The wheels on the bus...

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I have found a new treat, its called Gurana, it’s a naturally occurring food that the Brazilians put on absolutely everything, You can add it to your coffee, use it to liven up your fruit juice and sprinkle it on your food. Instead of coca cola brazilions drink carbonated drinks that are derived from it, its called gurana something-something, I having difficulty pronouncing it contains similar properties to coffee and my new found love for it means I’m out of bed nice and early, into bed nice and late and always in the mood for a good chat. Niamh hates Gurana.

As we were both still horrifically sunburnt we decided to hit Centro to check out the Art Gallery and what I thought was the Brazilian museum for natural history. Niamh has a particular soft spot for art galleries and to be fair she managed bring me to appreciate them recently as well.

Centro Rio is really worth the visit, the art gallery itself is a stunning pile that dominates the street. However once we got inside it was clear that the museum in question catered for modern art along with the more traditional statues and paintings

Now modern art while most of it looks like it was created by smearing the contents of your fridge all over yourself before rolling all over a canvas in the nude, can be quite interesting.

Myself and name were in the Tate Modern in London a few years back and this was the first time I was acquainted with a proper modern art gallery. Tate modern had it all, Dolls made from pubic hair, giant steel sculptures of genitals all exploring the insignificance of man or whatever theme the artist thought before he CHUNDERED EVERYWHERE from whatever illegal drugs or spirit he or she was ingesting at the time the particular piece was made.

The piece de resistance however was in a special room marked explicit and over 18’s only…of course I had to get a look and dragged miss power in with me. The room was entirely dark save from the flickering of a black and white projector. The projector in question was showing a film of a man, naked as the day he was borne save for his face covered in wet clay, jumping up and down so that his penis spun in circles, I believe this is known as “doing the helicopter in casual parlance among teenage boys. Niamh upon seeing this shirked a disgusted “OHMYGOD” before fleeing the room thankfully before the clay covered man who had tired of the helicopter, began finger painting with what appeared to be his own excrement. With the Tate modern setting the bar for batshit modern art so high the Rio art museum had some path to follow.

The Modern art on show was generally tame for most part, strange considering the far easier access to narcotics in this part of the world however there was an interesting sculpture of a horse wearing a back hood with a neon blue pole protruding from its backside and an honourable mention goes to a painting of what appears to be an elderly woman with needle like teeth eating a baby.
Next up was the Brazil lion museum of natural history, where I hoped there would be dinosaurs and other interesting stuffed animals to gawp at.

However the natural history museum of Brazil turned out to be the “national” history museum of Brazil. This was no loss and the national museum was worth the trip
meIn, particular the section on the early history of the indigenous tribes. I know that if one tribe went to war with another and you ended up as a prisoner of the opposing tribe you were not imprisoned but allowed to live and learn the ways of that tribe in question and even marry into one of the women much like Tom Cruise did in the last samurai. The brazillion indigenous tribes did this differently however and the captured person despite given free run of the village is still considered an enemy after some year the tribal elders decide that the live in prisoner is to be released from the tribe again as an outside enemy and typically the poor unfortunate is killed, quartered and eaten, no doubt this is a precautionary measure in case any pint sized, pearly white westerner taken captive attempts to convert the village to scientology.

At present, I am typing this out on a long distance bus from Rio to Iguassu falls, the trip will no doubt be an enjoyable 22 hours of riotous fun, endless banter and insanity inducing sleep deprivation. There’s obviously no internet on the bus so I’m going to save this update and post it upon arrival at the falls, there is an excellent hostel there with a fairly decent wi fi.

I helped myself to a helping of “Bobs Burgers”, Brazil’s version of McDonalds, at the bus station and I am sorry to say it’s on the opposite end of the quality scale to all the other mouth-watering brazilin food I’ve had this week. I am almost certain I will see the meal I endured in bobs again shortly, not a nice thought to have before embarking on a bus journey twice the length of a trans Atlantic flight.

Leaving Rio was an eye opener to say the least, the outskirts of the city could only be described as post apocalyptic, with derelict buildings, abandoned cars and piles of rubble surrounded by endless slums disappearing into the horizon as far as the eye can see. Any intact buildings are surrounded by high fences crowned with corkscrews of razor wire. The police in the outskirts go around in threes and fours and never carry anything less then m16s. We stop at one traffic light and in front of a hut that looks like it will come down at the slightest drop of wind, and a family are having there dinner, all smiles amid the surroundings. The youngest daughter, no more then 3 catches Niamhs eye and leaps from her mothers lap before waving at her manically with a huge smile on her face, simply oozing with happiness despite her surroundings, her entire family follow suit.

It takes us 2 hours to clear the outskirts of Rio and hours and hours of quiet county roads are ahead. The moon is full and clear giving the sky a blue sheen and where once there were passengers there are clumps of snoring blankets hanging off seats like mushrooms. Niamh is sleeping sideways head lying against the crook of my arm, she was fiddling with the string that adjusts my hoody for the past few minutes but she’s still now and probably fast asleep. The hoody being a necessity, the air con is blowing full blast and it rapidly cools the bus, despite the extra layers I am still shivering, the other passengers have full on duffels and blankets and I would trade the contents of my wallet for a simple pair of socks.

Eventually we pass Sao Paulo and it’s a different beast to Rio, much more modern and high rise and the even slums here look they have been given a refurb. I turn on my phone and get a series of excited texts from the family, Leinster are hammering Saracens in the RDS with O Malley, Nacewa, O Brien and Dominic Ryan getting tries, Hopefully Sexton was wearing his kicking boots as well. I try text mum back but the phone refuses to deliver the message. Bonus point win, just have to hope we don’t lose anyone injured versus Racing and we are in the quarters.

My eyelids are pouring down my sockets like freshly poured cement so I’m going to save this and make an attempt at sleep,…I’ll upload this in Igassu.

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