São Paulo To Buenos Aires
Time, it's a rare old beast ... one of those things that they're just not making any more of. It stretches and flexes, pouring itself away. Time, lots of it - it's the ultimate luxury, taken for granted when young and lamented for as an adult. Possibly more sought after even than money ? Well ... maybe not. It's a good joke though, you come into this life with no idea just how long you've got, or even how to spend the hours you have. Most of it's just maintenance, tending the fire, keeping afloat. Eating, sleeping and working. Proportionally there's only a miniscule amount of time to do anything else ... sometimes life on the road is not that different. I've probably given the impression that the most of the trip has been packed full of experiences with no down time and no boredom. It's not really ... just because you're not doing a day job, doesn't mean any of the other stuff goes away. In fact it takes on a much greater significance, causing even more irritation and taking up more of the day than expected. If there's one thing they never tell you to pack, it's patience and stamina. Travel takes time, in ways other than sitting on a bus. Whole days get written off basically doing nothing productive or of any use, a contrast to being at home where I'd spend a large part of the working day scheming up plans for the most efficient way to use the weekend.
Eating is a large part of anyone's life. I only now realise how much it affects your mood when you can't, as at home when I'm hungry I just eat - that's all there is to it. Spending sixteen hours on a bus with only a tube of Pringles for sustenance inevitably means that when you get to somewhere like, oh I dunno, Phnom Penh and you're swamped with people all trying to grab your bags (which may or may not be an act of good-will) and coerce you into staying at their rotten and dilapidated hostel, you're already in a pretty foul mood. This is when tempers start to fray. And when this goes on for some time, not sure about how many dead flies is an acceptable amount to ingest when included with the food in front of you, means that the word "nutrition" is something to largely snort at.
So when you get the opportunity to eat well, you've got to take it. Typical lunch activities in São Paulo go like this ... turn up at one of the hundreds of 'Kilo' restaurants around, get as much stuff onto your plate at once (using a garden shovel in my case), get it weighed and cram it down your throat as quickly as possible. Less waiting than your average visit to the toilet, and the finest food you will find for the price. Massive amounts of fresh veg, high quality meat carved in front of you, all manner of beans, pulses, carbohydrates and puddings. And the fruit, the fruit ! Kiwis, strawberries, mango and peach ! Apple and orange, all within reach ! I stuffed myself every day until fat and gleeful. A bit on the pricey side at five quid a go, but at least I don't feel like I'm falling apart from malnutrition any more. This is often combined with a meat buffet - an procession of waiters do the rounds to irritate with endless offers of various carvings ... though the results are sometimes not what's expected. It was in a slightly run down gaucho themed restaurant that a vague look of revulsion crossed Dan's face in one of these episodes. Dithering over a few unusual yet convenient looking chunks, it took a few chews before I could surmise what it was. Numerous small kidneys on a sword ! Which turned the dining experience into a cross between Jamie's Kitchen and Predator (a combination I'm sure a lot of people will have fantasised about). Still, I've seen worse - the ant sandwich of Bangkok for instance. Do try, they're offaly good ...
Everyday life really is absurd, though. Laundry ... usually something to be largely put off for as long as possible suddenly becomes top priority at the most inconvenient times (usually when arriving in the middle of nowhere after a seventeen hour bus journey). It's easy to get through two T-shirts a day when you're sweating constantly from the heat and humidity, walking everywhere and carrying a heavy bag on your back, all day long. Disconcertingly easy to get done in most of Asia, next to impossible in some parts of South America. For example, the strange old fish that ran the laundry in Santiago mostly looked like he wanted to kill me for asking to get my clothes laundered. In Cusco they came back sopping wet. In Rio de Janeiro it took two and a half days to wash some T-Shirts. But it's São Paulo that really put the weasels in the kitchen. Of course there was no indication anything might be amiss, and we handed the entire cache of clothes over with a big smile. My word it looked professional ! Every piece itemised on the receipt, described by brand, colour etc. All very nice. Very. What ... is ... the ... catch ? The show-stopper is that it was all going to be dry cleaned. Even the pants (realistically, they probably need to be burnt instead). For the bargain price of 85 Reals (21 quid). I'm not exaggerating when I say I almost fainted ... the kindly bloke behind the counter saw my reaction and gave me a free fridge magnet and sewing kit (it's even got one of those things you use to thread the needle - I always wanted one of those !). Dan and I just stared at each other, trying not to cry. But y'know ... "they needed to be cleaned" / "at least they won't go missing" / "it's worth the money for the convenience" etc. Funny how quickly deluding yourself brings about a sense of temporary happiness. And well, at least I'll be able to get a worthy, well paying job quickly enough when I get back and become financially solvent again. See ? Lying to yourself ... it works.
So what is it that makes the dullness of everyday life more (and sometimes less) bearable ? It's the people you come into contact with. We originally planned to spend about two days on a stopover in São Paulo ... that was until Fernando (bottom left) and friends decided to show us just what the city was about. The nightlife. The established idea is that "Rio is beautiful by day, São Paulo by night". So we accidentally spent two weeks hanging around the city and going nuts. Yeah alright, we didn't do anything particularly ground breaking or culturally important, but one of the main themes that keeps coming up is the observation that you can't really make proper friends in an area unless you stay there for a while. I think we managed that in Sampa, mostly thanks to the efforts of Fernando (bottom left) and girlfriend Dani (to the right of me), and it still astounds me the level of kindness and hospitality we received from two people we had never met before. If two effectively homeless people from the internet said they were going to turn up on my doorstep, I'm not sure how I'd react. By rights Fernando should have pointed a pressure washer at us. São Paulo, like Rio, has a reputation for being somewhat dangerous - indeed in some parts of the city the traffic laws have been modified so that a red light at a junction simply indicates to slow down. Such is the danger of carjacking and other violent crime. The city center, while somewhat tourist unfriendly seemed as safe as anywhere else we'd been. It's a very different atmosphere to Rio, which is a strange mixture of Favelas, beaches and business districts all jostling against each other in close proximity. The worst problems we had were linguistic ones - Portuguese is a surprisingly tricky language to get to grips with, and I have no excuse for failing spectacularly at this. All through Brazil I had to wing it with a combination of stock phrases, pointing, and defaulting to English. Absolutely shameful, and the whole experience has only made all the more clear how important it is to make an effort with languages in general. Especially when it comes to communicating to a landlord who appears at random intervals that, for the last week, there's been a load of cat shit in the corridor, and it's the height of summer.
Brilliantly, the VW Beetle and Kombi are still made in Brazil and are a common sight on the street. I asked our mate Fernando if this was because of surf or beach culture in Rio ... he said no, they were pieces of shit and only sold because they were cheap. The truth comes out ! I still thing they're cool, and they perform functions you'd never see at home. Delivering post, acting as impromptu shuttle services, even as converted ambulances. Alright fess up, who turned the oxygen tanks into a bong ?
All things come to an end, and despite having some of the best times possible with Fernando and friends (who went "above and beyond" the definition of hospitality), there were a good number of miles to get rid of between São Paulo and Buenos Aires. A few days stop over in Florianopolis let me top up my sun burn, leaving a trail of peeling skin a thousand miles long.
This made me grin when I first read it. It's safe to say that I too am a bit sick of tourist activities. The sights and experiences are still amazing, but I think I'm a bit jaded with the process of standing in line with all the other drongos for that 'special shot' of some cultural or geographic icon. There's no quicker way of dissipating the awe of seeing something truly unique than being elbowed around by a load of tools with digital cameras. The Iguazu Falls were probably the last real tourist activity of the trip, and for all my moaning, were utterly breathtaking. This is taken from the Garganta del Diablo, and to me it's how I think people would have talked about the 'edge of the world' in less accurate times. The falls straddle the borders of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, where the Paranu and Iguazu rivers meet - twice as high as Niagra in parts, and made up of 270-odd individual cascades.
Eating is a large part of anyone's life. I only now realise how much it affects your mood when you can't, as at home when I'm hungry I just eat - that's all there is to it. Spending sixteen hours on a bus with only a tube of Pringles for sustenance inevitably means that when you get to somewhere like, oh I dunno, Phnom Penh and you're swamped with people all trying to grab your bags (which may or may not be an act of good-will) and coerce you into staying at their rotten and dilapidated hostel, you're already in a pretty foul mood. This is when tempers start to fray. And when this goes on for some time, not sure about how many dead flies is an acceptable amount to ingest when included with the food in front of you, means that the word "nutrition" is something to largely snort at.
So when you get the opportunity to eat well, you've got to take it. Typical lunch activities in São Paulo go like this ... turn up at one of the hundreds of 'Kilo' restaurants around, get as much stuff onto your plate at once (using a garden shovel in my case), get it weighed and cram it down your throat as quickly as possible. Less waiting than your average visit to the toilet, and the finest food you will find for the price. Massive amounts of fresh veg, high quality meat carved in front of you, all manner of beans, pulses, carbohydrates and puddings. And the fruit, the fruit ! Kiwis, strawberries, mango and peach ! Apple and orange, all within reach ! I stuffed myself every day until fat and gleeful. A bit on the pricey side at five quid a go, but at least I don't feel like I'm falling apart from malnutrition any more. This is often combined with a meat buffet - an procession of waiters do the rounds to irritate with endless offers of various carvings ... though the results are sometimes not what's expected. It was in a slightly run down gaucho themed restaurant that a vague look of revulsion crossed Dan's face in one of these episodes. Dithering over a few unusual yet convenient looking chunks, it took a few chews before I could surmise what it was. Numerous small kidneys on a sword ! Which turned the dining experience into a cross between Jamie's Kitchen and Predator (a combination I'm sure a lot of people will have fantasised about). Still, I've seen worse - the ant sandwich of Bangkok for instance. Do try, they're offaly good ...
Everyday life really is absurd, though. Laundry ... usually something to be largely put off for as long as possible suddenly becomes top priority at the most inconvenient times (usually when arriving in the middle of nowhere after a seventeen hour bus journey). It's easy to get through two T-shirts a day when you're sweating constantly from the heat and humidity, walking everywhere and carrying a heavy bag on your back, all day long. Disconcertingly easy to get done in most of Asia, next to impossible in some parts of South America. For example, the strange old fish that ran the laundry in Santiago mostly looked like he wanted to kill me for asking to get my clothes laundered. In Cusco they came back sopping wet. In Rio de Janeiro it took two and a half days to wash some T-Shirts. But it's São Paulo that really put the weasels in the kitchen. Of course there was no indication anything might be amiss, and we handed the entire cache of clothes over with a big smile. My word it looked professional ! Every piece itemised on the receipt, described by brand, colour etc. All very nice. Very. What ... is ... the ... catch ? The show-stopper is that it was all going to be dry cleaned. Even the pants (realistically, they probably need to be burnt instead). For the bargain price of 85 Reals (21 quid). I'm not exaggerating when I say I almost fainted ... the kindly bloke behind the counter saw my reaction and gave me a free fridge magnet and sewing kit (it's even got one of those things you use to thread the needle - I always wanted one of those !). Dan and I just stared at each other, trying not to cry. But y'know ... "they needed to be cleaned" / "at least they won't go missing" / "it's worth the money for the convenience" etc. Funny how quickly deluding yourself brings about a sense of temporary happiness. And well, at least I'll be able to get a worthy, well paying job quickly enough when I get back and become financially solvent again. See ? Lying to yourself ... it works.
So what is it that makes the dullness of everyday life more (and sometimes less) bearable ? It's the people you come into contact with. We originally planned to spend about two days on a stopover in São Paulo ... that was until Fernando (bottom left) and friends decided to show us just what the city was about. The nightlife. The established idea is that "Rio is beautiful by day, São Paulo by night". So we accidentally spent two weeks hanging around the city and going nuts. Yeah alright, we didn't do anything particularly ground breaking or culturally important, but one of the main themes that keeps coming up is the observation that you can't really make proper friends in an area unless you stay there for a while. I think we managed that in Sampa, mostly thanks to the efforts of Fernando (bottom left) and girlfriend Dani (to the right of me), and it still astounds me the level of kindness and hospitality we received from two people we had never met before. If two effectively homeless people from the internet said they were going to turn up on my doorstep, I'm not sure how I'd react. By rights Fernando should have pointed a pressure washer at us. São Paulo, like Rio, has a reputation for being somewhat dangerous - indeed in some parts of the city the traffic laws have been modified so that a red light at a junction simply indicates to slow down. Such is the danger of carjacking and other violent crime. The city center, while somewhat tourist unfriendly seemed as safe as anywhere else we'd been. It's a very different atmosphere to Rio, which is a strange mixture of Favelas, beaches and business districts all jostling against each other in close proximity. The worst problems we had were linguistic ones - Portuguese is a surprisingly tricky language to get to grips with, and I have no excuse for failing spectacularly at this. All through Brazil I had to wing it with a combination of stock phrases, pointing, and defaulting to English. Absolutely shameful, and the whole experience has only made all the more clear how important it is to make an effort with languages in general. Especially when it comes to communicating to a landlord who appears at random intervals that, for the last week, there's been a load of cat shit in the corridor, and it's the height of summer.
Brilliantly, the VW Beetle and Kombi are still made in Brazil and are a common sight on the street. I asked our mate Fernando if this was because of surf or beach culture in Rio ... he said no, they were pieces of shit and only sold because they were cheap. The truth comes out ! I still thing they're cool, and they perform functions you'd never see at home. Delivering post, acting as impromptu shuttle services, even as converted ambulances. Alright fess up, who turned the oxygen tanks into a bong ?
All things come to an end, and despite having some of the best times possible with Fernando and friends (who went "above and beyond" the definition of hospitality), there were a good number of miles to get rid of between São Paulo and Buenos Aires. A few days stop over in Florianopolis let me top up my sun burn, leaving a trail of peeling skin a thousand miles long.
This made me grin when I first read it. It's safe to say that I too am a bit sick of tourist activities. The sights and experiences are still amazing, but I think I'm a bit jaded with the process of standing in line with all the other drongos for that 'special shot' of some cultural or geographic icon. There's no quicker way of dissipating the awe of seeing something truly unique than being elbowed around by a load of tools with digital cameras. The Iguazu Falls were probably the last real tourist activity of the trip, and for all my moaning, were utterly breathtaking. This is taken from the Garganta del Diablo, and to me it's how I think people would have talked about the 'edge of the world' in less accurate times. The falls straddle the borders of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, where the Paranu and Iguazu rivers meet - twice as high as Niagra in parts, and made up of 270-odd individual cascades.
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