Waving not Drowning

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Calling in from a little beach place just north of Fortaleza...Monday morning and still a few people left after their weekend away...I´m still loving Brasil, wierd language (Portuguese) that, overheard, could be German, French, Russian or a lot of others...fortunately my limited español seems to work....the people are curious, friendly and cheerful....to us anyway!...amongst each other there´s a clear pecking order and an enormous inequality in wealth...however, notwithstanding the fact that I´ve not met any of the really wealthy (and probably won´t!) who may well have a sense of duty etc...but lets not go there just yet...there is a level of arrogance and rudeness by the ciustomer to the wait staff, for example , in restaurants that belies the insecurity of the disempowered...any little edge...
Still and all, what a sombre note to set off on!...lets go back a bit....here´s something I prepared earlier....


Got out of sleepy, peaceful Sao Luis…….at the end of the tree shaded street of restaurants is a small plaza….a staircase descends from the street above, only a couple of metres at the top archway the stairs spread out and down so the last half dozen steps (of the 59) spread right around the plaza…the shiny surfaces of the cobblestones and the rock-seats in the plaza testament to the 400 years of feet and bums wearing them down….now the gathering point for the drunks and hustlers, biding their time before another assault on the tables of the cafes where they are quietly driven off by the wait staff if they hang around too long…at night a clash of music as several different live and recorded artists compete for the diners attention….Sergio Mendes wannabe at our restaurant, just the right ambience...in fact with 2006 around the corner old Serge might be building up for another re-make..after Brasil 66, 76, 86 and 96...Girl from Ipana (the famous beach where everyone has such white teeth) and all that...next door its the redorded doof-of-sorts...right down the end of the block a chica singing her little heart out...only get snatches when the breeze changes but sounds good....live reggae around the corner, playing in the street...then the disco with unrelenting doof-doof techno…but great for a bit of an aerobic work out on Monday night...got so sweaty had to go and get changed around midnight...

On the road, surprising how quickly we leave the junglness of the amazon and get into the dry and dusty badlands, running parallel to the highway are 5 different types of powerlines?..any electrical engineers care to explain?, Alison?…#1 and 2 have broad bases, your typical war of the worlds stuff, branching into a Y towards the top, one classic Y front the other with a curved arch across the top more like the framework for the neon sign ´Oasis Hotel and Fun Park´…#3 has one-point base then expands out with a Y top, #4 has just the Y from ground level and the wires are only a few metres from the ground…(low voltage?)..and #5 is a single-point base and just a skinny-frame tower with single strand cable….all running together maybe 20 metres between them…on and on…??
From time to time a tree beside the road, the tallest around, will have a stick with a coloured bit of cloth attached, stuck to the highest branch, can’t imagine how someone could get up there…haven’t seen this since Guatemala or up that way where it was often seen.
Little groups of really poor huts along the road, stick frames and mud with thatched rooves…again, the most substantial buildings are inevitably and unfortunately churches!…more solid, better painted etc etc …but they say that around the north-east the missionaries did give shelter and support to the indegines to try and save them from the ruthless exploitation of the greedy land owners in the bad old days.…so from oppression of the land owners to exploitation by the church…neither seem part of god’s plan to me….anyway,…and its all so dry everywhere, dead dry scrubby bushland, occasional trees, some greenery at the occasional, and always low, river…..little towns along the way, always people hanging around......like its the eternal Sunday of a boring long weekend…..the road varies from shmicko new asphalt to nightmare potholery…and we´re seeing mountains again...bare rock and scrabbly vegetation at best...but gives us some curvery again.
Theres a donkey on the side of the blacktop, luckily on a string, straining to get to the exact-same-shade-of-green grass on the other side…oohh now he’s getting excited about something…or just showing off to tickle the inadequacy gene in the men who are passing (us?)…but whatever’s going to be on the receiving end of that might be pink but it surely won’t be tickled!
Ted waves at everyone, and sometimes to his almost peril!….in some areas everyone waves and shouts back, but for the past couple of days Ted’s been getting less than 10% response…..I´m following about 50 m behind and I can see some delayed reaction (from the local inbreeding program), but usually mouths gaping at best, sometimes a hand half prepared to respond….I watch an old guy sitting on a 3 legs-left plastic chair, under a tree, looking after Ted’s passing, he seems to be thinking “another bloody tourist wanting me to wave!..who do they think I am?” ..another guy, walking along the road with huge load of firewood on his back and box under his arm..turns to respond, trying to balance his loads and get a hand free to wave…..by the time I go past he’s lost the firewood, but still waves!….lots of kids, mouths agape like a bunch of stunned mullets, in fact more stunning mullets than at Mel Gibson’s barber….
Something dark on the road ahead, low light, dusty visor, shit, it’s a small black pig doing a runner across the black top…swerve and miss him…another ending for the children’s thing..this little pig etc etc ..and this little pig…goes wee, wee, wee all the way to heaven impaled on the forks of an 1150 GS at 140 kph!!
Most of the roadside eatery-drinkery places have a quarter size pool table and many of the dusty little dongas also will have a thatch-roofed clear area with little pool table next to the house…Oh, and beside nearly all the impoverished little mud houses the incongruous giant satellite dish!…TV rules!
And gum trees again, omg, swear I’m going to stop and grab a branch next time I see them.
About the only colour is from the graveyards and endless roadside shrines to the dead travellers….and they are constant!..Brasil has something like 80,000 road fatalities each year!…and all the graves and shrines have been tarted up for Day of the Dead last week so they add a bit of colour to the drabness of it all.
Now we’re on a supposed 2ndry road but its brand new asphalt, laid soo thick and sticky…we have to stop for the actual road makers…then realise we’re sinking!..side stands disappear, tyres are sinking, this is unbelievable, keep rolling on…up ahead a guy with a pretty big pig lashed across the back of his lttle step-thru..the pigs not complaining but probably doesn’t have much choice and with every bump he slips further off to one side, the rider leaning out the other to counter balance…
Big, bad day Friday, could’ve been the 13th…start out with 120km of so bad potholes, even stretches of no blacktop at all, just a lunar landscape of holes and dips, narrow strips and patches of bitumen… glance at the mirror and its full of yellow…great fcuking yellow bus hurtles past, straight thru the potholes at 120kph…obviously not an owner-driver!…then our turn off towards the coast and good bitumen but getting really HOT…
Get to some little town and gas up, always the questions and stares but nice people as always…just need to get our story in Portuguese…it took several weeks to learn all the answers in espanol…now I have to start again..its such an impossible language!!….
Out of town along the beach(?)…sand dunes in the distance, glimpses of choppy, dirty white caps, huge wind constantly blowing, many smicko houses in walled yards but this ain’t the season for beachgoing here and now!…along the road and thru the dunes, truck bogged and we have to go past thru the sand…uh oh..but manage it..20m of thick white across the road…first taste of sandy riding..shitty and shitting myself, paddling thru’, first gear and riding the clutch…should really have had some sand on the training day….anyway, we’re thru and off again..more heat…
We are heading for some beach of fabulous repute but we’re going there via a small town, across the 150 year old steel bridge, then onto the unmade road, gravel is not too bad, then patches of sand, nearly lose it but get thru’..feeling ok but a little uneasy..then it deteriorates to sandy tracks and everything is going wobbly…trying to remember to power on to get thru’..then hit a particularly deep stretch, succumb to backing off and get thrown down into the sand…no damage except the always fragile fog light busts off and a jarred thumb…and everything full of sand…G helps me up and we push on…couple of kms and Ted & Sandy go down…I’m trying to pull up to help and drop it again…not fun…should really wait til after the Dakar to do this!.....we have a conference......... we are 25kms in, 50kms maybe to go, heading into Brasil’s ‘famous’ biggest-sand-dunes-in-the-world region….its 3pm….we turn back…some reluctance to give in but some relief at getting out of the sand..gotta say, altho’ I’ve got used to the unmade roads this sand is something I know I need a lot of practice at riding in before getting thru´, let alone enjoying it!!….another ride day?

As our reward, on Saturday arvo’ we find a beautiful little beach town, Para Curu…you won’t find it on the map, Kate, north of Fortaleza, which you should find.....fabulous beach, get ourselves into a nice lttle posada with good big rooms and v friendly people by the beach...plunge into the Atlantic!..and theres some surf (so everythings right with the world!)..clunky little seaside town…clunky little carny up on the square..like Rosebud in December circa 1965…shockingly garish church in the middle of everything…appalling leadlight…and theres a wedding going on…no good calling out “don’t do it!”…its all over!

…conflicting moods again but I’ve got a some reflections on Bliss that I want to get up soon….I’m getting overwhelmed by phases of Bliss that are just astounding!…(not when I was in the sand tho’) and getting my dream recall back slowly after 15 years or so..must be something in the water!…like hops and malt etc…..

OK, time to get out of town again...off to fortaleza and the bank!..I can´t get the camera to upload any of my pix, you´ll just have to wait...must be bad karma for laying shit on the others for their constant snapping!
For great photos go to Ted at tedgrambeau.com and for factual info, photos and sketches go to Grant at homepage.mac.com/gforbes3

Chau

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