Tired and paranoid at 4am
Trip Start
Sep 06, 2006
1
6
36
Trip End
Sep 01, 2007
Morro de Sao Paulo,
Brazil
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
And so it was we found ourselves on what I would consider to be the worst bus in Brazil going north. It stunk and stopped every 10 minutes to pick up some guy, his wife a couple of mates, 5 kids and the entire contents of his house wrapped up in cool boxes and tied with blue string. By midnight the bus was alive with banter, the aisle full, all windows open and the most horrendous beastlike noises eminating from the chair in front, queue illuminous orange earplugs
1. Point of entry
. Although they are probably the reason why we awoke in panic to discover we`d driven though Valencia, our stop. I awoke to find Nick rushing up and down the aisle knocking over people and tripping over stuff but thankfully he made himself understood at which point we were shuffed out of the bus onto the dirt track with our rucksacks. No! Wait! Come back! Where the hell are we!!!? Ok, admittedly we only had to walk 20 minutes back down the road but it was pouring with rain and it was quite scary. When we got to the bus stop we found out that the first boat to the island didn`t leave until 7am. Great, 3 hours to kill in the middle of night in a town we dont know. Perfect. We made it down to the port in a smashed up taxi and sat in the freezing cold air with dodgy characters appearing out of the shawdows - i was convinced everyone was out to get us, to steal our belongings, kart us off somewhere for ransome, for god sakes Nick thats not a a taxi driver across the road doing his suspiciously very early morning exercises, its a trained killer in a fat suit just biding his time for back up to arrive. I quickly prepare my escape across the top of boats to the other side of the harbour just in case.We eventually do of course arrive on the island which is stunning and its traffic free, yeah!! We are met by the lovely Diego and his dogs, not actually his dogs but ever since he arrived on the island they have followed him around so kind of his dogs anyway, Ok breathe
2. Pick pick pick
. Diego and his wife Camilla are some kind of virus researchers from Buenos Aires and while their work is being published they decided to come to Morro, rent out a pousada, bake delicious cakes and invent the wierdest and most convulted card game known to man. They also know a very good dice game and we had a jolly time losing, drinking too much beer overlooking the beach and as sun goes down Camilia brings out little tealights in brown paper bags (Buff you`d like it) so yes, our nightmare of a journey was far behind us by now. There`s lots to do on Morro, you can go to beach 1, beach 2, beach 3 or beach 4. Beach 4 is definately the best although it was on beach 4 that I managed to burn the whole of my front, when i actually managed to peel my white bikini off, wow, i was still wearing my bikini! Awesome! The other thing to do on Morro is to drink lots of juices, non-alcoholic ones are delicious but the ones with cachaca or rum are much more fun. The only thing I just dont understand about Brazil is that you get all these juice stalls, or snack stalls, all in one long line, maybe up to 50 stalls in some cases but they all sell the same stuff in exactly the same way. Making a choice in Sainsburys is bad enough, here its virtually impossible and you would have thought that someone would want to do things just alittle differently to attract more people, but no. Oh well, this is Brazil
3. All that fuss over...
.Oh I should just mention that the other thing you can do on Morro very easily is get Bichos de Pe (Beasts of the Foot) if you dont wear your flipflps. Ha ha the jokes we had before we left the UK, reading through the Disease section in our Lonely Planet and putting bets on who would get the little buggers first. Bichos de Pe for those who dont know, are little worms that live in the sand and when they feel like it and you happen to be hanging around too long on their turf, will bury their way into the hard skin on your feet. Well, after travelling for sometime, the hard skin on Nicks feet had gotten rather tough (sorry if any of you are eating your lunch) and so one night after complaining several times that the sole of his foot had become darn right itchy it was lucky that a local just happened to be watching at the time and with some glee shouted out ´Bichos de Pe, Bichos de Pe!´ Off to the medical post Nick did go. You can see the pictures of the whole process if you so desire - and really, all that fuss over something the size of a pinhead, i dont know, most people have about 40 in each foot! ;-)
