Rosie in Recife

Welcome to Carnaval 101: The basics. Here you will get a brief rundown on the history and workings of Carnaval in Recife and Olinda, along with a few case studies. This will prepare you for the next lesson Carnaval 201: Carnaval in practice.

Carnaval. How to describe Carnaval? How to describe the colours and the sounds, the music, the food, the drink, the costumes, the atmosphere the emotions? It’s totally impossible actually, but never mind…

Carnaval is a three day festival (officially, although here in the Northeast it lasts a lot longer – starts earlier, finishes later) that takes part in the days leading up to Ash Wednesday. It’s the first day of lent, but here they don’t ‘do’ lent, instead, they don’t eat meat every Friday for four weeks. Because of this, the name is Carnaval – latin for ”festival of meat”. Although in the Northeast, I think people take it more literally – festival of flesh – as there’s a hell of a lot of flesh on show.

For a country of christianity – about 95% are catholic – and high, almost prude, morals, Carnaval is completely the opposite. No morals, no inihibitions, and over a million free condoms passed out on the streets.

Here, Carnaval takes place in Olinda and Recife – Olinda during the day, and Recife during the night. Although, for some strange reason, on the first official day of Carnaval, the opening ceremony of Recife is during the day – Galo de Madrugada, or Rooster of the Early Morning Hours - and Olinda at midnight – Homem da Meio-noite, or Man of Midnight.

The Galo de Madrugada I watched on T.V. at Jaqueline’s house in Olinda, as Neno’s mum made us fantasy costumes. It is officially the largest carnaval parade in the world, according to the Guiness World Record, and almost every year they break the record. Although this year the crowd was only 2 million strong, so they didn’t break it. This particular part of the Carnaval centered around a HUGE rooster constucted on one of the bridges of Recife Antigo. As we watched on TV (way too many people you couldn’t even move, and way too hot - temperature of 30degrees but with 2 million people more like an oven - to actually go in person) I tried to explain to Neno’s family about the Ohakune festival in NZ – the carrot festival. And they laughed and laughed cos it sounds so strange. How can a festival of a carrot harvest be any stranger than a festival of a corn harvest (São João) or a festival of a giant rooster?? Although in their defense, it may have something to do with carrots being synnonamous (man, I’m dying here without English spellcheck) with something else of the same general shape…

Anyway, we then went to Olinda which was a completely different city to during non-Carnaval time. Olinda is an old colourful city of winding cobbled roads climbing to the top of the hill, but almost as soon as we left the house I was lost. The streets were so crowded I couldn’t recognise anything or anywhere. The colours of the city were intensified a thousand times, as buildings had been re-painted especially for Carnaval, and fantasy costumes were strange, colourful, loud and crazy. See Neno’s for a case in point. Neno showed me one point in the city, where, a few Carnavals ago, he had been standing against a wall as a bloco group went by followed by millions of people, and he was lifted off the ground almost a metre, and, trapped against the wall, carried along by the crowd, without his feet even touching the ground.

Cerveja was cheaper now, as was the street food, and we eventually (after a painfully long trek through the “gay” street of Olinda which would usually take less than two minutes, and took almost an hour of shufflinh, pushing, and protecting Neno’s crotch – which was successful, but unfortunately left his arse in the open) found a spot to drink cerveja and watch the people.

We made friends with Monica and her family, who were selling drinks and street food. Her and her husband and mother were there, along with two little girls. It was pouring with rain and the two little girls were wet-through and crying, trying to hide under the shelter of the stall. This is proper poor. So poor that the whole family has to spend all day and all night away from home selling cheap drink and food. It was really sad, but I spent some time trying to cheer the two girls up, while Neno talked politics with their dad (which almost reduced us girls to tears again).

The main part of Carnaval (apart from the drnking) is watching the different Bloco and Frevo groups. Bloco groups are huge groups – sometimes up to 200 people – playing maracatu. It’s a traditional kind of percussion music here in the Northeast, with drums of all types – some you’ve never even seen before - which has it’s roots in African music. It’s so beautiful – loud and rhythmic and your heart starts beating in tune. Each bloco group has a uniform and large sign-on-a-stick. Like the standard bearers Danny – everyone ask Danny if you don’t understand. The sign-on-a-stick person goes first, and everyone follows playing the drums, then thousands of followers follow on behind (funnily enough) dancing and singing.

Frevo groups on the other hand have lots of frevo dancers in the most colourful, glittery costumes, dancing the most colourful DIFFICULT dance. They are followed by their band – this time with drums and lots of trombones – who play the famous Carnaval tune, and then followed by more followers. Everytime the Carnaval tune is played, the whole surrounding street goes mad.

Basically it’s just a huge HUGE street party, where all inhibitions have disappeared and anything goes. Here are a few pictures, and remember to attend the next class: Carnaval 201: Carnaval in practice.

I hate ants. I really really hate them. They’re making me so nervous and paranoid, and I have nightmares about them. Now I’ve even started to dream up novel ways of killing them.

There’s two types of ants in Brazil (actually there are thousands, but there are only two types that go out of their way everyday to terrorize me). The first is a large, light brown ant. About five times bigger than ants in NZ. I can just about tolerate those ones…Before it rains, they all run inside and just slouch around on the walls doing nothing. You have to be careful not to brush against the walls unintentionally, or you’ll feel the creepy crawling of the ants on your skin.  Shudder. And when you disturb them, they scurry (yes that’s right – scurry) away like huge creepy monsters from some sort of futuristic sci-fi movie.

So most of the time, I can bare to live in a world that also houses these ants. However, I really cannot stand the other type of ant. It’s tiny…about half the size of NZ ants, and black to the bone (metaphorically and mostly literally, apart from the fact ants don’t have bones). They move fast, they hunt in pacts, they eat meat – I once saw them feasting on the corpse of a cockroach – and they sting humans!

I have what feels like thousands of bites from the ants, and they’re much much worse than mosquito (we’ll get to those later) bites because they are never raised, so you can’t break the skin to let out the poison as I so lovingly do with the mosquito bites. Also they sting and itch and on’t let you think of anything else for hours on end. Once, I left my dress on the floor, and ants infested it, and they bit and stung my tummy so I was inscrutiatingly uncomfortable ALL night.

Which, I think, led to my nightmares about ants, where Neno was passing me boxes that were covered in the ants, which quickly spread up and down my arms as I touched them. I woke up itching all over.

And the ants get everywhere…no matter how much I clean (and cleaning!! We’ll get to that later too…) they still return from nowhere when I turn my back. Sometimes, I like to leave a lone piece of food – an apple skin, or a piece of bacon fat – in the middle of the table or on the sink bench. Then I go back a few hours later and quickly throw the food and the offending ants out the kitchen window.

This, however, soon led to the problem of the ants returning to the house through the permanently open window. So now, I’ve come up with some novel ways of getting rid of the little bastartds. An early modification of my original plan involves throwing the food and accompanying ants into a cup of water to drown them. I sometimes daydream about throwing them into boiling water, but I think that’s just unnecessarily cruel (also, it’s too much effort to boil the water on the stove every time).

I hate killing insect and bugs and even spiders, as I’m sure everyone is familiar with, but these ants just bring out the murderous side in me.

Other unfortunate deaths include; turning on the stove at exactly the right time, leaving nothing but a tiny tiny pile of ash and an oddly satisfied feeling; leaving the blender on the sink for a few hours with left over juice in it to attract the ants, adding a bit of water and blending the hell out of it; wrapping them up in an airtight bag (not sure how successful this one was, as I don’t know enough about the anatomy of an ant’s breating apperatus); a lot of soapy drownings; and even flushed a fair few down the toilet. Actually we’ve even eaten some that got into our farofa, then burned to death in the hot fejoada. At least you know they’re dead.

And if the ants weren’t bad enough, as the night starts to fall, the mosquitos come out to play. I use about half a bottle of repellent per day, and still end up with loads and loads of bites. My legs are beginning to look like some sick game of join-the-dots. And they’re always attracted to black things, and all the chairs in Neno’s house are black, so they hang around all day too…waiting until I sit down and then waiting some more until the repellent sweats off…then they attack and within two minutes I have five itchy bites.

Anyway…it’s night time now so i better go before they start their nightly attacks again…just talking about ants has creeped me out.

The first the week just seemed to be waiting, waiting, waiting, for Saturday when Carnaval would officially start.

But then everything started going wrong…

Dun dun….

Me and Neno had only taken a small amount of money with us, so we worked out that we could only spend R$42 per day. Which would be fine, cos living isn’t very expensive in Brasil, and Neno still has the internet money coming in to pay for monthly costs like health insurance and road user chargers etc. But, while we were in NZ, Alveró was looking after Neno’s house and bike, and when we got back, everything seemed wasted. Like he’d negleted it the whole time and just come back the day before and made everything look ok. So we had to pay for a lot of new things…the chairs were ripped and broken and left in the rain, the curtains were gone, the bike needed a new battery and some other mechanical things I don’t understand, the ventilator was broken, and so were both fans (although to be fair, one of them broke on the day we arrived), the microphone didn’t work, the klickers were broken, the table was warped from the sun and rain, keys were lost…So we had to pay a lot, just to get things back into working order.

So we took Neno’s bike to the garage one morning to be fixed – which was only going to take half an hour – and I sat in the shade which was boiling hot – while the man fixed his bike, and every other man in the garage stared at me. It took almost an hour and a half before the man was done, and Neno gave him R$4 for the job. Apparently, the garage pays the workers a ridiculously tiny salary, so the only way they really get any money is with tips like that. And even R$4 isn’t much (although in true Brazilian style, the man also changed a tyre on a different motorbike, oiled the chain on a bicycle, helped a man pick out a helmet, and changed another motorbike’s battery, while he was in the middle of our job, so maybe he does make a fair bit).

The man then told us to pay at the cashier and suddenly took off for lunch. When Neno went to pay, his credit card wouldn’t work, cos Álvero had reached the limit buying alcohol for his wedding, and so he was going to pay in cash, when he realised he’d accidently given the man the R$100 note at the same time as the two R$2 notes, cos he’d been keeping them all together. Well, the man had an hour for lunch and conveniently for them, everyone in the garage seemed to have forgotten his number. Neno knew for sure thart he’d given the R$100 as well, and the man must have also realised it was a mistake, which is why he ran off so quickly. So we had no money.

First we went to the police, who (after they got back from lunch) told us we couldn’t do anything without proof, then to Neno’s son’s house, while we waited for the man to get back. His son lives in one of the most dangerous favelas, which you would never enter unless you knew someone there, and we think the people at the garage must have seen, and been a little scared, cos when we got back they treated us so much better. But the man told us we hadn’t given him the money. In the end we had to borrow some money off Neno’s mum, but it had taken us the whole flippin day.

The next day I went into Recife with Jaqueline to buy a few things. I took my card to the bank to withdraw some money, but it kept either saying “Communication problems with your bank” or would just return to the start without giving me my money. I tried to withdraw R$500, then R$400, then R$300 then R$100 then R$10. it actually let me take out R$10, so luckily I had money for the bus home. I thought maybe it was trying to take money out of my savings account (which only has abut $10) but when I checked my account online, almost $1000 had been withdrawn from muy currenrt account. It said that each of those withdrawls were “successful”.

So now we’re really poor. And too scared to re-calculate how much money we can spend per day.

We got home, and it was warm – not too hot, but definately hotter than NZ. We had showers and saw Jacqueline and Alvaró breifly, and I talked to you guys at home a bit. We had a breakfast of bread and cheese, which was a nice simple meal after three days of aeroplane food and Sao Paulo fast food. Then we just slept. Although by this time it had got so so so hot and the air conditioner and both fans in Neno’s house were broken, so I didn’t really sleep much.

At about 4pm we ventured out into the heat. Just walking down the hill was exhausting, but we had to walk cos Alvaró had Neno’s motorbike. The summer seems to be way way WAY more hot than when I came last time, but it also varies more, so at night time the temperature does drop to 24 degrees, whereas before, the temperaure always stayed within a couple of degrees, regardles of day or night. Anyway, we walked through the Olinda streets and this time they were beautifully clean and tidy again. Apparently the day before had been a huge pre-Carnaval party which why it was such a mess, and every morning, the cleaners go through the streets and clean it up again. We went to our favourite caldo place (caldo is a kind of hot spicy soup with chunks of meat in it) and had some beer, cachaça (which was a mission for me after the memories of SP) and caldo. There were already heaps of foreigners in Olinda (yeah I know – I’m a foreigner too (also, I can’t spell foreigner)). We saw about four groups of non-Brazilians, which never ever happened before. And they all eat and drink in the same place which kind of annoys me.

Although it seems like one of the most popular bars for tourists (including those from other parts of Brasil) is Aloma’s Bar – which is the one I was telling you about with medieval doors and long wooden tables and seating. I think most people will be shocked when Carnaval starts and they realise this bar is in the middle of the gay street. Haha.

Every night that week leading up to Carnaval had some pre-Carnaval party. That night was “The Night of Silence”. First we went to the local Frevo school and watched the frevo competition. It’s seriously the most amazing dance ever. We then moved on to watch the official bloco group of this night (a group of up to hundreds of people with percussion instruments and trombones and singing and dancing ), and dancing singing women who were wearing shiny off-the-shoulder old-fashioned dresses. It was so colourful and sparkly and beautiful. There were thousands of people in Olinda that night, and when we went to Aloma’s Bar, it was PACKED, so we drank beer outside from the street venders. Even though it was almost a week before cCarnaval started, the city was already packed, streamers were everywhere, everyone was colourful and ready to party…it was really nice.

Tuesday I woke up with a horrible headache and drank about three litres of Guaraná…man it was so good! I never bought any iBuprofen to Brasil, and man on those first few days I missed those magic pink pills. I didn’t really drink very much, but I was tired and jet-lagged and dehydrated and hot all the time, so it seemed like I constantly had a headache. Also, I could of hit myself, cos before we left, I was going around the pharmacy thinking of all the things I might need, when I saw Berocca. I almost took some, but thought that only 15 tablets wouldn’t really be worth it. But now I’m thinking even 15 mornings of waking up without feeling like I’m hungover would be better than none. Lesson learned.

A couple of days after we arrived was Neno’s mum’s birthday, and we had a surprise birthday party for her at Jaqueline’s house. Jaqueline had already decorated her house with streamers and masks and umberellas for Carnaval, so it looked really cool already, but we went over early and blew up hundreds of balloons, and Neno and Álvero went to pick up the birthday cake and little party foods.

Here, it’s traditional to have these little finger foods at parties – all in the shape of little balls. There are two main types which are literaaly translated to Little Salts (savoury types) and Sweets (sweet types funnily enough). They were so so good, but it did lead to difficult questions from Neno’s family like “What are traditional party foods in NZ?” And these led on to even more difficult questions such as “What cultural festivals do you have in NZ?” and “What is the culture of NZ?”. It’s incredibly hard to answer these questions, especially to people from a country which has such rich, colourful traditions and history. I mean we don’t have traditional festivals (I’m sure Waitangi Day doesn’t count, even when you’re desperate), traditional music, dances, we’re not a very religious country, and even our worship of rugby pales in comparison to Brasil’s adoration of football.

And I know Maori culture is supposed to be our culture but when I tried to explain that it became kinda hard to justify Maori as an actual culture. The natives or “indians” of Brasil still live very closly to their culture – language, rituals, religion, clothing, jobs… The majority of Maori seem to be more culturally similar to “gangsters” in America with their taste of music, dancing, language, clothing…And the culture of the indians of Brasil also seem to be alive…it has changed with time while still being distinctly native. For example, they can now use different materials for tools and crafts, and different instruments for music. They have new types of clothes for diffent climates as they travel through Brasil, but you always know which tribe they’re from. On the other hand, Maori seem to be clinging to a culture they had in the past. It’s more like they’re repeating things from the past, and can something really be called a culture if it isn’t progressing and moving forward?

Anyway, I have no idea how that turned from a birthday party into an analysis of culture. Instead, let’s look at some pictures; it really was a cool birthday party:

Going back to Recife was like going home. It’s such a cliché, but I’ve come to realize that clichés usually come about for a reason.

I was so so looking forward to seeing Neno that I couldn’t get my luggage fast enough…but thanks to Murphy, a guy I knew from Recife was also on the plane, and wanted to talk to me for a few thousand years while he waited for his luggage. But finally, I got out and Neno was waiting there and in true Recife style, we went straight to Garagem bar (even though it was 3am) and had a couple of cervejas. And some nuts. Then we went home and I said hi to Otto, his homosexual dog, then I slept all all day, which was nice. 

Being in Recife, it was nice to relax again. I was with someone I knew and so didn’t have to be so vigilant, which gets quite tiring after awhile, and I didn’t have to worry about when the next bus was leaving, or how much the taxi costs, or who is that strange person following me. Being in Recife also made me realize that Recife – to me – is true Brasil. The different places I visited had different feels to them. Rio – with the huge flash apartments and old women with cashmere sweaters draped over their shoulders, walking their pedigree poodles with high heel pumps – felt like Europe – or Paris to be exact. São Paulo – with it’s high rise buildings, Starbucks outlets, Irish pubs and women wearing Gucci and Armani – felt like it was trying (too hard in my opinion) to be like America. Foz do Iguaçu on the other hand – sleepy town, butterflies, warm sunshine, humid as hell with swimming pools in every second garden – was South America’s equivalent of Brisbane. However Recife is Brasil. Sun, beach, hotness, music, culture, distinct bars, street markets, gorgeous tans…nowhere in the world even comes close.

On the second day, Neno had to go to work at night. Usually he gets home between 4 and 6am but by 7.30 he still wasn’t home. I didn’t really think much about it (that seems to be a recurring theme these last six months) until Alvero, Neno’s brother-in-law was outside the window shouting my name. It turns out Neno had had another crash on his bike – the second crash in less than 15 days. He’d been coming home and a car had come around a corner behind him, and, not seeing him, had crashed into the back, flipping him and his bike over, until he landed on the bonnet of the car.

He’d gone to the large (and crap) public hospital for tests and came out with a clean bill of health (apart from cuts and grazes which turned into scabs that he wouldn’t let me pick off). So that day was a bit of a write-off too, although he didn’t have to go to work for the rest of the weekend so we went out to a couple of bars.

Although, his bike was being fixed, so for a couple of days we had to take the bus everywhere. One night, we took the bus to the centre of Recife and went to watch a movie. It was held in the Teatro Municipal – the Recife theatre – which was beautiful. It was huge and old and ornate and only cost R$1 to get in!! The movie was good – although it was all in Portuguese and therefore a bit hard for me to follow, it was about the first Bossa-Nova band. Then we took the bus home and got off early to walk through Olinda. We ended up going to the beautiful old pub/bar that looks almost middle ages and had a couple of cervejas, before wandering home after midnight. It was one of my favourite nights.

On Sunday, Alex and Fallon came over for Feijoada for lunch, and then we went to Alto de Sé and watched maracatu and had tapioca. Me and Neno then walked Alex and Fallon to the bus stop, through a favela, where we saw a fight, and a girls bicycle being stolen. It was good to be back. Afterwards, me and Neno went to a nightclub in Olinda. It was fun despite the fact that I saw one of the security guards doing cocaine in the toilets, a huge fight broke out on the dance floor, the police were called in and the nightclub locked down cos someone stole something, and Neno was told to be careful after accidently bumping into someone because he “has a revolver.” Luckily, Neno was friends with the barman and one of the security guards so they always sneaked us out to safety when anything went wrong.

After awhile, all the days kinda blended into one…sleeping in, making “vitaminas” or shakes for breakfast – the weirdest being avocado and sugar…wtf?? – making lunch, chilling in the shade during the heat of the day, going out at night to Alto de Sé, the shopping centre, or a bar in Olinda.

Somewhere in the middle of this all, Neno bought a ticket to NZ, arriving on December the 1^st, about a month after I arrive. This made my heart happy.

On my last full day in Recife, Alex, Fallon, Steph and Grace came around for lunch. This time, Neno made Baccalhau – cod I think – which was the best food I ever had in Brasil. We also made caiprioska nevadas – frozen caiprioskas – which were bloody good. Actually because they were so good, we ended up drinking just a few too many of them. Then we all went to a “samba” club in Olinda, which turned out to be more of a dance music club. But it was still fun as. We also met a few of Neno’s friends from work. The trainees left earlier than we did, and then after we’d danced for what seemed like six years we left and went to another bar, but it was deserted. I thought maybe it was too late, but it was barely 11pm. We’d started so early that we were tired as hell before everyone else had really got going. After a quick cerveja, we decided to go home, but after passing the dance floor kinda got a bit sidetracked, and stayed for another couple of hours dancing.

Then, on the last day in Recife, and with a crazy hangover that made me throw up everything in sight (well, everything I ate anyway) Neno took me shopping to the centre of the city. We bought things like Tapioca and nuts that I could bring home. It was a nice day, if a little sad.

Then we got Neno’s friend to take us to the airport in his taxi. I went to buy my ticket, but they had all sold out. We rushed to all the different airlines, needing a ticket that would get me to Rio before my 4am check-in time, but no-one had one. Finally, when TAM realized it was an emergency, they freed one of their emergency seats for me. It was pretty expensive – about NZ$1000 but it was my only choice. But, Murphy again, my VISA wouldn’t work. So instead, I went back to Olinda, fretted, and had dreams of crashing planes.

The next day I spent basically the whole day on the phone (good old Skype) to my travel insurance and the airline company, none of who could help me. My best chance of getting home was going to be a 20-day wait and a NZ$1500 penalty. After checking with mum (parents always know best) I called back to accept it, to be told that it was gone and there were no more flights in November. After a quick panic, I rang mum and asked her to check with my travel agent, who got me a flight just seven days later and just an extra NZ$200. So I then proceeded to enjoy an extra week in Recife!

It was pretty fun except for two small incidents. First, one day, me and Neno were making dinner and just about to eat, when this andom woman stalked into the house like she owned the place, shouting at us. I didn’t understand it all because she was talking so fast and crazy, but the gist of it was that I should stay away from Neno cos he was a prostitute, and he should stay away from me because I was a foreigner and therefore had AIDS. It was quite upsetting, and after she’d left (or to be more exact – been man-handled out of the door) we had rather lost our appetites. After waiting out the back for her to leave the property, we left too and went to a couple of bars in Olinda to cool off a bit. She was such a crazy bitch!! Later, I found out she’d told Neno’s sister and some of his friends that I had AIDS as well (which in her eyes was obvious because I was a foreigner).

We went to the bar of a man who made his own liquor, and tried Rose flavoured liquor, which we drunk out of tiny chocolate shot glasses. It was really good. Then we went to the middle-ages bar before going back home again.

The next night, after Neno got home at about 2.30am from work, we were sleeping when Renata came around and started yelling out “Rosie! Rosie!” at the top of her lungs. It was 3.30 in the morning and she stayed there for about half an hour, screaming and knocking on the doors and walls…she even opened the curtains and looked in the window!! We were just really still and quiet and eventually she went away, but still…it wasn’t much fun.

Something that was fun though, was when we went to the Seresta on Friday night. It was very strange…everyone waited around, buying drinks, hot dogs, and the sheet music, waiting for 10pm. At 10pm (actually it was probably close to 11pm cos this is Brasil after all) everyone was ready. There was a man holding a big banner/staff/flag thing – like a standard bearer if you know what I mean (and probably only Danny does), and a group of people with instruments like trumpets and banjos and tamborines. They all danced and played through the streets, following the standard bearer and singing. A huge crowd followed these guys, dancing, singing, drinking, having fun. Every now and then they’d stop for some reason and everyone would have a bit of a dance and then they’d continue on. We went in a huge circle and ended up back at the beginning. Then we walked home.

Finally, it was my last day again L

We invited Neno’s mum over for lunch and cooked baccalhou again – which is gorgeous! This time we made it in a pumpkin. Renata turned up too – totally uninvited and still drunk from the night before, so she stayed too. After lunch, I walked back to Neno’s sister house with his mum. I tried acerola juice which was sooooo good, and Neno’s mum gave me a dress that she’d made. It’s really beautiful, so I wore it for the rest of the day!

Then Neno had to work, so we left early and he quickly did some opening up, then we took a couple of cervejas and went to watch some maracatu in Recife Antigo. After a couple of hours we went back to work and had rice and fish for dinner. I talked to some of his workmates while the bar opened. It was really quiet, so most of the night I talked to Neno. He invented a drink for NZ made with the colours of our flag, then set it alight. It was actually really nice. Then we went home and slept a couple of hours then went to the airport and said goodbye L

This time my plane didn’t leave without me J

I arrived in Rio and spent two and a half hours at the airport, with the police, paying for my eight illegal days in Brasil. Then I went to the hostel (I really don’t like the guy who runs it, he’s really weird), had lunch and went to the supermarket. In the tradition of Sarah, I spent about NZ$50 on chocolate. Then I hung out on the net, talking to home and Recife, and applying for jobs. I had to leave at 4am to get to the airport in time.

I made all the flights (obviously, as I’m back in NZ now). Even though there was a 12 hour wait in Chile I really enjoyed the whole homeward flight…because I was going home J I was really dreading the wait in Chile actually, but it turned out to be fun! First I looked in ALL the shops and bought a couple of things, including a book to read. Then I bought a coffee and read my book….then I read and read and read. It was the first time in ages that I’d had a proper relaxing read (well, as relaxing as airport lounges and freezing cold air conditioning can be).

Anyway, it was finally time to board the plane (I got the gay back seat next to the toilets). I fell asleep as soon as the plane started moving, but woke up about 30 minutes later to find out we were still on the ground. There was something wrong – still don’t know what it was – but we were delayed at least an hour. The flight wasn’t too nice – no personal tvs, turbulence, and too many aussies. We arrived a couple of hours late into NZ, then had to wait for a free terminal. Then it took ages to get my baggage and smuggle my goods into NZ.

Finally, I got through the gates and saw Sarah and Joe and Danny. In the flesh! It was so weird! Then I saw Dad and then Mum. It was so so good to see you guys again. In some ways like it was just yesterday, but in other ways like it had been years!

So after a couple of beautiful and relaxing days in Foz do Iguaçu, I took the bus to São Paulo. One of my favourite things to do actually, is to take the overnight bus. It’s really relaxing just sitting there, sleeping, eating chocolate biscuits, trying to watch movies in Portuguese. Even when you’re not sleeping, your brain is almost sleeping cos there’s nothing else to do. Although this particular bus was packed and it’s never much fun sitting next to other people. Just my luck, two youngish backpackers who seemed German (this observation was based purely n their surliness), and two youngish Brazilian woman were sitting in the chairs opposite me, and seemed to fight the entire way over whether the seats were down to far, or if it’s polite to punch the back of a seat while another person is sitting in it. There was also a mother with a baby sitting in the seat in fron of me, who I guessed was going to cause a lot of trouble, but she was a perfect angel…

Anyway, we got to SP about an hour and a half late. I was expecting my “friend” to have bought me tickets to Manaus and then from Belém to Rio, but when I checked my emails at the internet café in the bus station, I’d got an email from him saying “which flight numbers do you want?” I’d already sent them to him, twice, about a week in advance. So there was no way he was going to be able to get me tickets for a flight that left in two hours, even if he was online and could do it right away. And I was a little sick of travelling alone. Somehow, butterflies aren’t as beautiful, waterfalls aren’t as impressive, Cristo Redentor isn’t as majestic, when you’re not with people you love. And specially after having just left behind so many friends in Recife and missing them so much, and looking forward to coming home to nz so much that time seems to drag on. And I had no flights and nowhere to stay in SP (didn’t really want to stay with Luciano again). And to top it all off, my flippin VISA wouldn’t work anymore.

So I rang Neno, and said “I’m coming back to Recife.” Before I left, I said I wish I could stay in Recife longer, but Neno kept saying it would be better to see other parts of Brasil while I had the time, so I was totally ready for a discussion about it. But he said “Sweet as. What time are you coming? I’ll be at the airport.”

So I used Skype to ring a hostel in SP and booked a night. I couldn’t stop smiling, I felt like such a dick. I washed my clothes in the hostel, took a little walk around the neighbourhood, bought some Guaraná (man. I’m gonna miss that!). I tried to book a flight for the next day, but the computer wouldn’t work, so I just chilled out around the hostel feeling happy.

The next morning I got up super early and went to the airport to book a ticket from there, but my VISA still wasn’t working. So I rang dad and mum (it was so stragne to hear your voices! Strange in a nice way) and got more credit card details, but i had to have a functioning card, not just the numbers. Luckily, I had enough cash on me to buy an incredibly cheap flight to Recife that left at midnight. But it was from the other airport. So I took the free bus to the other airport (about 30 minutes away) stowed my luggage in left luggage and prepared to spend 14 hours at the airport.

When I was little (and somewhat unreasonable) I had always thought that if I ran away from home I would go to the airport. Clean toilets, showers, places to buy food (don’t know how I’d get the money, but there’s always leftovers right?), and there’s so many people coming and going that no one would ever notice you’re homeless. Perfect. Well on this day I totally learnt that an airport is not a cool place to run away to.

It started off fine with chocolate, Guaraná, sun and a reading book. But the chocolate was flippin expensive and the sun soon went in, leaving me freezing cold, sipping on warm and flat Guaraná trying to translate a Portuguese reading book before my hands went numb. So I went inside, read a bit more, went on the internet to let Neno know the time of my flight, read some more, fell asleep and dropped my book on the floor, drank some more Guaraná….it was so so boring! And I kept going for little walks arund to stay awake, and kept bumping into the same people (and this airport was way bigger than Auckland).

So I took a bus into the centre of SP to go to the street with motocycle shops (yes, there’s a whole street, actually more of a neighbourhood, that specializes in motorcycle repair and parts shops). He’d given me a list of things he needed for his bike. When I finally found the strret, I suddenly realised that I was so totally out of place. Not only was I female, but I was blonde, foriegn and young. So I went to the first shop to get off the street and away from the stares and asked where to get them. Luckily this shop had them so I spent a good hour or so while the men found the correct pieces and tried to explain them to me. So just before I bought them I said “are you certain these are the right ones and if they’re bot, will you pay for us to send them back to you?” He sai “don’t worry, they’re all the correct pieces.” So I said “Good. It’s just a lot of people rip me off because I’m forign and don’t speak Portuguese well.” So he paused for ages, then decided to ring Neno up and double check. And they were all the wrong pieces which I kinda guessed by the way he kept saying “well this is basically the same thing.” And everything was so expensive that we Neno told me not to worry about buying anything.

So on my way back to the bus stop, I saw a beauty salon and decided to get a manicure and pedicure as my nails were in an absolute disgraceful state. I felt like such a moviestar as one woman did my hand nails and one woman did my feet nails. And it only cost R$22 for both – which is about NZ$18!!

Then I got the bus back to the airport, read a bit more, had a SP burger and boarded my flight back to Recife!!!

I got a plane to Foz do Iguaçu, otherwise known as Iguaçu Falls on Sunday morning. My “friend” from Recife (who I don’t like so much) bought me the ticket because his brother works for the TAM airlines, and can get them really cheap. So I just had to transfer he money into his account. So Luciano and Itala got the bus with me to the Airport and said Goodbye (I don’t know why this has a capital, it just seemed right at the time), and I bought some ridiculously expensive chocolate for the flights. Why is airport chocolate always so expensive?

There were two flights actually, one to Curitiba and then another to Iguaçu, each about an hour long. When I arrived in Iguaçu, I went to the bookshop and looked at a copy of Brazil Lonely Planet, memorised the number of a hostel, and went and called them. Luckily they had space. Actually, I think most hostes will have space cos it’s not the busy season. Anyway, I got a taxi to the hostel which was really nice (the hostel, not the taxi; that was pretty average). I arrived at about 3pm, so just chilled out most of the day…watched a couple of movies, used the internet…nothing special.

When I was checking in, my bag fell forward awkwardly on the fall and suddenly there was this awful high-pitched sound like an alarm going off. It was coming from my bag, but I had no idea what it was. So I frantically searched through my bag, until I found the little torch that mum had sent me. I always thought it was just a torch – and it had come in handy a LOT at the hostels cos I couldn’t always put the light on if someone else was sleeping. But it was actually an alarm as well! Haha. Thanks mum!

But I had to talk to this man called Luiz, about the falls. I wanted to see the Brasil side first, then the Argentinian side the following day, but he suggested I go to the Argentinian side first with a group of three others who were going the next day. So that was cool, we were going to leave at 9am cos we had to go through two sets of customs. So the next day I got up early, got ready, had breakfast (that incuded some of that Dolce de leite that Ollie brought back frm Argentina that time), got my passport and went to meet Luiz at 9am on the dot. But he said two of the people had pulled out of going, and we needed at least three to go “but don’t worry, I’ll get someone else, we’re definately going to go”. He asked everyone, but no one else wanted to go, until a girl turned up from an overnight bus and decided she’d come too. So we finally left at 12pm. Brasilians….

The falls were absolutely beautiful. So so amazing, I think the most stunning thing I have seen these last six months. I can’t explain how beautiful they were, and even the photos and videos (which I can’t put up yet, because I need the cable) don’t do them justice.

The Argentinian side basically walks along the side of the falls, so you can see them incredibly close up. At some points, they were almost frightening, standing directly below a huge sheet of water pounding down almost on top of you. And thats apart from the fact I was terrified of dropping my camera into the falls. Like when we were little, and Jane’s family came to NZ and we all went skiing and on the way back stopped off at some waterfalls. And when I got out of the car to see them, I took my brand new toy dog with me, and I was so so sure I was going to drop him in the falls. Even now, I sometimes think about that time, and I’ve had any a sleepless night because of it. And so Iguaçu falls was like a re-visitation of this nightmare.

But I didn’t drop anything into the falls J

We also went on a boat trip which went right up to the falls, and underneath them. This was actually really frightening for me. I was totally scared. I think it didn’t help that I’d just read on NZ Herald online, that there’d been a white-water rafting accident in NZ where a woman had died. Our boat was a white-water rafting boat, and the water around the falls was so turbulent because of the power of the falls. But I’m still alive. When we got off the boat, we were soaking wet – like we’d been swimming in the water. And my skirt was basically see-through.

But the whole day was amazing…it was flippin hot and I got really sunburnt, but the fals were just so beautiful. There was a track to follow, and it seemed that around every bend was another secret waterfall or view of the falls that was more beautiful than the last. I took thousands of photos. And then I thought that I was taking so many photos that I’d maybe forget what they looked like and only remember the photos, but I just couldn’t help it…I was totally camera-hapy that day.

The next day a few of us took the local bus to the Brasil side of the falls early in the morning. This side was more of a panoramic view of the falls, as it was on the opposite side of the river than the falls (if you get what I mean). I think maybe this side was even more beautiful. There are so many falls, in the middle of a beautiful rainforest, that’s just teeming with beautiful buterflies of the most amazing colours – yellow, metallic blue, metallic purple…and these really cute litle raccoon like animals. This side was much shorter though, but ended with an extreme close up of  one part of the falls called the Devils Throat. This is probably the most powerful and overwhelming part of the falls. From the Argentinian side you can see it from the top, and from the Brasil side you can see it from the bottom. From both sides it’s amazing.

Anyway, after seeing the falls, I took a bus back to the hostel and chilled out for most of the day, as I had to wait for an overnight bus back to São Paulo that left a 7pm.