I’ve just looked through some pictures from my visit to Foz do Iguaçu in April. More specifically, I’ve been looking at a bunch of pictures I took in Parque des Aves right next to the falls. It’s a little zoo-like park that has a lot of birds and butterflies and you get to see them all right up close. Thought the pics below were worth sharing.
It’s just one of those days.
If there are any other bloggers on Boipeba right now, my guess is that they’ll be doing the same thing that I’m doing; hiding from the rain and updating their blogs.
It’s tropical here. I don’t know what other word to use to give a sense of the place. Everywhere around me are plants, trees, bushes, animals. Life. I tasted it this morning in my breakfast – a good part of which was literally picked straight from the surroundings; bananas, coconuts, limes, melons, guava, jaca fruits. A feast that makes it easy to understand why the locals here don’t care much for working. Much less for cultivating any kind of farming.
Boipeba is worth knowing about. A tiny car-free island in Bahia, Brazil surrounded my mangroves and ocean and with only relatively few tourists even though it isn’t too far from Salvador. The beaches here are nice they say. I have to wait a bit to find out because a price you pay for being in a tropical place in Brazil at this time of year is that it can get wet. Very very wet. And it’s wet wet wet right now.
So, I’ll get back to playing the guitar and hanging out in the bar. On days like this you stay indoors.
I had the pleasure of joining a Temaskal Saturday; a Mexican sweat lodge ceremony bathed in the light of this millennium’s biggest full moon to date. I pulled out my camera the day after when we were packing up. The ceremony was over, the sweat had dried, the singing stopped and the fire died, but unlike the day before the sun was out to shine on what was left. Here’s what my camera saw.
The sweat lodge itself was partially dismantled but here’s the structure that supported the many blankets meant to keep in the heat. The whole in the middle is for the pre-heated stones that heat the temaskal and the turtle in front of it is meant as a guardian for the ceremony (though my poor portuguese made it hard to fully understand the symbolism).
Towards the very end of it all we even had a little visitor about to embark on its second life. Quite a rare sight. At least for me.
Dear person who has my iPhone. I’m Mark, a very nice guy from Denmark who lost his cellphone to you yesterday. I’m writing to you because I’m a little sad today. I know I should be happy since I’m in Rio for carnival and it’s really nice – even though it’s raining a lot – but because you have my iPhone I’m having a hard time fully enjoying it. I liked my phone very much and it was a really good companion while I’m traveling in Brazil. It helped me stay connected to friends and family back home and it allowed me to easily meet and stay in contact with a lot of really nice people from all over Brazil.
In case you see this I was wondering if you’d maybe let me know where you are and how I can get my phone back? It’d make me really happy again and I’d dance all night to celebrate!
Well, if you don’t want to give it back I can understand that too. I won’t blame you. Just promise to be good to it and enjoy it. I’d be very sad if you kept it but it made you feel guilty or sad too. That would seem like such a waste.
I hope to hear from you.
Have a nice carnival.
Day 31, Rua Visconde de Piraja 207, Apt. 401.
Couches, couches, everywhere couches. Even as I type I see couches.
It’s Thursday. A certain routine has kicked in and tonight is Couch Surfing night; the worlds biggest weekly CS meeting gathering 250 people from all over the world. It’s at Copacabana beach and tonight’s the carnival special; expecting hoards of colorful people smiling broad smiles or chanting to samba rhythms in the evening breeze. And I’ll be there to see all the couchsurfers I’ve already stayed with and the many more I’ve exchanged emails with and all the other ones I’ve yet to meet or hear about but who’s just waiting to pass a night in blissful retreat from the conventions and norms that goes with being “at home”. It’s a night for long sentences without commas and superfluous punctuation marks. A night for travelers, this wonderful breed of animal that defies so-called good judgment to uproot their lives for a week, a month, a year or plain out indefinitely; the longing ones, the searching ones, the restless ones, the young ones, the insecure ones, the cocky ones, the cheesy ones, the cute ones, the flashy ones, the happy ones, the fat and the thin ones, the ones who are fleeing something or themselves, and the one who’s just found the one and is showing that special one the world. The travelers in all their bright colors that share one blissful thing: “unexpectation”! The freedom to see something or meet someone who is entirely different – or maybe just the same – and not have any need to judge them, to fit them into hierarchies or to measure their weight at the county fair. The ones who aren’t preoccupied with fences because they’re already in someone else’s garden. Yes, I like travelers. I like them for this reason and for others. And I’m a traveler and I like that too.
15:54. I’m tired but not sleepy. I’ve had another short night on a somewhat unexpected couch in the district called Barra de Tijuca. It’s the many’eth of it’s kind in a row (counting the bus from Sunday to Monday morning) and the even more’eth that has left me wanting for more. A wonder though – sleep isn’t as tempting here. Maybe it’s the heat. Maybe it’s the new hosts every day with their stories and welcoming smiles, or maybe it’s expectation; of samba and “sucos” and drums beats till dawn or bare-breasted beauties with flirtatious eyes and moist inviting lips and transvestites with wigs on floats in coats, on boats in shore, off shore, the more the merrier, the moreover merry the mother Mary made me. Gracious me. God bless snakes with tits (thanks Manchester and Australia and what was your name).. No I’m not making sense anymore. No, I’m not making sense anymore.
20 mins till the next bloco (street party) kicks off in Lapa. It’s a walk, a metro, five-ish stops and a run for the money away from here. Time to leave.
Bets are on.
Here’s a feel for what it was like to party in the backyard of a big mansion in Rio last Saturday.
Who is this hansom(!?) young man in the mirror?
Day 3, Centro Cultural – Banco do Brasil, Avenida de Presidents Vargas, Rio de Janeiro
They say the roads are dangerous in Brazil. Lucky for me we were accompanied by two ambulances as I drove home on an express bus last night. It took about 40 minutes to drive the 30km home to my couchsurfing host along Avenida do Brasil, past favellas and warn out districts that made the view out the window resemble a broken video on repeat. I thought for a while we’d outrun the two ambulances, sirens a’blazing, that were trailing us on our way, but after about 15 minutes of high speed action the bus driver lowered his guards and raised his foot ever so slightly and they overtook us.
It’s close to 4pm and I’m in refuge in an air-conditioned museum. I’m already starting to get the impression that this is the only thing to do between about 13 and 16. The heat is unbearable. Stifling when mixed with bustling streets full of exhaust fumes, fried food vapor and sweat. And yes. Here’s a lot of sweat. Everyone sweats. I sweat! In fact I told my host yesterday that I was certain that I was sweating much more than anyone else. I couldn’t imagine that people could go around sweating like this every single day, but he assured me that it was normal. Everyone sweats. Profusely. Loudly!
Fortunately people look good. That somehow helps. It’s okay for beautiful people to sweat. That’s one of those unwritten rules of social conduct that no-one ever talks about. Maybe because it makes so little sense. I guess you just have more leeway when you’re attractive. Anyway I don’t mind the sweat. The day before yesterday I went to Ipanema beach and I saw not just one, but a whole legion of tall and tanned and young and lovely women and girls lining the beach like ants on an anthill. Not even my very best dream ever managed to produce so much beauty at once.
-> If they were zombies – I’d want to be eaten alive!
25 minutes and I’m off to find my next couchsurfing host. I’m meeting him at 5pm at his home in Gloria, a central part of Rio. I’ll leave you with a picture. Taken yesterday at sunset near Ipanema beach. Just a few minutes before the sun hit the horizon and everyone started clapping.
Some of you perhaps know that I found a guitar in my basement last year. It had a little note that said “take me, I’m yours”. I did! And having always wanted to learn how to play something, anything, I found the first and best youtube clip with a basic beginner’s guitar lesson. It’s been about a year and a half and though I’m no Eric Clapton I’ve gotten to a point where I’m actually about to share a song for the first time. It’s a little known but very nice blues by Jackson C. Frank.
I recorded it with my phone and unfortunately made a mistake or two. My vanity would have liked to hide them but I realized that my vanity would have liked to hide most of the rest of the song too, so I figured I’d just as well leave them all in.
Be warned though! This won’t make much sense to listen to if you don’t know me and think I’m a very nice guy!
