Jesse's Travels » : Americas :

From Brasil to Guyana and Suriname, the top of South America and the end of Latin America, the start of Caribbean culture. You're forgiven if you didn't know there were countries called Guyana and Suriname, I only found them on my map a few months ago. Do to the deterorating situation in Venezuela I thought the safest way to make my way to Jamaica would be via Guyana. I crossed into guyana via a speed boat, across a river into a dust bowl of a town, from Brasil into a backwater and my first english speaking country in six months. Guyana is Caribbean in culture, the taxi driver was black with dreads and everyone, including the cops, speaks with a strong accent. The people are about half African decent and about half subcontinet Indian, East-Indian, with a smattering of indigenous Ameri-Indians and Chinese. The dustbowl I entered held little appeal so I organised a jeep ride to the capital, LonelyPlanet billed this as the trip of a lifetime, it nearly took my life. After a three hour delayed start we finally headed off with the wrong driver in a pick up truck with benches in the back and a roll cage to strap bags onto 12 people packed in. I drifted off to sleep on the bumby dirt road at the cabin end of the benches. I wake to screaming and we're swerving all over the road, a second later we've rolled onto our side and are sliding through the savana off the road. Given my proximity to the front and been on the side that we rolled onto i had seven people on top of me, glass was everywhere, I could smell petrol, everyone climbed out. Luckily I only had a few cuts and grazes to goto together with my sun blisters and cuts all over my back from drunkingly falling one level on the Amazon boat trip, I missed the top step. But this old Ameri-Indian woman with Axel Rose style hair pulled back in a bandana, looking about 80 but was only 50, had a terrific slice to her nose leaving it dangling by a bit of skin. This nose made Michael Jackson look good, a little bit more and she wouldn't have had one. Blood was everywhere, primarily on me as she'ld been seated across from me. She pulled out her makeup mirror had a look at her self and said "oh dear, nearly lost me nose". I put some anti-septic on it, some of that medical webbing stuff and stuck it all to her face to hold her nose in place with some sticky tape. Luckily about five minutes later a rasta with dreads flew over the hill on a motorbike, hailed him down and he took her into town. Once the truck owner saw the old lady with her nose held on by sticky tape he came down to pick us up ad took us back to town for a second start. This time we headed off at 9pm at night, I had my doubts about this but the Ameri-Indian woman was going so I might as well. With 13 of us jammed into the jeep we headed off on the dirt road, through savana, through rain forest, though rain, going so fast that one of the women from the accident was shaking and crying til 3am and a river without bridge, just a ferry that ran during the day. Some slept on top of the jeep others inside, massively cramped, I had a foot in my face, the Guyanese woman who wanted to sue had not stopped talking to breathe all day, I asked her as I was trying to go to sleep if she would talk til 6am when we planned to go, she said yes. Still I slept and at 6am we were off for another eight hours til we got to Georgetown. So to the capital which feels like a provincial town, every building is made of wood, rotted, including the churches. I moved to a dump of a hotel that still cost A$15 a night. I was in the bar downstaris making a phone call, middle of the day and heard a tense conversation going on a few meters behind me, I turn around and this guys got a shot gun pointed at three guys sitting down having a beer. They get up, the guy with the gun searches them, they've got hand guns, they leave at gun point and get into a van. I met this German guy who works for a advertising and marketing company, the Guyanan government are paying him to design and launch an advertising campaign in Europe for tourism. He said I should leave the country. Guyana has convinced me of the merits of foreign currency speculation, that my true carer lies in moving vast wads of cash through border posts that have no idea of the correct exchange rate. For the first time ever I made money on a currency exchange. In Guyana on the Brasilian border the exchange rate was wrong by 20%. I'ld figured it would be hard to get visa card cash advances so I get a wad of Brasilian currency and ended up making A$65 profit on the transaction. My few days in Guyana brought me to the swift conclusion that Guyana is without a doubt the most shithouse country on the planet and I should get out. So off to borderig Suriname. Some countries give me a good feeling on entering and others don't. On entering Guyana I thought if I stay here longer than a week I might be dead, on entering Suriname I thought if I stay here more than a week I might never leave. My introduction to Suriname was in Guyanan border town when I went out for dinner. Wandered into a restaurant where a new Suriname chef had taken over, they were doing a television commerical and wanted me to be in it. So with one shoulder badly burnt bright red and the other pasty white, in a tank top and sewn together shorts, unshaven for five days, multiple scars and bandages everywhere I complemented the food to the handicam. I got a free meal, a run of diahorea and an introduction to Suriname via the Indian Surinamese chef and his wife a Christian part Chinese, part Indian part Indonesian Surimese. All over Suriname, Hindu's and Muslims marry, Christians and Muslims and so forth letting the children decide their religion. The population is roughly divded in quaters into Catholic, Prodestant, Muslim and Hindu. And they all get on. There's Javanese food stalls in the street, the smell of Indian curry and Africans bouncing down the street. All speaking some hybrid of Dutch, English and half a dozen other languages, I'm not too sure if I'm in South America, this is no longer Latin America. The central Mosque and Synagogue are next door to each other. I met a man who is mixed Sephardic Jew, German, Javanese Muslim, Ameri-Indian and African, four hundred years of inter-marriage. In Suriname I've met my first South American atheists. Hmmmm the food, food is good and here the food is better. Brasilian food is pretty good, but when you get to choose between Javanese, Indian and African its difficult to look back. Added to it all the Surinamese would have to be the most polite people I've ever met, incredibly friendly, no hostility, no machismo. Paramaribo the capital is waiting for a big fire, every building is wood, the main Catherderal is made of wood, the government buildings, the police station. The entire country has an air of traquility, void of the culture of violence that oozes out of every pore of south america. Its as if this place has had a completely different historical experience. This is not the case, there has been attempted genocide agaist the indigenous people, the barbarity of slavery, military rule, all the hallmarks of the south american experience. A number of people have commented on the Brasilians that come here prospecting for gold, they work hard but they kill each other, the countrty is littered with Brasilian graves. So I am again at a loss as to what makes a society violent. Before I was set on the historical experience, but maybe this is only a small contributing factor. So to my next thoughts on the barbaric legacy of colonialism. Its a mute point whether you can judge the colonial regimes of England, France and Holland on the Guineas but if you do you get the following. The English left Guyana with crippling race problems where the Africans and Indians massacre each other and an edge of violence that is worse than Brasil. In Suriname the Dutch left with a ethnically and religously intermarried population where you can walk the streets of the capital at night. In French Guyana, from what I've heard, historically there have been race problems, they have the European Space Centre and everyone is a snob. So now I fly to Barbados for a few days then onto Jamaica for two weeks, then up to New York for a week, London for a day, am not getting out of the plane in Singapore and will be back in Australia in less than a month.

No related posts.

Photos of Brazil

admin — Mon, 24 Mar 2003 08:16:45 +0000

Brazil Rio de Janeiro

4 Photos

Brazil Salvador

16 Photos

Brazil Carnival

5 Photos

Brazil Bahia

12 Photos

Brazil Amazon

12 Photos

Brazil – Carnival

Brazil – Carnival

admin — Sat, 08 Mar 2003 03:53:16 +0000

Picture hundreds of thousands of people dancing along the street in different groups surrounding enormous trucks. The trucks are walls of sound, packed with speakers, a 10 piece band on top, possibly a naked painted girl. The band is playing at a ridiculous speed, there's the traditional drum kit, a few guys on congos and various other drums, saxophones, trumpets, a bass guitar, a lead guitar doing 80's style guitar solos and a lead singer. They play for four or five hours straight as the truck edges along the road surrounded by a few thousand people all wearing the same tshirt, mimicking each other doing the same dance.

These thousands of people and two trucks are surrounded by a rope held up by a few hundred guys that seperates the bloco members who have paid anywhere from $75 to $600 for this particular badly designed tshirt which means the rope holders will allow them in. The rope holders are paid $5 each for the day. This is the bloco. There are thirty or forty of these a day. Surrounding the bloco is thousands of people, thousands of police, Iran and myself. Depeding upon the bloco we would either dance around it or cower next to the police stand watching the police drag in guys for theft, violence or having a gun. Iran found one bloco that was cheap, $20 for the day, it didn't have a rope, it didn't have a truck wih toilets, but we got a tshirt. This bloco was only a few hundred people, had a band that was 70% drums and 30% brass, played at a speed that made me think I needed some speed, no lead singer and was named the lazy small dicks. At various intervals a chant would start up, "women love small dicks". The entire bloco would stampede from one side of the street to the other, split into human chains dancing round in circles, to everyone doing the same dance which generally involved pelvic thrusting, to shuffling along the street, with so many beats, small movements are the key. Confetti all over the place, more often than not in my beer. The bloco behind us is for men only dressed as women. They're decked out in fish nets, wigs, lip stick, miniskirts, fake tits, waving dildos above their heads singing "who wants a cunt for 25 cents". Iran said the women really like this bloco and these guys have the best chance of picking up. I went to take a photo of a group of them and got surrounded as they tried to kiss me, I ended up with lip stick all over my neck. We managed to join their bloco for a while when one of the guys tried to pick up Iran's friend. Some were drinking from cups that were shaped like dicks. There was one guy who was about 300 kg's dressed in a skirt that was miliary camoflauge. There is another bloco called the Gandhyi's, named after the Indian Ganhdi. They're about 5000, all men, dressed in white robes, with patches of blue, sandals, thousands of white and blue beads strung around them and white towels on their heads. They make quite a sight, shuffle dancing along the street, getting really pissed and lunging at women passing by. I wonder what Gandhi would have though of his pissed, sex obssesed proteges? Different blocos for different music, their is a salsa which Iran and I danced along to for a few hours one night, regaee, rock, samba, techno-pop, although none straight techno, African influenced with drums, drums and more drums. On the whole it is axe music, this is the music of Bahia, of Salvador. Imagine a fusion of rock guitars and heavy guitar solos, rock drum kit, pop vocals, a few congas and asorted drums for a dance rhythm, a big regaee infuced bass, all up a minimum ten piece band going at the speed of hardcore techno. This is probably 60% of the blocos, all playing covers of each others songs, one bloco playing a cover of the proceeding blocos hit whilst the proceedig bloco playing a cover of the following blocos hit, and the Salvadorians love it. Jumping up and down, doing group dances, hands waving, screaming, it makes for quite a sight. The axe music is not for me. Lining the street there are endless people with eskies selling beer and water, people collecting cans and people watching, dancing, kissing and drinking. At various points there are camoroches which are elevated areas, seperating the rich from the mayhem. Here for $40+ you can safely watch the proceedings from 3 meters above. No camoroches for us. It may all seem slightly expensive to us, but think abou the Saladorians, Iran is a primary school teacher and earns $175 a month, the most popular blocos are $600. The blocos have payment plans, two of Irans friends paid a portion of their salary every month for the last year for 3 days in one bloco. Iran wants me to say that in Carnival everyone forgets their problems and all the divisions break down, between rich and poor and white and black. I can't agree, their are blocos that are nearly completely white, the majority of those inside the blocos and camoroches are white, whilst outside is black and poor. Whilst everyone is dancing to the same music, some do so from an elevated platform of comfort, others in exclusive and extremely expensive roped off blocos whereas the mass of Salvador is outside of this. Although about 30% of blocos have no rope, the Salsa bloco was paid for by the government, as was the Gilberto Gil, he's the culture minister. To the set dancing, this is one of the most bizare thigs I've ever seen. Generally one person will take the lead at the front of the bloco. To this persons directions thousands of people will then wave their arms to one side then to the other, sprint forward a hundred meters, all bounce backwars in unisom to the beat, rush to one side of the street then the other, dance to one direction then to the other. Don't even bother trying to start by visualising a rave, or a club, start with line dancing minus the hicks. Imagine primary school dancing, "you put your left foot in, you pull your left foot out, you do the hokey pokey and you turn around, and thats what its all about." All of this went on for six days, the electricity cut out once for my hotels suburb. One night it started pissing down raining, and I mean really pissing down, at about two in the morning, everyone went ballistic, screaming., the music sped up, everything and one lifted to a new level.

Brazil – The importance of appearance

Brazil – The importance of appearance

admin — Tue, 25 Feb 2003 04:01:06 +0000

So here goes my thoughts on Brasil. Salvador, its 13 degrees south of the equator, its the middle of summer, there's rarely a cloud in the sky, everyday is hot, I haven't seen it under 28 degrees yet. There's a reltenlessnes to it, everyone walks slow, talks slow but their own genre of music, axe, is ridiculously fast and they dance at high speed. I catch buses everywhere that are driven by guys who feel that life has dealt them a harsh blow, leaving them driving buses when in fact they should be in fomular ones. Every corner is a moment to hold on as they slam the bus into it and forty people hold on.

The beach is central, the city is two million people and doesn't extend far inland but streches endlessly along the beach. It is a beach culture, guys playing soccer on the beach, rows of beach bars blasting out music, everyone strutting up and down. Occasionally a few guys gallop past on horses. The poor are both everywhere and no where. They'll come up wanting to sell their wares, pirated cd's, peanuts, cooked cheese, necklaces, water, beer, handicrafts all sorts of shit. Street kids begging for money when I'm eating, I'll give them the left overs of my food. In contrast to the dishelved street dwellers there's a decent middle class which Iran belongs to. Although this is not middle class in an Australian sense. Iran's house is pretty bare, unpainted, run down, they have a tv, a vcr a stereo but none of the piles of endless junk. It reminds me of a step down from a student house, except clean. To contrast agaist this Brasil has some serious wealth, although not much of it in Salvador. Its in an odd middle ecoomic position Brasil, on one hand its the world's ninth biggest economy yet it is very much third world. I look aroud and think its first world then I look at the street kids. I started off with a pretty disdainful attitude towards them. What must it be like at 5 to be living o the street without your parents? I said to Iran Brasil should legalise abortion, she berated me for an hour. There is no social security system, the religious people do nothing. There are all sorts of people with mental illnesses wandering around the streets at night. Generally the families don't want to deal with them and kick them out, the government does nothing so they wander round and live off scraps. The poor make money in all sorts of little ways. A big cash earner is collecting used drink cans, generally beer and selling them to the recylcing plant. Street kids wash car windows and beg for money. Behind the hotel is a lane market selling fruit, vegetables and stolen items where the smell of the sewer overpowers all. On from this is a local old man barber where I get a shave for $1.50. The first time I went in there I had to wait so started paging through some Brasilians magazine, obviously not understanding any of it he handed me a Playboy. Along the beach their are people set up with eskies selling beer, water and soft drinks, old black women dressed in white nodding off to sleep selling African food, kids selling peanuts, hippies selling jewllery, thieves selling whisky and the desperatly poor selling hot cheese. Now that Iran has returned to work I spend my days mucking around on the internet, drinking orange juice, eating at this excellent cafe I've found and catching the bus to an Italian restaurant. I've been reading to make up for the lack of english coversation. There's been a festival for this religious guy named Boffin for the last five days outside my hotel. Its a city of 2 million people, lets say 1 million work, there were about 200,000 people at this party on a weekday, not a public holiday, 20% of the workforce didn't turn up, the next day the power cut out for an hour. Brasil occupies an unusual median position due to its overwheliming contradictions. On one hand its quite a conservative society, the extreme seemingly unchalleneged inequality in wealth, obscene and explicit racism, violence, archaic machoism, men and women lead distinct and seperate lives rarely crossing into friendship and an extremely set idea about what is correct and incorrect. Contrasted against this is everything in reverse, whereas in Australia men and women relate as friends virtually of the same sex, here everyone is a lover, the machoism elevates women to the central point in the universe. Women drive the society and the men. There is a freedom in the overflowing expessiveness of dance and everyone talking over the top of each other. The racism, so evident on the television is contrasted by the black and white couples and a people who can't trace their heritage. The inequality is not accepted but the poor constantly resistig to a knife edge balance between civil war and peace. The violence against an excessively civil politeness and the soothing effects of the women. Everyone is religious, Iran says prays before going to sleep, cross themselves when passing a church, attend all sorts of religious demonstrations, get shockingly drunk and try and pick up. No one goes seems to go to church and have an extremely patchy moral code. The importance of appearance, I don't think I've been anyway with such an emphasis on it. Both men and women have plastic surgery, so many women are fit, the majority of men lift weights, although everyone dresses down they also try to dress up from their social class. My favorite tshirt has a hole courtesy of some hash from a badly rolled joint, Iran doesn't let me wear it. As a coutnerpoint to this I saw this car windscreen cleaner pissing in the middle of the street, two lanes of traffic going eitehr direction, no median strip and he's taking a piss. We went to this shopping cetre to see a film, afterwards we went to get an ice cream. I was running low on money and proceeded to draw out a bunch of one real (the curreny) notes. Iran got into a complete flutter telling me to put the notes away, she didn't want any of her friends to see. I ignored her, realised I didn't have enough and asked if she had any money, she then produced a few one real notes and I recounted. She said her friends would all gossip about her poor foreign boyfriend. I finally got invited around to her house. Her borther in law wasn't keen on me coming around cause he said the neighbours would talk. Brasilians seem to have a complete ambivalnce towards strangers, they're polite and always helpful yet not overtly friendly. Iran says this is becuase most Brasilians aren't interested in foreigners. There is a general perception that all non-Brasillians are bad in bed, smell, don't brush their teeth and don't shower. Iran took me to the super market and told me which soap to buy, deoderant and tooth paste. The showering regime is intense, I shower when I wake up, before I go to sleep, before we go out, when we come back, before sex and after sex, I think I'm losing layers of skin I'm spending so much time in the shower. The enamel is peeling off my teeth and Iran is telling her friends that some foreigners are excellent in bed. Iran has taken to washing my clothes, I never thought my great grandma could be out done with the most pointless exercise of ironing my jocks, boxers and socks but she has been outdone. Not only do all my clothes come back washed and ironed but she's got two different smelling powders she puts on the clothes, one for jocks and socks, another for tshirts and shorts. We got on a six hour bus journey to this national park, because we'ld booked our seats late we weren't seated together. Iran was seated with Brasilian woman and behind her two French girls. The Brasilian woman asked to swap seats with me because she couldn't stand the combined smell of the two French girls! This fascination with smell should be put against the context of streets where the paving is partially broken to reveal the smell of sewers, guys pissing on the street, skipping over turds, the market outside the hotel smells more of faeces then it does of food. I guess its about contrasts, in Australia, esp Melbourne, things are extremely clean, this doesn't drive people into a revulsion about cleanliness, except me and food. Although I think its primarily a funciton of the heat, Bangladesh is shockingly dirty but eeryone showers 10 times a day. I can't continue without mentioning farting. Given that I've got getnetically inferior guts and I'm eating food my guts aren't used to I'm farting more than normal. This has been driving Iran insane, she's given into me farting around her but she extracted a promise that I wouldn't fart when any other Brasilian women were around. She said no guy would fart in front of their girlfriend, only after a year of marriage. The other night I stuffed up the order at the restaurant and ended up with seven pieces of steak. I took up the challenge but could only eat five and a half pieces, Iran ate one, it was only due to my farting that I managed to get out of my chair and propel myself back to the hotel. The nationalism, the regional chauvionism here is out of control. I told Iran half a dozen countries have better food and she was in shock. She said Bahia has the best food in the world. Not only this, it has the best music, the best parties, the best women, is the most intersting place, has the most superb natural beauty, the best beaches, the best sports people. She's never left Bahia. She was going on about how good Brasil is in tennis, it was nice that some Australian beat some Brasilian in the Australian Open. The overflowing of music, in shopping malls, in food courts, in restaurants, everywhere there is music, more often than not its live music. There isn;t the artistic aloofness that stops bands from playing covers, they do it all the time. Reworking other peoples songs seems a national pasttime. Iran says eerything in music is free in Brasil. The virus like Kethcup song has been reworked to include Bahian drumming, there's another version that's more tekno from Sao Paulo. Ever mindful of my dire financial situation I've still bought 30 CD's since I've been here. Everywhere has quality, iteresting, underground music, what seperates say here and Cuba is the quality of pop music. Whereas the top 40 in most countries is full of the most gruesome music, here mainstream music is characterised by a level of sophistication that goes well beyond the Spice Girls. Thats not to say the virus, the Ketchup song isn't all over the place, covers have been done in every state. Went to see the culture minister play live the other ight. I mentioned Gilberto Gil in the last email, this guy is sixty, a minsiter in the national government, he stumbled onto stage at 3am, a weeknight, looking really stoned and proceeded to play a load of Bob Maley covers and reggaee songs he'ld written. Don't think I've ever been to a country with a stoned musician as a minister in the national government. To my slowly developing insanity, not speaking Engish. Spoken with this Irish guy at the Gilberto Gil concert, spoke with him at another point for an hour. Spoke with my Mum for half an hour. Outside of this I have only spoken Portuguese this year. Iran speaks all of no English, I'm startig to think that my language abilites are slightly above reasoable. Nevertheless it is is hard on the head only speaking a language you don't know. Never been able to speak fast, all the time misunderstandings, everything repeated, every conversation taking so long. This non-stop Portuguese isn't just Iran, no one speaks English, I'm in an area with no tourists, I've got no one to speak English with. Think I'm going to start talking to myself soon. I speak and people get pissed off that they don't understand me, they speak to me and I only partially I understand and they look at me like I'm an idiot. Brasilians find it difficult to understand that everyone doesn't speak Portuguese, the universal language! Have been having all sorts of problems with hotels, I moved out of the one i was staying in after waking up the sounds of a woman been bashed in the adjacent room. I called the reception and he came up and fought with the guy. The hotel wasn't great anyway, its only english language chanel was 24 hour porn. The next hotel was good but expensive, the one I'm currently in I've been in three different rooms, first was too noisy, second too hot, third the springs in the mattress are gone, the toilet stinks, the paint is peeling from the walls and I'm next door to an open air karoke bar. Added to it my clothes are hanging up drying all around my room, the turn around time with Iran washing them at her house is too long. Haven't mentioned Brasil's well stylish mating methods. Pissed guys go up to girls, say "tudo bem", all good, then grab the girl in a headlock and try and kiss her. If she resists for more than twenty seconds or gets a well placed kick or punch in he'll walk off and exclaim to his mates about what a stupid girl she is. On the other hand she could decide that he looks good, has a particularly suave headlock and agrees to be molested be him. Although the molestation is strictly contained to the head. They kiss for hours, no sex, no hands on tits, bums or anything. To my theory on the violence and robbery. I have now been robbed or had people attempt to rob me 7 times. It should be noted that this has all been in Salvador and is not confined to the tourists. Still I think what I am about to say holds for all the America's except Canada. As a whole the America's are exceptionally violent, this U.S. is both iternally and extrenally obscenely violent. The only places I know not to be violent are Cuba and Costa Rica. It should also be ntoed that Iran completely disagrees with the following analysis although other Brasilians agree. She says the violence and a crime are a function of poverty, lack of work and a disfunctional education system. I think it is a combination of the economic and cultural reasons. Firstly to the historical reasons reasons. The history of all the America's is one of extreme violence. Both the Spanish and the Protuguese were so savage its hard to describe them as human. They laid waste to and enslaved the indigenous people across the Americas. So the Americas was born in blood. Secondly slavery, one of the great affronts to humanity in history. Few acts could be more dehumanizing then enslaving someone. Not only breaking someones culture but treating them as an animal. Thirdly and most importantly is all the America's are broken cultures, new cultures that have been born in extremely inglorious cicumstances. Australia as a prison, the America's as resource pool for Europe. The people are displaced, torn from their roots, the old cultural laws broken. The contrast between India and latin America is stark. India has a continuous culture and history that is unbroken for over 3000 years. The America's is all different people thrown together with a birth in blood. As a result of having a new culture the old laws are broken, the cultural laws that only sanction violence under certain conditions. India can have extreme levels of violence but it needs a reason, it needs to be justified, here there doesn't need to be any justification. Fourthly is machoism, its exemplified in the way people drive, apparently 90,000 people die a year on Brasil's roads. Drivers are just fucking idiots they all take each way bets, instead of staying in one lane they'll be half on one lane and half in another. The result is on a four lane road you have two cars taking up the space of four. So these are the four cultural/historical reasons, this combined together with the poverty, lack of work, dysfunctional education system and extreme economic and power inequalities add up to an explosive situation. As I walk around Salvador I feel very white, then I seem someone who is pretty fair, then I look at myself in the mirror and I look nothing ike them. I always thought I was the pasty shade of white, now I realise I'm postively florecent. Even Brasil with its multi shades doesn't have anything like me. Although when I flick on the TV it seems like I've flown back to Australia, minus the Asians and english speakers. Coming from a racist country, I'm nott going to lecture the Brasilians, but for you all at their in email land I must say when it comes to race this country is pretty fucked up. In Salvador about 80% of the people are black or a dark shade of mulatto, yet all the bus stands are convered with ads with white women. The TV is nearly 100% white, the politicians are all white. Its like they don't even bother with the facard of integration that the Americans bother with. Iran was saying on this front the country is very fucked up. Their is an all encompasing facade of football that hides the massive inequalities. Went to this amazing 300,000 person religious march. People banging drums, dancing down the street, everyone in white,Iran overheard three guys planning to rob me so we left. The religious people that organised it got sick of the violence so organised a party for th weekend to try and split things up a little. This party is apparently a mini-carnival. They have these trucks going down the street that are packed with speakers and a band on top. This isn';t your regular truck, I mean a full inter city 25m long truck. You can pay to go into these but we just hung around the sides ad got to see loads of different bands. Brasil has got me back into non-electronic music, I'm even starting to think guitars aren't the instruments of heathens. They have music with no electronic element that isn't trotting out some tired 40 year old formulae. The religion here is intersting, Catholicism is in massive decline. There are all these American funded Evangelical Churches springing up everywhere and they are loaded. They have an ad on TV smashing an image of a Catholic Saint. Salvador is full of all this Candomble which is an African derived rellgion. They have this dance trance thing you can pay to see but it sounds like a con. There's a serious lack of atheists, Iran can't comprehend I don't believe in God or anythign spiritual, that after death there is nothing. I told her I thought if God exists he should be put in gaol cause he's a paedophile and he rapes virgins, she started saying prayers. It doesn't seem that anyone goes to church much, they all just believe in a mixture of spiritualism. On the bus in Salvador the other night got pulled over by the police at about 11pm. Pigs puled off all the guys, hands up against the bus whilst they searched us all, apparently women aren't into guns or drugs. Anyway still have't had a smoke all year, Iran has promised to score for me a number of times but as with all drug matters, nothing is simple and easy.

Brazil – Carnival

Peru – Altituduness

admin — Sat, 02 Nov 2002 03:56:44 +0000

I´m in the Andes north of Lima in a town called Chiquian and I reackon I can say that the internet isjust about everywhere where there is electricity,although i´ve got a 4800bps connection, extremelyslow.. Lars and I left Lima about three weeks ago and took apretty amazing bus ride across the Andes whichinvolved lots of ear popping and general altitudeinduced nausea. We went through a few towns that wereof little interest, met a few people. Things startedto get interesting is we decended into the Amazonbasin, within hours there was an amazing change in theflora, we went from from austere, minimal vegetationto lush tropical shit everywhere. Before we hitPeurto Bermundez where everything really started we decended through lush cloud forests which was prettyspectcaular and army check point that had two humanskulls on it. In Peurto Burmundez, a town of about 1000 people Larsand I thought we could start a river adventure. Before this happened I met some mad Peruvian cokeheads who invited us out to the local disco. This place was a classic, apart from the 10 Peruvianssweating like pigs, talking at a million miles an hourin Spanish to me, the disco had the toilet in thecorner, not sectioned off, the whole place stank. There´s this 44 year old woman, barely any teeth,sweating so much, says excuse me, turns around ripsher shirt off wipes herself down, turns back aroundand continues talking. They were all very messy atthis stage, pouring loads of beer into me, although nooffers of coke were forthcoming, this place wasplaying the worst commerical dance, i said i thought it was shithouse and whatabout some salsa. They flashtheir flas lights on and off at the dj screaming outfor some salsa, then they became all suave and cool spinning around doing there most excelelnt salsadancing. They invited Lars and I off to their "farm"which was somewhere up the river, off another riverand off another river, they were all very wealthy, noone else around there was welathy. Although they werevery friendly, I asked one guy about the relationshipbetween mestizos and the indigenous people, two ofthem ended up in a massive argument beating theirfists on the table. Decided to avoid their most generous offer of a boat trip to the "farm". We ended up in this obscure town Peurto Burmundez inthe hope of going to some indigenous villages, I spenta day in the local indigenous peoples organisationarranging approval for us to go to some villages, itwas all looking really expensive hiring a boat and a guide. After days are stuffing around we decidedwe´ld just go somewhere, so we jumped on a boat withloads of people on it going to some village calledAsamaya, we knew nothing abou this, where it was, howfar it was, but it was cheap to get there, when we gotthere it turned out they were mestizo, not indigenouspeople. Four hours later its getting dark, we´ldturned off a number of rivers, now we´re on this smallriver, could here this singing, all quite errie, feltlike appocalypse now. On the boat this guy had givenus the run down of the rules of the village, nodrinking, no smoking, no drugs, no adultery, no sexbefore marriage, everyone has to work, no stealing, nokilling, no fighting, everyone has to share. We´retaken to this house to stay the night and this guystarts telling me about their religion, they callthemselves Israelites. They´ve got the tencommandments up everywhere, the men have long beardsand long hair, the women cover themselves in Muslimstyle headgear, they wear colourful clothing, the menin long robes. We´re taken to their church, they haveno crosses anywhere, they sing all the time,accompanied by a saxophone, the church never stops24x7. They say they´re not Catholics, they´re not BinLaden, they´re not an Americans missionary sect. Given that no one speaks a word of english, Lars speakno Spanish, my spanish is shithouse. One quater ofthe time I think i understand what people are saying,but in reality its only one quater of that. So whatare these people? Are they lost Jews, for themSaturday is the day of creation not Sunday? No theybelieve in the new testament. Are they Christians? No they have a new prophet. Are they Muslims? Nothey´re not Bin Laden. Maybe they´re some sort ofRastafarians, but drugs are banned. After muchdiscussion it turns out that this is Peru´s own newreligion of which this village of 200 people is itsepicentre, there was this Peruvian prophet 20 yearsago that laid down the new law. They say itsChristianity made practical. We were shown the gaolwe´re anyway who breaks any laws is incarcerated. Toplacate God they have animal sacrifices, which Larsand I saw, unfortunately we didn´t see them kill thecow, only it burning on a bonfire as they all sang. This place was a commmunidad, there was no privateproperty, they elect the vilalge chief, lock up peoplewho won´t work, lock up people for smoking ciggas oreven having an alchol, they have no electricity, itwas complete madness. I told the Peruvian coke headsabout the place and they felt nothing but disgust forthese people. They have no freedom, religion gonemad, etc. The village chief sang us three songs, thenasked us to sing a song, I sung him the only song Iknow, Bob Marley´s "Smoke 2 Joints". He wanted me tosing it in the church but Lars talked me down fromthis. Although it is now one of my life timeambitions, to belt out "smoke 2 joints" in a church. After two days there we headed off, I reackon thisplace was the best we´ve been to so far, it was socompletely out there, Lars will give out a differentimpression of the place, he didn´t like it. I thoughtthe place was amazing, I´m strangely attracted tofanatics. In many ways they´re one of the greatestrepresentations of humanity, they have some obscurebelief that is completely irrational, God, and theytake it to such an extreme, this completelytheoretical contruct. Its completely removed from animals who are practical. My last point on religion,missionaries are everywhere, all these American fundedlunatics going around trying to convert people fromcatholicism to mormonism, or seventh day adventists toall sorts of obscure sects that i´ve never heard of. All the crap about the muslims needing to get theirfundamentalists under control is just hypocritical. The west has to reign its own fundamentalists, theseculture destroying lunatics who are trying to savepeoples souls but leave them drinking contaminatedwater, all sorts of medical problems and poverty. Itssickening. All the secularists in the world need toteam and and turn on their own fundamentalists andcollectively destroy them. The lunatic orthdox Jewsstealing Palestianian land, the Christian missionariesand abortion clinic bombers, the Hindu fanatics, tehBuddhist Monk lunatics in Sri Lanka that call for waragainst the Tamils when everyone else wants peace, andthe Muslims and their own terrorist lunatics with alltheir anti-Semitism and murderous rampaging. This all brings me to my next point which is politics. Lars and I have been lucky or unlucky enough as thecase may be, to be here in Peru during local electiontime. Everywhere there is poltics, in Asamaya onepolitical party rocked up and gave the town a wholelot of new instruments, new tshirts with how to votecards printed on the front. In towns with electricityall the different political parties, there are fivemains ones, would have speakers set up and a 30mintape that looped over and over agin belting out themost obscene political propoganda at distortion volumelevels. In a previous town they had a political rallybrass band, fire crackers, speakers, marches and allin the rain. No one hung around to watch except Larsand I. On rock walls in the middle of no where,between two villages, some political loon has paintedup a how to vote card, on peoples houses they get anew paint job and a how to vote card on their house,everywhere its politics over the top. The currentpresident seems like a bit of a dunce, the one beforehim was Fujimori, who is currently in Japan, havingfled the various corruption charges against him her. Apparently he was quite dictatorial allthough hefinished off these maoist terrorits called shiningpath, they depopulated the entire amazon basin of peruin order to free the peasants. Asamaya went from apopulation of 3000 to 200. They sounded extremelybrutal. To the green nature stuff around me, its incrediblyhot here, i´m melting, losing weight through sweatingso much, sun burnt after 30mins in the sun, they´vegot leaves that are 1.5m by 1m, lush green and loadsof logging. The river we´re on eventually flows in tothe Amazon and 6000km later flows out into theAtlantic. It rains and rains and rains, and the wetseason hasn´t even started. From the Amazon basin weheaded back up into the Andes, its difficult todescribe the change in scenerary, every 10 mins itschanged completely, the lushenss departs, the coldkicks in, the sweating stops, the beanie comes out,the trees think out, the humidity disappears. We alsoleft the coke growing region which meant the bus wasstopped and search 4 times by the drug sqaud. Thepolice generally set up road blocks and collect bribesall over the place. On one bus journey i got stuckfor half an hour as the driver and the police arguedover the size of the bribe. At this point Lars and Iheaded seperate ways for 10 days. I picked a pointon my map and caught a bus there, turned out to be at3800m. The effect of this on breathing is disastrous,imagine smoking ten bongs in a row. If i´ld had asmoke at this altitude I would have stopped breathingall together. Its difficult to sleep, I´ld wake upout of breath. The bus ride to this villageQueropalca was absolutely amazing. Normally Icouldn´t give a shit about non human life, itshumanity thats interested me, but this bus ride wasincredible. Not rolling hills but jagged mountainscovered in rocks, rivers and streams defining themover eons, beautiful little villages with a few dozenmud brick houses. The raw power of the earth, tectonic plates smashing together, little humansscampering around on it, potato fields on 60 degreeangles, unbelieveably cold, an average temperature of7 to 10 degrees over the year. At night I´ld sleepwith all my clothes on, beanie, scarf, thermals,jeans, 5 tshirts, hoodie, jacket and 4 blankets. Ileft my sleeping bag in Lima cause I figured it wouldbe to hot in the Amazon basin. Its difficult todescribe how beautiful the mountains are, theausterness, life battling against the altitude, snowcovered peaks in the distance. Humanity carving outlittle plots for sheep and cows, a patch work of landdivided by mud brick fences for all sorts of crops,mainly potatoes. Forget Ireland and potato faminesand curry and chips, this is the land of the potato,this is where it came from, there isn´t a meal thatdoesn´t involve it. The farms are not tiered Asian style, not even attempting to carve flatness out ofladn that is always at an angle. After one nightssleep at this altitude i went for a 7 hours walk whichi still haven´t recovered from, my knee hasn´trecovered, my face is peeling from sun burn, my handsare blotched from sunburn, my 6 month old globesrunners are falling to bits and everything is wet. The end of my nose is hard from blowing it to much andsunburn. Problem with this town Queropalca was the people, they were fucked, constantly trying to rip me off andunfriendly. Decided I had to get out, there are guyswith pick up trucks that will drive between villages. So i negotiated a $5 ride to the next main villagethat had a hotel and restaurant, it was a majorproblem eating in this town, they wanted to charge me5 times the normal rate to eat the worst food in southamerica. Off we headed in the pick up truck, half waythere in the middle of no where he stops and demandsan extra $7.50 to continue going, I argue with him for15 mins, he won´t budge so i jump out and walk off, heruns after me screaming wanting money for bringing methis far, i tell him to fuck off, which he doesn´tudnerstand cause he doesn´t speak a word of english. At this point I´m thinking the Peruvians are fucked,its the middle of the day, i hadn´t eaten that morningcause iwas sick of getting ripped off, i was walkingin the rain, struggling to breath with my pack on. The first village I came accross wouldn´t sell meanythign to eat. Packs of dogs, 5 at a time wouldattack me as i passed peoples houses. I´ld have tobeat them off with my umberella and with a pocket fullof stones i´ld try and maim the biggest dog. I laterfoudn out that you don´t have to throw the rocks atthe dogs but away from teh dogs and they would run offafter them. At this point I´m thinking the Frenchshould start nuclear testing in this country, then asoften happens when travelling, a million differentemotions and conflicting thoughts per hour, the suncame out, the dogs seemed to vanish, i came across atown that gave biscuits and 4 hours later I´ld hit avillage called Banos, which means toilet, the best place i´ve been so far. The people here wereextremely friendly, they had hot spring baths that are600 years old that the Incas used to use. They were unbelievably hot and would briefly unthaw mycompletely frozen body. Banos is at 3400m, a littlemore acceptable, not as completely freezing. Still itrains half the time and this makes it damn cold. Ispent my days lounging aroudn in these, eating allsorts of excelelnt meals in peoples houses, no onewanted a cent, fishing for trout, caught nothing. Went and checked out some old Inca city that hadpretty much all fallen down. Spent the rest of mytime wandering around this valley, everyone wasincredibly friendly, all the time beunos dias, goodmorning. Even though its cold the sun comes out foran hour and i´m burnt red. Made some friends in thistown, an obssesive 60 year old woman that insisted onfeeding me all the time and a 65 year old guy who wastwice as fit as myself who was right into politics. Ithought there was somethign familiar about this areathen I was talking to someone about the trees and theysaid they´re all eucalypts, they give us coke, we givethem eucalypts. After Banos I was planning to head back to Lima, Icouldn´t get a bus out so got a car to this othervillage that turned out to be in the wrong direction. My map showed no road out of this place, luckilythey´ld just built a new road through the mountainswhich had led me to this other town in the moutains which has a road back to Lima where I´ll meet up withLars tomorrow and my Irish friend Ciara and we´reheading off to Machu Pichu and Cusco. On a finishing note, after 10 days with not a word ofenglish i think i´m finally starting to get somewherewith my Spanish, starting to understand what peopleare saying. Still making lots of mistakes, for awhole week i´ld been saying huevo which i thought wasrain when in fact its egg. When i´ve been sayinglittle i´ve been saying pikitu when in fact itspokitu, pikitu means kiss. On the food front Lars andI ate this meal, not too sure what meat, wasn´t in the dictionary, so she said its like Bambi.

No related posts.

Photos of Peru

admin — Fri, 01 Nov 2002 08:29:33 +0000

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

Peru – Altituduness