The Muddy-Pants Diaries

20 July 2005 (Wednesday) – Icapui, Brazil

Cristian and Javier had been travelling for 4.5 months now around South America. They started in the opposite direction from where I did. So, they were now at the tail-end of their trip, heading towards Buenos Aires. They are the typical budget travellers with no money. Can you imagine, they started their trip with only US$1300 between them? I have no idea at all how they managed!! Now, they were in trouble as transportation in Brazil was proving too expensive for them two.

They are 23 and 24 years old respectively. Mere boys, to Isa, Marilia and I. They were also carrying around their juggling clubs. Ah! The jugglers who work in front of stopped traffic. That is so typical of the Argentines! They had done some juggling to earn money to eat in Belem.

But despite their grungy look, smelly threadbare clothes, they were still so cultured and polite. If they take anything within your reach, they would graciously say, “Permiso.” Well, Argentine boys are just so well brought up by their mommies. We never got that sort of respectful treatments from Brazilian boys.

Isa and Marilia are both psychologists. Marilia has her own clinic but Isa is at a crossroad now, trying to decide what she wants to do with her life. She wants to work for an international non-government organization. She just has to get her life tidied up a little to begin to pursue this dream of hers. Marcelo is a lawyer working for the state and has been posted to this tiny beach town. He would be based here for up to a year. That was why he has this house – our free accommodation – in the quiet untouristy town of Icapui.

Marilia drove us to Praia de Redondo. Gosh, an absolutely beautiful curved beach that was absolutely EMPTY! This is one of the undiscovered beaches that no one has exploited for tourism yet. Thank goodness, I got a chance to visit one of these! The water was warm, waves gentle, sand stretched into infinity. There were some cliffs in the distance. Heaven!!! We could bathe around in the nude here and no one would see us at all.

OK, there were some fishermen in the distance, but truly, this was really, really fantastic! We swam and slept a little on the beach. Marilia asked Cristian why he was swimming in his beach-pants. He said swimming trunks do not exist in Argentina. No one wears them at all. So, what was Javier wearing then? We all turned to look at Javier’s bum as it disappeared into the waves. Oh, his underwear…

When we got a little hungry, we walked to the houses by the beach and asked a few men sitting around, chatting, where we could buy some lobsters. The men pointed to the house right next to us, so we knocked.

A topless guy with a massive tummy (no wonder he is topless, nothing would fit him, I supposed) opened the door and beckoned us in. He languidly dragged out a pail of lobsters and negotiated the price with Isa and Marilia. Then, he tossed the lobsters into the weighing scale. Isa counted 14 and asked him for 1 more to make it 15. He tossed one more in sleepily. Then, just as we were leaving, he tossed another 2 more in nonchalantly.

Wow, so we paid R15 (about US$6) for 17 lobsters!!!!! I cannot believe this!!! What an excellent deal! This must be the cheapest place ever to eat lobsters! We found a restaurant later and they agreed to deep-fry the lobsters for us for R5. Oh, gosh… incredible deal!

The Brazilians here like to be ironical about things. So, as we dug into the hot, fresh, succulent lobsters, coated in lovely garlic and flour, we cried out repeatedly, “Oh… Que sufrimento! (What suffering!)” as we lamented our hard lives, sitting out here in the beautiful beach, listening to the pounding waves and slurping up lobsters that were to-die-for.

That evening in the house, out came cachaça. We played a game which involved passing around some cups in a particular pattern to a cute little tune, and the one who made a mistake with the passing, would have to drink a shot of cachaça. Darn, I cannot drink at all! Just a mere half-an-inch of wine, I would swell up in my face, my ears and face would pulsate and I would want to fall asleep right away. That’s why I avoid drinking, I just cannot handle alcohol. It also saves me a lot of money, haha. So, now I concentrated very hard on not goofing up on the game.

Somehow, Javier and Cristian got the most ‘fines’. Well, I think they goofed up intentionally to get the drinks!

The Brazilians then played another game for us three to guess. They told a story and we were to guess the motive of the person in the story. We could ask all sort of questions and the answers would be ‘Yes’, ‘No’ or ‘Does not matter’. The story went like this: “A guy went into a restaurant and ordered a plate of meat of seagulls. He ate it, paid up and left. Then, as he passed by the sea, he suddenly took out a gun and killed himself. Why?”

Javier, Cristian and I looked up, puzzled. Soon, the questions came, done in Spanish, English and broken Portuguese. Sometimes, they would ask a series of questions which I could not follow at all and Isa had to translate into English for me. At times, Isa had to translate my questions into Spanish for the boys. After a while, I totally gave up and twiddled my thumb, having no clue at all. Cris had asked some questions that earned enthusiastic replies from the Brazilians, hinting to us these were ‘very important’ but he shrugged after a while and soon reverted to juggling some tennis balls. Javier was the more intense one. He pondered on and on, asking a series of ridiculous questions. I had thought the questions crazy but the Brazilians replied positively. What the…? But he turned to stare at the table silently, drumming his fingers, his mind remained a blank.

Taking the lead from Javier’s questions, I got a little inspired. I rearranged everything in my head and incredulously related my thoughts out slowly in English, “So, there was a shipwreck that happened some time ago, which the wife of the man died but there were 2 survivors – the man and another guy. They were marooned on an island. They buried the wife. But later, as there was nothing to eat, the other guy must have gotten desperate and prepared ‘something special’. He told this man that this was the meat of seagulls. Years later, the same man went to a restaurant and ordered the meat of seagulls. He ate it and paid up and left. Later, it dawned on him that hey, he HAD eaten the meat of seagulls before and it sure did not taste like what he had just eaten. Slowly, he realised that what he ate before while marooned on the island must have been the meat of his wife! So… he killed himself with a gun?”

This was intercepted enthusiastically with “Isso!!! Isso!! Isso!!! (That’s it!)” by Marilia, Isa and Marcelo and we high-fived happily when I completed my analysis. Javier and Cristian cluelessly high-fived with me as well, before turning to Isa, “No entiendo nada. (I don’t understand anything.)”

19 July 2005 (Tuesday) – Natal to Fortaleza to Icapui, Brazil

Gisele, my amazingly giving host, woke up at 3:50am together with me in order to drive me to the rodoviaria. Gosh, and the poor dear had to return to the office late last night and worked with her colleague til after midnight! Really, I felt so bad about all the inconvenience I had given her, but her family kept shushing me whenever I tried to thank them. In fact, her mother had sighed, “Now that Trisha is leaving, the house will be sadder…” What? I was so surprised when Gisele translated for me. Oh, my dear, dear Brazilian mama… She had rushed off to her sister’s place to have my pocket sewn up and yesterday when I collected it, it was as good as new. Muito obrigada!!

My ride to Fortaleza lasted about 9 hours and the bus pulled up at around 2+pm.

My host in Fortaleza, Isabelle, had arranged to meet me at the taxi entrance. When I arrived, I was surprised to see an entire party welcoming me!

There was Isabelle with her wide, wide smile… her friend, Marilia, who immediately claims she only speaks a little English and no Spanish and two Argentine boys – Javier and Cristian – from Hospitality Club as well, and who are staying with Isabelle now and who speak only Spanish and broken Portuguese. So, we were all speaking in a mixture of English, Spanish and Portuguese.

We packed my stuff into the car and headed home. There, I was told to extract enough things for 3 days at the beach and right after that, we hit the roads again to buy some groceries and drive 2.5 hours to the little town of Icapui.

Throughout the ride, we were playing music at the top volume and singing happily when at one point, we heard a boom and realised we had a flat tyre!!!

Thank goodness, the strong Argentine gauchos were around to heave and shove the tyres around. I took charge of placing the reflective triangle some distance from the car. After quite a while which included hunting for one missing nut, we were on the way again. We finally pulled up at the house of Marilia’s husband, Marcelo, after 8pm. Poor Isabelle who did most of the driving was thoroughly thoroughly exhausted for we had taken 3.5 hours instead.

Wow, I went from the bus station straight to a little friendly beach town with 5 instant friends, no less. This is great! At night, we slung hammocks around the huge house and slept.