I must say that I was sad leaving Jeri, a place that I had fallen in love with so deeply and fondly for many reason. I had planned to stay for four but ended up with seven nights notched up on the calendar instead. The fantastic weather, people and atmosphere that Jeri had made every second so memorable to me. But enough with that, dry your eyes Casey and move on with it I hear you say.
There was three of us that night who left Jeri at the same time, getting the late night transfer to Jijoca and then on to Forteleza. If you've read the previous section of the blog, you'll have known that Jeri is basically built on sand, thats it, just sand. To get from there to Jijoca, where they have these amazing things called roads, we had to get this kind of 4x4/truck/death sentence to get there. To give you an idea of what it was like, take a truck with the cab and flat body on the back and screw some park benches in the back, thats it. The park benches are then covered by a canopy made from Lego and on top, you put all the luggage. My bag was 20kg, so doing the basic maths here, I'm guessing there was close to half a tonne on top of our heads. First thing is, this contraption doesn't start. Nice one. But with a squirt of some igniter fluid we're off in a plumb of smoke. The ride was shaky, like haha, this is hilarious, for like 20 seconds, bouncing around, that's fine. Then it goes to 50 mins of the same type of bouncing, only this time it's a hysterical type of laughter like the one you would associate a lunatic murderer when it would scream and then weep in its own self pity. This is what I felt for the driver, please, please, please, slow down. It wasn't his speed that was killing me softly but the brilliant engineering that had gone into the canopy holding half a tonne of luggage. To hold the canopy, there were four uprights, one in each corner. None of them we fastened with cross beams to make the structure more rigid, so when we were holding on for dear life, looking straight ahead at the back of the drivers head let's say, all we could see was said canopy swaying from side to side. Vomit. My new name couldn't have been Peter Pancake if it had come crumbling down, but thankfully it didn't and we disembarked (cool word, isn't it) the said death trap and back onto a proper bus in Jijoca. Fredcar was the name of the company that brought us overnight to Forteleza, 6 hours they told us, but Freddy must have been watching too much of Star Trek recently and engaged warp speed during the night. This left us at Forteleza bus station at 5am, which was great craic. Not. Between trying to wake up and foostering at bank machines, we had missed the 5:05 connecting bus to Forteleza. Another 4 hours of a wait. Great craic. Not. The bus journey there was long, a good ten hours or so but by this stage, I'm well used to crazy long duration times. Funny thing about Brazilian buses, especially during the day, you could be on one for twelve hours and after 45 mins he has the yoke pulled over into Mother Hubbarbs for the nosh. I'm like "arah will ya go away with your lunch and put some sort of dent in the journey. You go take my seat, ill drive Betsy home". But no, lunch time is lunch time. Irritating, but it's a small issue in the grand scheme of things.
We arrived at Natals rodoviaria around 7pm and got in a taxi to our accommodation for the night, Republica hostel in the beach side suburb of Boa Viagem. Getting a bus at night in the dark is a bit chancey for a few pasty gringos, so we always forked out for the taxis after dark. Another thing about Brazilians is the way they drive because as long as the government doesn't change the laws on how to learn to operate a car over here, the memories of the late Ayrton Senna will never be forgotten. The drive like absolute maniacs, fearless. The exact words that were once used to describe Senna. They think that the streets of their cities is the track at São Paulos Interlagos Formula One circuit, making noises through their mouths as they round bends, brummmmmmm! Another observation, is that the majority of street corners in the major towns and cities you can find tyre centres, the lads here much by flying through the pirellis giving the way the taxis and everyone else drives. You'd swear that their wives put them on a podium when they get home with a gold cup and celebratory wreath in hand!
Republika hostel was nice and clean, only open a few years I'd say so everything was fresh. The roof top garden gave a beautiful view over the Natal skyline and the hammocks downstairs gave a quiet place to relax. The next day we went for a stroll on the nearby each, two blocks from the hostel and then to a park nearby that claims to be the biggest urban park in brazil. Ten minutes did that, maybe it's due to my long stride but it was tiny. Back at the hostel, I choose to spend a few hours catching up on diary and blog duties and chatting to the odd traveller before drifting off to sleep with not a drop of alcohol past my lips. One of the people I met there was this German chap who regaled me of his past few months in Brazil. He started off to be quite odd as I had noticed that there were six beds in the dorm and six lockers. So, doing basic maths again here, that means theres one for each bed. No, not for this fool! He had three of them already occupied, two of them full with his clothes safely locked away. In the name of god! After stern look and a polite b******ing, he removed his clothes and allowed use to use them instead. He then asked where he could buy a lock and key for said locker? Gee whiz Batman, I don't know, maybe a pet shop? Idiot. This idiot then managed to get lost going to catch his bus. When asked why he didn't take a taxi, the thought he said never crossed his mind. This was getting ridiculous with his antics the more and more I listened to him. How could his mother let him leave the family home without knowing the basics in life like that? I will never know. However, what he was about to tell us when asked where he had been travelling broke all records in stupidity. He had been in the amazon jungle and got lost... He got lost for two whole months in the amazon jungle... The AMAZON JUNGLE!! Oh jaysus!! Stick on the kettle. He took a wrong left at a tree and slept in his sleeping back eating fruits and what not until he found civilisation again. This fella took the biscuit and I believe him after all the stupid things he had asked us and done previously during the day. I forgot to look down and check his shoes because he probably had ones with Velcro straps not knowing how to tie his own bloody shoelaces. Anyways, it was for that nights sleep that was to form the way I walked and acted for the next two weeks. For anyone who knows me closely or intimately, wha! I'm prone to the odd bit of sleep talking and sleep walking. So, perched high on the top bunk with no guard rails to save me, I must have gone walkies or something of the sort but I fell fast and hard off the bed and down onto a wooden locker below. Now, the wooden lockers were on wheels and were to be pushed back in under the bed when finished with. Who forgot to push the locker back under? Take a wild guess. The locker was new and it seemed Japeto down in the wood work room must have forgotten to sand off the rough edges when makjng them, because by the whack I got of it, across the underside of my big toe, it sliced the skin pretty badly. And then the pain. Oh sweet mother of Devine mercy, Joseph, all the animals, the inn keeper and the baby Jesus, did it hurt! In the dark, to the touch, it felt wet. Blood. And a whole lot of it. I put the seat down on the jax to inspect the damage and my room mates who were totally afraid of blood were of no use to me, claiming that if they got up and saw the blood that there would be another few casualties unconscious on the bloodstained floor, so I was left to doctor myself. Fumbling through the Pantene and factor 60, I manage to find bandages at the bottom of my wash bag to dress it up and constrict the blood flow till the morning. I don't know how I slept but I did, this time on a ground level bed and I woke in some amount of pain the following morning.
I didn't have a chance to go to the doc or even have a look at it as we were to get an early bus to our next destination, the hip beach side town of Praia da Pipa. The journey was by public bus which we got on the side of the road and took less than two hours to complete and of course this was all done by waking on the side of my foot. I must have looked inbred when I think back on it.
We arrived in Pipa and I stumbled up the cobble stone road to our accommodation for the next four nights at sugarcane hostel. I decided to do a damage inspection and it didn't look good. I'm no doctor but I've had my fair share of stitches and this looked like another outing with a needle. I got the bus then by my Todd to the nearby town of Tibau do Sul, slightly bigger than Pipa but it had an A&E there. I book myself in to see the doc and he saw me very soon afterwards. Now bare in mind I don't have a dickie birds knowledge of Portuguese still as its been so easy with all the other backpackers speaking English as the travelling language, so I don't have a clue what the doc is rambling on about. Yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir. He could have been prescribing me cyanide pills and me with the big happy head on me, I would have agreed, oh yes, isn't that marvellous and nod my head in agreement. He scribbled something down on his pad and gave it to me having not yet looked at the wound. Arah here boss, atleast look at it, I don't need painkillers, I need stitches. His ushered me out of his office to another room and let me tell ya folks, what we have in Irish hospitals is light years ahead of what these poor unfortunates have to suffer with. I lay down on the bed as instructed by the nurse who has put a huge effort into dressing herself so smartly and professionally for work, pink jeans and a t shirt that says she works at the hospital, like something you would receive after completing a summer camp when you were ten! So she goes to me "bum bum" for the obligatory injection you get in South America. I have a cough, "bum bum", everything is bum bum over here. She loads up the syringe with the sauce and sticks it in. Nothing happens. I look around and what is she like but she has the cover of the needle held between her teeth grimacing as she tries to force the fluid out. Still no joy. She then removes the needle, gets a surgical bowl and pushes strong down on the syringe until "whoosh", the fluid goes everywhere! All over me, all over the bed but not in the bowl. She the gets the same needle, doesn't refill it and sticks it right back in the same point as she had done previously. Now I can handle needles, no problem, but the sensation that occurred caused a clusterf*** of arse muscle spasms to occur. Christ it was sore, but it was done but still no one had looked at the foot. I was then moved to another room and at last I recognised stuff like bandages, etc, that could cure what ailed me. She removes the bandages and I ask if I'm going to need stitches? No, is basically what she replied as the wound was open for more than twelve hours. Okay so, just a bandage then, but she needed to clean the wound. So for anyone reading this working in the modern medical world, write out a list of things that you would use when cleaning a wound because I guarantee its not what I got. As my legs are long, they hung over the end of the bed. She then gets her bottle of disinfectant to clean the wound, but instead of pouring it into some gauze and doing it gently, she pulls over the wheelie bin, kicks it open with her foot and douses my foot with disinfectant catching it in the waste bin. Ah Janey mackers! For fooks sake! How this place and I, am not riddled with MRSA or some other hospital borne virus, I will never know. She reminded me of what nurse maloney from the D'Unbelievables would look like, so I said my thanks and good bye and got back to Pipa to get a drink!
One of the Canadian lads was knocking about so without further adieu, we headed down to central beach for a few jars in the sun. Pipa is the type of place you can relax, soak in the rays, eat well and party the arse out of it if you want, which I did! I spent four days in total doing just that moving down from he factor 60 I had to buy for hiking in Venezuala, down to the oil to boost the colour a tad! Vain I know, but what the hell!
My next movements led me to the northeastern city of Recife, pronounced Hecife in Portuguese. I hit the road with a few friends I had made at Pipa, one Dutch, one Scottish and a Brazilian lad. We got a taxi there as it was the same price as the bus but more to the point three hours shorter than the laborious bus. We stayed in the beachside suburb of Boa Viagem and in the hostel Pirates Da Praia. It was a pity we couldn't fully utilise the beach as the waters are teeming with sharks, so we kept to the concrete for the two days we were there. Of course the weather was beautiful so that made everything groovy too, 35 degrees or so. After a quick disco nap, we headed off to meet Alessandro, our Brazilian friend and some of his mates for a gig in the edgy suburb of Antigo. The area was totally run down on first sight but after a few minutes you could see why it was it was the place to be. Old, crumbling buildings marked the roadside with possibly nothing in some of them but the streets were alive with street vendors selling food and drink and musicians played everywhere to their hearts content. Alessandro directed us to where his mates band were playing. What is was a kind of a battle of the bands and the group that he knew were the runners up supporting the winners on their celebratory night. It finally emerged that his friend was the stylist for the band. Now, in no fashionista, but be japers, there might be a career for me in it yet. The lads were dressed in clothes that you'd lounge around the house on a hungover lazy Sunday and the lead singer was dressed in leggings and some flower in her hair. Nothing majorly complicated there, practically no bodies but yet had a stylist. Just go to show what appearance means to Brazilians.
The following day we were to get the night bus to Salvador but before, we were going to visit the nearby unesco colonial town of Olinda, a short 30 mins by public bus away. We got their early and on a Sunday so there wasn't too many folks about, leaving the colourful cobbled streets practically empty for us to wander. Olinda is built on a high hill over looking the ocean giving a great vantage point to where the Dutch and Portuguese battled it out there many years ago. The houses were painted in every colour under the rainbow and where the locals deemed it not colourful enough, they plastered the walls with some fantastic graffiti that somehow seemed to work. Three hours was enough there, we had seen what we had to see and ate some overpriced but amazing ice cream, cause ice cream makes everything better, not that there was anything wrong of course! Later that night we found ourselves in a taxi back out to the rodoviaria passing the new stadium for the World Cup next year. Cannot for the life of me remember what bus company brought us to Salvador but it was the usual set up that you get with buses throughout brazil with all the interiors made by the same bus company, Marco Polo. The journey south took some twelve hours or so and it was fine until I got a whiff, like as if someone had opened the cheesebox! It wasn't until I noticed when I got off in Salvador that the dirty yoke behind me had puked in a towel, left it on the ground, moved a few seats further, puked again in another towel and left it there also! Uh, the tramp! and she had the audacity to be completely unaware of the situation when she got off the bus her with her big swollen face and not so swollen belly anymore! I'm on to you!
We tried our best to navigate ourselves around and find where the correct bus stop was to bring us to our accommodation but alas, no joy. We flash packed it again and got a taxi down to the historical centre of pelourinho. There we stayed at Galeria thirteen and it wasn't until I was going through the gate that I recognised the sign saying that their were voted both best hostel in brazil and South America in separate years. We were in for a treat. On arrival, I was met by a dinodog! That's basically my description of him. His name was Zulu, a Brazilian mastif. If they made saddles for dogs, he would be ample size for me! A bit like He man and his green tiger that he rode into battle. I was going to say I have the power, but then skeletor arrived and I had to check in. Zulu had a companion there too, spartan was his name, but he was more like a normal dog, nothing special to report there. What made the hostel nice was the amazing breakfast, the hot tub ( which was cleaned regularly) and the Moroccan styles chill out room. It was a great place to meet people too as it was cosy enough that you couldn't but help bumping into people and cracking up a conversation whilst making the most of all you can drink caipirinhas every afternoon!
For activities in Salvador, we did many museums, many churches of all faiths and a walking tour that included walking by the house where Jacko filmed his song "they don't really care about us". I had also to visit the federal police at the airport one of the days as I needed to extend my visa. On entry into the country, I have 90 days but I only said I wanted 40 which was a big mistake and the only chaps that could change it were the Feds at the airport. A waste of a day and money that cost me, but it had to be done and s lesson learnt for future border crossings. Tuesdays in Salvador is party night with a large open air concert by local artists on a large set of steps close by. Even on the way, I managed a spot of mass and I was glad I did, feck it, make the big fella keep me safe and sound while I'm out here. We had a lot of fun that night too much too be honest. The security guard and fellow guests at the hostel had no such luck trying to carry El Pedro up the stairs in their arms will he sleep soundly! I had that much fun!
Bye bye Salvador! Once again another amazing place to see and tick off the list!
The further south I go, the better this country is getting. Up north was an experience where the white traveller is seldom found and the glances that one gets is commonplace. Each of the cities and towns that I have visited have thrown something new and unique at me, I for sure know it, whether I get it across in this blog is another thing, but I'm trying.
It was time then to head south and a lot further south by aeroplane, to a famous city named when the first Portuguese settlers landed thinking that they had stumbled across the mouth of a river system but instead it was a bay which they had found. The bay which is now home to the marvellous Rio de Janiero, awaited.