Smokey and the border crossing bandits
With the dream land safely secured under deposit, it was finally time to go to Brazil. I have been waiting for this moment for many years. I was first in Brazil in 2002 at the end of my last South America trip. Back then, I only stayed for a week in a place called “Florianopoils” in the south. This was enough for me to catch the infamous Brazil bug, one of the most notoriously difficult travel bugs to cure. I must be high in Selenium because I have been a Brazil nut since. After falling in love with Brazil instantly in 2002, I vowed to return for a longer tour starting where I left off the last time in “Floripa” as it is affectionately known.
I headed back to Buenos Aires to get a Visa and I was off on a gruelling 28 hour busride to Floripa.
Now, when I go on a 28 hour busride there are a few things on my mind at departure:
1) How sleepy does the bus driver look
2) How close to the toilet am I: although, I have to say, with the very environmentally friendly “recycled airconditioning” on Brazilian buses after a few hours everyone gets the flavour of seat number 55.
and…
3) Who will be sitting next to me? Of course I always prayed for a lovely young garota to pass the time with, to practice my portuguese, but that never happened.
Today I got a chain smoking, close talking Argentinian who smelt worse than the toilet. He had the window seat and was climbing over me every 2 minutes to go to the toilet for a smoke. Mmmmm smoky Brazilian bus toilet smell, its a mystery to me why the french haven’t bottled that yet.
Coming back from one of his toilet missions, old Smokey decided to strike up a conversation. I almost fell out of my seat when he started. He put his face about 5 cm from mine and started to talk. I seriously thought he was going to kiss me. Every word he spoke was like being hit in the face with a full ashtray. I recoiled into the aisle, leaning over it as he continued. I was out at what seemed to be a 45 degree angle and as I recoiled he seemed to follow me. “How could he not know” I thought. Then a quick thinking Coatesy comes out with the ultimate line reserved for situations like these. The big gun. “Perdon, no hablo espaņol, amigo”. “So speak us english then?” came the reply. Fanbloodytastic.
After about 5 minutes of some serious yoga practice, mainly back-bending, I got smart again. At a break in the conversation with Smokey, I remembered the other tools I had in my “ways to avoid conversations on buses” scrapbook. I pulled out my IPOD, stuffed the headphones in my ears and turned my music up really loud. This worked for a while, then Smokey decided that everytime he wanted to tell me something he would do a bit of a “pull your headphones out of your ears” gesture, to tell me things like “Hey look, theres a cow”. Yes, yes thanks that’s very unusual for Argentina, mate.
Actually Smokey was a pretty good bloke, with a few lessons in respecting other people’s personal space and that “No fumar” means “No fumar even in el toilet” he would have been set. There were a few other lovely Argentinans sitting around me and we started chatting about the crazy week that was in Capilla del Monte and the land purchase.
Everyone knew about the place. They told me it was common knowledge in Argentina that Capilla del Monte is a very healing place. One of the guys went on to explain to me a few things, which I didn’t understand at first. He said “They are doing experiments at Uritorco”. “What kind of experiments” I asked. I was very interested. He spoke for a while in Spanish, It took me a while to understand what he was saying but then I finally got the jist. He was telling me that they were doing experiments where they were releasing small amounts of a radioactive material into the atmosphere. He went on to say “and the radioactivity just disappears”. I thought it was interesting that a random guy I had just met on a bus was telling me this. Whether it is true or not is another story.
I also had a very interesting conversation with a woman who told me she was HIV positive. This was not a normal busride by any stretch of the imagination!
I learned alot from talking to her, and this certainly wasn’t the first or last time on this trip I was given an alternative view on HIV and AIDS by someone who had been directly affected. This meeting further comfirmed for me that alot of what we have led to believe about HIV and AIDS might be just a touch inaccurate, to put it lightly. Thats all I will say about this controversial topic for now, but I plan to cover this in detail later in another blog.
After a couple of hours talking about some fairly complicated topics in Spanish I was exhausted and slept well. Thankfully the bus emptied somewhat and even though I was starting to enjoy Smokey’s company I opted to move to a set of two seats of my own. I have only just mastered the art of being able to sleep on buses. So I was sleeping like a log until 3am when we stopped, the lights came on and the bus driver entered, blurted something unintelligable in Spanish and got off the bus. Everyone started to get off, I was still asleep and wasn’t having any of it but alas we had arrived at the Brazilian border. I am not sure how they do bus timetables but I am sure the bus companies are in partnership with the guys on the street at the border who do currency exchange. “If we arrive at 3am those gringos will be so sleepy they won’t realise how much they are being shafted” I am sure thats why the bus companies do it. I can’t think of any other reason.
Still half asleep, I was selected for a random bag search. The guy who searched me was in full army kit. I was a bit scared at first, with all the Aussies being caught in Bali and stuff. Then again I shouldn’t have had that kilo of Columbia’s finest in my guitar case. (just jokes mum, really).
The shit thing about bag searches at the border is that I have packing my backpack down to an art form. Its not something you can do in 2 minutes. But with everyone on the bus with their noses pressed up against the glass wondering when Seņor Gringo was going to get his bag packed, I have to say I was feeling a little bit of pressure.
So finally I was in Brazil. It was extremely exciting. I was a little edgy though. I had heard nothing but story after story about how dangerous Brazil was and how every kid and his grandma was out to get your stuff by whatever means possible. Down the road in the border town on the Brazilian side there was 3 huge thuds on the side of the bus. A bunch of youths were pelting the bus with rocks. This sent my heart into my mouth, with all those stories of robbery, you know I thought I was going to get done within the first 5 minutes! I don’t know what I was worried about because I had been to Brazil before but people love telling stories about how dangerous this place is and I made the mistake of believing them. Again!
So the border bandits were content to leave a few dents in the bus and they were on their way and we were off again into the early morning hours heading for the Atlantic coast. I drifted off to sleep again and woke up in Floripa ready to continue where I left off in 2002.
