her mouth like a true Brazilian.

Belem has an amazing market with a wonderful variety of Amazon fruits, vegetables, herbal tinctures and remedies, fresh fish, traditional items such as straw hats and baskets and of course, big bowls of acai, the wondrous antioxidant-rich palm fruit that’s eaten along with fried fish and farofa (toasted manioc flour that’s served with every meal in Brazil).

Our attempt to hitchhike out of Belem lasted a mere 6 hours after being kicked out of the petrol station where we were asking truck drivers for a ride at. At this point we were worn-out, especially of hitchhiking with little success but also of moving every couple of days, living out of a backpack, having fleeting friendships and not having a place to call home. Brazil was meant to be our last big trip before arriving in Argentina; it was meant to be enjoyable, but instead it was being challenging and demanding on the both of us. So, we decided to reduce the amount of stops that we were to do in Brazil so as to try and enjoy what we were to visit; quality not quantity.

Sao Luis, our next stop after Belem, is the capital of reggae in Brazil so we were told and so it was true. With its strong African influence reggae is in all corners of the centre, leaking through the cracks of the beautifully, flaking, nostalgic buildings that give Sao Luis its reputation. Laneway gigs emerge around many corners and singers take a seat at bars under the stars while liquids are consumed and sounds are swung to. Sao Luis is also about beaches: 5 km’s of it such as Sao Marcos which stretches out from the tip of the centre of Sao Luis, wide and long, pure sand and sea with nothing else polluting it.

A night market greeted us one dusk where we were offered a variety of traditional Brazilian street food. Famished, we ate beiju, a tapioca and coconut pancake, tapioquinha (tapioca with cheese and coconut), tapioca flan and guarana de amazonia, a guarana, banana, avocado, milk and cashew smoothie. All so good!

We stayed in a studio with two other couch surfers squeezed into the room. Along with this we had 100 reales to last us a week as I waited for money to clear from my transfers. It was a challenge and one which we united with the task of visiting the sand dunes and oasis in Santo Amaro, 250 kilometres from Sao Luis.

We accomplished the mission and managed to hitchhike most of the way there apart from the last 36 kilometres which we thought we could walk. The midday sun hit as hard as we set off down an off shoot road, leading us through endless barren landscapes with houses dotting the scenery on occasion but with not a soul to be seen. Two hours later we arrived at a village where we did meet some people. Their laughs greeted us when we shared that we were planning on walking all the way to Santo Amaro. “You will be met with knee-high sand for kilometres” said one. They all agreed that it was an impossible task and convinced us to sit and rest and wait for the jeep that was to come in a few hours. Minutes later one appeared. We tetrised our way through the sand and held on during the 2 hour drive of bumps, swerves and out of control veers.

That night we camped on the sprawling sand dunes, the fine sand sticking stubbornly to our bodies while the moons reflection slithered in the small lagoon that we had come across (the dry season drying up all the oasis’s). In comparison to daylight, the night bought a cool breeze which gave us an excuse to make a campfire and enjoy the flickering flames.

The next day we walked the vastness of the sand dunes, the undulating beige hills creating a beautiful contrast with the crisp blue sky. Not a soul was to be seen for miles. We headed back to town and watched the women washing their families clothes in the river while the kids played by their side. Cashew trees offered their fruits to us as we walked the streets of Santo Amaro.

We managed to hitchhike back to Sao Luis in just a few short hours as the daylight hours were dwindling; one of our rides was a taxi driver who offered to take us if he didn’t find any paying passengers (which luckily he didn’t) and we proceeded to have a ‘lost in translation’ conversation, e.g. explaining what joven (young) meant for half an hour in various ways until he finally understood and said the very same, exact word with a slightly different accent. That night we saw two roadside gatherings, one where an 80-year-old woman had been robbed, raped and very sadly, murdered, her body found in a trench on the side of the road. The other where a car had fallen into a gully after being pushed off by a passing truck. The driver was unhurt but the car on the other hand was squashed in a very awkward position.

From Sao Luis we set off for a long 1900 kilometre adventure to Salvador, which lasted 4 days. We got a ride to the outskirts of Sao Luis by a postie who had given us a lift a few days back to the sand dunes. It was nice to see a familiar face again!

My one year and a half of travelling clocked off on this first day of hitchhiking from Sao Luis, waiting in Magnolia petrol station with little hope of moving after being repeatedly told by truckies that the public holiday the next day meant that no one was going anywhere. After most of a day of asking truck drivers for a ride in our portoñol (Spanish/Portuguese), luck blew our way and a truckie named Marcos, agreed to take us who was heading most of the way to Salvador with a stop to pick up cargo along the way.

He turned out to be the slowest truck driver this world has ever seen and perhaps the laziest. A mere four hours of driving a day was all he had in him and the rest of the time was filled with stops for water bottle refills, toilet needs, meal stops, oil checks, tyre checks and any other excuse that came to mind. On the road mango trees dangled, dazzling their ripe fruits in our eyes. We stopped and harvested a bucket full of the sweet fruits and the rest of the trip was mango filled, covering our faces with the fruit, the fibres wedging themselves in our teeth, quenching our hunger and thirst and providing for laughs for when we had nothing to say to Marcos in our minimal Portuguese.

The landscape on the journey was mostly barren, roads continuing on for many kilometres, straight as rulers with dry and bristle bushes sketching the land. Heat emerged in the early morning and became unbearable by midday. No man’s land was what we crossed, with few towns and villages to be seen. The two nights we travelled with Marcos we slept in our hammocks tied up in petrol stations, passing noises causing me a bit of angst but generally sleeping tranquilly. Marcos was to pick up a bulldozer but when we arrived, the paper work wasn’t ready and another night was tallied to our journey. To add to this, the reverse gear was playing up and Marcos announced that we would probably arrive in Salvador three days later than what we had planned. That was the tipping point for me and after some conversing with Agus, we decided that the we would search for another ride the next morning, a mere 600 kilometres away.

Our conversation with truck drivers was amazingly quite complex at times considering how little Portuguese we knew. But Spanish is very similar to Portuguese and so you’re able to figure out many words as they may be different by only a few letters or it’s the accent that changes. Of course this is not true for everything and I found it harder than Agustin to understand truckie conversations especially as many had quite distinct accents and spoke quickly, restraining from opening their mouths.

The next day I turned 28. I spent it on the side of the road waiting for a ride, acquiring one amazingly quickly but a mere 100 kilometres on the journey, being told that the paper work wasn’t complete for us to pass the state border, causing us to wait for many hours for another ride and finally being picked up by the same truckie who had bought us there, papers all sorted out this time. Not the way I had envisaged the passing of the day, I grouchily got through the hours, weary after day four of non-stop travel.

But vivacious Salvador da Bahia was near. We arrived on a Friday morning, the chaotic streets full of life and animation. The Afro-Brazilian culture bubbling and at its strongest in this part of the country, influencing the food, the music and the energy of the place. The first capital of Brazil, it is known as the happy state for a reason. People are always outdoors, enjoying the sun, countless parties and home to the best carnaval in Brazil. Our couch Pareta, a street artist who reads poetry out to the masses on buses and at bars, is an eccentric, born to be an actor with a big heart who lives to talk and has a smile for all occasions. We stayed with him in his shoebox apartment but with a view of course!

Beaches is what we mainly visited in Salvador. End beautiful they were. Bahia’s reputation is upheld to have some of the nicest beaches in the world. And right on the doorstep of the city of Salvador, the beach culture blending with the everydayness of day-to-day living. But many other faces are apparent in Salvador apart from the beach. The historical centre in the cidade alta is made up of cobbled streets and colonial architecture, impressive and charming but with a distinctive tourist feel to it. The street stalls and markets (with a lot of cheap tropical fruit available) is where a lot of life is effused, sellers calling out with voluptuous voices, their goods and their prices; people eating acaraje, a deep-fried ball stuffed with shrimp paste, cashew nuts, tomatoes and chilly sauce while drinking beers (what I consider to be light) on the street or coming back from a beach trip from one of the many islands and being amongst a sudden bus drumming and singing session which materialised out of thin air.

The traditional food of Bahia is one of my favourites, usually involving seafood or fish such as the famous moqueca, a seafood stew consisting of fish, onions, garlic, tomatoes and coriander, cooked slowly. The cocadas made from sugar and coconut (gives you a good energy boost) or abara a type of tamal made from cowpeas and served like acaraje (my favourite food which I ate every possible day that I could!).

Brazilians are very loud and boisterous at any moment and time, yelling, shouting, laughing loudly, over anything and nothing, showing much more emotion than your average Joe. This is especially true in Bahia and is part of the many things that make this place special. Another thing that makes this place unique (Brazil in general) are the men’s swimming trunks that are fashioned on the beach. Almost no Brazilian male goes swimming without them, sitting a little longer on the leg than Speedos, it allows men to tan their legs and is actually really not all that bad if you ask me! Of course it goes without saying, the Brazilian bikini is sported by many, girls doing all sorts of activities in them from jogging on the beach to beach volleyball and lying with tanning oil under the blazing sun.

a coninuar...