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Published: June 27th 2006
Serra Talhada
The town is named after this mountain rangeHello Everyone! After 4 hours of sleep we were back on the road for another adventure to visit Felipe’s parents in the city of Serra Talhada which is 430 km directly west of Recife. This time there were ten of us going in two cars, but not Samuel’s car since it had the A/C problem yesterday and we didn’t want any problems on this trip. I don’t remember much about the drive because I was so tired I slept for most of it. I did learn that it isn’t good fall asleep in a car with your arm hanging out the window when the sun is out - It ended up a little red. Serra Talhada is named after the mountains that surround the town and has a very beautiful cliff face where the mountains end. Although, if you're from the northwest of the US, you'd probably be more likely to call them "hills" rather than "mountains".
Once we arrived we grabbed a quick bite to eat and Felipe’s parents, Braz (pronounced Bryce) and Clarisse, took us out to the family farm to ride some horses. Once we were there we were greeted by an uncle who spoke a little
broken English, but was so happy to have someone to try it on. He was a great guy and took us by the arms and gave us the grand tour of the farm showing us the fruit trees, the cactus garden, the goats, some ox and their babies, so much I can’t remember it all! After the tour they had the horses all ready for us to ride.
I have only ridden a horse once in my life, so I didn’t have much experience and was a bit nervous to say the least. Samuel and Felipe jumped on the horses and rode them around a bit then it was my turn. At first, I had trouble getting on the horse due to the stirrups being a bit high, but after a little adjusting I was on. Then the uncle came over and showed me how to guide the horse - pull the reigns in the direction you want to go, and if you want the horse to stop, pull back, but this horse is a bit sensitive so don’t pull back to hard or he will buck you off - That was exactly what I didn’t want to hear!
So I was ready to start off, gave the horse a kick and nothing, the horse wouldn’t move. I tried every word I could think of to get him moving, Yah! Cho! Vai! Go! Giddy-up! but nothing seemed to work. Eventually I got him moving, but he just went in the direction that he wanted to, not where I was trying to lead him.
Felipe had been riding his horse using a short whip and decided I should give it a try. As soon as I had the whip in my hand, my horse took off, really took off. I was sure I was going to fall off, one foot slipped out of the stirrup and I was pulling back on the reigns to get the horse to stop, but I didn’t want to pull to hard because I didn’t want to get bucked off either! All I remember is shouting, "How in the hell do you get this horse to stop!" Eventually I threw the whip down, replaced my foot in the stirrup, and the horse seemed to calm down enough for me to get off. After a few laughs from everyone, Heather decided to give it a
go on this horse and she had no problems at all. It must have been an operator error on my part. No one else rode the horses around after us, but instead they just jumped on the horse for a quick picture then got off. After watching one of the most beautiful sunsets we headed back home for some needed rest.
The next morning we drove out to a different farm of theirs that is located by a small river so we could do a little canoeing. Being inland the temperature in Serra Talhada was around 39 degrees Celsius so we were looking forward to the water. We pulled up and took a short walk towards the water where the canoe was sitting. At first I wasn’t sure if it was going to work because it was filled with water, but Braz let us know they filled it with water so the sun wouldn’t bake the wood. Felipe started to empty out the water while everyone else went to seek shade.
It didn’t exactly look like the best place to canoe. The river water was down low, it was sort of like a muddy marsh, and we were
told to keep a sharp eye out for snakes. After 10 minutes Felipe was done with the canoe and ready to go for a ride. Felipe, Samuel, and I decided to go out first. It wasn’t the most pleasant experience getting into the canoe because we had to walk through the muddy marsh and into the water where there were a lot of algae growing, then try to lunge into the boat, but making sure your feet weren’t muddy. After we all looked like the Three Stooges, we started to paddle out to the middle. Well, the water didn’t get that deep and the algae plant things were everywhere, but Samuel and Felipe thought that it was a good idea to go swimming. They jumped out of the boat and I followed. It was a little freaky-deaky because you had so many plants brushing you and it was still a thick mud on the bottom, overall not very pleasant. Everyone else decided to pass on the canoeing venture.
Back at the house we were all getting ready to celebrate Braz’s birthday. Many friends and family showed up and there was a whole lot of goat eating going on. The
Triunfo - PE
The town on top of the Serra Talhada mountains family farm’s main animal is goat, so they eat a lot of it. I don’t think there was one meal there that didn’t consist of goat in some way, shape, or form. After the celebration we headed to a small town that was located on top of the mountains called Triunfo to enjoy some cool night weather and ride some paddle boats. There was some music being played, the town was lit up beautifully, and we had a great time. It was getting late so we headed back towards Serra Talhada, but then we ran into car troubles - Sound familiar?
We were in Ita’s car, it was about seven at night, and the tire blew out. We pulled over to change it and found out that she didn’t have the right tire iron to take off the wheel and her spare tire was flat! We had two cars, so Felipe and Samuel headed back to Triunfo to buy the correct tire iron needed and left me and Samuel’s dad with the six ladies. It was pitch-black out and everyone was a little on edge. Samuel and Felipe returned, but were unable to buy the tire iron since all
the shops were closed, instead they picked up a mechanic and drove him out to fix the car. After all was taken care of, we headed back to the house for some sleep.
The next day we were heading back to Recife around mid-morning because Ana had to return to work on Monday. After some breakfast and chatting with the folks, we loaded up the cars and were on our way. Back on the road, everything seemed to be going fine, then all of a sudden…*POP*…Ita’s car died 60 km outside of Serra Talhada in the middle of nowhere. How lovely, more car problems!
We pulled over and inspected the engine and found that her timing belt had snapped. About 5 kilometers back that was a small town so Samuel, Ita, and everyone in their car headed back to see what they could do, while we waited on the side of the road roasting in the sun. They returned back about 30 minutes later and said that the insurance company will cover the car to be towed back to Serra Talhada and a couple people will stay back and a taxi will take the rest of us to
Recife. We had no water and we had to wait for the tow truck, so Samuel took all the ladies back to the small town and I handed him R$5 and told him to bring me back a lot of water because the sun was hot!
Samuel was taking some time to return and Felipe, Samuel’s father, and myself were dying of thirst. In the back of the car we found a 2 liter bottle of Coke that had been sitting in the sun, but we opened it up and drank away. I usually don’t drink soda pop, especially not hot Coke, but when you are thirsty it tastes pretty darn good. Eventually Samuel showed up and had some water, 1.5 liter of water to be exact, and between the 4 of us it disappeared in about 2 minutes. Samuel filled me in and let me know that the insurance company wasn’t going to provide a taxi now, so 5 of us would head back to Serra Talhada for the night while they fixed the car and head back the next day.
Sitting on the side of the road with little else to do, I entertained myself by
taking pictures and making some roadside reports with my camera. I also decided to recollect on all the car troubles we had had since we were in Brazil and counted 10 times something had gone wrong with a car, like a flat tire, a horse, etc. Hopefully everything would go ok with the mechanic and we would be back in Recife by Monday.
To return to Serra Talhada three of us had to ride in the car while it was being towed, but it's illegal to do here and we had to pass by 2 police stops to make it back to town. So Felipe, Heather, and I got in the car and whenever we would get close to the police stops we would lay down and hope we weren’t seen, which we weren’t! We dropped off the car and as luck would have it, they weren’t able to fix the car by Monday so we stayed an extra two days just chilling, but it gave to time to catch up on typing these blogs!
So there you have it, the long saga of the trips we have been on. We hope you all enjoyed the stories even
though it was very long! We don’t have anything planned until Carnival, but I am sure we will keep ourselves entertained here somehow. Once again thank you all for your comments it is great to hear from each and every one of you!
Love Ben and Heather
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Bruce
non-member comment
Unwanted advise
The arm chair quarterback says: You may want to look the cars over and inquire about recent maitainence. Before leaving on you next excursion. Glad your having fun and still kicking. I love you and your in our prayers. Dad.