Back on Bus

9/8/15

   
    
 I am a weak individual, and especially so when I am sick (yeah, I just said I am a big baby when I am not feeling well. Though u do not have a fetish for diapers, baby powder, or baby food. I would admit, however, pedilite is awesome for hangovers. Especially frozen and then mashed like a slurpee.). I can pass out for 12 hours, my friend Tom will usually call and make sure I am still in the land of the living, and then sleep again. It works well: my body simply shuts down (I maybe a robot) and self repair while I am unconscious . of course, this does not work so well when I am traveling. After some thought, I decided to continue to Rio (mostly because everyone said Rio is much better than São Paulo, and I am rapidly running out of time). I got a bed/seat on the 6 hours bus ride, hoping to get some rest. This also marks the return to bus for me: I had been flying in Colombia (because the airfare there is so much cheaper). I had it all planned: leave on the 10:30am bus, get to Ipanema by sunset and enjoy the beautiful scenery (both the beach and the people, so I was told by many many travelers. I think everyone enjoyed the beautiful people more than the beach. In this ca, enjoy means visually. Although it could be physically. Why am I rambling? Must be the illness). 

I packed my bags and got ready to leave the hostel, only to find heavy rain and wind outside (thanks to the God of weather!). I managed to get to the bus station without being too wet though, and boarded the bus to Rio. It was a packed bus, and I was thankful for the comfortable seats. I have forgotten how good the buses can be in South America. The ride was generally awesome, except for the instructions given in Portuguese. Apparently, the bus stops for lunch at a rest stop (with seat down meals) for 30 mins around 2pm). Imagine my confusion when everyone jumped off the bus (from door), rushed into the restaurant/gift shop/mini market and started lining up for food. It took me a few minutes to realize what was going on, and then I utilized my city-skill: I joined the line, rushed to grab food, elbowed people out of the way.

One interesting fact about some good places in Brazil: they issue you a disc with barcode  (like those you get while waiting for a table at chained restaurants), and they use that to scan what you purchased in the whole store. Then you have to get the disc scanned at checkout, and pay the amount. I am not sure if that is any faster: it seems to just push customers to check out and have a queue there; instead of spreading it out among different sections (wow, I leaned something from my MBA classes after all). I managed to eat, buy cough drops and a water within 20 mins, and the bus went on its way again.

One thing I forgot about bus rides: the delay. Instead of the 6 hours ride, we were treated to an 8 hours ride instead. Traffic got bad around 5pm, and we eventually got to Rio bus station at 6:40pm. After that, it was a quick taxi ride (yeah I was too lazy to catch the bus), and got to the hostel by 7:30pm. Not feeling well, I managed to go out for a quick dinner before heading tot he shower and bed, without seeing the beautiful people or beach. I did notice Rio is a lot warmer than Sai paulo, and hope I will feel better soon.

While I am typing this (and realizing the wifi in this hostel is terrible), I feel a little better about the day. Yeah, I failed to see the famous beach, but I have tomorrow. Surprisingly, it felt good to be back on a bus: it felt like I am coming in a full circle (wow, that statement can be so dirty of one word is misspelled): back to the mode f transport when k first started. It reminds me the trip is ending, and I must make the  most out of every moment, even if I am sick.

(Off to bed. Hopefully I don’t sleep for another 12 hours and miss the beach again. I must see tee beatific people…I mean beach….)

The Joy of Hostel

9/7/15

   
   
(Short post today.)

I often take a lot of things for granted: safety, ability to move, breath, breathe, speaking intelligently (well, I am not sure that ever happened for me), and most importantly: sleep. After traveling for so long and staying in so many hostel (good, bad and extra special: I mean, I once saw a used condom, dead cockroaches, and even someone who slept and walked around naked. Also, I have learned it is always people who should be clothed that like to naked), you would think I am used to it. The truth is, and I know I complained a lot about it, there are always situations that top all my past experiences. Last night and this morning was one for record.

I went to bed around 11pm, exhausted after 2 nights of minimum sleep: the 8 beds form was full (due to a holiday: it is Independence Day in Brazil. I had a whole blog post planned, but you know about the best laid plan f nice and men), and the brazilians using the room were really noisy. It is not the rowdy noise from partying too much, but the constant snoozing of alarms at 5am; talking loudly at 2am, 5am, and any other time; the banging of doors; turning on lights at all hours. This morning took the cake: there was an alarm going on from 4:30am to 6am, then lights came on at 5:30am when three people went to shower, which was followed by cabinet doors banging and yelling. At 6am, one person lost his key to the lock, so the front desk person came with a saw and saw through the lock. In the end, I think I slept for less than 2 hours. Launch I only slept 6 hours in 48 hours, my body basically shut off itself and I was groggy with a sore throat the rest of the day.

Not able to sleep and the cleaners had to clean the room, I went to the bus station to get my ticket for Rio, opting to depart the next day. I decided to go for the most expensive bus, since it is the last time on this trip I will get the chance to try the executive bus (no such connection to Iguazu falls and to buenos aires). 

I spent the rest of the day trying to pack my bags, grab supplies and finally managed a 1 hour nap. It add my headache a little worst, and I now have a sore throat. This, coupled with the terrible thunderstorm and rain throughout the day, made it tough to enjoy the Brazil Independence Day the way I wanted. But then, that’s traveling: good comes with bad, and you just have to make do.

Oh, and did I mention there is a creepy guy in my room? He likes to get really close to people, and I think he is currently “rubbing one out”, under the cover of bedsheets and some very loud snoring from another guy in the room. Ah, joy of hostels never ends. 

Art on a Wall

9/6/15

(Urgh, I am not sure why but my writing is particularly poor today. Sorry!)    

    
    
    
    
 There is a popular saying: the writing is on the wall (which is a bible reference, by the way. This is why I always feel learning a language is ofteb difficult: it is not only about grammar, but also about cultural references, sayings, idioms, etc.). I have never really written anything permanent on a wall, but that’s also because I have been told that it is a crime to vandalize properties. During this trip, I learned about the movement to legitimize graffiti art from a few graffiti art tours. It is an interesting concept: to try to move public opinion on an action that used to be viewed as destroying properties to treasure them as art instead. Artists now spent days to paint a wall with original concepts, and usually with the blessing of the owners. Cities are slowly starting to recognize the beauties of graffiti, instead of the uniformed cookie cutter (man, so hungry for cookies) buildings we have come to know and love. 

During our walking tour yesterday, the guide mentioned a great place to see graffiti in the city of São Paulo: the Beco Do Batman neighborhood (and that they will be starting a tour on graffiti soon). It definitely caught my interest (and with a neighborhood named Batman, how can I not visit?!), and so after a quick run, I took the metro and walked to see the graffiti. It was an interesting place: the graffiti simply started out of nowhere and took over all the walls for about one block. Since today is Sunday, many of the shops were closed and there was no much traffic on the street, allowing for some great photo opportunities. Unfortunately, with my limited knowledge of graffiti artists and symbolism, I can only appreciate the drawings in my limits capacity. I think a tour wold be a great idea, but of course I am bias from my great tour experience in Bogota.

For dinner, I met up with a new/old friend: Renato from Mendoza. Argentina. He was nice enough to take time from his buys work and study schedule to have dinner, and brought along 12 friends (luckily we did not come up to 13…). We had a pretty decent conversation going on with limited (my favorite word of the day) English and Spanish mixed with Portuguese. It was so great to meet a friend from the trip, and even better to be able to meet some locals (mostly Asians) who shared their experience and views. 

It is tough to change people’s views and expectations. From graffiti to race to interracial marriages (something we discussed a little during dinner) to politics (how the current Brazilian president only has 7% approval rating), change is tough. I guess it take a long of character and persistent effort to affect other people’s view points, and even more hard work to affect the change. I am just glad there are people with enough conviction and strength to lead the way for the rest of us to follow.

(Well, it is a very long winded way to say I am too lazy….hmm.)

The Language Barrier

9/3/15

   
    
    
    
    
 I am not talented in languages (I mean, have you read my blog? It is full of grammatical and spelling errors, so much so I wonder if non native speaker can understand my writings). It took me a long time to “master” English (in a sense, English is still lording over me). Before I started this trip, I wanted to learn Spanish: it is a language I think will become very useful as South America matures. However, I also had an excuse for not studying: too tired, too much work (the real work, not that I was just lazy. Well, I was..), too little time, etc. I definitely regretted not being better at Spanish as the trip progresses. As time went on, I got a little better, and was terribly excited in Columbia: their speak slowly an clearly- perfect for beginner like me. 

The day’s blended into one: not because I was partying too hard, but because I spent the night traveling from Cuba to São Paulo. The first leg lasted for 5 hours from Havana to Lima; then a 2.5 hours of layover; and finally another 5.5 hours from Lima to São Paulo. It has been a while since I did any long distance flying and it showed: I failed to sleep much and was constantly woken up by noises and vibrations (nope. Not the good vibration). It did not help that the in flight movie kept breaking down, and we watched the first 45 minutes of Tomorrowland twice before they finally switched to another movie. (I don’t know, I think clooney is starting to show his age…)Nonetheless, the plane made it to São Paulo (the passengers clapped when the pilot landed in Lima from Havana. I am not sure if we were all pleased to have left Cuba, or just was exuberant that we watched Tomorrowland twice and never finish, since it looked to be a terrible movie).

The immigration was a breeze: I went through the check point in less than 15 minutes. Baggage claim gave some of us with checked in backpacks quite the scare: we all waited by the conveyor belt, and I could see looks of dismay and agitation when we realize our bags were nowhere to be found. By pure chance, I walked by the oversized luggage section and realize all out backpacks were treated as oversized. It was too early for a bus ride to my hostel, so I had to paid an exorbitant amount to a taxi driver. 

Arriving at my hostel, I took a quick nap (well, a 2 hours nap) before heading out for my first tour: a free walking tour of the Paulista Avenue: a street full of modern buildings and skyscrapers. It was a nice change to be back on a modernized city: the metro was easy to comprehend, on time and crowded; I saw McDonald everywhere; Starbucks at multiple busy street corners; coca cola and coke zero on proud display cases. Even the air felt less humid (well, it is. I am a long ways away from the equator after all…).

Paulista Avenue is the cultural and business center of the city. Each building is required to have a cultural center at the first floor, which makes it really interesting to wander into buildings and look at exhibits. Seeing a Starbucks, I finally broke down my barrier and ordered a frap and a brownie: sugar had never tasted so good in my life (well, I say that a lot. I do love sugar. And chocolate. And good coffee. And ice cream. And sushi…). I joined the walking tour that brought us around the avenue, explaining the histories of the buildings and the area. I also noticed a lot of Japanese restaurants: there are a lot of Japanese immigrants in the city, and I was told the Japanese crushing here is very authentic. (I will talk with my wallet and see if we can come to an agreement…)

I had dinner with one of the tour group mates from Peru, and we were in a local restaurant when I heard a famoar accent: singlish (from Singapore). I eventually talked to the two ladies who are auditors, and it was a nice way to wrap up the evening…except I realize someone stole a bottle of shampoo from my backpack during the flight. That and I realized I cannot read the menu at all, and ordering food and paying at supermarkets are challenging once agaib.

It was funny, I did not realize how much Spanish I had picked up during my trip. While I am still at a beginner level, I can at least order food, read a menu, talk to taco drivers and ask directions. Being in Brazil brings the challenge of language back to forefront once again. I guess for the last month of my trip, things will continue to be interesting and motivating. I am learning new things everyday.

(Now I need to start learning how to find a bathroom, and some simple phrases so I can eat. My dinner consisted of all fried food….not the best dish…)