Beauabram’s Travels

After taking in the magnificence of the water fall system of Foz de Iguazu in less than half a day due to a twice broke down 44 hour bus ride from Mendoza to Foz I was tired and ready to cross the border into Brazil, which is what I did the next day, catching a flight all the way north to the Northeast coast of Brazil. Salvador was my final destination, Carnival my target. I was to stay with my friend Phil’s uncle Chris, I was exited and ready to start throwing around my rudimentary Portuguese and party with the locals and tourists alike—some four million in total—in a five day period that can only describe as the most visceral, sleep deprived, dance crazed party-til-7 am, expensive but well worth it experience of my travels, and my young life thus far. But before I can talk about what the hell went down over the 120 hours of Carnival, I have to talk about the setup of the wildest party on earth.

When I awoke on January 24th, I was in Argentina. It was 5 am in the morning, I was still drunk from the night before, I wouldn’t say I had slept but rather had one long wink from when I finally closed my eyes at 4:27 am to when the iphone alarm started blowing up at 5. I was laid out in a 6-man dorm room in Iguazu. At first I was disoriented and confused, dawn was just breaking so it was still relatively dark, my eyes gummed up from a night full of bar smoke and days on end of little to no sleep. I reached for my alarm but instead felt an arm instead. Soft and smooth and about four shades lighter than my own, I remembered quickly the 6 man was sleeping 7. I grinned to myself and said, inwardly for the umpteenth time “I love traveling”. I left my friend gently snoring and grabbed a quick shower and packed my bag in less than 10 minutes—7 months straight on the road will train you how to get your shit together and out the door to catch a cab, cross the border, clear customs and make a 8 am flight, which is exactly what I did, turning as I left the room to get one last mental image of an upturned, lace-adorned posterior still asleep and framed perfectly by the morning light filtering in to the room. “I love traveling”.

Made the flight and a few naps, one connection and an afternoon later I was in Salvador, Bahia. The sun was scorching everything below it when I stepped outside and grabbed a cab for the city. I was exited—It wasn’t that I was just coming to the birthplace of carnival, that I was starting my Brazilian adventures or even that I was going to stay with my friends uncle for the month, the same old feeling of being in a new place was washing over me and taking with it my hangover and my day old doldrums of what I call The Travel Day Blues—I was here, and I was happy. I smiled and got in a cab and told him in my broken Portuguese to take me to Pituba!

Rolling up to Phil’s Uncle’s apartment, I was impressed—he had a nice place, on the 7th floor, and the best part was his view of the ocean not 200 meters away. I thanked the God of Travel for watching over me once again and set my bag down and took everything I owned out and put it into drawers. For the first time since May I was going to be able to live every day without rummaging through a bag, waiting on a communal shower to be available and poop to my heart’s content without worrying about a Goddamn thing. Chris, my host for the next month, is the affable and much traveled uncle of my good friend Phil. He had spent some time in the states so his English is flawless, and after 7 years in Salvador so is his knowledge of the city and her customs. The perfect guide and host for a crazy 5 days of Carnival plus the rest of the month’s adventures. We went out and got dinner that night at a churrascaria—if you’ve never been it is a meat lovers dream. A huge salad and sides bar in the middle of the restaurant, and then milling about are ten some-odd waiters brandishing sticks of grilled chicken, steak, pork and turkey. Its all you can eat and the only decider for the end of the meal is a little placard with two sides, green for “go” and red for “roll me into the car, please”. I ate to my heart’s content, came back and dropped about 3 pounds in his, no, for the next month it was my, nice toilet, and went to sleep, happy and ready for the party to start.

The first two days of Carnival I spent with Marcio, Carol and Gabriela and their friends from Belo Horizonte. I had met them some 3 weeks before in the Milhouse Hostel in Buenos Aires and they had invited me to party with them in Salvador. I of course obliged and bought tickets to the Camarote Savlador for Friday and Saturday night. I would have loved to have gone for more nights, but after buying my tickets for the cool sum of 450$ a night I was forced to make other plans to explore Salvador’s more economic options. See, the setup of Carnival is simple, either you have money or you don’t. Its such a microcosm of Brasil and her dual nature of the haves and have-nots it can make you a little sick and a lot more guilty thinking of the proportions of your ticket to the VIP party vs. the people outside it and their monthly income. But Brasil and her socioeconomic problems will be left out of this entry for another time as I describe to you how fucking bad ass a 500$ party can be. When I dropped my 850$ for my tickets to Friday and Saturday’s party I was given two plastic access cards and a white and blue nylon wife beaters. More expensive pieces of clothing I have never owned so I quickly stuffed them down the front of my pants in fears of being robbed upon leaving the mall and hopped a cab back home. I laid my prizes out in front of me on my bed and after checking my camera was charged, and all was in place, I called my friends who were staying in the action in Barra when the craziness of Carnival was to go down and went to join up with them for Friday night’s loco-times.

There was a group of 22 people staying in an apartment meant for no more than 6, and after making the introductions and kisses hello I walked with the (mostly female) group through the cauldron of Carnival to our destination: Camarote Salvador. Now, as for the set up of Salvador’s Carnival. It is actually pretty simple. In Barra, the neighborhood that surrounds Avenida Oceania which runs parallel to the ocean, houses some 3 million people to watch the Trios Electricos pass down the main road for some 5-6 miles. The trios are tricked out 18 wheelers that have been turned into rolling concert halls, with a stage on the roof complete with dancers, a band and a main act, and usually a crowd of hangers on cheering for it all as well. Surrounding the speaker packed, brightly lit and laser flashing, deafening trucks are anywhere from 500 to 3000 people similarly uniformed in some sponsored wife beater that served as their ID as they dance, drink and run around the truck as it lumbers down Oceania for 6 hours. Behind the main truck is yet another truck outfitted with beer and toilets so the party never stops and the Bloco–the sums of the parts of the trucks, people and music–never has to take a break from the non stop party down the street all night. Now the other part of this process is the Camarote, which is usually a converted bar or stand set up along one or both sides of the main drag for people to congregate and watch the trios pass by from a stationary and elevated standpoint. If you ever want to feel like royalty for a night, pay a lot of money and stand three stories up as you sip your beverage and watch truck after truck of bands, naked painted ladies, hundred of thousands of dancing sweaty people and everything else that goes along with this blur of humanity pass before you all night. As an experience and as a slice of humanity and more specifically Brazilian life, it can’t be beat. Now you don’t have to spend 500$ my dumb ass did- for less than 100$ you can gain access to one of the lesser lights of the second tier camarotes and watch the parade before you. But if you want to party in the best most off the hook VIP Camarote, then do Salvador’s. You might be asking what prey tell does your money get you and I would be glad to tell you. For starters the security is tiptop, which is important when partying in South Americas most dangerous country in its most dangerous city in its most crime filled wild and debacherous time. So, once inside and insulated from the sweaty and ass-grabbing wallet snatching masses, you go upstairs to one of the four levels and, after dropping your jaw and putting it back in place, take in the Brazil’s beautiful and elite five per centers. Considering the people who work the perimeter of each bloco that passes before the camarote make 12$ a and a water bottle a night, one has to wonder who can afford to gain access to something as silly and high class as where I spent my Friday and Saturday night. Well, it’s the beautiful, sometimes surgically augmented, designer jean’d and bourgeoisie contingent of Brazils middle and upper class. Insulated and separate from the grungy, noisy (and incredibly happy I might add) throngs outside, we all partied together without a care in the world, for when you are inside, its all comped. You don’t have to pay for a thing, from waiters wandering around with platters of top shelf alcohol and hors d’oeuvres, to models posing for pictures and giving out free swag, to rows of sushi chefs doling out sashimi to famished partygoers at 3 am, this motherfucker had it all.

There was a dance club pumping electronic and trance beats for those tired to shaking their asses to the live music outside, and if you looked up through the smoke and lasers you would see naked girls swinging by glass swings smiling down upon you like fallen angels blessing every lusty thought on your mind. Which brings me to my first commentary of Carnival, the Brazilian guys and their douche bag tactics in their “approaching” women during the 5-day party. It goes a lil’ something like this. Guy sees girl. Guy walks up to girl. Guy grabs girl and tries his damndest to kiss her face, neck, chest, ass, legs, and toes—whatever. And the silliest part for me was watching this tactic work time after time. In fact, there were rows and rows of men lining the streets dressed in blue and white robes with turbans that said “Filhos de Gandhy” (Gandy’s sons) who would spray the air around them with air freshener and offer blue and white beaded necklaces out for girls as long as they made out with them. This was the business of Carnival, and man, business was good. Most girls were in on the whole morals out the window thing as much as the guys were, so the circle was completed time and time again in front of my shocked American eyes. Maybe I need to lighten up, but it still pissed me off, especially when the girls didn’t want any part of it. But in the end, this actually would work in my favor, as my tactic is more along the lines of approach, say hello, talk, listen, and of course, not physically molest. Unsurprising then how this tact was so well received by so many. But I digress.
So Friday night I danced all night with the Belo Horizonte gang. I Ate tons of sushi and chocolate fondue dipped strawberries and drank top shelf liquor and danced some more and saw Trio after Trio pass by with amazing bands and body painted naked ladies and flashing lights and loud music and hundreds of thousands of millions of people passing before us drinking and laughing and pissing in the streets and fornicating behind trash cans and fighting and puking and all of this humanity close enough to smell but far enough away no to seep into my clothes and set. But the city of Salvador would retain the smells of millions of people doing their worst to it for weeks. Carnival ended February 5th but it wasn’t until weeks later that the odors of the humanity that throbbed and heaved and relieved itself on its streets and back alleys faded. Damn did it stink.

6 am found me curled up on the floor of my friend’s apartment as the 23rd person to be sleeping there, holding a giant stuffed dog as a companion and shielding my eyes from the filtering light from the downstairs window. My sleep was only so brief however, as Chris called at 9 and told me to get home because we had a big barbeque get together to attend called a feijuada. I stepped outside into the glare of the hot yellow Bahian sun and stumbled into a cab home, having stepped over sleeping kids in the street, discarded food and beer cans by the thousands and every manner of refuse and trash you can imagine 3 million people partying their asses off would leave behind the night before. Got home showered and running on 3 hours of sleep went to the barbeque, where I ate and drank and listened to Chris’s father in law expound upon the shortcomings of the USA. I was sitting on this uncomfortable plastic chair nursing a hangover and its accompanying headache, sweating cachaca (Brazilian whiskey) and wearing the biggest blacked out sunglasses I could buy to shield my blood shot sleep deprived eyes. And I had to sit there, and listen to this drunk asshole who looked like Jerry Garcia would have if he was a prick blustering about how imperialistic and terrible my country is and how the whole world has to kneel before it even though it rapes its women land and livestock with one fell swoop. I am of course paraphrasing because while not only intoxicated, his grasp on the English language was worse than my Portuguese, so I had to hear what would roughly sound like the following between chews on my steak and throbs from the big vein in my pounding skull:

“America, it come and make things yes, they are good, but it is BAD, because you take everything and…this word…it is corruption? Yes you corrupt with power and this makes you-hic-drunk with power! And Bush! Fucking Bush and you from Texas? You friend with this maniacs? Buuuuurp”

Something like that. And I smile. And I nod. And after about 20 minutes I ask him if he has ever been to Japan. And he says no. And I ask him if he has ever been to Kenya. No, he had not. Laos? Australia? How about England or Spain or Hungary? No none of those either. What’s the point, he asks. My point is– would you say you like or dislike the country and people of Hungary, having never been there? He said of course not. I said well, neither would I, although I had been to all of these countries, and about 30 others, and I had learned that you couldn’t judge a person, good or bad, from where he is from, only on the strength of his actions alone. He agreed (or maybe he nodded because the words I used were over his head) and then I asked, have you ever BEEN to the USA? He said no. Then I said, Fuck you and your whore of a mother and I took my steak knife and shoved it sideways up his drunken ass and stood over him laughing and pointing as he rolled around the cheap linoleum floor moaning and begging repentance for his ignorance and bad grammar. No, I didn’t. I just nodded and went and took a nasty day after a long night of drinking and eating sushi number twosies and Chris took me home and I slept until I went back out and did the Camarote, the dancing, and the wildin’ out all over again.

That was the weekend. On Sunday I met up with the beautiful Annaloes and her Dutch crew and we bought tickets for a bloco from some hustler off the street and hopped into the cauldron for 6 hours. Wearing bright white and red cut off T shirts that said ama me (Love Me) we followed this huge, louder than jet engine, Trio blasting tunes for the entire night, only pausing to buy beer, pee out said beer, and fight off the advances of every other guy in the 3000 person human mishmash trying to grab some blonde duchies and lick her tonsils. I ran interference, danced, drank, sweated and screamed, jumped up and down and danced some more and at the end of the experience it was the girls who were taking care of me and helping me home, so exhausted, yet completely happy, I was at the end of the night. On the pavement under the camarotes looking up you feel like the proletariat to the bourgeoisie of the Camarote looking down, and passing my camarote from the night before, waving up and smiling at them and their hands full of finely slice sashimi and Crown and cokes, I felt I was living the other half of the Carnival experience, but I had little time to reflect as I was swept up in the wave of people in the bloco making a surge forward against the human ropes that held us in and the street urchins out. Just on the other side of the barriers of the bloco you could see half naked three quarters starving and 100% poor 10 year old kids bending down between onrushing Nikes to pick up crushed beer cans for the 5cents it would fetch. Kids smoking the butts of still smoldering cigarettes and drinking the back wash out of drinks on the side of the road, to catch the glance of one of them while you are partying on the other side of the lines would stop you in your tracks for a minute and make you ask yourself what the fuck were you doing while all this was happening. Then the kid would smile and flick the butt and start dancing and someone would grab you and you would be rushed off again into the swirl and sweat of the bloco. Ah, Brasil.

We—me and the duchies—ended our Carnival as far removed from Barra and its craziness as we could; we went to Salvador’s historic old neighborhood of Pelorhino. Cobble stone streets and old churches and buildings, we hung out in the main square and drank caiprinhas and sat back and watched the parade of costumed and painted dancers and characters shuffle pass as kids danced and played in the streets around us. As family oriented and relaxed as the last 4 days had been crazy and wild, it was a great way to end Carnival. There was one cringe worthy moment for me though, and it came from the most surprising source—other Americans. After having spent all Saturday afternoon listening to some fat drunk prick cuss my country I guess I still had a chip on my shoulder about the whole thing, but my own hypocrisy rose its ugly head when I ran into a group of American college kids drinking and laughing with each other at the table across from us in the plaza. Loud and drunk at about 8 pm, these 19 and 20 year olds were what every TV show and movie try and capture about the American College Experience. The guys all had on faded white hats on backwards with the letters of their frat monogrammed on back, wearing pooka shell necklaces and polo shirts and leering over underfed sorority girls tipsy on two caiprinhas and giggling and demanding from the waiter in English for them to bring them some fucking curly fries. At one point I went over to say hello and talk to my fellow countrymen, mainly out of curiosity as I had spent the last 7 months traveling around the world with Aussies, English, Irish and every other nationality other than those from the states, because when you travel as an American, you are usually the only one in the group. After sauntering over and helping the girl order her French fries, batatas fritas, por favor, I said, to which she replied, what the hell did you say to him…oh cool! I sat down and talked to these oddities for a few minutes until I couldn’t take it anymore. They were on something called a Semester at Sea—a cruise ship full of privileged kids that sailed around the world and stopping in ports of different countries long enough them to get off, get drunk and hook up before being poured back on the next day and escorted somewhere else. Long enough to see a few things and maybe learn how to order a beer one girl told me before a guy who reminded me exactly of a baseball fuck I hated in high school came over and threw her over his shoulder and announced to the table he was going to make Jenni (I don’t know if it was spelled with an ‘i’ but I’m guessing) feel like a woman tonight. I sighed and excused myself and walked back over to the horrified Dutch girls, not two, three years older than the group of American kids, but all with at least one degree and a level of worldliness and sophistication I doubted any of the group of my countrymen would care enough to ever have. And then I said, mainly to myself, fucking Americans. They were loud and drunk and oblivious to the amazing experience and culture around them, and they were exactly what much of the world dislikes about where I am from. And I caught myself, and weighed this against the argument I had had a few days earlier, and against the hundreds of others similar I have been forced to have with narrow-minded people on the road for the last half a year, and I thought about that. A lot. Then I got a beer and said, ladies, this here Texan had the mold broke when they made him, now lets go dance and have fun!

Almost 40 countries, 100s of cities and I have come to the conclusion that people are people. We want the same things, more or less. Love and family and happiness and security. The world over. And for five days in Salvador this all was shown to me in every way possible, from the best parts of people to the worst. One of the best experiences of my life was living those five days with the people I did it with. I kept my head on a swivel, stayed out of trouble and lived and breathed and partied with folks during the best party on the planet.