Delayed Posting of Poo Adventures

[Written late at night on Thursday 21st October]

Everywhere we go, people want to know, who we are............

Going to Morro de Sao Paulo was so easy i said to myself, ´this isn´t much of an adventure!´ Although we refused the R$70 direct luxury boat from Salvador and chose to take the local bus to Sao Jochicm, then the Ferry Boat to Bom Dispatcho, then the coach for two hours to Valenca and then a little motor boat to the Island, all the connections added up and we got there entertained and happy early afternoon, after only four hours of effort. The way back was different. The way back too seven hours and we don´t even know where we are now.

It started off simply, but we had to wait an hour at the port for the next boat. After enjoying a plesant ride past several beautiful isolated beaches we stopped and everyone got off, great all the more room for us. Well no, it turns out that this boat doesnt go to Valenca but somewhere else entirely. Stepping ashore at a place we´ve never been to with everyone asuring us it´s Valenca was a feeling i will never forget. One moment we are in the middle of the tourist brigade, the next we are severing all ties with it by stepping off this boat and down a pier into a tiny village which looks like it hasnt been discovered yet. (i´ve named it Geekville). We recovered well as we followed other locals onto a bus and found ourselves dumped off shomewhere in Valenca an hour later. It´s really quite a challenge to find your way around a town you dont know, in a langage you dont know without a map.

We made it to the bus station just as a bus was pulling out and we misrebly passed an hour and a half wait staring blankly forwards, occasionally punctuated by an ongoing discussion about whether to buy some popcorn from the local vender. Xss wanted it but chose to not get some in the end. Boring as it sounds the locals were riverted to this conversation.

After the nice bus ride we got a ferry, immediately, no problems. Then the real fun began, getting a bus to an address given to us by a friend (so we could stay with their friend at a Charity base). After asking the bus driver and the conductor at the back of the bus (where you get on) we managed to establish that the bus was going where we wanted to, but there was always something said afterwards that we didnt understand. So we got this amazingly cheerful bus with kids cheering and fighting to sit next to us, office workers laughing and the jolliest conductor you will ever see not on childrens TV. As we sat down a tidal wave of kids rushed towards us and tried to speak with us. It was fun and even the office workers joined in and started shouting comments which had the whole bus laughing. Unfortunately nobody else wanted to travel for an hour and a half on a local bus service around the houese. I swear we went to ´Pituba´three times. So slowely our friends got off, the laughing stopped and the confusion around us increased exponentially. I had a map of where we wanted to go and this was passed around liberally and the driver consulted several times, either he didnt know where the bus was going or he was being pertitioned to take a detor for us. Since no-one on the bus knew where we were going despite my nice handdrawn map (and believe me EVERYONE was asked) someone decided to call the person we were going to (i claimed he was our friend, because i didnt know friend of friend). So a nice guy called and told Dijalmi that he had his two Americans there and what stop did they need to get off at. After a long conversation this man knew and them promptly got off the bus. Luckily somehow he had informed someone else (why not us??) and this man accompanied off the bus. HE then phoned Dijalmi to say that the tourists were at the bus stop. This was accompanied by a hished voice warning we didnt understand. So we asked him to say it again, nope, nothing, but it appeared from gestures that it was very dangerous here nad we must not talk to ANYONE, or cross the road or leave the bus stop and must not move until a man with a sign saying Dijalmi arrived for us. And he left. By all accounts the area looked fairly nice so we werent scared and soon enough the hassled Dijalmi appeared. We pilled into his car, and it wasnt until we were a little way down the road that he polietly asked, ´Who are you?´Oh the shame.

Well, he was nice to us anyways (and we had emailed him to tell him we were coming on this date). We waited in the lounge whist he made us up a bed in the room next to the pool ( i call it a pool house), and then called us down. It is sparse but thats not unsusual. But there were no pillows on the bed so we asked if he had any, i mean this is a base that we presumed had lots of houses on, all owned by the charity and empty most of the time, surely they have pillows. So back Dijalmi comes with two pillows straight off his bed (or the bed of his 7 year old!) one complete with crusted on bogie, both with old hairs. Now we find ourselves in this little room, with no glass in the windows, a very dirty bathroom, and a very strong smell of Poo. So strong we have considered leaving right now, or maybe tomorrow morning saying we got our flight wrong, and going back to the tourist areas. Its good to be adventurous, but when you don´t speak the language and they dont speak English how can you communicate about a poo smell? We are running out of toilet paper as well... tense times.

Questions we are still asking ourselves as we settle down to sleep:
Are we in the right place?
Are we at Djalimi´s house and not the Charity base house
and most importantly, where is the poo?

Adventures in the rain

Hi all my lovely, lovely blog readers. I was logging on to tell you about our nice time in the rain around morro but have been distracted by the stats people at Blogger who inform me that my funny little blog this week has been read by people from:

The UK (no suprises there)
Brazil (well I've told one person here the address)
The Philippines
Hong Kong (I'll see you later next year)
USA (I've family there!)
Columbia
UAE
Poland
And one from Israel!

I can't believe it. What if these people think everyone from England is like me and eats their banana´s sideways!?

Anyway. Today it is raining (yes rain exists in paradise)(anyway it is nice rain here, warm and very fine- so nice infact that everyone is pretending that everything is normal and it's only me who has come out wearing a raincoat). Even Xss had left his at home and made me look like I had an overly concerned mum back in the hostel making sure I didn't get wet, the un-rubbed in sunblock on my cheeks and nose probably didn't help matters.

So we decided to walk to the fort (turns out there isn't one). After viewing the towns fonte, an odd well/hole in the ground, we continued on to the theatre and accidentally took in a full tour of the town and nothing touristy. The theatre was naff (it was an outdoor theatre with no great views and nothing special to note- it was simply a theatre- why didnt the sign tell us this?!) but as we were leaving we spotted the bookseller on his porch. We smiled and said hello, amused that we had found his home. However as we continued onwards who should we come accross but the cake lady! We have bought two flapjacks off of her every afternoon down on the beach. She came out of her house calling after us and pushed a clingfilm wrapped, joy creating, bundle of warmest, freshest, sweetest flapjack into our hands! The Brazilians have got to be the nicest people I've met. If you go to the house of a Gregs worker uninvited the best you'd get would be a punch in the mouth, not a free iced finger roll.

We are due to leave Morro tomorrow and weirdly enough we are glad. It's very nice in paradise but there's only so much doing-nothing that you can do. Two more weeks on the farm and then we will be whizzing through the destinations. Watch out America it will be Christmas soon!

Morro De Sao Paulo

This is the place.

I am not sure if you get a nicer place than Morro de Sao Paulo. It is seriously nice. The scenary is amazing, soft white sand, VERY clear warm water, no crustations, no litter, warm sunshine and plenty of shade. I love this place. As we walked in it was like the scene off of ´The Beach´when Leo walks into the village, everyone is busy but stops to look at the new arrivals. There are various shops and resturants all lining a little sandy street. 3,000 people live here and support the tourist trade. We have spent our days getting up late, lying on the beach reading and swimming (when the water is warm how do you know when to get out?) and then showering and going out to a resturant for a plesant dinner. I would recommend that everyone come here. You can get direct flights from the UK to Salvador, then its a 2 hour boat ride away!

Our room complete with two levels and hammock. Also all you can eat breakfast with fruit (Pineapple, Papaya, Banana, Mango, Melon), cake, bread, freshly squeezed juice and a nice man who smiled a lot but spoke no english running it. Monkeys run past every now and again on the power line.

´Second Beach´ complete with sunbeds, bars playing music and beach volleyball courts.

´Fourth Beach´ virtually uninhabitted all day.

In a shady cove.

The views were nice here too.

Salvador!

We have arrived in Salvador and i am suprised to say (yes i am very ignorant!) that it is significantly different to the state the farm is in, ´Minas Gerais´(means general mines- guess what their main industry is there!)

The architexture here is colonial and looks very grand outside, this square was particularly good for buying local street food off big African looking women dressed in white. The best was a fried bean curd burger, cut in half and filled with VERY HOT spice, (in fact after she put some in she wiped it off again as we were obviosuly Gringos and it still burnt like crazy), salad, and prawns still in their shells. Which brought back great memories of going out for dinner one night in Peckham (!) to an all you can eat Chinese with this bubbly African lady from church who crunched her way through millions of prawns with shells and tails and chastised me for being wastful when i carefully pealed them. I dont believe that the rough shells clense your body on the way through.

Upon uploading these pictures i realised that we dont take many, and they are often on random things. We stayed in Pelourinho, which is a lovely old town area. Our Rough Guide told us not to go out of sight of the policemen at night, which made for a fun game the first night as the police wander around a lot and it ends up almost like you are watching and stalking a policeman. Luckily we chilled out the second night, ignored the guide and had a great evening watching a samba band with the locals. Did you know that people play music that has no words and is all on percusion? If so, did you know that people who are not primary school teachers also own ´rain sticks´(you know the poles that you turn upside down and the beads run down and sound like the rain) and think it is ok to use them in public. I did not really enjoy the ´music´.

Pelorinho was easy to get around on foot and a good base to explore all the architecture and museums with no hassle. The most unique feature was ´the elevator´which is simply an elevator which costs 60 cents to ride and goes vertically down to the bottom of the hill. Its a very quick way as the cliff is shear and takes a long winding road to go by car. At the bottom was a nice market.

An old burnt out church that Xss particularly liked, however someone ruined the photo by sitting in the way. I think they are pretending not to itch a mosquito bite on their leg, but really have probably rubbed it raw.

Below is a picture of Xss enjoying the lovely hostel we stayed in in Pelourinho. It had hamocks hanging in doors, lots of little balcony´s and quirks, and tiles that look like comic books. It made me wonder if i wanted to be a hostel or boutique hotel manager one day? Seriously.

Last Live Action Hero.....

Xss and i have arrived in Salvador, and within the last hour already tried to save street child´s life! We have thus far (in Brazil) not managed to meet any street children, and i admit i was looking forward to it. I am a fool. Within a very short period of time of having stepped off the bus a child approached us, i could understand he was saying he was hungry and wanted food, and tried to take us to a shop to buy it, not asking for money. Well being British and not good at spontaneity we said no and walked on.

On the third encounter of this same boy, whilst we were buying street food none the less ( a sausage of tapioca covered in sugar and cinamon- 9/10 according to Xss) we thought, well, its food, he´s hungry and you know what, its directly what the bible says we should do. I gave the lady R$4 (155p) and explained that he could have the R$2 extra......... to spend on food. However, although this was a complete sentence said fluidly, she gave him the money before the word food could come out, and he was off! So much for the food. Not sure what to make of this, should we have given chase! Perhaps he spent it on food for his starving brother around the corner, well really it was probably chewing gum and a go on a video game. But at least if i see him again we will have grounds not to feed him.

We have now been on the road for over two months, and my most notable achievement so far has been to not brush my hair for this whole time! Think of the time i have saved! Incidentally i am forever confused as to why people think girls with Blonde hair are pretty, who doesn´t know about hair dye!?! Jeff has also reliably informed me that unibrows and a squint are sexy here and a quailty looked for in a potential partner, well he didnt say a squint was, but i havent asked him yet, so lets assume it to be true.

We are staying in Salvador for two days before going on to yet another idyllic, sandy island, where cars are banned and you have to sunbathe- new Brazillian law passed last week. Salvador is very different to the down south that we know. Here they have lots of cats walking around, and they are not as friendly as their cainaine counter parts; they don´t have tic´s here apart from the three Xss and I have liberated since arriving (look out for a later enchanting game called ´spot, tic or mole´) and street children take the 77p you offer them and run off leaving you annoyed.

Who doesn´t like playing with Machetes?

There are increasingly moments in my life when i am mistaken for an adult and i get a little baffled/smug feeling inside that someone has made this mistake and given me much more responsibility or power than they should, and that it is going to be fun. Can people not tell how irresponsible i am from looking at me? A feeling not disimilar to getting an adults portion of food when you are a kid, its great that you get to eat more, but also you know its going to be someone else´s fault when you can´t eat it all. On Friday Ailton gave me a Machete.

He then took one for himself and we went up in the woods and hit things and cut things. I never really worked out what we were doing since Ailton sent me one way and he went the other. However, hitting things with a machete is really fun. i cut vines, trees, the ground, roots, and once, copying Ailton, i dropped it blade first into the ground so that it stayed thereupright, whilst i did something else. I am so cool. It took me a lot longer to ´do´myside than it did for Ailton........

Me practicing my smug look whilst perched on our windowsil.

Whilst i am doing this, Xss is moving earth on the building site. This is monotonous in itself, but becomes more than that when after moving it by wheelbarrow and spade for days on end for only a week later, them to move it again. You can see the beginings of the 3 houses below Xss, and then beyond the rubble is the football field (is desperate need of water), the volleyball pitch, and the sheds.

Does it look like Xss is in old fashioned pjjama´s? We only have a few clean clothes each for relaxing in. we are heading up the hill to enjoy the view and a beer after a long day. Well, actually days are the same length everywhere, work just starts earlier than when we are in London.

I also got my first experince of playing Risk in Brazil, which has been much discussed and long awaited. It seemed like a great idea as we gathered around the war table (the pool table, with several white plastic chairs stacked into piles to make us tall enough to see), everyone was laughing and joking, music played in the background and the rules were amicably explained (they have aircraft that can bomb countries!!). However, the moment the dice were first rolled, the laughing stopped and silence followed. I immediately regretted agreeing to play (it was already 1030 at night, i had to work at 8.15 the next day), this was not going to be fun. I now know that Brazilians take Risk very seriously. It was a matter of great concern when Marcus(19, scotish, very intelligent) gave me an aircraft because i had most of Africa and explained that there was a large famine and humanitarian aid was needed. The plane was confiscated and put out of play; and thus the game began mirroring real life.

Happily for me, and mostly due to his good luck, Marcus got out of the game first, having taken one begruding turn after finding out that Great Britian had been labelled England on the board, like he didnt even exist. So that left me, the one foreigner. I was initially VERY smug about this as my mission card had stated that i needed to destroy the greens - Marcus´team. I smiled a lot, asked what to do when i had fullfilled my objective and even passed it over to my most senior colleague to validify, before Marcus agreed to check it for me and pointed out that Verhmelo is red, not green!!! So i deflatedly set about trying to kill the red men. However, as i already stated, this is not a happy game but a serious one, and people do not like you when you try to kill them. Hafa (16, Brazilian) took particular offence to my 15 plane attack and shouted a lot, got moody, went silent and then gave me evils for 20 minutes. As luck would have it someone else got me out before he could reap his revenge. I am honsetly not sure if we are still friends or not, i might avoid his house for a few days and i´ve given up Risk for good.

The view from the hill on the farm. Nice huh.