The Great Brazilian Fruit-Off

Warning: Those who have visited Brazil will find their mouths watering and feelings of saudade appearing while reading this. Do not be alarmed.

Cupuaçu 31%
Looks like a huge raw potato hanging from a tree. Tastes worse than one. Comes bottom because I associate it with someone being sick after drinking the juice for breakfast.

Abacate 40%
I love avocado but I don’t like the way it is eaten in Brazil. As a fruit (imagine that!) with sugar. Better left on the tree for another week or two until it softens, then put it in a salad or make guacamole. Que delicia!

Jenipapo 42%
Enjoyed by the indigenous people of Bahia. Like a small bees’ nest with yellow fruit inside that is so sour it stings worse than bees. Better for spitting out than swallowing.

Macã 48%
The best apples in Brazil come from Chile, and anyway this is more about exotic tropical fruits that you can’t find at home.

Mamão 53%
I’m still yet to be convinced by papaya, despite people all around the world swearing by it. It reminds me of pumpkin but without the flavour.

Ameixa 55%
Only gets a mention because Blondie couldn’t remember the name in Portuguese, her own language, but could in English. How can you forget the name of a fruit? No better than any other country that has plums.

Cajú 56%
There are thousands, maybe millions of types of cashew fruit, and they come on impressively large trees, but the juice leaves me feeling like drinking water afterwards.

Goiaba 63%
The guava gets bad marks because, even though it tastes nice both as a fruit and a suco, when you eat one straight from a tree and find a little white worm hiding amongst the white flesh it isn’t the most pleasant fruit experience in Brazil. When you bite into one and find half a little white worm wriggling around, well…

Uva 64%
Brazilian grapes are great to eat, but other countries do them much better. If you don’t believe me, just taste the wine.

Laranja 65%
Again, always a favourite drink of the day is freshly squeezed orange juice, but Brazilian oranges are not much better than elsewhere.

Pupunha 68%
Pupunha grows on the trunks of palm trees, in small orangey-red bunches which are very pretty to look at. I can’t remember the taste at all though. Only gets a good mark because I like the name

Grumixama, Jujube, Longan, Lucuma, Mamey, Marmeladinha, Wampi, all 68%
I have no idea about any of these fruits, so as above, I just like the names.

Melao 69%
I like melon, the taste, the texture, the juice - it’s always good to eat first thing on a summer morning straight from the fridge. Loses points for always hiding itself on a plate at the back of the fridge so that I forget about the second half of it until the flesh has turned a battleship grey colour.

Tangerina 70%
I prefer them to oranges because they’re much easier to peel. Bolivian tangerines would get a lot higher marks. They may taste similar, but in Bolivia, they seem to grow on the trees! To enormous sizes too, bigger than the average orange from other countries. Plus you can buy whole groves full of them on every corner for peanuts. The peanuts are gigantic too, as are most other fruits there, and as for the pumpkins – people use them as seats. But size isn’t everything, and Brazil has far more variety of exotic fruits, plus this is the Great Brazilian Fruit-Off.

Figo 71%
I can’t claim to have eaten many figs in Brazil, but the trees are everywhere so I probably should have done. Highly rated though, due to the giant in Praça 15 de Novembro in Florianópolis.

Jabuticaba 73%
A black fruit the size of a cherry that grows in bunches on the trunks of trees, shining impressively in the sun. Also has a stone hiding under the thick skin, but it is so large that it is impossible to swallow. For me at least. All the locals managed it though. I don’t want to think about what happens with all those stones later.

Jaca 74%
Big and dangerous. A conker the size of a rugby ball that is so heavy, it has to grow on the tree trunk, not the branches. Tastes ok but the texture is like melting chewing gum on a hot day. Entertaining to eat, with fruit full of dozens of pieces of sticky flesh surrounding large stones. Good marks mainly for appearance. Everything requires washing after eating.

Jambolão 75%
But not as much as after eating these. A dark purple fruit shaped like a small pear that hangs from trees and will stain cars, especially white ones, parked underneath when they drop from the branches. Very sour but Blondie’s grandmother makes great jam with them. Highly rated mainly due to the deep purple stains they leave behind on fingers, clothes, faces, grandmothers, anything, which makes them great for cheap paintballing.

Cajá 75%
I’ve only had the juice so I can’t say too much about it, but I liked it.

Pitanga 76%
Shaped like a little red Scotch Bonnet Pepper. Quite pleasantly tangy and gets good marks because after eating them in Manaus, we found a sloth in the tree. Not sure if the two are related, but the thought of them makes me smile.

Caqui 77%
The caqui is the fruit that looks like a ripe tomato that had a very thick stork attached to it. They’re very sweet, soft and delicious but my spies tell me they were imported from Japan and are not native to Brazil so it has to lose marks.

Limao 78%
Used to make caipirinha. Enough said?

Morango 79%
Strawberries will always get good marks from me.

Fruta-do-Conde/Nona 80%
There’s something very appealing about the custard apple – it looks like a cuddly green pine-cone and has soft, pale flesh surroundings the stones. I love custard too.

Acerola 82%
Acerola are like small cherries and the juice they provide is the kind of red colour that is normally only found in chemicals. The sweet, gentle taste is something normally only found in Brazilian fruits. Very refreshing.

Banana 86%
Banana tends to get overlooked as a tropical fruit because their peel ensures that they travel so well but, like an elephant, they’re still exotic looking when you think about it. Brazilian ones remind you how you much take them for granted. I could drink a vitamina de banana (without sugar!) first thing every morning for the rest of my life and not get bored of them.

Guarana 87%
A legendary Amazonian fruit, small, red berries that provide ridiculous amounts of caffeine type buzz.

Carambola 88%
The yellow-green starfruit looks impressive, plus I enjoyed eating them straight from the tree in a tiny Maranhão town while waiting for a bus. Happy memories.

Cabeludinha 89%
Little hairy yellow-orange fruit which grows in many places around Brazil, plus I enjoyed eating them straight from the tree by the side of the lagão in Floripa one sunny day after… oh never mind.

Melancia 92%
The classic beach fruit. Life is good sitting on a Brazilian beach with a big smile of red watermelon in your hands, firing the pips at people around you. Good to eat when cut in half and filled with vodka too.

Cacao 93%
It makes chocolate.

Açaí 95%
The high-calorie dark sorbet filled with granola, banana and honey that surfers eat is one of my favourite things in Brazil. Nobody knows what it looks like as a fruit as the fruit comes already frozen from Belém. I know though. In Amazonas, a little boy climbed up a huge palm tree to bring us down a branch with lots of little hard green balls attached to it. Then his mother and auntie showed us how they processed it and told us how the people from the area laugh at those in the south for using it as a sweet thing. It’s better as a sauce for meat and fish apparently. A lovely, unique day and I’m surprised it isn’t even higher up.

Manga 96%
The mangoes that we have at home (from the Caribbean usually I think) tend to be fibrous, not very juicy and not very soft. Brazilian ones are fresh, juicy and melt in your mouth like a dream.

Maracujá 98%
Passion Fruit Caipirinha. My favourite version. Batida de Maracujá. My favourite version. Please, leave the seeds in though. I love to chew them. Mousse de Maracujá, or maracujá eaten like a boiled egg. Heaven.

Coconut 99%
Like the banana, the coconut is taken for granted a little. Just imagine – sitting on a beach in Brazil with the Atlantic washing the white sand, sheltered from the sun by the palm leaves, using a straw to sip the milk from a freshly cut, freshly cut open green coconut and wondering how it keeps so cool. Ohhh, you cannot beat living like that. Plus! Batida de coco, moqueca, and any other number of fantastic Brazilian foods.

But ladies and gentlemen, the winner of The Great Brazilian Fruit-Off already has his crown, because:

Abacaxí 100%
I never expected this. Pineapples are delicious in general and very versatile, good to make cocktails, on pizzas, cakes, or just to eat. But Brazilian pineapples are like nowhere else I’ve ever been. On the market, you can smell them for miles. Slice one and put it in the fridge, but in a bowl not on a plate. So much juice will come out that you can have a glass of the sweetest, freshest juice without even squeezing it. The middle is softer than the flesh of inferior models. Only the crown and the skin are inedible, and to watch a seller quickly carve a pineapple into a work of art on a Brazilian beach is fantastic entertainment. Plus one seller made me laugh on Ipanema by screaming ‘Abacaxí!’ right in the faces of everybody, making us all jump. You can also remove the crown, scoop out the middle, attack the flesh a little, fill the hole with cachaça and ice and have the simplest, most exotic looking cocktail on the planet.



A worthy champion.


There are incredible amounts of fruit in Brazil. If you want to check out a few more that I haven’t run into yet, I suggest this place.

http://www.todafruta.com.br/todafruta/institucional.asp?menu=522

Understanding Brazil: Mosquitoes

I guess it isn‘t a problem exclusive to Brazil, or exclusive to me for that matter, but the fact that most beds in the country don‘t have mosquito nets attached does cause me some problems. Especially as most of the houses that I have stayed in have been somewhat open to the elements. And just like the ladies of the country, the mosquitoes of Brazil prefer the blood of exotic gringos*. I react very nicely to bites - I can wake up in the morning with my back looking like the top of a cake iced in pink and covered in white chocolate buttons. Because of my delicate gringo nature, I need to check the room before I go to sleep. It goes something like this:

I scan the room with hunter‘s eyes and I shake all the dark spots, high and low, that they like to hide. If one appears, I chase him around the room, climbing the bed, moving furniture, slapping, clapping and flapping until I lose him in a dark corner. Half an hour later, I‘m still stalking and apologising to Blondie for being so pathetic.

"There he is!"

A shadow appears. I grab. Got him! Impressed with my reflexes, I open my hand to prove how great I am. Blondie laughs from the bed. He flies happily off my finger, barely stunned. I can‘t give up now, that would be admitting defeat. I waste ten minutes checking the old smears of mosquitoes killed in previous battles. I don‘t like to clean them off the walls. Like leaving the head of your enemy on a pole at the city gates, I believe this should discourage them from entering my room. I can‘t find him. Maybe I did get enough of a blow to kill him. One final look around and I get warily into bed.

Ten minutes later: Zeeeooowm!

Just as I was reaching that lovely dropping off to sleep stage, he comes and sings right in my ear! The most annoying noise on the planet. Somebody I know once grabbed a mosquito, pulled its wings off, then started buzzing in its ear, angrily asking the insect how he liked it. I know how he felt. I‘m getting up again. The light goes on. Blondie gurgles. I find him sat high up on a wall. He flies down. I get ready. He drifts back up. This teasing carries on in a circuit around the room until I lose him and then feel a bite on my shoulder. How did he get there so quickly? Look at him! Still sucking away! I slap him. Oh my god, that is so disgusting. A smear of blood the length and breadth of my little finger is spread across my shoulder. Que horror!

It might be my own - in fact, it‘s definitely my own - but it sickens me. I go to the toilet to wash off blood and legs and wings. I feel contaminated. I return to bed, musing on how there is no such thing as victory in war. Everybody loses blood. I‘ve lost sleep as well. Unlike Blondie. She stays unconscious while I get bitten and irritated. Still, at least now I can sleep. I close my eyes.

Ten more minutes: Zeeeooowm!

I don‘t believe this. I‘m not getting out of bed now. I‘ll turn the lamp on. Look at me! I‘m a cake! How did he do all that without me noticing! That‘s just greedy. Lamp off. I lie listening. Hear nothing more. But within seconds, I feel him! On my nose! I shake my head to get him off and shake it in resignation. I put my head on the pillow. I almost feel like crying. I just hope he gets so full that he gives up and lets me sleep. I finally drift off after imagining waking up in the morning looking and feeling like one of Dracula‘s victims, while a mosquito the size of a cat clings onto the wall.

Mosquitoes 1-0 Burro.

*Just joking everybody!

Around Brazil: São Luis

São Luis is a city that I‘d never heard about before arriving in Brazil. Now it is probably my favourite one (after Rio obviously) and I‘m not 100% sure why. While travelling around a new country, every experience you have of a place will be subjective - it all depends on when you arrive, who you meet, the mood you‘re in, and many other factors including luck and what went wrong.

As well as being only three hours drive from Barreirinhas, the gateway to the most beautiful place in Brazil, Lençois Maranhenses, the city has a charm that reminds me of Salvador. Or at least reminds me of what I expected Salvador to be like, but with its roots taking a detour via the Caribbean on the way back to Africa. Every city has a slogan to sell itself and make itself feel important. São Luis is the ‘Reggae Capital of Brazil‘, which isn‘t the worst for me as I love reggae far more than the axé and MPB prevalent in other cities of the North-East. It‘s a very similar city to Salvador, in that it is a big port (but for ores, not slaves) and has higher and lower parts to the centre. The lower part is slightly rundown too, but colourful colonial buildings have been refurbished in places. The people are usually friendly, helpful and relaxed! Which helped us when traipsing around town looking for an emergency dentist for me and a yellow fever jab for Blondie. I witnessed the shaky hands of somebody administering their first injection, and got a temporary filling done all in one afternoon at a dentist factory near the university. Pronto. Now to add to those anaesthetics and vaccines while celebrating my birthday the day before. Lucky too because the day after was Tiradentes day and a holiday Friday, meaning nothing would be open until Monday, delaying our journey north. This also meant that everybody in town was partying that night. It was the perfect night to be in São Luis! The streets and staircases of the old town were packed with people and drums and dancing and colour! The squares had rhythms that I‘d never heard before and dancers swirling in long, bright Caribbean dresses, first one way and the pleated material continuing as the dancer changed direction, a hypnotic effect while the drums were pounding, pounding, pounding and getting right under my skin.

I loved the city for that and also because it is the home of the Cheapest Caipirinha in Brazil. One Real! One Real from a cart in the street. Oh dear. We‘d met a few people there that we‘d played with in Jeri, people who hadn‘t braved the journey to Lençois Maranhenses, the fools, and all went out together. A bunch of alcoholic gringoes and cheap caipirinha is a potent cocktail, and I can hardly begin to describe the carnage that ensued. All the ingredients of a famous night out: fun, fall-outs, dancing, drunken behaviour, illegal behaviour, highly immoral behaviour, highly memorable. Except for my contribution to the festivities. It drew applause at breakfast the next day but I remember nothing. Some time before dawn, I had staggered to the toilet naked. The sun returned before I did. Blondie tried to find me. The porteiro hadn‘t let me out of the locked gates and she couldn‘t find me anywhere. Questioning her own sanity, she woke up others to join in the increasingly frantic search. They looked under beds, in cupboards, in the kitchen and the lounge, everywhere. The porteiro then unlocked an empty room two floors up from ours. I‘d magicked myself into it and was on top of the bed, still naked, curled up and sleeping like I was still in the womb. They found a towel for me and led my back downstairs. I was only 35.

Teaching English in Brazil

Like many gringoes who come to Brazil, I was hoping to find an exotic job in an exotic place and improve my language skills (or develop some) along the way by working with exotic Brazilians. The latter was the only one to come true, but not in the way that I'd expected. Teaching English was always the backup plan, and so it came to pass. No surprise to anybody who has tried to find other work in Brazil. I taught (I use the past tense, but I may not be finished with it yet) in a couple of places, with São Paulo being the main one. And what a frustrating experience it was, and not only because I wasn't very good at it. That wasn't down to my students, hell no. I generally genuinely liked them: lawyers, doctors, psychologists, journalists, film-makers, and students of all these and more. I was proud of their English because they taught me everything I know about my language. Everyday was a school day. And they paid me for it. Not much though. As well as the usual traipsing around the hot streets of Sampa for very little money, the same experience that everybody has, the biggest problem for me were the cancellations. The Paulistas I met are loveable people (all conspicuously fair-skinned, sadly), but they have a work ethic that I really struggle to identify with. 14 hour days, 6 days a week! Perhaps they prefer to stay long hours at the office to avoid the reality that they live in São Paulo and there is no beach to go to after work. Admittedly I worked long hours too, or should I say that I was out of the house for 14 hours a day but working for three of four of them as my busy students would ring up to cancel while I travelled for hours between classes. They usually had too much work on. Three or four per day was the average, and then the weekly Bank Holiday on a Thursday meant that I could forget Friday and Saturday too, and only worked a three day week! No wonder I had no money. Not even enough for the Metrô fare one day, so I had to cancel one of my own classes. Oh the irony. The emergency credit card wasn't working either. Bad day.Still, better than the day one of my students had. She was my best canceller because she always gave me days of notice. I was walking to her house one night thinking that at least I could rely on her. I arrived there to find she'd been car-jacked at gunpoint outside the house 15 minutes before. We had to cancel. And bleeding heart that I'm not, I couldn't charge her. It is impossible to have a class when somebody is shaking with fear! She took it all in her stride though, it had happened to her before, and made me a hot drink to calm me down, telling me not to be scared.

So I think we'll put it all down to experience and move on. And my Portuguese? I never spoke a word of it. Just English. All day. Every day. It didn't improve at all.

Around Brazil: Lençois Maranhenses

Parque Nacional Lençois Maranhenses is a huge expanse of white wind-blown dunes with fresh water pools in the hollows between them. There is no more photogenic place in Brazil, and possibly on the planet. If you can catch the right day, with clear blue sky and a golden sun reflecting off the sand and the surfaces, the effect is mesmerising. The journey to the nearest corner of the huge park from Barreirinhas is much like the last part of the crazy overlander from Paulino Neves to Barreirinhas. Having been through it all before, we were now experienced North-East travellers, and the people who came on the real road from São Luis were juniors, amazed at how bouncy and wet the sandy road was. They knew nothing.

You arrive at a little clearing by a shallow river, with a dune looming over it. People come down from above with their eyes shining, shining like the tiny fish in the clear river catching the rays of the sun. One steep climb later and Ooooooohhhhh would you look at that! I felt like a kid on Christmas morning, waking up to find the presents he wanted in the distance! I wanted to run, run, down the powdery sand and throw myself into the aquamarine pools, one after the other. They stretch out ahead for miles and miles, smooth curves, defined lines, sculpted dunes, angled shadows and ornamental pools, sometimes with sand bridges between them (I‘m the dot in the photo above). You can be very creative with your photos: virgin sand with one set of footprints leading all around a pool to a figure in the distance; jumping down dunes silhouetted against the blue sky; endless, endless beautiful mother-shots. Lençois Maranhenses could make anybody photogenic, just look at my photo! Of course, you also have to try some classic model poses too - lying on the sand looking at the camera; walking away while looking over one shoulder; half in, half out of the pools. Oscar Niemeyer said that he found his inspiration for the curved designs of Brasilia in the hills of Brazil and the body of a loved one. He should have come here for his muse, it has both in one place. Every Brazilian model should have their calendar shoot done here, but none of them could match it for beauty. The sand is pure and white, and softer than any skin could be. The smooth curves of the dunes are sensuous and sultry, and the shadows they create alluring and mysterious. The pools are curved and shaped like the bluest eyes you could ever look into, and the water in them as clear and refreshing as a new-found love.

All poetic nonsense, but Lençois Maranhenses will have that effect on you too, and I only saw a tiny corner of it. What a place to spend my birthday! Think how stunning and romantic it would be to fly over. In fact, if I was offered the chance to fly over any place of my choosing in the world, I may well choose Lençois Maranhenses. I said, if I was offered... Just for an hour? Okay, half an hour then. Anybody?

Around Brazil: Barreirinhas

It was definitely memorable. Places you visit are always much better if you have a story to tell about them. Barreirinhas is a small town which is the gateway to Parque Nacional Lençois Maranhenses. It sits on the wide Rio Preguiça with weeping trees dipping their branches into the drifting water. It has a nice riverfront, which was being refurbished as we arrived, and a river beach in the form of a huge dune. We saw all this as we hung around by the river, four 'gringoes' (one Brasileira who was always getting confused for a gringo), all survivors of the adventure from Tutóia. First up we were approached by a pretty Brazilian woman with a bright smile who told us about her jewellery in the main square. She was one of those people who you instantly warm to, sweet, friendly and the thought of her makes me smile. Of course we would see her later on. She should give classes in sales techniques to every single seller in Salvador.

As she left, a dune buggy with 'Policia Militar' stencilled on the side and three big policemen squashed into it came bouncing down the track from the main road. They looked like they were driving a kiddies pedal car, but they didn't act like it. They stepped down, looked at us and pointed to our American friend who was sitting on the steps. They walked over as menacingly as they could. Now, our friend was in the habit of smoking roll-up cigarettes. Large ones. I can only speculate as to what was in them, but they didn't look too subtle, especially to the woman in the tourist office. As we'd alighted from our four hour, 30km marathon, he'd rolled a cigarette and gone to ask questions. She became suspicious and called in the squad pedal-car. They meant business. He knew it. He was trembling and looking totally guilty. (I don't know whether he was, but wouldn't we all look like that when confronted by moody armed policemen?). Our Basque friend also smoked roll-ups and between her showing her papers and tobacco, and Blondie pacifying the mean dude who wanted to perform a search on our friend (I would have, given his guilty expression!) by telling him that it was no surprise that his target was scared, the Policia Militar calmed down slightly and eventually pedalled away down the beira rio. I guess our friend had the next 6-8 years to thank the girls for, but was too scared to realise just how much. He disappeared to Caburé, the disappearing dune village down river, as soon as he could find a boat out of town, but not before checking out what our girl and her crazy husband had to sell: 10m rolls of anaconda skins, jaguar and ocelot pelts, and baby jaguar pelts! All kinds of crazy skins and furs of endangered creatures. He bought them from the Amazon Indians, who hunt them and eat them, then sell the skins. Which is fair enough as they've been doing it for thousands of years, and those animals only became endangered after the arrival of Europeans. I think our American friend, feeling magnanimous because he wasn't going to stay in Barreirinhas for 6-8 years, agreed to buy the lot.

If anyone asks why I like travelling, that was one of the days I can use as an explanation.

Around Brazil: Jericoacoara to Barreirinhas

This was possibly the most amazing 'road' journey that I've ever had, mostly because it was so normal for the locals. We left Jeri at stupid o'clock in the morning with me thinking that we'd head along the beach, but no, we went inland. We didn't miss any scenery though, because as well as it being dark, it was pouring down, and the surprisingly cold rain down my back kept me from sleep. It only looked like 200km on the map, but a whole day of travelling and waiting got us through Camocim, Parnaiba and Tutóia, where we had to break the journey with only 30km or so to go. There were no late evening buses for some reason. No problem, we could set off early morning, get to Barreirinhas and get a trip out to Lençois Maranhenses before celebrating my impending birthday. Little did we know.

We caught another 4WD bus-truck combo down the sand roads, waving at the kids, reading the signs prohibiting motorcyclists to wear helmets (due to robberies in the area!) and dangling our legs over the back, enjoying the ride. Elevenish, we stopped in Paulino Neves and watched the big Rio Novo drifting slowly by as a woman washed her clothes in the river. It was such a tranquil scene, and she looked so relaxed as she scrubbed, sitting half-in half-out of the water while singing softly. We ate freshly picked starfruit as we waited for our next ride. That was when the fun really started. The 10km Paulino Neves to Barreirinhas (check it out on a map) journey is incredible. It is a complete cultural experience as to how other people live. Mainly because there is no road! Not even a sandy one! Straight out of town, we headed between two fences down an 'area' of grass, hillocks, ruts, puddles, sand, holes and streams. The open truck, full of 20 or so people, wobbled slowly and precariously down the non-road. The fence then disappeared and the whole place opened up. Where the hell do we go now? The driver and his assistant knew vaguely. Poor assistant had to walk ahead and check the depth of every ditch, every puddle, every river. It appeared that the road changed every day because they also had to exchange info with the few vehicles making the opposite journey across the sandy moor. The burrow owls stood and watched in bemusement as we shook our way through the bog. A man walking to the side overtook and left us way behind.

We drove down ruts so deep, making us travel at such an angle, with screams and slides from the passengers on the wooden benches that, sitting on the outside, if I had put my arm out straight from my shoulder, I would have touched the floor. Easily. So many times, I prepared to jump ship as we reached tipping point. So many times everybody had to jump out to push, to lighten the load for bridges, or to help dig us out of the bog. Or was it a flood plain? Passengers were going swimming in the water as we waited for the truck-bus to negotiate an inland sea! We made it to the dryer dunes without much more than wet feet. No tipping, no crashing, nada. A real feat of off-road driving and navigating. Those two should take up rally-driving. We rolled up and down and around the dunes until we reached more sand roads. The last hour of bouncing along while getting whipped by thorny branches became a little wearing, and I was glad to finally make it into Barreirinhas four hours after setting off. I loved the journey though. Like nothing else in India, Africa, Cambodia, Bolivia, anywhere. And some people probably do it every day! Twice! Maybe it's the school run! Perhaps mums drop their kids off at school, go home, then turn around immediately and go back to pick them up. Probably not though.

Understanding Brazil: Shopping Centres

Possibly the most baffling aspect of Brazil for me is the incredibly high regard that every man, woman, child and dog has for shopping centres. Wow! Shopping! It‘s as if they are some kind of mythical, magical place like Oz, the Disney castle or The Hanging Gardens of Babylon. People always ask with eyes wide and shining ‘Quer ir ao Shopping?'

Now I thought a shopping centre was somewhere you went if you needed to buy clothes, shoes, something for the house, or a present, but it seems that I was wrong. Some serious marketing work has been done on this one. They have managed to convince people that a trip to a huge square building with exactly the same shops as every other Shopping, with piped chemical fragrances, playing piped chemical music, and all the happy atmosphere of a fog-bound airport departure lounge is a social occasion! Just by having air conditioning! Genius! Add a few twinkling lights, don‘t allow people in with holes in their shoes (even if they have enough money to buy new ones) and all of a sudden the place takes on a glamorous mystique akin to Paris in the 20‘s or Hollywood in the 40‘s.

Until you get inside. Perhaps I‘m not the ideal person to judge. Shopping might not be my favourite leisure time activity, but it‘s in the bottom one. And if you go there on Saturdays, generally with a hangover, they have all the things that you need least, all under one roof! The strong perfumes, the kids screaming, the irritating music, the people getting under your feet, and so many members of the public that you really don‘t want to deal with. I don‘t mind drinking a beer while waiting for somebody (for ten minutes), but the view of plastic signs, plastic ball-pools and plastic seating, all in the same primary colours, doesn‘t quite compare to watching the girls from Ipanema (or any other beach) walk by in bikinis, does it. And no amount of cooled air is going to change that.Shopping centres are the most sterile, classless places ever built for humans to pass the time. They lack anything and everything that can be called ‘culture‘ yet still Brazilians flock to them like moths heading for a lightbulb. The only difference is that I know exactly why moths head for the light.So I‘m going to put on my shades, let the ocean breeze and the ice in my caipirinha cool me down, and let the sound of the breaking waves massage my brain. Pick me up when you‘ve finished shopping, ok?

Around Brazil: Jericoacoara

Ahh Jeri. One of those places. The bus ride from Fortaleza is fun, but only for the last hour or so as you transfer to a strange 4WD open bus-truck with high wheels, and eight people across to bounce down the sandy roads through fazendas to the beach. Wow. What a letdown. Grey. I'd never seen a grey beach before. But back inland, and around the headland to the rear of the town, and you're walking down sandy roads lined with bars and trees, and the grey has gone or doesn't matter any more, I can't remember which.

Jeri faces north, hiding amongst the dunes that make the place so difficult to drive to. The wide strips of beach with dunes behind make it one of the best activity beaches in Brazil for horse-riding and buggy rides. Because to make sand dunes, you need wind to blow the sand over some stationary object. Amazingly, huge dunes can start from something as small as a shoe having sand repeatedly blown over it, for years. I didn't dig deep enough to find out what was underneath in Jeri, the dunes are too big. So big, that as well as the high Atlantic winds making the place ideal for surfing, windsurfing, kitesurfing and more, and you can also sandboard down the dunes. I've been snowboarding before but my one chance to sandboard in Namibia was ruined by a stupid fall on a gravel road in the middle of absolutely nowhere. We'd stopped for a toilet break, and with nothing to do, we decided to have a race. I fell and put a hole in my knee through which I could see the bone, all white and dry. So in Jeri, I was determined to finally make up for that. Didn't happen.

The main dune in Jeri is called Por do Sol. It sits a few minutes along the beach and up the slope. The name comes because everybody watches sunset at the top. The dune slopes very steeply down to the flat of the beach and a little lagoa (more of a puddle) when the tide is out. Now it might look from the photo like it isn't that steep, but the thing about sand dunes is that they change shape in the wind! It was much steeper when I was standing at the top! So I needed to practise on a shallower slope first, but the sand was wet and I never moved. I couldn't bring myself to try Por do Sol with hundreds of people watching me. It would have been a public execution.

There was a very public execution though - on Easter Friday, we were besieged by hundreds of be-robed people walking towards the beach as we were leaving it. We were pushed backwards with the tide, and washed up on the beach for the Easter re-enactment. Jesus was tried, whipped, covered in ketchup and made to carry his cross to the top of Por do Sol. There, in a scene reminiscent of a hybrid of two of the best British films ever - Life of Brian and The Wicker Man - he and his two friends were crucified as the sun dropped into the sea. Bravo!The crowd of hundreds played their part too, including the person I spotted with. count them 1 2 3... 5... 7... Seven fingers! On one hand! It's a small town. But a special one, especially if you happen to be on top of Por do Sol at full moon. The tropical sun drips into the sea while a huge red moon rises over the dunes. And if you do your Jeri experience properly, you can leave the dune for a caipirinha, have a few more caipirinhas, party through until almost dawn, then head back up to Por do Sol. The silver moon shimmers across the black sea as it sets, and the sky over the dunes turns lilac, azure, pink and then gold as the sun rises at the same time. Like I said, Jeri's a special place.

Around Brazil: Chapada da Diamantina/Lençois

There are two amazing places in Brazil called Lençois. The first one is the old diamond mining town in the Parque Nacional da Chapada Diamantina, and what an oasis it is after Salvador! The chapadas are flat-topped mountains, similar in shape to Table Mountain in Cape Town or Monument Valley in the USA. But the chapadas are covered in trees, all lush and dark. They hide thousands of waterfalls of all shapes and sizes, taking the purest tea-coloured water to the bottom of the valleys.

There are some places where you can find yourself alone at an unnamed waterfall. I climbed up one with layers reaching further up than I could manage, all the time thinking 'Nature doesn't get any better than this and I've got it all to myself!'. That never happens back home. There are also plenty of incredibly photogenic caves in the area, with water as blue or as transparent (depending if the sun can hit it) as anything you can find. Those photos on postcards that you see in Lençois haven't been doctored. They really do look like that.

The largest of the waterfalls is Cachoeira de Fumaça (Waterfall of Smoke) which, at 400m, is the highest in Brazil. It is so high that the water doesn't reach the ground. I found it hard to work that one out too, but it is true. The small river of water separates into a fine spray somewhere near the bottom of a stunning vertical horseshoe cliff. The spray gets blown by the wind, making it possibly the only waterfall in the world where the water doesn't land below the spot that it falls from. It's a two day trek to get to the bottom, which involves rock-hopping up dried riverbeds, walking on the roots of monkey-forests, and sleeping on the rocky floor of 'caves' (overhanging rocks) next to rivers. It is quite difficult to have a shower there, as the water that comes from the tops is somehow so cold that it is difficult to get in. But once you do, that little waterfall dropping on your head is amazingly refreshing (for at least five seconds) and helps to wake you up properly after not-sleeping on rocks.

The top of Fumaça is as stunning as anywhere. The green valleys wind into the distance below, 420m down from the observation platform (a flat rock a little above the river) to the place where the water doesn't land. It is a perfect photo opp if you can look relaxed on the edge of a quarter mile sheer drop. I took one look at the bottom (with somebody holding my ankles) and I got so dizzy that I had to become official photographer. I spent longer in the waterfall shower that morning than on the edge.The Vale do Pati on the other side of the chapada is just as beautiful, and you can kick back for a few days in Capão if you want, or trek more days up the valley. But there was a caipirinha with my name on it waiting on a table on the cobblestones, under the stars in Lençois.

Brazil vs. Argentina: Statues of Christ

I don't really need to say anything about Cristo in Rio, do I? Good. What people don't realise is that Buenos Aires has its own statue of Jesus, which is probably almost as big as the one towering over Rio (I've only seen his feet close up, so I can't tell for sure but the feet were quite big, and you know what they say...). But unlike the well lit, well prominent Rio version, the Christ in BA is quite well hidden. In fact very well hidden most of the time. I couldn't even see him at first.

I was trying to find a huge swimming pool complex to spend a hung-over Saturday afternoon, and the bus driver helpfully told me to get off about 16 miles too early. After an hour of melting like chocolate in the burning early afternoon sun, and with no shade around, I came across buses at a gateway, and a queue of adults and children queuing to get in. I saw something that looked like the tubes of waterslides above the fence. At last. But the sign said 'Terra Santa'. What? Through the gates I could see three plastic crosses on a hillside with figures attached to them, and plastic figures and plastic palm trees around. Why plastic when you can have real ones? Even with my Spanish, I could work out that it was a theme park based on the Bible story. Possibly the tackiest thing I have ever seen, but I couldn't see right inside to judge properly.

An hour later, and I'd found my way around the fence to the pool complex. After getting my feet checked for verrucas, I made it to water. Sometime towards the afternoon, as the pool aerobics were beginning, I was sitting on the edge of the pool, enjoying the setting sun and splashing my legs, when I caught something moving out of the corner of my eye. Over the fence in the Holy Land, a figure was rising out of the plastic dirt. My mouth dropped open as a huge statue of Jesus came sneaking out of his hole, like a meerkat coming out of its burrow. We pointed and laughed incredulously as he made it to his full height, complete with lighted halo, and began to spin slowly. First to one side. Then the other. Then he looked up at the heavens. Then down at the people. The hands at the end of his outstretched arms swivelled slightly too, like he was trying to feed the pigeons in Trafalgar Square and nobody had told him that it was now illegal. Unfortunately, I wasn't close enough to hear if he spoke to his flock in a mechanical voice, like The Terminator with a beard and a pastel-blue robe. Sadly, his eyes didn't flash red. Something startled him and he began to disappear back into his burrow, taking his red sash with him. We had almost stopped laughing when it happened again half an hour later. Without doubt the tackiest thing that I or anyone else has ever seen.

Brazil 1-1 Argentina

Around Brazil: Salvador

I was looking forward to my trip to Salvador. I couldn't wait to get to the heart of Brazil's African culture, and sample food and music that were different to the more European-influenced areas of the south. I enjoyed the journey there, bouncing along at the front of the boat as the city slowly appeared on the horizon. Most other people didn't though. Todo mundo were seasick. Maybe it was because of the sky and the sea being the same colour that rough day, but at first sight, Salvador appeared to me to be totally grey. This wasn't what I'd expected! From everything I'd read about the city, I thought I was going to find bright swirls of African colour on every corner! The buildings of the lower part of town seemed run-down and empty, even if there were shops on the ground floor. The ride in the lift to the high part and the old slave market gave me a good view of the bay and the islands in it. I think that was the last time I felt relaxed in Salvador.

Out of the doors, it was time to run the gauntlet of hawkers and beggars that is Pelourinho. The people you encounter most are those that sell fitas - the bands of different colours that are tied around your wrist with three knots. The three wishes that you make while tying the knots are supposed to come true before the band falls off. Plainly this is nonsense, in the same way that 'lucky' heather doesn't appear to be lucky at all for the lady who has huge bunches of it but is still selling twigs on the streets of London. That is, of course, unless the fita sellers all wished to be selling bands on the streets of Salvador. I should have proved the truth of it by wishing for ridiculous things: to grow an extra leg; to become President of Haiti; and to write a good article. My band didn't have enough time to work anyway. Somebody had tied one onto my wrist as I walked through the square. I snapped it off angrily and checked for my wallet. I didn't have a problem with the band, it was the sales tactics - way too aggressive. And it happens all the time, eating food outside, drinking, talking, looking at maps, people always arrive at your side asking for something and seeming like they won't take no for an answer. I spent a whole night without even talking to my friends. 'Não, obrigado' was all I said. Every two minutes. Minimum. Even to the Capoeira boys.

I had to walk away from the scenes every time. I don't mind watching people somersault down the middle of the road to vault over a friend holding a stick full of sharp facãos pointing at the sky. I'll pay to watch that, every day if possible, especially as it involves that element of danger (for somebody else). But I get a bit bored after a few minutes of watching people rolling around the floor. I just want them to hit each other!

I'd like to say what my favourite thing was about Salvador, but nothing springs to mind, sadly. The whole city was dirty and rundown, including the beaches I saw. The only clean parts were the sterile Shoppings, which needn't be a big problem. But I'd been so excited about going to 'the city where the music never stops'. It might not stop, but somebody had definitely turned it down when I was there. The only live music I heard was from people playing guitars in one of the squares, and they looked like gringoes. What happened to the crazy rhythms of those African drums? I think I should wait for Carnival next time.

Brazil vs. Argentina: The Buses

My first long bus journey in Argentina, from Puerto Iguazu to Buenos Aires, was a revelation, especially after seeing some of the local buses, and after having travelled through much of Brazil by bus. Brazilian buses are a plain old long distance coach ride - four seats across, a toilet, stops every few hours, and things stolen (but only with São Geraldo). I've also had plenty of experience of Bolivian buses which is (and perhaps will be) a tale in every journey.

The first shock is the size - double deckers! With only 3 seats across! Despite booking last minute tickets, we bagged the pair of seats at the front upstairs. Fantastic. Settle down, spread out, enjoy the view with your feet up, watch a couple of dodgy films, ah, very civilised. As well as the films, they provide coffee, cold & hot water, sweets, blankets and a pillow. At the pit-stop, there was a three-course meal and 'champagne' laid on, all ready immediately we sat down. The best surprise was yet to come though. A tray of glasses with ice and a bottle of 'whisky' appeared in front of my face. A nice nightcap to help you nod off to sleep delivered to your doorstep, these people know how to treat their passengers! They even had a dog coming on board to pet for those who needed to de-stress. Admittedly, petting a sniffer dog isn't always the best idea. A friend of mine did it once at an Italian airport and before he knew it, he was being frogmarched away for a strip-search and interrogation. He was just being friendly and thought that the dog was doing the same as it sniffed him. Our dog seemed friendly, unlike the moody police who followed close behind him, checking documents. An old woman in the seat behind us awoke with a start when the dog put his nose next to hers and hoovered around her face. She only complained about it for a few hours. I wasn't complaining at all. I'd never been treated so well. There were no pot-holes for the whole journey to bounce you awake every few minutes, and to slow you down for hours. We were about to arrive an hour and a half early! This couldn't possibly be happening. I started to panic. I didn't know what to do with myself. I'd never had an early arrival in South America before. We'd only just finished the breakfast that was served up to us on little trays with arches to fit nicely over your thighs (as long as those thighs aren't the size of a hippos). Then we could settle back and watch the cityscape appear right before our eyes. In widescreen.

Brazil and Argentina are very competitive, both vying to be the number one nation of their continent. They compete at football, at financial growth, beef, anything short of war. But as far as the buses go, Brazil - your boys took a hell of a beating! Travelling around Argentina was going to be a doddle if all the journeys were like this. Wasn't it?

Brazil 0-1 Argentina

Around Brazil: Morro de São Paulo (& Itabuna)

Itabuna is one of those towns that everybody who travels finds themselves staying in occasionally. When the journey doesn't go as planned due to missed connections, you can't do as many miles as you'd hoped and end up arriving late in a small town that you've never heard of before, and neither has your guide book. You want to leave first thing in the morning, so find the 'hotel' nearest to the station. These hotels are the same the world over - Brazil, Guatemala, India, Sweden even: quiet, empty, probably looked dilapidated when they were opened, and a sad-looking man with a moustache wearing an off-white vest serves you if he can tear himself away from his black and white portable TV for long enough. The walls are grey and have bullet holes, the bathroom is a mosquito graveyard, the cockroaches roam free, and you have second thoughts about lying on that mattress. Still, it's only for five hours.

Some places you like immediately, solely because of your journey there. The boat ride to Morro de São Paulo, leaving the mainland and a huge black cloud behind us and driving through the reflection of the morning sun, was just one of these journeys. The channels to Ilha de Tinharé are tree-lined until you see the coloured cliffs of the island. We were handed flyers for a full moon party on the beach of the first village. Sometimes it comes together for you without any effort.The boat lands at the old fort gateway, and island taxis can take your bags up the hill to the village. There are only sandy roads on the island and very few vehicles, so the locals paint their wheelbarrows black and yellow and have 'Taxi' on the side. They may even take you too if you pay enough.

Morro de São Paulo has a certain barefoot charm about it. You can stay in a pousada right on one of the beaches, which are helpfully numbered so you don't get lost at night. The beaches increase in size, and decrease in population density as you count upwards. Great for walking miles alone along the edge of the sea. You can surf on One or sit and watch fish without even a snorkel on Two. The water can be like glass. Tours take you around the islands to deserted beaches, and to rock pools where you can see fish, crabs, turtles, and a Brazilian tourist breaking off coral for souvenirs. I wish I'd drowned him. It would have been easier than trying to say 'It never grows back you know!' in indignant Portuguese.

The strangest sight of the island though was on our first day there as the sun went down. We saw a huge red thing climbing out of the sea.

"What´s that?"

"Dunno. Oh! It's the moon!"

She rose slowly, leaving a v-shaped reflection pointing to my toes, becoming less red and shining more brightly as she went. I never knew a lady of that age, that big, and with huge craters all over her face could look so beautiful. It put us in a perfect mood for the boat ride to Gamboa for the party in her honour.

But it wasn't how a full moon party should be. We had to pay to listen to the DJ with the worst name in the world - DJ Pornstar Deluxe - without even a view of the sea. I´ve never seen anything so ridiculous as a beach party with a fence all around it.We plagued him all night to change the music, but the only change was in the colour of Barnoldinho's shoulder. A huge wooden totem pole fell on top of him as he was complaining to Pornstar. Some sort of devine retribution probably.

Understanding Brazil: The Workmen

Much as you can tell a British workman by his hands (they're always in his pockets), so you can always spot Brazilian workmen: they're always watching somebody else work. Whether it has been working on home improvements, roadworks, building houses or huge construction sites, I have only ever seen one man working at any one time. He saws the wood while anywhere between one and ten other men stand by staring intently. They don't seem to help or advise in any way which makes me wonder if that is what they are paid to do. Watch.

I have a rubbish theory that two gringoes arrived at a Brazilian house long long ago to do a job. The owner asked why the second man had come:

"He's my assistant. We always work with an assistant in England." - came the reply.

"What does he do?" - asked the Brazilian.

"He assists." - was the logical response.

The owner thought "He assists" and translated literally into the falso amigo "Ele assiste". This then grew to become part of the working culture in Brazil. Rubbish maybe, but it explains why you can have a whole day of work on a house from four men that results in just three new floorboards laid, or one wall painted. Nothing else does. Admittedly bad choice of materials doesn't help speed things up. Witness the obras in Rua Augusta in São Paulo that have closed the pavements for months. The surface is being relaid, no pipes, no tunnels, no cables underground, nada. But when you see four men watching their friend put down coin-sized blocks in a mosaical grid, you'll understand why.

Obviously the heat could be one way to explain the slow progress but I don't buy that because the pace of those type of workmen is in complete contrast to that of the binmen. I love watching them work, and it's the same all over Brazil. No matter how hot it is, they are always running, picking up binbags, throwing them in the back of the truck, shouting 'Vai!' and climbing on while the truck sets off again. Maybe they're on piecework and so get paid per kilo of rubbish, which is why they zigzag down the street faster than I can walk. I sweat just doing that, but they never stop moving, bending, carrying, throwing, and I've never seen anybody leave bags behind out of laziness. They pick up everything worthless. Including me. I got too close in my admiration once, and got thrown in the back of the truck too. They never stopped dropping things on my head long enough for me to get out. We eventually stopped at some roadworks. One man was painting a white line in the middle of the road with a tiny brush. He wasn't blocking the road, but the six men watching him were. I climbed out and crawled home to shock myself in the shower.

Brazil Places – Praça Pateo do Collegio

When I did a presentation course at college, a fellow student bravely stood up in front of his peers and announced in a camp voice ‘Today, I’m going to tell you about campanology - which, for those of you who don’t know, is the study of bell-ringing.’ We sniggered greatly. I’d never met someone who was interested in such a thing before. But I was young then. Opinions change with age. So maybe it is a sign of my age (I won’t say maturity) that one of my favourite things in Sampa is O Sino de Paz - The Peace Bell - in Praça Pateo do Collegio.

I came across it by accident on a Saturday afternoon, never having heard of it before. The noise it makes is as dolorous as Big Ben or any other large bell when sounding alone, and it’s not particularly pretty to look at - a 2ft high bronze bell-shaped thing hanging from a stone frame. Nor is it ugly though. The only good thing about it really is that it just hangs there alone in the praça, next to the entrance to the Museu de Anchieta. Because it is situated as such, anyone can ring it! For free!

It has a small demolition ball dangling from a chain inside, and a rope hanging down to head height, making it look like some gladiator’s weapon. It is just begging to be struck, but nobody seemed at all interested in it. I was. Any chance to make a different noise and my eyes will light up. For once, there was nobody around to stop me. I read the blurb about why it was placed there, pushed the rope away, and then swung it as fast as I could towards myself.

CLANG!

Oh wow. What a miserably beautiful sound (or beautifully miserable sound even) resonated around the praça. The skatekids stopped and looked over. The students in the museum queue turned as one. They all stared at me, waiting, wondering in silence. Perhaps it just seemed silent because my ears were ringing for far longer than the bell, having been so close. My brain was too. By the time it stopped, everybody was getting on with their lives again, but for a few seconds they had been all mine!

After all these years, I have some appreciation of the art of ringing a bell, but not to make a tune, just one big noise, like a gong. Once is more dramatic. The world peace I had wished for (like any good contestant in a beauty pageant) doesn’t appear to have come true yet. The world may not become a better place for me or you ringing that bell, but I guarantee that at least you’ll walk away from it feeling better.

Brazil Places – Porto Seguro

Some people may have happy memories of the place. I don’t. Like food, some places in life just don’t agree with you. It’s like an allergy or a bad reaction. Some people have it with fish, I have it with Porto Seguro. The city claims that Brazil was born there 500 years ago when Cabral arrived from Portugal, tactlessly ignoring the people who had already been living in the area (and still do) for thousands of years. Still, at least we didn’t have to stay there. First time around at least.

Arraial D’Ajuda is a far prettier place to stay but out of season it felt like every night was Tuesday night. It’s a pretty town and you can walk for miles along deserted beaches backed by cliffs of all shades from white through orange to crimson. The white part is argila, a cement-like substance which is very good for the skin (especially cellulite) when mixed with fresh water. There is a fresh water lagoon where people go to collect the powder, mix it into a paste, and apply it to themselves and each other. I could have stayed for hours, watching the two girls cover each other with mud, but I was dragged away. We only found out afterwards why the beach was regularly deserted. A little later than our visit, a group of four girls were attacked by four men while they were washing the mud of in the lagoa. The men came running down the path from the top of the cliffs and jumped into the water after them. One of them even had her havaianas stolen, along with the usual items of bags full of cameras, money, hairbrushes, lipstick and all the other things a group of Brazilian men might want to steal.

So there were a few of us experiencing the Porto Seguro area without being able to take photos of it. Of Arraial and its coloured lanterns, of Trancoso and its coloured houses (all connected internally so that the townsfolk could run and hide in the church when their houses were attacked by invaders), and of Corumba with its coloured cliffs. There were enough decent places nearby to keep us occupied while waiting for the wheels of Brazilian bureaucracy to turn in Porto Seguro.

We spent many, many happy hours there wandering the streets between police stations, bus company and lawyer offices, and banks, but only one actual night in the city. That too was memorable. We had to return for an early meeting and arrived too late at night to be worth making the trip on the ferry over the river. So instead of our beautifully appointed Arraial pousada with lighted pool (from where we’d watched a huge meteorite light up the sky on its way to land in a Bahiana field), huge breakfasts, incredibly friendly staff and clean, fresh smelling bedlinen, we stayed in one that had none of that and much less.

The lack of a camera meant that I couldn’t take a photo of one of our pillows. It was officially The Worst Pillow In The World – a worn-out grey sack half-filled with smelly hard sponge bricks. It looked like a bag of building bricks for kids. If that made us laugh, the shower made up for it. It nearly took my arm off as I stood in the pool of water and touched the metal tap. Shamefully, I didn’t mention it because I was too embarrassed about my bad choice of room. Inevitably, it happened to Blondie as well. We sneaked up to the slightly more expensive room upstairs. It had windows, so was worth paying the extra for, even if we didn’t.

After a prisoners breakfast (Coffee without milk? Or coffee? In Brazil?), we refused to pay the price he’d stated at the bus station. We needed the extra to pay medical bills after the shower. He said he would call the police. We told him, truthfully, to go ahead because that was where we were headed anyway. We invited him to come with us, calling his bluff. Just outside the police station, we heard angry shouting. Our man was running up the road after us, demanding his towels back. Now, I have to admit, it wouldn’t be the first time a hotel towel had miraculously crawled from the bathroom, across the room and packed itself neatly in my bag when I wasn’t looking, but not with these ones. The towels he left for us were of similar comedy quality to the pillow – grey and strange smelling with ancient holes connected by even older stains. They made rice-paper look thick. We were frankly insulted that anybody thought we might try to nick them. We told him they were upstairs in the other room. We’d had to take a shower there because ours was so dangerous. His demeanour changed instantly, from anger to relief at not having lost his towels. They were probably family heirlooms, passed down from generation to generation. He smiled and told us to have a good day, then returned to his pousada, leaving us to enter the police station more baffled than ever.

We should never have gone back.

Brazil Journeys: Rio de Janeiro to Porto Seguro

My first long-distance bus journey in Brazil, and the worst one by far. It had to get better after this one. And to think we were running through the streets of Ipanema with huge bags because we were afraid of missing it.

A late booking meant we had aisle seats near each other. As we sat in our seats, we played Bussian Roulette (Onibussian Roulete in Portuguese). Three of us in our seats watching the front for the people getting on, wondering who you were going to spend the next twenty hours sitting next to. The boys were hoping for a beautiful tanned brasileira wearing little more than a bikini. You sit, you wait, you watch. The couple? No, not them. They’re looking further back. The sweaty obese man? He sensibly booked the first row. Nobody else getting on? The bus set off. We all had double seats. Result! We didn’t know about the stop over the bridge at Niteroi. Then I saw her. I knew immediately that she was mine, my bus partner. Her and her tiny baby. I could feel it. They walked up to my seat, and sure enough, twas her. As I stood up to let her past, I could hear the laughter of the others. Twenty hours of dribbling, crying, screaming, gurgling, burping, farting, and other nasty smells. Poor them, how were they going to put up with me? We’d all lost the roulette.

As I looked forward to my sleep being disturbed by regular bouts of breast-feeding (not me you fools), as has happened on other buses before for me, my only consolation was that Barnoldinho hadn’t won either. The leggy beach-babe never materialised. He had a middle-aged woman with various smelly plastic food containers to contend with. We left Niteroi behind and headed north.

My partner and her baby lowered their seat and closed their eyes. I swear, they staying in the exact same position for twenty hours, without making a single noise. I think somebody drugged them. The journey seemed uneventful. I slept fitfully, we stopped regularly, the usual. At one stop, the bus disappeared without telling us. It returned half an hour later, probably a little lighter, and not just because of the cleaning. At some point I noticed my bag had been tampered with but it still had the zips and padlock in place. It wasn’t until we arrived in the pousada in Arraial d’Ajuda and tried to put some music on that I realised my ipod had gone. I hate those moments. It takes half an hour of searching, re-searching, unpacking and unravelling for you to admit what you knew immediately. Your gear has been nicked. A digital camera too. With huge memory card bought specifically for taking photos of all those amazing things I would see in Brazil without ever running out of space, as had happened in other places. All of them presents. All of them gone. Amazing photos of Costa Verde, Ilha de Gigoia, Carnaval in Rio, Pão de Acucar and Cristo’s feet. All gone forever. Plus passports, documents, and other less important things. It’s always hard to accept this. I checked my bag every few minutes for the next few days just to make sure it wasn’t hiding the things from me. I still check it occasionally now, just in case I missed a quiet corner.

I blamed the baby. That whole sleep thing was just a ruse.

The bus company were no help at all, even if they had the names and addresses of all the staff and passengers on the bus. Porto Seguro lawyers advised us to sue them because of their shoddy security measures. They’re lawyers. They didn’t tell us it could take seven levels of appeals until we won. They would win in any case. We would have to make regular, expensive return journeys to the place in order to pursue the case. In Brazil, the legal constitution (drawn up by lawyers) ensures that right of appeal, for those who can afford the legal fees, can be taken all the way to the Supreme Court in Brasilia. It is impossible to extract money from those who already have it. One return visit to Porto Seguro was more than enough to learn our lesson. We dropped the case.

Understanding Argentina – The Electricity

I’m not quite sure how the electricity works in Argentina, and I don’t think anyone else is either. It all seems totally arbitrary. There are at least three different types of socket for your plugs, so arriving with an adaptor to suit Argentina isn’t necessarily going to work. Some sockets have been adapted to work for all types:- the round 2-pin, the flat v-shape, and the 3 pointed star, but most haven’t. This means that Argentinean houses are full of adaptors. Not only my double whammy of English plug into travel adaptor into Argentinean multi-adaptor (it doesn’t work any other way but this combination, I don’t know why), but also for local electrical items. Sockets seem to have been places in houses by a tall drunk wearing a blindfold and carrying a pin. They appear everywhere – above ovens, out of reach up by the high ceiling, in bathrooms, under toilet seats, you name it, and there will be a socket. Except where you need one, which leads to cables travelling via a chain of adaptors to bedrooms without sockets, and amazing tangles of wires leading to multi-adaptors.

These things are amazing to behold – space for anything up to eight plugs at once, but only only in the correct combination, some with two holes, others three, some round, some square, some flat. It’s like the coordination puzzle for kids that you have to hammer the shaped blocks into the corresponding holes. A hammer would be handy to help the plugs go in sometimes too. They don’t all seem to be of the same size, never mind shape. Popeye on spinach wouldn’t be able to force some in, while others hang limply halfway out like they’re tired of working and just about to have a siesta.

Being Latin plugs, you might also be able to accuse them of acting a tad sensitively. Any small touch of a plug, any minute movement of a cable, can lead to a huge spark that momentarily lights up the house better than last night’s lightning. Sometimes it even happens without any touch at all, which fits in with the analogy perfectly. This can lead to you losing all kinds of work on computers, but sadly not this piece.

The Christmas tree lights flash on and off too, but not at regular intervals. Sometimes they’re on for an hour, sometimes off for half, and sometimes half of them are completely off while the other half flash merrily. I haven’t dared to go near them to investigate. That’s asking for trouble. And besides, I can’t find the plug. It’s lost amongst many in a scrum on the bathroom floor.

Understanding Argentina – Kissing

I haven’t been to every place on the planet but I still think I can safely say that nowhere on earth is there as much kissing between people as in Buenos Aires. It’s impossible for anywhere else to beat because everybody does it here. They’re not discerning, they kiss family, close friends, friends, strangers, in fact anyone close enough to be in kissing distance, and always on one cheek, not the French or Brazilian model of between one and three, depending on who it is you’re kissing.

It is quite difficult for me to adapt to this, especially when it comes to kissing the men. I don’t know how long I’ll have to stay in Buenos Aires until kissing men on the cheek seems like the natural thing to do. It sure doesn’t at the moment. It just doesn’t feel right. Men have beards or stubble and even moustaches, and feel all wiry and prickly and scratchy on your cheek. It’s horrible! I don’t know how girls put up with kissing a hairy man once, never mind every time they meet one. It makes me shiver to have a big Walrus tache tickling my face and ear, in much the same way as having a big cockroach running across my hand does.

I’m never sure whether to air-kiss people like a sweetie from Absolutely Fabulous, or to plant my lips on their cheeks like a vacuum cleaner on a curtain. But people here do seem to connect with their kisses, so I go with that one normally. Even with the men.

I think I could live in Buenos Aires until the ice-caps melt and still not get used to kissing men when I meet them. I still find myself doing it though, however awkwardly, even with non-Argentineans who understandably don’t want me lunging at them. Then I’m left pouting at fresh air in the middle of the street.

When you meet people you know in the street, the kissing starts to get a bit tiresome. If you only want to say a quick hello, it takes ten minutes to do it. You say hello, do the round of cheeks, say a few words, then go around again. I’m glad I don’t know many people to bump into in the city. Parties are a nightmare though. I once arrived at a house party, spent three hours being introduced to every man, woman and dog in the house, waiting for them to get up from their chairs, or to pause in their conversations or dancing to kiss me. After I’d finished 73 people, two dogs, and a spider, it was halfway through the night. I thought I’d better leave by midday so I started to go around again immediately after I’d finished saying hello. Next time I’m going to do both at the same time. Then I can enjoy the fiesta. But for now I’ll continue to feel confused and awkward with it all. How do you act? If you live in a house with Argentineans, do you kiss them every morning? And when they get home from work? And when they go to bed, like children? And when they get back from the toilet or from answering the door or when they come back from the kitchen with the coffees? It’s all too demonstrative for me. I’m English. It isn’t that I don’t like showing my feelings; it’s just that I don’t have any feelings to show. The only feeling all this kissing leaves me with is a desire to shave far more often.

Understanding Argentina – Buenos Aires Style

Or stylists. There are other striking things about the style of the porteños. Buenos Aires is renowned for being an almost European capital of style and elegance. While it is true that there are some very stylish people in the city, well-dressed, well-groomed, and well poised, Buenos Aires is also home to some of the worst haircuts on the planet. And so many of them! I haven’t seen such a high percentage of bad mullets since West Germany met Argentina in the 1986 World Cup Final.

They’re not the classic permed-at-the-back mullet favoured by the likes of Rudi Voeller, but usually mullets that make the wearer appear to be harbouring a nest of baby rats in the back of their hair. The tails of these ratitos hang down in wisps around the back of the neck, curling up above collars and around ears. Sometimes there are many rats, sometimes just one, its tail hanging way down the back having been growing for years. And that’s what baffles me most:

Are these haircuts cultivated or not?

Now I can almost forgive – ok, I can never forgive a mullet under any circumstances, not even close – somebody growing up in Smallsville, USA or Kleine Bavaria, Deutschland having a mullet because they’ve never travelled far enough from their farms to know any better. And sometimes it even suits them. But in a metropolis that looks to the European fashion capitals of Milan and Paris for its ideas, where people care about what they wear and how they look, this is totally unforgivable.

I have seen some shocking sights that a man should not have to deal with alone! An unprecedented double mullet, where the victim had a normally obscene mullet supplemented by a huge rat-tail, bouncing like a happy snake on a trampoline as he walked down the street. I had to cover my girlfriend’s eyes in case the shock was too much for her. I have seen a man with normal short, straight hair on top and a mullet made out of one big dreadlock hanging down the back like the mud on the back of a woolly mammoth! A combination of the tow worst hairstyles that a white person can have! Truly the worst haircut on the planet! And worse – I was with somebody who knew him! They actually stopped to talk to him! I pleaded heavy shopping and left. No way could I talk to him without either laughing, asking obnoxious questions, or beating him up.

But did he know? That he had the mullet? Do any of them know? The mullet part of the hair always looks scruffy and unkempt, sometimes in complete contrast to the neatly coiffured top and the contemporary clothes. Obviously I have a theory about this, because theories are all I have. Argentina had a financial crisis a few years ago. Everybody had to make cutbacks. Hairdressers did it by saving on wear and tear of their scissors, and by selling their hand-held mirrors. They never put anything behind the heads of their customers and ask ‘Is sir happy with the back as well?’ They just cut the top and the sides and say ‘Diez pesos por favor’! The mullets are never seen so they are never known about! Everybody with a mullet in Buenos Aires walks around the city laughing at the state of all the other people with mullets and their lack of fashion sense!

Somebody needs to rectify this situation. I think that is why I was called to Buenos Aires. I shall be that hero. Tomorrow, I shall hit the streets on a Mission of Mercy, with a digital camera to show them what they’ve never seen, and a large pair of scissors.

Argentina Places – Buenos Aires, City of the Midnight Sun

It surprised me to find out how late the sun sets in Buenos Aires. Sometimes after midnight, sometimes even later, I haven’t actually seen it go down yet. Like you, I thought only Scandinavia, Canada, Alaska and Siberia could claim this. Wrong! Buenos Aires has it too. Perhaps it is only because we’re approaching the longest day of the year in the southern hemisphere. Maybe in winter, it is dark 24 hours a day.

People have written before me about the strange quality of the light in the city. So strange is it in fact, that to the untrained gringo eye, it appears dark outside after about nine o’clock, with stars and moon showing above. Don’t be fooled. It is still daylight. The locals know. Just look at them, they’re all still wearing sunglasses.

You see people everywhere steadfastly refusing to take them off, even in dark sweaty clubs, deep underground on the metro, or just hiding in dark corners of bars. There could be a number of reasons for this:

1. The pollution. Outside yes, in dark smoky bars maybe, but smoking is banned in bars now. Impossible.
2. Everyone is blind. Unlikely. The few definite blind people I have seen have white sticks (bit of a clue) and walk slowly through the carriages asking people for financial help on the metro. They talk very slowly too, which is great for my Spanish listening skills. Most people in the city sound like machine guns when they talk, so that counts them out of being blind in my book.
3. Everyone is a frustrated rock/pop/film star. Only rock/pop/film stars are allowed to wear sunglasses indoors. It helps them to stay in character and helps them to hide their true introverted insecure nature behind the mask of dark glasses. If everybody wore dark glasses indoors, our stars wouldn’t feel special any more. Their fragile egos would shatter. It is impossible to be cooler than anyone else in Buenos Aires when, sat at a table across from you sits a woman approaching 80, still out and still wearing a huge pair of shades to eat well after midnight. She even looks like Mick Jagger’s mother, which makes you look like a total nobody in comparison. If everyone is a star, being a star is normal which makes it impossible to be a star. So can’t be that.
4. To avoid the effects of autosomal dominant compelling heliophthalmic outburst syndrome? Probably not. Even the doctors don’t know what it is.
5. Expensive sunglasses. Buying your shades from much-vaunted European design houses is an expensive business, hell the logos alone are big enough to cover your cheeks, so people like to wear them 24 hours a day – during the day, at night, while eating, while sleeping, to make sure they get their money’s worth. Well, you never know.
6. Pure misplaced vanity. Hmm.

I tried to fit in. I wore my shades on the metro occasionally, just to look like a porteño. It’s dangerous. I bumped into children and old ladies who were hiding from my field of vision. I couldn’t see properly. I tried to get on the train when the one that I’d heard arriving was on the other platform, the wrong side of the tracks. A blind man grabbed hold of my arm before I fell in the path of the train arriving on our side. I’m not sure if he was saving my life or asking for money. I said ‘Muchos gracias’ and left it at that. I took my shades off before I got on the train. Lesson learnt.

Argentina Journeys - Puerto Iguazu to Buenos Aires

My first long bus journey in Argentina was a revelation, especially after seeing some of the local buses, and after having travelled through much of Brazil and Bolivia by bus. The first shock is the size – double deckers! With only 3 seats across! Despite booking last minute tickets, we bagged the pair of seats at the front upstairs. Fantastic. Settle down, spread out, enjoy the view with your feet up, watch a couple of dodgy films, ah, very civilised. As well as the films, they provide coffee, water, sweets, blankets and a pillow. At the pit-stop, there was a three-course meal and ‘champagne’ laid on, all ready immediately we sat down.

The best surprise was yet to come though. A tray of glasses with ice and a bottle of ‘whisky’ appeared in front of my face. A nice nightcap to help you nod off to sleep, they know how to treat their passengers these people. They even had a dog coming on board to pet for those who needed to de-stress. Admittedly, petting a sniffer dog isn’t the best idea. A friend of mine did it once at an Italian airport and before he knew it, he was being frogmarched away for a strip-search and interrogation. He was just being friendly and thought that the dog was doing the same as it sniffed him. Our dog seemed friendly, unlike the moody police who followed close behind him, checking documents. An old woman in the seat behind us awoke with a start when the dog put his nose next to hers and hoovered around her face. She only complained about it for a few hours.

I wasn’t complaining at all. I’d never been treated so well. There were no pot-holes for the whole journey to bounce you awake every few minutes, and to slow you down for hours. We were about to arrive an hour and a half early! This couldn’t possibly be happening. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I’d never had an early arrival in South America before. We’d only just finished the breakfast that was served up to us. Then we could settle back and watch the cityscape appear right before our eyes.

Brazil and Argentina are very competitive, both vying to be the number one nation of their continent. They compete at football, at financial growth, beef, anything short of war. But as far as the buses go, Brazil – your boys took a hell of a beating! Travelling around Argentina was going to be a doddle wasn’t it?