Blog Roll

We arrived in Santa Cruz sweaty and crumpled. It`s very hot here so after one night we fled to the cool air of the mountains. But we spent a day hanging around the city and its picturesque central square. It`s full of tall trees that are said to be home to a community of three-toed sloths. Apparently they hang about in the trees, sleep 18 hours a day and come down to go to the loo once a week. Craning our necks we tried to search them out - and got some odd looks from the locals, but we couldn`t see any. Apparently they were removed a few years ago - perhaps the groundsman was tired of them messing up his geraniums once a week.
The square was a very laid back place - lots of people sauntering around with ice creams. So I was surprised to discover that an ultra-nationalist group held a rally here in October, fired shots into the air and pledged to fight the socialist pig-dogs of La Paz.
Bolivia has a big problem and my knowledge of it is pretty sketchy, but basically the country`s white elite (the people of Spanish descent who still control the best land, resources etc - can you believe it? Nearly 500 hundred years after the conquistadors arrived!) is at odds with the socialist government headed by Evo Morales, the country`s first indigenous leader (Can you believe it? Nearly 500 years years after...). Santa Cruz is the elite´s heartland and the surrounding area has most of the country´s natural resources. The extreme right want to break away from the rest of Bolivia and they certainly don´t want any of their wealth to be used to help the impoverished Indians.
Others want greater autonomy, not civil war, but they too oppose Morales´ socialist agenda which includes land redistribution and a cap on land holdings. Their biggest fear is he`s shaping up to be another South American dictator. Morales wants to pursue social equality, but he also wants to change the constitution so he can stand for re-election indefinitely.

Death Train, or Train of Death, all the guide books mention it. But there`s nothing dangerous about it. It just chugs along a very flat, straight line for about 20 hours before reaching the city of Santa Cruz. The biggest danger is probably deep vein thrombosis, or perhaps a small chance of catching dengue fever from the mosquitos. The track crosses a huge wilderness swamp so lots of insects fly in through the windows which are always wide open because of the stifling heat. We got some sleep, but it was the kind of kip you wake from with a broken neck, a parched gob and an oily film all over your face.

For the first time since Africa women and children were selling food and drinks through the windows. At some stops there were trackside stalls and an elaborate array of ready meals. Crews of women endlessly walked up and down the carriages with snacks. A few hours in I was tempted by chicken and rice, but held back fearful of the implications of bad guts with 18 hours to go.
It was interesting to see how many of the women in these rural areas wear traditional dress - a knee length pleated skirt made of a velvety curtain material, a frilly white blouse, a fitted granny-style cardigan and a wide-brimmed straw hat. They nearly all have straight jet-black hair in two long plaits. I was surprised to a see a group of European men and women who looked like they`d stepped off the set of The Waltons. All the men were wearing dark blue denim dungarees and white shirts. I was told later they`re Menonites, probably the decendants of German missionaries that came to these parts in the 1800s.

Last night we were sweating our guts out in a town called Corumba. It`s right on the border with Bolivia and is very humid. North of here is a huge swamp called the Pantanal and north of that is the Amazon. To the south is Paraguay and west lies Bolivia, which is where we are now. In an hour or so we`ll catch a train known as the Death Train to the city of Santa Cruz. Don`t worry, I don`t think this dramatic name has anything to do with real death. It`s related to the fact it`s a very slow, boring journey lasting about 20 hours in searing temperatures. I`ll let you know how it goes.

So after weeks of bad weather and city life we finally found the Brazilian dream. Trindade is a small coastal village between Sao Paulo and Rio. This stretch of coast is exceptionally beautiful, in fact I don`t think I`ve ever seen anything like it before. The shoreline juts in and out creating sheltered bays and idyllic beaches. There are hundred of small islands and the entire coast is backed by a huge forested ridge where the clouds hang, just like they do in central Africa. This is the Atlantic forest which used to run the entire length of Brazil`s coast. Most of it`s been chopped down, so only small pockets like this one survive. We camped in Trindade, sat on the beach and swam in the sea. I even bought flip flops and long surf shorts, just like all the other dudes. But I think I looked more like a hairy uncle in his Wham throwback swimming shorts. Amanda bought a long-coveted beach tennis set but managed to whack herself in the face with a bat. It hasn`t left a lasting injury. Everyone was friendly, particularly the campsite owner who was keen for me to hold her pet cockerel and feel some cysts on her dog`s arse. The campsite was home to some large freshwater crabs. They were bright blue and yellow and would scurry into their holes when we passed by. At least we hoped they did, especially at night.

In these pictures you can see the majestic sweep of Trindade´s beach and the biggest beetle I`ve ever seen. The pics of me in Wham throwback shorts appear to have vanished.

It came down to either spending the carnival in world famous Rio or trusting my friend Ricardo´s judgement and going to a historic small town in the countryside. We opted for the latter. It was a good setting, high up in the hills above a dense strip of misty jungle. Sao Luis do Paraitinga looked the part - all Portuguese colonial architecture, dominated by a great big church. But there was a catch. This town prides itself on its traditional music and even has an official decree banning samba. This meant no huge drumming bands or fantastic ladies in sequins and plummage.
The traditional style of music is based around trumpets, but it´s been modernised in a way that has squeezed out all the charm. All I could hear were cheesy synths and a plodding bassline. It was the sort of music that evoked It´s A Knock Out. When one band passed by on the back of a truck, all wearing comedy wigs, it felt like I`d been teleported to a Belgian street party. These sounds were pumped out through a tinny PA system in the town´s square for four days straight. All around were thousands of young people, mainly from Sao Paulo, getting wasted and trying to snog each other. Sounds good, doesn´t it? It was as if a giant hen party had bumped into a similarly oversized stag-do.

Musical redemption came on the last day when we heard some deep bass drums reverberating along a side street. We were drawn to the band like kids to the Pied Piper and followed through the cobbled streets. There were about 10 big bass drums, five military style snares and three women with shakers. The band leader would occassionally stop the music and start a call and response routine that sounded like some ancient religious chant, then the drums would come crashing back in. It was Maracatu, the slave music of Recife in the North East and it was the best thing I`d heard since arriving in Brazil.
There were 13 in our group and we were all staying in a three-bedroomed house rented for the occasion. The town usually has 4,000 people, but this swells to 100,000 for the long weekend. Most of the locals rent out their homes for huge sums. Ours cost nearly 800 pounds for four days and it only had four rooms. Ricardo`s friends spent most of their time drinking vodka and red bull from camelbaks (those small rucksacks designed to carry water, usually worn by fitness enthusiasts) and cooking barbecues which are a big deal here. The most popular meat is picanha, a massive lump of prime beef which I think comes from the rump. Meat is cheap but a lump like this still costs about 10 pounds. It`s cooked for about half an hour and served in thin strips, usually quite rare. I knew it was rare because I kept dripping blood on my clothes before popping it in my mouth. Amanda abstained.

The pics show: the revellers outide the town´s church, me having fun, and Ricardo and Fernanda sporting the camelbak.

When you think of Brazil, you´re really thinking of Rio - the beaches, the women, the carnival, the favelas. We sat on Copacabana beach and watched the men play volley foot (like volleyball without using hands) while a samba band played to the folks sipping caipairinhas (Brazil´s national drink of lime, sugar, cachaca - a sugarcane white spirit - and lots of ice). But the weather was bad - drizzly and grey. The stalwarts were still on the beach and some were even in the water in spite of the worrying brown patches, but the city´s famous posers were absent. Even with bad weather Rio oozed character and a sense of life that´s difficult to find in Sao Paulo. I desperately wanted to really like the underdog, but Sao Paulo struggles to compete with Rio. Sao Paulo feels big and impersonal. Rio is big but it feels far more intimate. Different districts wend their way around its hilly landscape, there are many more old buildings, more street life and it generally looks more lived in. The rich may live in luxury apartments that line the beaches but the city has a better social mix. In Sao Paulo it´s easy to pretend poverty doesn´t really exist - it happens elsewhere. In Rio street kids pass you in the centre of town and the favelas are visible all around the city, the terracotta housing perched on hillsides.
We stayed in a hostel where there were lots of English and a few Americans. One of them, Jeffrey, was in his late forties and had spent a lot of time travelling. He was interesting to talk to and had some good stories, especially one about playing the guitar in front of Muddy Waters on a barge in the Mississippi. It was funny because he sounded just like Jack Nicholson, particularly when delivering a punchline.
´I was on the beaches of Belize smoking marijuana,´ he said. ´If we ran out of rolling papers we´d take a page out of the Bible and use that - then you really get the message,´ he added with a Nicholson-esque drawl. On his last night he got into a 20-minute monologue covering slavery, Christianity, Islam and the Old Testament, but he was stopped in his tracks by Amanda. ´I mean I´m just coming down from all this stuff,´ he said, `I don´t really like to talk.´
She started laughing, ´You´re a chatterbox.´
´Eh?´
´A chatterbox´
He was on his way to a retreat where he wouldn´t be allowed to talk for 10 days. He´s promised to let us know how he gets on.

These are terrible pictures of Rio, but at least a bit unusual. The Tardis-like building is the Catholic cathedral which was built around the same time as the one in Liverpool. And that`s the view from inside, looking up. Apologies if you were expecting beauties on Ipanema beach.