When you think about my experiences on the road, travelling and seeing new places, its easy to romanticize it as one long incredible fantasy but I assure you that budget solo travel comes with its fair share of horrible days! Like when youve just spent the entire day packed like a sardine into some god awful minibus with no air conditioning in 103 degree heat, stopping at every street corner between you and your 200 mile destination only to end up in some Brazilian gulag somewhere where the newest hotel in town looks like they should also hand you a some rope and a wobbly chair with your hairy blood stained towel.
One such experience comes to mind... I was in the wayyy north of Brazil taking small minibuses across various states of terrain throughout these small fishing villages trying to get to a beautiful national park called Lencois Maranheses where they have these spectacular sand dunes. I spent 12 hours in a strange daze of semi consciousness, falling in and out of sleep in states of twisted positions, sweat and transfixiation on the passing terrain out the window. Robotically, I followed orders all day, getting off the bus on command and reboarding other sad looking ones with new sets of sweat ridden faces. I found myself in various bus stations amongst bustling plazas in numerous non descript shit hole towns all over the state of Ceara. At Parnaiba I had enough time to sit down for a Prato Feito (a cheap set course meal) and chat with the owner who was eager to talk. I ate a horribly over salted serving of unidentified chicken parts and smiled when I was asked if it was tasty.
After an entire day of this, I finally arrived in the small city of Tutoia with my backpacker friends I met along the way; a pair of couples, one dutch, one brazilian. Its dark when we get off the bus and look around somewhat bewildered and I know immediately this place is going to suck really bad. Tutioa is obviously not catering to tourists and at best, is a stopping point on the way to the National Park at Lencois Marerenhas. It’s another typical impoverished looking, Brazilian city, exuding that ascetic charm of the exposed single blue light bulb illuminating endless scenes of gray concrete and plastic tables. All the buildings are in various states of decay and drabness. We spend a good 30 minutes checking out different Pousadas (hotels) as if somehow the one befitting the image in our mind with the blue lagoon swimming pool would magically appear, standing out amongst the landscape like the monolith from 2001, a space odyssey.
At one of the more expensive posadas (about $20 a night), the night manager takes us to the "deluxe rooms" with the "sea views" to show us inside. We stroll past a concrete courtyard pocked with craters to the outside of another blue light special. The sea view is more like a sea sound which is even worse. What blocks you from seeing it is a big crumbling concrete wall with barbed wire above it. The Dutch and Brazilian girls scream when they find that their doorknob is occupied by a small frog which the night manager non-shallantly swipes away with his flip flop. He turns the lights on in the room, revealing a double bed occupied by some more frogs. He says its no problem to get rid of them but mentions that there are bugs from time to time and the frogs tend to be good to keep around to eat them.
We finally agree on this one place that was close to where the bus dropped us off. I've seen sanitariums from the 20's that had more charm than this fucking place. The blue light hallway went passed gaping holes in the structure that was probably meant for something that never got built but now just looked liked a construction site where the builders left behind their materials at least 10 years ago.
The lady from the posada leads me to my room, through a parking lot, down a dark row of motel-like rooms to the very last one, a dark, dank corner number. The door handle is useless and she has to jiggle the key in the lock in a special way to get the door open. The room itself is another ascetic gem. A single light bulb (at least yellow this time) illuminates a thoroughly depressing looking scene below. Two wires whose purpose and current state of voltage is unknown, dangle from the ceiling and disappear into a mysterious hole. A broken rusted ceiling fan stands still giving way to its replacement which is mounted just next to it. My bed is covered with only the finest cloth. Okay, in fairness i'm no primadonna and I don´t need the 500 thread count egyptian cotton but I'd prefer anything to the 60 grit 3M sandpaper they called a bedsheet.
And for some reason, toilets don't really flush well in Brazil.. anywhere... and i've become well accustomed to the sight of a good number of floaters. This puts me in the somewhat strange but informed position to proclaim that lack of fiber in the Brazilian diet is not currently a national health concern.
I'll leave you with that image for now...
One such experience comes to mind... I was in the wayyy north of Brazil taking small minibuses across various states of terrain throughout these small fishing villages trying to get to a beautiful national park called Lencois Maranheses where they have these spectacular sand dunes. I spent 12 hours in a strange daze of semi consciousness, falling in and out of sleep in states of twisted positions, sweat and transfixiation on the passing terrain out the window. Robotically, I followed orders all day, getting off the bus on command and reboarding other sad looking ones with new sets of sweat ridden faces. I found myself in various bus stations amongst bustling plazas in numerous non descript shit hole towns all over the state of Ceara. At Parnaiba I had enough time to sit down for a Prato Feito (a cheap set course meal) and chat with the owner who was eager to talk. I ate a horribly over salted serving of unidentified chicken parts and smiled when I was asked if it was tasty.
After an entire day of this, I finally arrived in the small city of Tutoia with my backpacker friends I met along the way; a pair of couples, one dutch, one brazilian. Its dark when we get off the bus and look around somewhat bewildered and I know immediately this place is going to suck really bad. Tutioa is obviously not catering to tourists and at best, is a stopping point on the way to the National Park at Lencois Marerenhas. It’s another typical impoverished looking, Brazilian city, exuding that ascetic charm of the exposed single blue light bulb illuminating endless scenes of gray concrete and plastic tables. All the buildings are in various states of decay and drabness. We spend a good 30 minutes checking out different Pousadas (hotels) as if somehow the one befitting the image in our mind with the blue lagoon swimming pool would magically appear, standing out amongst the landscape like the monolith from 2001, a space odyssey.
At one of the more expensive posadas (about $20 a night), the night manager takes us to the "deluxe rooms" with the "sea views" to show us inside. We stroll past a concrete courtyard pocked with craters to the outside of another blue light special. The sea view is more like a sea sound which is even worse. What blocks you from seeing it is a big crumbling concrete wall with barbed wire above it. The Dutch and Brazilian girls scream when they find that their doorknob is occupied by a small frog which the night manager non-shallantly swipes away with his flip flop. He turns the lights on in the room, revealing a double bed occupied by some more frogs. He says its no problem to get rid of them but mentions that there are bugs from time to time and the frogs tend to be good to keep around to eat them.
We finally agree on this one place that was close to where the bus dropped us off. I've seen sanitariums from the 20's that had more charm than this fucking place. The blue light hallway went passed gaping holes in the structure that was probably meant for something that never got built but now just looked liked a construction site where the builders left behind their materials at least 10 years ago.
The lady from the posada leads me to my room, through a parking lot, down a dark row of motel-like rooms to the very last one, a dark, dank corner number. The door handle is useless and she has to jiggle the key in the lock in a special way to get the door open. The room itself is another ascetic gem. A single light bulb (at least yellow this time) illuminates a thoroughly depressing looking scene below. Two wires whose purpose and current state of voltage is unknown, dangle from the ceiling and disappear into a mysterious hole. A broken rusted ceiling fan stands still giving way to its replacement which is mounted just next to it. My bed is covered with only the finest cloth. Okay, in fairness i'm no primadonna and I don´t need the 500 thread count egyptian cotton but I'd prefer anything to the 60 grit 3M sandpaper they called a bedsheet.
And for some reason, toilets don't really flush well in Brazil.. anywhere... and i've become well accustomed to the sight of a good number of floaters. This puts me in the somewhat strange but informed position to proclaim that lack of fiber in the Brazilian diet is not currently a national health concern.
I'll leave you with that image for now...
