June 29, 2014

The group phase of Brazil '14


 
''What does it say on your flag?'' asks the boy, ''Order and progress, the two things we don't have we put on our flag to remind us'' replies the Brazilian girl. My experience is contrary, more progressive than I expected.


It's been a long few weeks in Brazil. My first conversation to a group of boys at my first petrol stop set the tone for a happy and laughing people when I misunderstood their question of ''Who is going to win the World Cup?'', thinking I was asked ''Who are you supporting in the World Cup?'' which explains why when I replied ''Australia'' they all jumped around laughing, tapping the floor hysterically. They love to smile and laugh here and they love an opportunity to dance.

It's been full of repeated arrivals, good times and farewells with familiar faces, buffet lunch stops with interesting characters and very long, flat rides on the highways, wide open spaces, climatic zone changes, not much rest and the football. It hasn't all been World Cup related, between the match cities and tourist areas a normal Brazil, often a disinterested Brazil, continues with little reminder of the carnival atmosphere when game days arrive.




After crossing from Paraguay I spent the first night camped at a gas station where these excitable men were all too happy to offer a patch of space by the trucks for me, countless coffee and water refills and a warm introduction to the country. From there I raced up to arrive in Cuiaba` a couple days before Australia's first match. It was a heavy ride which became increasingly humid as I neared the Pantanal area, the massive tropical wetland in the centre of the continent. My hope in match cities was to simply arrive and ask around for where a campsite was, prepared for hotels and even hostels to be excessively priced. I arrived in Cuiaba` after dark, no money in my wallet having had trouble getting cash from the ATM's since arriving in the country and with about a litre of petrol left in the tank. I hadn't felt this kind of humidity since Central America nearly a year ago.

As I arrived on the city outskirts I asked a man in a van beside me at the lights if he knew of a bank nearby that would take VISA. He offered to lead the way, then to a shopping centre when it refused my card. I eventually found some cash, he then offered to take me to a gas station. He seemed a generous guy and curious to meet a foreigner so when I told him I was here for the football and was looking for a campground preferably close to the stadium he offered to drive ahead of me to the stadium. Asking around at the stadium for a nearby campsite, the security guards, police and general public weren't much help despite the phone calls they made. I was glad when Volter hinted he had some space in his front yard but it may be uncomfortable as his dogs will be barking all night and I wouldn't be able to sleep. I was prepared to take anything at this point having ridden over 700km's and now sweaty and exhausted. Shortly after calling his wife to convince her to let a stranger put his tent up at their place we headed over where I was met by Volter's wife Neia and 13 year old son Andre`, a cold shower before parking Sixto behind the gate and setting up my tent on the concrete in their old open air kitchen as their small home was being refurbished. I went to sleep knowing I'd met a warm family and there would be an interesting time ahead with them in the following days in a distinctly Brazilian part of the country.          
 
 
 
Volter working hard with his VW Kombi courier van
 
 
I was woken very early the next morning to Volter and Andre pulling up stools by the tent and eager to get their curious questions out. Because of the heat I slept with just the tent flysheets so I stayed in the tent while we chatted for an hour or so. With a bit of effort we seemed to converse quite well as I spoke Spanish with a few words of Portuguese I'd memorised and Volter doing the reverse. I had nowhere to be for the next day and a half, just needing to get a SIM to contact Steve to arrange our meet up so I spent the time with my newly met family. I joined Volter at work as a courier. We made deliveries from his factory where he introduced me to many people in his office and had a memorable barbeque lunch at Neia's work as a kindergarten teacher where they had a big break up ahead of Brazil's first match with barbeque, music and dance and more happy Brazilians to meet. We watched the Brazil match  and walked the streets after to celebrate the win. The following day all I wanted was a sleep in but was woken up early again to head off to work with Volter spending the morning together before meeting the game crew for the first time a few hours before the match. I had to move on a couple of days later but Volter's hospitality won't be forgotten and remains my most Brazilian experience after three weeks. We had a good laugh together and he offered a big insight on how live is lived up here in a less influenced part of Brazil.    
 
 

 

I've been joining the group of 15 or so before the Australia matches then leaving them a day after the match while I took to the roads between Cuiaba`, Porto Alegre and Curitiba for little more than lunch stops, petrol stops and hotel rests. It's been fresh and overwhelming, I've had to pick up the pace from my comfortable mode of the past months in Patagonia. I had to put on my drinking hat, enjoying the Aussie humour, joining in the fun and get used to long conversations in English. It's great to spend time with family after so long. Match days have been exciting despite the loses, the stadium's atmospheres were intense, particularly the Dutch match, our hospitality tickets offered an open bar and sandwiches for seven hours which kept us going for the evenings. The tournament is in full swing these days, it's hard not to embrace the atmosphere and occasion as the average Brazilian seems willing to get involved in the festivities.    
 

 
With my cousins Laura, Rob and Steve.

 

June 10, 2014

The road to Cuiaba` - Part III


Faltan dos dias! 2 days remaining!

I'm sitting in a typically dodgy border town on the Paraguayan edge and should cross into Brazil tomorrow morning. You know there's something not quite right about a town when every shop has private security guards at its entry bearing heavy guns against their chests including toy stores and shoe shops. I'm about 1,000km's from Cuiaba which leaves me a bit of time to arrive rested ahead of Friday night's match.

A visit to Iguazu Falls was my last stop in Argentina, for now. Unfortunately the day I went out to the park it was quite foggy with limited views but there's no mistaking the width, depth and power of these waterfalls, tonnes and tonnes of water rapidly flowing then free falling before your eyes and far beyond the mist below.
 


My best shot of the Devil's throat

The following day there's a second quick entry and exit into Brazil before entering Paraguay at Cuidad del Este. It's a horrible town, full of shopping malls supposedly offering duty free and knock off electronics capitalising on the Iguazu tourism. Despite Luis and his family insisting I avoid it, assuring me I won't just have my bike stolen but also the clothes off my back, I passed through with plenty of hassle but no real concern. I've only spent three days in Paraguay so it's difficult to gather an opinion on the place. It houses the largest dam in the world which I didn't go out to see, and is also the largest exporter of hydroelectric power. At times it feels a little like Bolivia but friendlier and looks a lot like central America with the tropical landscape, mud and street food vendors.

More interestingly, it's indigenous language and culture is said to have remained more influential than any other South American country. It survived the bloodiest war in South American history and one of the most destructive in global modern warfare, from 1864 to 1870, losing 60 to 70 % of its population through war and disease, and about 140,000 square kilometers of territory to Argentina and Brazil leaving less than 30,000 adult males and having to rebuild a country which beforehand was striving and not reliant on the world beyond its borders. 

I read a recent study by Gallup which measured positive emotions of nearly 150,000 people in 148 countries that declared Paraguay to be home to the happiest people on earth. The survey reviewed whether people experienced a lot of enjoyment the day before the survey and whether they felt respected, well rested, laughed and smiled a lot, and did or learned something interesting. I notice people smiling, laughing and relaxing more than the average I guess, very relaxed by Latin standards I would say, even the customs officials needed convincing to write me out a temporary vehicle entry form. I can't say people are doing anything too interesting which is subjective of course and if experiencing enjoyment means playing bad music far too loud in your car then they're definitely enjoying themselves here. A Paraguayan ambassador explained it well -  ''It's a feeling of contentment that derives from following a natural way of life. We follow the flow of the river, the green of the forest, the warmth of the sun.'' Nice, helpful and positive people but a difficult place to find a good meal.


Sixto turned 50,000km and 423 days old today in north eastern Paraguay. He's in good form for the long distances in Brazil.
 

June 5, 2014

The road to Cuiaba` - Part II

Tent down, face washed, coffee and back on the road, there was lot of ground to cover so I tried to get riding by mid morning and make distance through the provinces of La Pampa, Cordoba, Buenos Aires and into Santa Fe on a good afternoon. I was approaching the periphery of the country's industrial heartland, busier roads and grumpier faces. I'm now blending in with the middle aged men eating lunch alone in simple restaurants, staring at the television, picking at the bread from our baskets until the hot meal arrives.  

The weather was mainly fine until the skies opened up above and turned a dark shade of grey by late afternoon. Despite thinking I'd waited out the storm coming from the north in a gas station lounge, I got caught in the dark for 100km's in a mix of thunderstorm and torrential rain, drenched to the bone until escaping in the closest highway town of Rufino for a hotel bed for the night. To make matters worse, the highway was frequented by many trucks and clearly no weighbridges in this part of the country as the tarmac was unpredictable and difficult to see the deep waves due to overloaded trucks. Perhaps the most dangerous riding I've endured.


 

A day later I cross the Rio Parana, an instant tropical change and miles of riding through the wetlands. On a rare occasion after months in Argentina, the police at the provincial checkpoint pull me over rather than wave me through. License and bike title isn't enough this time, they ask for my insurance. ''What insurance?'' I say, ''I don't have insurance in Argentina''. ''But it's compulsory, you must have third party insurance in Argentina''. ''I didn't know that, customs never asked me at the many border crossings I've made, the police have never asked me up to now''. I thought it would blow over and they'd let me carry on, but with a group of cops now around me, one of the guys was out to make a point. I was forced to pull over, brought into the roadside office and sternly shown the road laws and a schedule of offences and the corresponding fines, $1,400 pesos for lack of insurance, that's somewhere around $190 aussie dollars now that I had very little cash and would be potentially forced to use my bank card at official rates.

I casually laughed it off and did my best at playing the subtle balance of ignorance, patience, innocence, surprise, frustration and dumb gringoness. He had my title and license so I had little room to move. ''What are you going to do'' he asked. ''I don't have that money'' I insist and stick to my story that I repeatedly asked customs officials at every crossing into Argentina and they say insurance isn't compulsory so I haven't bought it. Being a Saturday the bank isn't open so I'm told if I don't have the cash I have to wait until Monday to make the payment. ''Monday! What am I suppose to do til then? Where do I put my tent?''. ''Over there points the older cop, beyond the guard rails.

I'm sent out of the office and forced to wait by the roadside until something further. Several hours go by, they're waiting for me to give in I figure. I've found patience is always the way to go in these situations so I sit and watch the traffic go by. As it gets dark, I fetch my tent from my bike and set it up where I was told was possible. No one approaches so I get my sleeping bag out and settle in for a documentary then some music on my laptop. A few hours later, at 11pm, I head out of the tent to take a piss, hoping to catch someone's attention, surely they won't allow me to camp by the highway overnight. As I'm shaking off one of the senior cops shines his torch my way and calls me over. ''Cold, hey'' he says. ''What do you think?'' I reply, making it sound a lot colder than what I was used to further south. ''Go on, pack your stuff up, get out of here''.

After six of so hours, he agreed to give me my documents back and continue on the highway. I approached the office and the cop inside had a few questions for me. ''So, what's your job? You're a dentist aren't you?'' ''No, I'm not a dentist.'' ''You're a doctor''. ''No, I work in construction. Why?'' I find out he'd been google-ing me during this time and mistakened me for a dentist from California. Maybe that got me out of the fine, who knows, but he kindly wrote out a formal fine in case I was caught further on I could plead guilty and say I'd already paid the fine then we sat by the computer while I showed him my blog and what I'd been up to in Argentina. Tough going but luckily I wasn't far from a town so I took a hotel room for the night.                  



 
Packing my bags in the car park the following morning I meet Pancho, a Chileno riding east to Brazil for the World Cup. We compare maps and routes and decide on riding together for the day. It's not much chop riding alongside a 200cc cruiser, often not realising Pancho is out of my rear vision so I make some stops so he can catch up. Over lunch and perusal of our maps, we spontaneously decide to cross into Uruguay shortly for a change of scenery. My lack of insurance comes to bite me again, I pass through both immigrations and customs before a man approaches me and says I can't enter without insurance. What frustrates me most is that if insurance is compulsory, as it is in some less developed Central American countries, there should be facilities at the borders to purchase it. At the crossing I had no option but to return to Argentina for the night. I had to leave Pancho behind, fix insurance in the border town the next morning and re-enter that afternoon. 


Sun setting over the Rio Uruguay in Belen with Argentina in the distance. The most precious thing about leaving the Andes is riding and resting with sunsets like this across the broad plains of Argentina and northern Uruguay. To take a memorable line from my eternal buddy Phil, riding into scenes like this just never gets old, first heard the evening of our sunset ride into Comodoro Rivadavia now months ago further south.I didn't stay long but I'll be returning to Uruguay after Brazil, my first impression was of a similar feel to Cuba, but functional, perhaps what a democratic Cuba would be like - fields of quality farmland, deserted highways, old cars and simple living.      



When I turned off the highway for a night in Belen and some petrol I was given directions from these two hitchhikers only to meet them shortly after by the river where I decided to camp. Carlo and Lalo were true bohemians, the sons of freemasons who had spent the past decade on the road between odd jobs, spending time in all corners of their country and well as the neighbouring countries. I spent the night trying hard to understand their thick accents, shared some cask wine and a slow cooked pasta fagioli over a campfire.   
 

 
 
Tuesday June 3, 2014. I wake up with the sun by the river in Uruguay, hug it out with my new friends, get on the road early, cross freely into Brazil, stop for coffee, cross into Argentina a couple of hours later, throw down an average plate of ravioli for lunch and take the 12 towards Misiones province and the sub-tropics. This is the sun setting on approaching Luis' place at day's end.
 
 
 
Sixto's room with a view
 
After a long day of over 500km's on the road and three countries, seeing the sun setting as above is enough to call it a day and watch it melt away. I was in need of a wash so when seeing a restaurant sign on the highway with 'toilets and showers on offer' I made a U-turn and pulled into the driveway. As soon as I got to my feet, a jolly man presented himself. I asked if I could camp in the front of the property and maybe use the shower. In true Argentinian fashion there was no hesitation, Luis suggesting I park beneath the undercroft. I watch the last of the light with a couple of avocados fallen from the tree and soon enough I'm introduced to a couple of guys who work there as well as a couple of others who have come to drop off some timber. Then arrives Luis' gentle father and brother Lolo who insists the night will be too cold for camping and suggests I set up inside a small brick building away from the wind. I'm invited in for a beer and find a new energy for some interesting chat with a friendly group of guys, all connected with the restaurant. Later on Luis and one of the guys get on the guitar and drums in the corner of the restaurant for a private session of folklore music from not just this part of the country but samba from various areas until we share a great plate of rice, lentils and pancetta.  
 


 
With Luis and his father. I farewell Luis and the boys and head to Puerto de Iguazu the following morning after I'm fed an energizing Argentinian breakfast - a big cup of cafe latte, bread and dulce de leche and a lesson on the secrets to making perfect bread by the padron. A fantastically warm family and more unforgettable hospitality.   
 
 
      
 
Why doesn't this happen in the more developed world? I made a brief stop on the highway to Puerto where a man was grilling from a 40 gallon drum on his trailer by the road, $2 got me a well roasted piece of pork belly, a chorizo, chimichurri, a basket of bread and a glass of water.