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Monetary clusterf… coming out of South America

Tuesday, June 27th, 2006

After the boys left, I had two and a half weeks to get myself to Sao Paulo for my flight to Africa. There wasn’t much more that I wanted to see (or that I really had time to see), and I was kind of getting antsy. I stayed for another week and a half in Buenos Aires, and I can’t really account for much of what I did…I spent a lonely day in the apartment we had rented, mostly cleaning, picking cigarette butts out of the plants, scraping gum off the floorf and undoing the problem I created myself of stripping all the wax off the wood floors (which entailed some towels under my feet, loud music, and a lot of dancing). I searched my camera and the interent for pictures of the place in order to return the plants, statues and vases to their proper position. I did a drop off of all the extra beer and liquor in front of the local internet cafe, where I had become friendly with the owners. When the lady came to get the keys for the apartment, she asked me if we broke anything…oh no, no, no. And that was it…I got the deposit back and ran with my things down the street, out of sight. [read on]

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A few last notes on Brazil

Thursday, March 16th, 2006

I was headed back to Porto Velho. We stopped in the next big town and I was told we had 20 minutes, so I got off to grab a bite to eat. As I was standing there, our bus pulled off, so I ran after it, but they waved over in some direction, as if to indicate everything is ok. I assumed the bus was getting cleaned, but then got nervous when the bus never came back and everyone started to get on another bus. I had pretty much come to terms with the fact that I had lost everything I had (except the important stuff, which I had on me), and thought, well, maybe this is a good thing…I don’t need all that stuff anyway. However, I was quite relieved to find out everything had been transferred to the new bus. Why go with nothing if you don’t need to? [read on]

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A sizeable gash…and a heartbreaker

Wednesday, March 15th, 2006

The night ended soon after my Big Bang. We all filed downstairs to our hammocks, and Fábio gave me his blanket to sleep with, which I tried to resist, to no avail. The next morning, I laid in my hammock forever, before finally getting up to go to the bathroom. There was a line, but I took a minute to look in the mirror. Ah! The gauze was completely full of blood! No wonder everyone was looking at me really freaked-out like. I went back to my hammock, brought out my trusty first aid kit and cleaned myself up with a nice, clean gauze, much smaller than the last one. I also got a good look, for the first time. Ick. It was pretty ugly…split open right on the bottom of my chin, nice and swollen – a sizeable gash. [read on]

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A boat ride that ends with a BANG

Tuesday, March 14th, 2006

I had gotten to the boat a little later than I wanted…there were a good amount of hammocks already up, but not nearly as many as there would be.  I wanted to find a space where I was not really landing on top of anyone – even though it’s common practice, I’d rather not be the one to initiate it.  I did find one good spot, slung up my hammock, and sat in it to read until we left.  The dock was kicking, playing all sorts of great Brazilian hits (it’s not hard to learn them all), and I heard a song that I liked, so I started up a conversation with the guy next to me to ask what the song was.  This was Fábio. [read on]

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Warm Belly Water

Monday, March 13th, 2006

I made it back to the hotel without any spewing-in-cab incidents, which is always a good thing.  Soon after arriving, though, I came to realize that the Sprite I drank in an effort to calm my stomach did not do the trick, but was glad to be throwing up in the comfort of my own hotel now.  I found on my bed a note from Vanessa, telling me that my police buddy showed up that morning and was slow to leave, even with her refusal to speak Portuguese to him.  He also drew me a map of the Amazon river with the three main cities along the river (trust me, this was the most generic map you’ve ever seen…like drawing a map of the States, labeling New York, Chicago, and LA, as if that explains everything).  I turned the lights off (for once, glad for no windows in a hotel room), and tried to sleep. [read on]

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Unfortunate (but nearly inevitable) bouts of sickness

Sunday, March 12th, 2006

After the carnaval party, I found Vanessa, who apparently had contracted something from the water and was throwing up…not good news. Many locals had gotten sick from swimming in the water due to all the rains washing the bacteria into the lake. I guess I didn’t get sick because I had been swimming a bit further away from town. This put a little bit of a damper on the rest of the stay…the next day I walked around the town a bit, but definitely didn’t jump in the water. The last thing I wanted was to be throwing up as we got on a boat for the next two days to Manaus. The good news was that it only lasted one night…many locals had been sick for a week or so. [read on]

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Jungle beach

Thursday, March 2nd, 2006

Three days on the boat passed rather quickly; comfort and boredom were not issues, though we were excited to get off and be somewhere.  We got into the waters of the city of Santarém, and, well, just when you think you’re there, you have to wait a while longer.  Such is the nature of traveling.  We had two men in uniform climbing up onto the boat (which was quite humorous to watch, them with their shiny black shoes on, in comparison to the barefoot, raggedy-clothed kids we had crawling up over the days previous); someone said they were looking for drugs, but I suppose they found nothing, as I’m sure the hour or so we waited would have been extended greatly if they had. [read on]

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The Amazonian Love Boat

Friday, February 10th, 2006

It was supposed to take 12 hours to get to Belém.  I knew we would never make it in that amount of time when I woke up in the middle of the night to the bus rolling in and out of holes, the driver getting his money’s worth out of the transmission.  I looked out the window – it was pouring rain and the road was chock-full of mini pools.  Oh man, I thought.  Here we are, in the jungle.  It’s raining and it’s never going to stop.  The roads suck and they’re only gonna get worse.  And we’re gonna be here for a long, long time… [read on]

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The ultimate Brazilian family vacation – Part III

Tuesday, February 7th, 2006

The next destination on our Brazilian family vacation (I call it that because we met mostly Brazilians along the way, all on vacation with their families, all visiting most of the same places as us), came highly recommended by many Brazilians we met along the way – it was a national park called Lençios Marenhenses, in the town of Barrerinhas. But, taking public transportation as we were (the one difference from your average Brazilian family, who was traveling by car), it was nearly impossible to get there in one day. Knowing that, we made no rush to get the early bus out, allowing us to enjoy the great free breakfast (eggs!) offered by our luxury hotel before heading out of town, making sure to get our money’s worth. We took the minibus to the main bus station (while, in the middle of the route we got rushed out of one minibus and shuffled around the corner to another, much more crowded minibus…whatever) and hopped onto the bus to our first stop – Tûtoia. [read on]

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The ultimate Brazilian family vacation – Part II

Tuesday, February 7th, 2006

In Jericoacoara, we found a cute little house for ourselves – another killer deal. It had 2 bedrooms, a little kitchen (only with a fridge), a living room area (which I usurped as my bedroom, slinging up my hammock), and a bathroom, which we soon came to learn that the ceiling dripped on you while sitting on the toilet. But all for less than $5 each per person, and we loved it. The town itself, eh. It had its charms, but I found myself more excited about our little house. There was an amazing breeze – really a pretty fierce wind – at almost all times of the day, making this a huge windsurfing and kitesurfing spot. The beach wasn’t all that spectacular for laying on during the day due to a huge tide movement – maybe about 1/3 of a mile between high and low tide. This movement was really spectacular; not being all that in tune with tidal movements (as Lake Michigan really isn’t affected), it was pretty cool to walk at night all the way out to the shore. A few hours later, it would be right back up at the edge of town again. During the day, though, the tide was out just a bit, but the sand was wet, hard, and gray, not the nice fluffly stuff you like to lay in. [read on]

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