Onde esta Paco?

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  São Luís, Brazil
Saturday, March 20, 2004

I wasn´t going to go to São Luís, but since Da Cor Do Pecado is set there and it broke up a 24 hour bus ride, I found myself looking for Paco.

Getting to São Luís from Jericoacoara was not easy. I had to beg for a passage on the truck to Jijoca and then wait 3 hours for the bus to Sobral to leave at 2:30am. I met an Israeli who was doing the same thing and we were both relieved to find that we could sleep on the bus until it left. Once it left it was impossible. We trawled the streets of Jijoca for exactly 1 hour, bumping over the rocky roads, stopping in front of houses, beeping the horn, waiting for the passengers to get up, get dressed, have some breakfast and get on the bus. This continued in every town until Sobral.

Sobral
We arrived in stinking Sobral at 6:30am

01 A Casa da Preta

. There was nothing in Sobral except a rodoviária full of beggars and people waiting to get the hell out of there. To make matters worse, my new friend, Gilad, managed to get a 9am bus to a national park, while I had to wait by myself until my bus to São Luís left at 4pm.

As the luggage holding place, guarda volumes, was a dodgy, dirty little hole, I didn´t feel safe entrusting my baggage, so I took off in search of an internet place to kill a few hours. I passed a pharmacy on the way and out of curiousity decided to weigh my bags. My backpack clocked 22kg and my daypack 10kg. Added to the 73kg I carry everywhere this made me a slow moving vehicle.

After 4 hours on the net, and R$6 later, I was ready to get on the bus to São Luís. Whilst waiting at the rodoviária, I met a 12 year old boy called Maises, who was asking for money. At first I didn´t give him any, but then after he struck up a conversation and we had been talking for 30minutes I thought he deserved $1 for putting up with my poor Portuguese and also gave him an Australian $2 coin that I has been contributing to my weight.

São Luís
Getting to São Luís at 5:30am was not fun

02 Rua em Sao Luis

. Especially since I was feeling like a fuzzy piece of cotton wool after not having woken up properly from my deep frozen sleep. I spotted another guy with a backpack, English Nick, and we decided to share a taxi to the HI hostel. Unfortunately there were no vacancies at the hostel, or so the guy told us, so we ended up sharing a room in a hotel 50m down the road.

After a couple more hours sleep and some breakfast, we decided to explore the UNESCO World Heritage historic centre. Walking through the cobbled and very old streets we were struck at how dead the place was. It was Saturday and there was no one in the streets. We saw about 2 other tourists and a few workmen, and that was it. The buildings were an amazing contrast of newly renovated and brightly painted houses next to crumbling ruins covered in vines and creepers. It was all very beautiful, but there was just nothing happening. Maybe everyone was at the beach.

I couldn´t come to São Luís without having my picture taken in front of Preta´s house. Preta is the main character on Da Cor Do Pecado and she is in love with Paco (played by the sexiest man in Brazil, Reynaldo Giannecchi) Preta has gone to Rio with her and Paco´s son (who Paco doesn´t know exists because he supposedly died in a helicopter crash) and Paco is in Sâo Luís as Apollo Sardinha. It is all very tricky to explain as all good soapies should be. Anyway, I saw Preta´s house, but no Paco/Apollo wandering the streets.

Nick found out about the São Luís Internacional Film Festival and we went there and saw The Good Thief with Nick Nolte. At times I found myself reading the Portuguese subtitles because Nick Nolte´s gruff voice sounded like another language to me. Waiting in the line an American who has been living in Brazil for 3 years introduced himself to Nick but failed to introduce himself to me. When Nick said something to me about getting a popcorn, the American then said "Oh, I thought you were Brazilian so I thought I didn´t have to introduce myself". Of course I thought he was a snob after that. Although I do like being mistaken for a local!!!

Afterwards Nick and I looked for a place to celebrate my 2 month travelling anniversary. São Luís is reputedly the home of Brazilian reggae (or heggae as the Brazilians say), but we were very disappointed not to hear any at all. I was expecting to hear it on every street corner. Instead we had one drink before the bar closed at 12 and we decided to cut our losses in São Luís.

The next day Nick flew to Brasilia and I spent the day hanging out in the rodoviária waiting for my night bus to Belém. I managed to purchase the DCDP CD and I love it already! I also tried my very first guaraná da amazonia, which is quite removed from the guaraná soft drink I have come to love. Guaraná da amazonia is like drinking ice cream with nuts. I am looking forward to more of these whilst in Amazonia.

Things I have learned
* Never trust the outside appearance of a bus as an indication of quality.
* I know now why the English backpackers love Ramsay Street so much.

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