THIS IS AMAZONIA

theatre square,
monument to the continents


MANAUS: THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15
I am invited to dinner by a young couple, friends of friends made in Porto Velho. We drive along a bluff above the Amazon. Apartment blocks for the rich line the shore side of the road. Apartments sell for upward of a million dollars. Where does the money come from? Hush...
We eat delicious fish at an outdoor restaurant above a river beach. Pale skinned dancers prance on stage. The dancers are dressed in Hollywood jungle outfits: bare feet, feather headresses, mini skirts.
I imagine a true indigenous family straying from the jungle in their canoe. What would they they think of the dancers and apartment blocks?
My young host claims that Brazilians are lazy. The country is so rich, people expect it to do the work for them.
He is a good Catholic and works for charities in his spare time. He ignores red lights and drives to my hotel the wrong way up a one-way street.

WHY BRAZIL NEEDS LAWYERS

MANAUS: SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17
I asked a senior economist in the Department of Planning and Development why lawyers were in such demand in Brazil.
He said, "To negotiate the bribes," and smiled sweetly.

MOTO HONDA da AMAZONIA

making motos


MANAUS: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16
I am taken on a tour of the Honda bike factory. My guides are a Japanese Brazilian, Mario Okubo, and Francisca Viana - both from the Department of Institutional Relations (what ever that is). Manaus is a 1000 miles from anywhere. It is in the middle of the Amazon forest. Surely an odd place to site a vast factory? Taxes are the explanation. Manaus is a tax free zone. The Honda factory employs 8000 workers in three shifts. All employees, directors or on the assembly line, wear the same white overalls or coats with HONDA on the breast pocket. A new bike comes off the assembly line every 50 seconds - 6000 bikes a day, 13 models. Bikes are exported down river to more than 60 countries and Honda sells 1,200,000 bikes a year inside Brazil in a market of 1,500,000. That is one BIG market slice. It is also a further similarity with the US: Brazil has an internal market capable of sustaining manufacturing.
Workers on the assembly line earn 800 Reales a month - well over double the minimum wage. They receive pensions, injury insurance and medical benefits. I watch the assembly line. The workers don't appear hurried or pressured. What would I know?
Mario Okubo tells me that China is the threat. No country can compete with Chinese labour prices. The Chinese are undercutting home manufacturing throughout the developing world. They are forcing factories into bankruptcy. They are nullifying twenty years of slow improvement in living standards. The Chinese Government is Communist and holds dear the interest of the workers. Yeah, yeah, yeah...

DADDY

daddy (centre) with child

MANAUS: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16
I rode out to the Honda factory this afternoon. My bike met her Daddy: Manoel Antonio Libório dos Santos, Director of Production. Manoel seemed shocked by her condition. He summoned a cosmetic surgeon and manicurist. They changed the rear wheel and the drive sprocket and the gas tank and the mirrors. They wanted to change the fairing for the rear wheel. I protested. We were hit up the backside by three trucks. The black web of repairs are equivalent to German duelling scars.

STUDENTS IN LANGUAGE, EXPERT IN CINICISM

students - CNA


MANAUS: THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15
I have avoided posting my experiences in Porto Velho. I need distance to clarify my thoughts. I took classes most days at the CNA language academy. English is a prerequisite for any good job in modern Brazil. To learn English, a student must attend private school (CNA has 1200 students). Only the privileged can afford private education. Great way to insure that the advantaged remain advantaged.
Students I worked with were at an advanced level. I sat in class with them and we questioned each other. They learnt of my trip. I learnt their opinions of the problems facing Brazil. Most problems centered on endemic corruption.
I talked with some 120 students. Business Administration narrowly won over law as the most popular degree. Psychology came third (mostly women students). Medicine came fourth (also mostly women). One lone math student gave me hope. None studied science. History seems absent from University curricula.
One student intended working in Government in the hope of changing something. The rest were scornful of Public Service. What ever your intentions, you would soon get sucked into the quagmire of corruption. Everything in Government was corrupt. Brazil is the most corrupt country in the Americas.
A massive new hydro electric plant will be built in Porto Velho. Construction will absorb 50,000 new employees. The city is already short of hospital beds and schools. So far the Government has approved the building of two giant new shopping malls.
I am told this amidst much laughter.
I report what I am told.
In the future I will write at greater length.
Suffice to add that the students and teachers were charming, intelligent and good company and that the administrator, Aya Imajo, is a treasure to know.
I could add a dozen names - Jorge, Daniel and Natasha with whom I spent a splendid evening at a fish restaurant. What did we discuss? Politics, corruption - and so it continued. Deeply depressing....

GAY IN MANAUS

MANAUS: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14
I sit at a café facing the Theatre of the Amazon, sip a cold beer and try to forget the Japanese restaurant bill. The theatre is glorious. So is the plaza in front of the theatre. I watch a dozen clearly gay young men hug and kiss and hold hands. Perhaps Manaus is the Gay capital of Brazil (I haven't been to Sao Paulo or Rio). The guys are enjoying themselves and seem unafraid of being mugged. Watching them is a pleasure. So is watching three young women at a neigboring table. One of the women smiles at me. Men are errecting Christmas decorations. The woman probably mistakes me for Papa Noel (Father Christmas). I order a second cold beer and forgive the theatre for showing documentary movies that I don't want to watch. I will attend a classical concert on Saturday night. Meanwhile I might as well have another cold beer.

MEETING OF THE WATERS

MANAUS: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14
The water of the the Madiera River is yellow. The Amazon is blue/black. The meetings of the water draws a line right down the river. I would post a photograph. However I am in Manaus. Manaus is upriver 1000 miles from anywhere. The internet conection flows against the current. Some emails become exhausted at travelling and give up. Posting photographs is for optimists.
I am staying at the Palace Hotel by the Cathedral. I stand under the shower for thirty minutes. The grime of the voyage flows down the drain. I am in Manaus to introduce my Honda to its makers at the Honda factory and to hear opera in the Theatre of the Amazon. The theatre is hosting a documentary film festival. Tomorrow is a national holiday. Honda will be closed. I search for a restaurant. I am used to Argentine hours. Eating dinner before 10 p.m. is an oddity. Manaus is different. The only place open is Japanese. Every other nation has worked at perfecting the cooking of rice so that the grains are seperate. Japanese have perfected gluey rice with which they can sculpt in pretty designs. The Japanese have also perfected the art of serving the minimum amount of food for the maximum amount of money. My dinner is inadequate and viciously over-priced.

BRITS ARE BAD AT GOD

god girl



RIVER BOAT: NOVEMBER 12/14
An atractive young woman enters my cabin and sits on the floor. I am seated on my bunk. The woman is in her early twenties. She tells me that God is love and that God is on my side. She tells me that God is patient: he will wait for me to come to him. She tells me this at great length. For punctuation, she kisses my hand. I understand one word in ten - however the meaning seems clear.
Brits are embarassed by fervour and we keep God private. Not knowing where to look, I look into her eyes and attempt to portray understanding and spiritual oneness. Ten minutes of looking into her eyes leaves me exhausted. The woman kisses my hand once again and departs. I sit on my bunk and watch the jungle pass. Jungle is soothing at a safe distance. I like trees and green is a calming colour.

WORRIES

RIVER BOAT: NOVEMBER 12/14
A boy spends much of his time with Diego, Victoria and myself. He is fourteen, tall for his age, good-looking and inteligent. He speaks good Spanish. He learnt the language in Lima, Peru, where he lived for nine months. Now he is travelling to Guiana where he wants to learn English. He travels alone and never talks of any family. He changes three times a day and is always smartly dressed in good sports clothes. One of his T shirts is Australian. Diego teaches him magic tricks. He learns quickly. We wonder where he gets his money. We worry that he sells himself.

FRIARS AND WAR CRIMINALS

MADEIRA RIVER: NOVEMBER 12/14
Breakfast (toasted sandwich) in company with an eighty-year-old German resident in Brazil since 1949. The German was in the SS during World War 2. He wasn't aware of atrocities. Germans didn't know.
Of course not.
Particularly those serving in the SS.
The German army was the only army to be free of barrack room gossip.
The German was captured by Americans in the Spring Offensive of 1945. He did not cut off his SS insignia from his uniform. An American officer cut off the insignia as memorablia.
The German came to Brazil immediately on being released from de-Nazification camp.
In Brazil he had an operation on his nose. The anaesthatist asked how many Jews the German gassed. The German laughs at the memory of such a stupid question. Germans knew nothing of gassing Jews.
The German has been recounting this version of events for so many years that he may believe it.
However he senses that Victoria and I believe him to be a liar.
Not only a liar, we believe him to be a piece of moral shit.
He moves away and keeps his distance for the remainder of the voyage.
Later we are joined by a tall thin Brazilian with a grey beard. He is a Fransican friar and is waiting a visa for Angola. A rain storm thrashes the river in the afternoon. The Friar takes a perfect photograph of lightning forking through black cloud. The friar is delighted with his photograph. He smiles as he tells us that knowing when to press the shutter button is a matter of faith.

BRAZIL POP IS VILE

diego with camera
victoria with cold beer

MADEIRA RIVER: NOVEMBER 12/14
Brazilian pop may be an aquired taste - though you would have to live for many years. Songs have an afinity with the jungle in that each song is indistinguishable from the previous song and will be indistinguishable from the next. Songsters are backed by blond or dyed-blond women uncloathed in mini shorts and bras. The women prance rather than dance. Their actions are ugly and have little to do with the beat. Every few minutes they bend over and waggle their arses at the cameras.
Diego believes that Brazil exports all its good music.
Or is good music illegal on river boats?
I am typing this in a Manaus internet café.
The music is charming.

AMAZON JUNGLE

east bank, west bank

MADEIRA RIVER: NOVEMBER 12/14
The Madeira River is a small stream when compared to the Amazon. The water is yellow. We are seldom further than 60 metres from one bank or the other. I wake at dawn and watch, through the part open cabin door, jungle slip by on the West bank. Jungle is green and mostly trees. I get out of bed and circle the wheelhouse to see the East bank. The East bank is jungle. East bank jungle is indistignguishable from west bank jungle. I go back to bed. I wake again at 8 a.m. and look at jungle.. The jungle is similar to the jungle I watched at dawn. I brush my teeth, wash and go find my Spanish friends, Diego and Victoria. They are watching jungle. They have slept badly. We watch jungle together for an hour. I ask Victoria whether 9.30 a.m. is too early for a cold beer. Victoria says that a cold beer is desirable when watching jungle. We drink a cold beer every two hours. At night I swallow a Parasitimol every two hours.
This is sensible jungle discipline.
Meals?
Yes, food is provided. Medium loathsome is an apt description. We make do with equally loathsome toasted ham and cheese sandwiches from the bar. Sometimes we photograph jungle. The difficulty is in knowing which bit of jungle to photograph.
And we try to ignore the Brazilian pop blaring through a massive bank of speakers..

MADEIRA RIVER BOAT

DOS HERMANOS: NOVEMBER 12/14
I have been on a river boat for the past three days. I have a cabin. The cabin has two berths and no sheets. I was promised sheets. I was also promised a fan. I have a fan. The fan doesn't work. I meet a charming Spanish couple who have hammocks slung on the upper deck amongst one hundred or so other hammocks. The Spaniards' hammocks have mosquito nets. They have a solar cigarette lighter, a variety of mini lanterns, knives, forks, spoons, plates. They lend me a sheet. I store their cameras under my bunk at night. I have matresses on both berths. I put both matresses on the lower berth. I tie one end of a shoelace to the door handle and the other end to my knife. I jam the knife in the bulkhead. The shoelace holds the door open a foot or so. The door funnels cool air off the river into the cabin. I sleep an hour, then thread my way between hammocks from my cabin behind the wheelhouse to the lavatories in the stern. A woman cleans and unblocks the lavatories each morning. Get up early and you may even enjoy a clean seat.

DEFROCKED BAPTIST IS A SAINT

passenger ship to Manaus


PORTO VELHO: MONDAY, NOVEMBER 6
I was fortunate in being treated by a one legged orthopaedic surgeon in Rio Grande. Now I am in the hands of a one-eyed, defrocked, Baptist Minister. Again I am very fortunate. John drives me down to the river. A boat will sail on Saturday. I reserve a cabin. Meanwhile John invites me to teach school. He teaches English at a private language academy. As a US Baptist missionary, he earned 9,000 reales a month. Defrocked, he has joined the Brazilian economy and earns 1200 reales a month. 380 reales is the minimum wage.
Can a family live on 380 reales a month?
They can exist, just...

CASH AND DEFROCKED BAPTISTS

defrocked and never frocked


PORTO VELHO: MONDAY, November 6
Rains are late. The Madeira River is some thirty feet below its high water mark. I am offered passage on a steel cargo barge pushed by a wooden tug. The tug is painted white and has two decks and a tiny wheelhouse up top. It resembles an accessory to a doll's house. I need to buy a hammock to sling on the barge. The agent says the voyage to Manaus will take four days.
Are there any river boats with cabins?
No, there are no boats.
I open my travel guide. No boats?
One boat. But it only sails every two weeks. The boat left yesterday. I will have to wait two weeks - or travel on the barge.
I am suspicious of this information. The bank below is lined with river boats. Surely one of them sails to Manaus?
The last cash machine that accepted my VISA card was in a shopping mall in Brasilia. I am down to fifty reales in cash - at 3.65 to the pound.
The concierge at the hotel directs me to a bank with an ATM machine. The machine scorns my card. I am on foot. I walk from bank to bank. I even take a 15 reales cab ride out to a supermarket with ATM machines. None accept my card. I am desperate. My ankle has ballooned and hurts like hell. I try a Western Union office. In walks a burly citizen of the US, early forties, one glass eye. He is a defrocked Baptist minister. His dad is a Baptist missionary in town. His brother is a Baptist missionary in town. His sin is to have divorced a blond from the Bible Belt and married a dark-skinned Brazilian. His dad and his mum and his brother and his blond, enormously fat sister-in-law no longer speak to him.

END OF THE ROAD

PORTO VELHO: SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5
I ride into Porto Velho through a rain storm and book into the Hotel Centro, big room with twin beds and a/c. Porto Velho is the end of the road. It is built on the eastern bank of the River Madeira. The Madeira runs north into the Amazon at Manaus. South it forms the border between Brazil and Bolivia.

GOOD FARMING IS BEAUTIFUL

RIDING WEST: SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5
Good farming is beautiful. I think of those small fields in Europe, slopes smoothed by centuries of toil and passion. And I think of those vast fields in the US, not a single tree planted, no attempt to please the eye The soil is beggared; natural nutrients are replaced by greater and greater quantities of chemical fertilizer; top soil beomes increasingly friable; a gust of wind blows it away.
Most farms in Brazil looked cared for. Arrable fields are countour ploughed to protect the soil. On ranches, tress shade the cattle. Sadly there is a long stretch at the approach to Porto Vehlo that resmbles a war zone. Every tree has been felled, jagged stumps form the kernel for termite mounds.

STUDENTS OF PORTO VELHO

private education - CNA computer room


PORTO VELHO: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9
Larissa of Porto Velho has left a comment at the BLOG, GATEWAY TO THE AMAZON. Comments are valuable to me, both as a writer, and because I treasure the effort and courage demanded to publicly comment in a foreign language. I have been priviledged in Porto Velho to converse with some 100 students. The students have opened to me a very small window into the Brazil that lies below the facade we tourists experience. I entered Brazil in a state of total ignorance. Without the students I would have remained ignorant. They have been patient and very kind and have permitted me to pose questions that many may have found impertinent or painful.

BUTTERFLY AND ALL THAT

ROAD WEST: SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5
Early mornings are misty and cool and beautiful. Trees appear out of the mist, miracles of survival in an agricultural landscape of cattle ranch and freshly sewn serials. A small fluttering of yellow butterfly is remarkable only because these are the first I have noticed in two weeks of travel through Brazil. Once noticed, the scarcity of butterfly nags. And bird life is minimal - none of the doves and pods of small black birds on the road side, partridge, quail, to all of which I became accustomed in Uruguay. The road enters a stretch of forest. A small animal with a ringed tail darts across the road. Later, in a second stretch of forest, I spot a plump red animal with fine legs, size of a medium dog, possibly a deer. Orange, single-seater spray aircraft are common. Do orange planes spray Agent Orange?

A SMALL PLEASANT TOWN

ROAD WEST: SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4
Brazilians improve the further west I ride. So does the food. I pull off the highway into a small town this evening. Nondescript would be a polite description of the architecture. Sidewalks are tatty, so are the road surfaces. The grass in the square hasn't been cut in a year and is strewn with drink cans and plastic bags. Refuse blocks open drains. A couple of bikers and a woman walking a dog take time out to direct me to the only hotel. The hotel is run down or has never come up. However the staff (two women) are kind and helpful and work at communicating. I shower and change into clean clothes. The women point me to a restaurant where I devour great fish soup outdoors at the standard white plastic table. The temperature and humidity are a little high for perfect comfort. Not that I care. I am content. I have stumbled on a place of which I can find nothing good to write except that it has a pleasant and friendly feel. What joy after Brasilia...

BRAZIL BEEF REFUSED BY VULTURES

ROAD WEST: SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4
Today I passed three dead cows on the side of the road - not a vulture in sight. Is Brazilian beef too tough for vultures? Or have Brazilian vultures immigrated to glut themselves on Peruvian garbage?

GREEN FIELD CATHEDRALS

ROAD WEST: SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5

The agricultural wealth of Brazil is worshipped in green field cathedrals of galvanised tin.

GATEWAY TO THE AMAZON

GATEWAY TO THE AMAZON: SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5
I long for the Amazon. Enough of the café-free designer city, I am out of here. I reach Cuiba the first night. Ahead lies the Amazon Highway: 1500 kilometres to Porto Velho. I ride 800 Ks on Saturday, twelve hours in the saddle and a new personal record. Today I leave at 6 a.m. and face a mere 700 Ks. I halt every 150 Ks for a bottle of water and coffee and I break for Sunday lunch at an outdoor restaurant on the outskirts of a small town. The place is packed. Many groups are friends, relatives or neighbors - small farmers, many of them. I face a family at the next table: Mum, Dad, two daughters and a son. The daughters are early teens. The boy is a couple of years younger. He is a good-looking kid with fair, sun-streaked hair. He sits slouched deep in his chair. Parents will recognize the attitude. Why did you bring me here? You must hate me. Why did you bother having me?
The girls finish eating first and find school friends to chat with.
The boy sinks deeper into his chair.
The parents face each other diagonally across the table. They have nothing to say to each other. Dad finally reads Mum something off the label on a big bottle of Coke. What ever he reads fails to elicit a response.
The boy leaves the table.
Dad shifts seats to sit directly opposite Mum.
Shifting seats doesn’t help.
He gets up and pays the bill at the cashier’s counter.
Had Bernadette been there, she would have kicked me under the table and told me not to stare.
I know I stare. Staring is what writers do. People interest us.

SURPRISE, SURPRISE...

BRASILIA: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31
Brazilians in Brazil either whisper or shout. Their language sounds brutal. At first I presumed that they were quarrelling. However their use of language is mirrored in their behavior. They show little courtesy.
I wondered whether this perception was a misconception arising from my lack of Portuguese. My ankle resembles a football. This evening I take my crutches for a walk to the shopping center. In Buenos Aires, Argentineans would have made way for me, offered to help me at the curb. Here, in a walk of three hundred meters, I am twice jostled off the sidewalk.
Do Argentineans recognize that they are courteous?
Are Brazilians aware of being impolite?

TAWDRY CROWN OF THORNS

BRASILIA: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31
The Metropolitan Cathedral in Brasília stands on an island surrounded by urban thru-ways. The Cathedral is built in the shape of a crown. The design is drawn from the Crown of Thorns. The image is trite. The building is weak. I long for the majestic simplicity of a 16th century Christian/Islamic dome. And I could do without the thru-ways. Thru-ways fail as aids to contemplation.

DREAM OF GREENERY

BRASILIA: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31
The dead grass and red earth of parkland Brasilia depresses me. Professor Lucio Costa was the city’s designer. Did he fail to consider the months of drought? Or did he imagine an irrigation system greening his open spaces? People would delight in the swish of irrigation sprayers. The city would be cooler. The water is available. Brasilia overlooks a vast artificial lake. What do I know? I am merely an old Brit passing through…

ONLY GAYS READ BOOKS

BRASILIA: WEDNESDASY, OCTOBER 31
In her nightmares, Mrs. Thatcher must have imagined British Embassies peopled with men such as the Mexican Cultural attaché, men who read books, attend concerts, discuss ideas. The Cultural attaché suggests a historian I should seek out when next in Mexico City. I doubt that the charming young lady with a degree in Business Administration who manages the British Council in Brasilia could name a historian. For Brits, culture is suspect. Read books, you are presumed to be homosexual.
Sulman Rushdie is the most important and least parochial of modern British writers. His work touches on dangerous territory. Islamic fanatics have issued fatwa against him. He spent years unable to walk to the corner shop without police protection.
Our ex Foreign Minister, Jack Straw, recently remarked that he was incapable of reading Sulman Rushdie’s work. In any other European country, such a confession would make of the Minister a laughing stock.

DEAD BODIES AND MILLIONS OF FLIES

BRASILIA: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31
The Mexican Cultural attaché wishes me to believe that those about to be sacrificed were joyful at being honored.
The victims clambered up the pyramid. The steps are steep. The angle is designed to ensure that a dead body rolls back down.
At the summit, a priest gouged out the victim’s heart with a stone knife.
The temple must have stunk of blood and faeces – though I must check with a medical expert on this last point – if I can find an expert on hearts being gouged out. Does the victim’s bowels let go? Almost certainly.
Imagine the pyramid covered in blood and shit.
Imagine the stink
Then imagine the millions of flies. The flies must have risen in a black cloud each time a fresh body came tumbling down the steps and would have buzzed around the victims as they climbed. Honor? No, Sir. I am deeply sorry but tell me another story.
Witnesses from the period are unreliable: suggesting that being opened up with a stone knife was anything but a great experience got you opened up with a stone knife.

THATCHER WOULD HATE HIM

BRASILIA: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31
The Mexican Embassy in Brasilia is a fine example of brutalist architecture. An Olmec head in front of the embassy is equally brutalist and a brilliant juxtaposition. Lawns are watered and green. Barcelona chairs round a square glass-topped table in the atrium make a calm meeting place. My companion is the Mexican cultural attaché. He is immensely cultured. He does not have a degree in business administration. He teases that I have cast myself as an aging Kerouac. We discuss the Conquest and the Christianising of Mexico. He mentions the Madonna of Guadalupe. I am a fan of the Madonna. I wear two images of her round my neck and one lapel badge. The medallions were a gift from a Colombian wholesaler of wind-cured hams. A Mexican dentist's wife gave me the badge. They were gifts to keep me safe on my journey. I was wearing all three when the truck struck me. The Saint Christoper on the bike keys was a gift from my brother. I suffered one hell of a crash and survived.

BRITISH COUNCIL, WINDOW TO BRITISH CULTURE

BRASILIA: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31
In my youth, culture was considered an important aspect of the National image. Poets and erudite novelists represented British culture abroad as officers of the British Council. Lawrence Durell was of their number. THE ALEXANDRIAN QUARTET was a product of his posting to Egypt. Transfer to Cyprus produced the equally brilliant BITTER LEMONS. Today I visited the British Council offices in Brasilia. The manager is a young and exceedingly beautiful Brasilian woman. She boasts a degree in business management. She is a child of Thatcherism.

DEAD GRASS AND BRUTALIST ARCHITECTURE

BRASILIA: MONDAY, OCTOBER 30
Brasilia is a creation of the Fifties. The architecture is concrete brutalist. Many of the buildings are magnificent. The designer envisioned these massive structures rising from soft green lawns. The effect would be superb. The lawns are dead straw liberally patched with bare red earth. The effect is not superb.

For those unfamiliar with brutalist architecture, my daughter out of law is a noted architectural photographer. Her web site features some of Britain's finest examples. http://www.sarahjduncan.com/

BRASILIA IS FOR CARS AND NOT FOR PEOPLE

BRASILIA: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30
Brasilia is designed. Everything has its place acording to the master plan. Embassies are in the Embassy sector, hotels are in the hotel sector, Ministries are in a long line in the Ministry sector, so it goes, so it goes. Sectors are separated by great swathes of parkland. Understand the design and you can find your way - if you have a vehicle.
Corner shops and cafes don't feature on the grand design.
Arive fifteen minutes early for an apointmet, what do you do? Sit in the car and broil? Squat under a shade tree that provides too little shade?

NO CRAMPS AND AMONGST THE LIVING

BRASILIA: MONDAY, OCTOBER 29
In Punta Grossa, I was up in the night with bad cramps in my thighs. A white-jacketed expert at an homepathic store perscribed pills, one to be taken each morning. I have been cramp free for the past three nights. A regular pharmacist filled my heart medication perscription with a joint water and cholestral pill. I am alive.
And I am in Brasilia.
The road crossing Brasil's heartland was mostly excellent.
Much of it was four lane highway with a central division.
Agricultural wealth is on display, gas stations abound, so do small hotels and motels for lovers...

ALL YOU CAN EAT

ROAD TO BRASILIA: SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28
I pull into a gas station at 1.30, fill the tank and park in the shade by the cafeteria. Sunday lunch is all you can eat for $6. Help yourself from the buffet to salads and vegetables, rice and beans, stews. Waiters tour with big skewers off which they carve direct to your plate from various cuts of beef, pork, lamb, sausages, grilled pineapple. The pineapple is excellent.
A small truck driver with bow legs wears baggy shorts and a Manaus T-shirt. He has never been to Manaus. A big truck driver in jeans and a plain shirt has driven from Manaus this week. He was held up for six days by floods.
Or he may have been on a six day surfing holiday.
Translating from Brasilian Portuguese to my Cuban Spanish is not an exact science - however I am certain that water featured in the driver's adventure and that it wasn't fun.

CONVENIANCE FOR SHORT TIME LOVERS

ROAD TO BRASILIA: MONDAY, OCTOBER 28
Motels in Brasilia are sited on the outskirts of all towns. Brasilian motels are short stop conveniances for short time lovers. The driver enters directly into a garage, pays through a hole in the wall and is given a free packet of prophalactics. How do I know? The prophalactics are advertised - as are saunas, hydro spars, naughty movies, cascades and a swimming pool. Many of the motels are named after cities in the US. Miami is a favourite, as is Dallas. Lilith is another. Extacy, Orgasmic and Love feature as does one splendidly named Mama Maria's. A hydro spar is tempting after a long day in the saddle.

Are singles permitted?

Please let me in. I am not allowed to play with myself at home.

US/BRAZIL

ROAD TO BRASILIA: MONDAY, OCTOBER 28
Brasilians are similar to citizens of the US. Both envison their countries as civilised strips of land backing onto a vast ocean with a few islands. In the US one island stretches from Denver through Vale to Aspen. Los Vegas is another island. So is Palm Springs.
Brasilia is a Brazilian island. I don't know what others exist. Perhaps Manaus? And Brazil only has one land strip/one coast.
Plane is the only way to travel to an island.
People who journey by rail or road are weird.
Riding a small bike is very weird.

MONSTER RIDE

TO BRASILIA: SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28
What is it with Brasilians? Given the warnings I receive, I could be in the US. Warnings? To keep to the coast road. Not to travel in the interior. The Federal police were the first on the road from Santana de Livramento my first day in Brasil. And the smart woman at the gas station. Yesterday in Cutiriba a Fedral cop on a motorbike gave me the same warning. Brasilia? You have to go to the coast, to San Paulo. A huge dogleg, why? Is it dangerous? Are there brigands? Is the road so bad? The answer I receive is that everyone travels via the coast.
Not me. I leave at dawn, head due north and ride 700 kilometres - a personal record for Honda and I. The road is excellent, much of it dual carriageway. One short stretch of really bad tar - probably explained as punishment for a local politico or Governor who angered Federal Government/President.

I DON'T ENJOY CITIES

fine young men

CURITIBA: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26
Curtiba is inland A four-lane highway climbs through a lush landscape of dairy farms and forest. The air is fresh and sparkling. I fill up with a gasoline advertised as containing an additive. The bike loves the gasoline. We whiz up steep inclines. The land flattens on the approach to Curtiba. I spot a big Honda bike agency. A mob of gleeful apprentice mechanics service the bike in their lunch hour. The side stand needs replacing. Who ever did the welding for Dakar Moto welded the stand at the wrong angle so that it touches the chain and sticks behind the main stand. Awkward, as I don't have sufficient strength to raise the bike on it main stand when astride and have taken a fall. The fall broke my camera.
The apprentices replace the stand at cost. The service costs me $3 for the oil. One of the apprentice's emails me a photograph. The apprentices are great kids.
I ride onto into Curtiba and park in the Historic Centre. The Historic Centre is a few blocks of nineteenth century pretty. The rest of the city is highrise. I don't like cities. I go up to London for three days on the early morning train and catch the afternoon train home. So why am I staying in Curtiba? I try talking with a man at the cafe where I drink coffee and soda water. We soon give up on the attempt.
I guess that Brazilians, surrounded by Spanish speakers, have determined to resist the slightest encroachment.
And, if I can't communicate, why am I in Brazil.
Because I want to ride across the Amazon forest.
Then get on with it.
Right...
I remount and ride towards Porta Grossa from where the highway to Brasilia runs north.
This upland countryside is breathtaking.
Imagine the perfect English landscape of rolling hills, fields and woodland. Multiply by ten the size of the wheat fields and paddocks and woodland, multiply by ten the height of contours. Wheat glows gold in late afternoon sunshine as I approach Porta Grossa. New factories and store houses and granaries abound on the outskirts of town. All depends on incredible agricultural wealth. The town is a nothing hodgepodge. Highrises stand beside modern bungalows, neither of any architectural merit. Sidewalks are pretty, black sets inlaid with white patterns or white sets inlaid with black. I find a $15 room with a good mattress and excellent towels. The Internet is free, flat screens in an aircon lobby. I have 28 emails waiting to be opened, many from Colette, the copy editor. And the publisher, Clare, has sent me proofs of the cover. I need to work on the final proof tomorrow. No chance of moving on. The receptionist recommends a restaurant two blocks from the hotel. I quail at the choice of menu: steak with an egg or steak without an egg. The egg is edible.

SOME SORT OF ACHIEVEMENT

LITTORAL: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25
I ride and ride and pull over to let trucks pass and pull over and let trucks pass. Late afternoon and cloud cover darkens. I pull of the littoral and into a small village which is only part Costa Brava highrise. The beach is great. I take out my camera. Rain falls. I remount and ride a while before stopping at another beach. The rain has ceased. The batteries on the camera are flat. Please take my word that Brazilian beaches exist.
Rain begins spitting again. I have ridden 600 Ks which is an achievement.
I find a hotel room at $12. The towel wouldn't dry a damp mouse. I can feel the stitching on the mattress through the thin sheet. So now I have established a price range. $12 is too little. $15 to $16 is just right.

COSTA BRAVA

LITTORAL: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25
The lagoon comes to an end. The littoral approaches the shore. Ah, those wonderful beaches of Brazil. Of what am I reminded. The Costa Brava. Hundreds of kilometres of strip development. No, development implies a modicum of planning. This is strip chaos. Clumps of high rises interspersed with the warehouses of builders' merchants, car lots, manufacturers of every type of concrete conduit and beam necessary to the construction of the highway, gas stations and endless slow fast-food outlets hazed by construction dust.
I pick a restaurant on the banks of a small artificial lake. It advertises fruit of the sea.
The greeter seats me and enquires whether I wish to order individual plates or take the completo. I go for the completo. Plate after plate is laid in front of me. Here's the pick:
Tasteless wet black bean sludge.
Tasteless wet shrimp sludge - I recognise a shrimp.
A tasteless wet sludge that contains fish - I find a bone.
Tasteless semi-dry crab sludge.
Three fried fish - two of which are excellent. One is disgusting.
A large plate of soggy fried potatoes.
A large plate of rice.
Salad of which only the lettuce is tired.
I drink two bottles of water with gas. The bill is $11.
The bill is fine. I hope they spend the money on cookery lessons.

HEAD WIND

LITTORAL: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25
Out of the hotel and on the road by 8 a.m. Hit the littoral near Porto Alegre. The littoral? Six lane coastal highway. Easy riding. Except the highway runs for forty kilometres before degenerating into a Federal Government project. I ride all day, diversion to diversion. Worse, the highway is on the landward side of a huge lagoon. Hills creep close on the west of the road. Ahead I spy a double line of wind turbines. The breeze off the lagoon is accelerated by the hills - at least that is the theory of a man without any scientific training and dumb enough to be riding a small motorbike into a strong headwind for the rest of the day.
The breeze cuts my speed to 10 Ks less than the majority of trucks. Trucks are in abundance. every type of truck imaginable. I take to the hard shoulder and wave them through. Three in four drivers thank me with a toot on the klaxon or a thumb raised.

NOT TOO BAD A DAY

MINAS DO LEAO: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24
I hit the main East-West highway to Porto Alegre. The road runs along a ridge. The country is instantly greener: vast fields of wheat and rice interspersed with equally vast cattle paddocks, vast timber plantations along the hills. Grain silos come in groups and are as dominant as an Apollo missile. To a European, the agriculture wealth is staggering. How can people suffer hunger?
Two iguanas earlier in the day. I saw a lone white heron yesterday. Now a second flies very slowly across a patch of marsh. A sign on the right advertises Hampshire Down sheep.
I started late at 10 a.m. I have ridden 400 Ks when I pull off the highway to a small clean town, Minas do Leao, 130 Ks short of the coast. The architecture is nothing. However a small park is pretty. I find a clean hotel with parking, big towels, hot water and a comfortable mattress. Pricing a country takes a few days. I paid $26 last night. I pay $17 tonight. Dinner is chicken disaster.
I sit outdoors amongst other guests. We try and converse. Hopeless. Why am I here?

CAN I COPE WITH THE IMMENSE DISTANCES?

TO PORTO ALEGRE: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24
I stop at a gas station a short way out of Santana do Livramento. A smartly dressed woman in a smart four by four advises me to head straight east for the coast. Southern Brazil is poor. It is uninteresting. The coast is rich. I will enjoy the coast. The roads are good. I can ride on the litoral all the way north to Sao Paola before heading inland to Brasilia.
I doubt whether this woman's tastes and mine coincide.
I turn north at a town called Baje.
The road crosses hills that seem increasingly dry.
An iguana scurries across the road.
An hour later a second iguana scurries across the road.
Both iguanas cross from my left to my right.
Is this significant?
Meanwhile the road continues over dry hills.
I am becoming depressed. The distances are immense - 100 Ks to get anywhere. You get to anywhere and it might as well be nowhere...Unless you are excited by a lime or gypsum mine coating everything in white powder. How will I cope with the mammoth ride from Brasilia to Manaus and on across the Amazon forest to Venezuela - 5000 Ks?
I come to a crest and find the view spectacular. It is much the same as the views that depressed me from the previous ten crests. However a sudden flashback to riding early one glorious morning along the Pacific coast in Mexico last year puts me in tune with the road and the country and the bike.
The few trucks are harmless. We travel at approximately the same speed so they don't rush up at me from behind.
I stop at a gas station. The attached restaurant is for sale. I order steak. There is only steak. Steak with an egg or steak without an egg. Take your choice.
I chose the egg.
Veg?
No.
Rice?
NO.
Beans?
No.
The steak is gristle.
The egg is edible.

PANIC AT THE BANK

TOWARDS PORTO ALEGRE: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24
Panic at the bank. The ATM machine refuses my request for money. A lady bank clerk tells me that the machine is doing something to its self. I should come back later. The machine finishes doing things to its self at 10 a.m. I get money, mount up and ride.
Brazil countryside is less tidy than Uruguay.
Individually a few priviledged Uruguayans may own vast acerages. However they are aware that their's is a small country. They use every morsel.
Brazil is vast. Ten acres here or there is unimportant. Hence the untidiness. The Argentine is similar - so is much of the US.
England is minute. Each square metre is a treasure.

MUMMYS AND DADDYS

I wake in a new country, Brazil. I miss Uruguay. And I miss my fellow Herefordshires. We Hereford men are a handsome, rugged, well-mannered lot. We are enegetic lovers and make good dependable fathers.

Hereford mothers are gentle, loving and caring.

Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. We Hereford men find our women remarkably beautiful.

AM I TOTALLY INCOMPETENT?

SANTOS DO LIVRAMENTO: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23
Brazilian Customs officers are similar to my wife in doubting my capacity to fill in forms. The Customs officers do the filling in. The daughter of the head man spent six weeks in Cambridge, England, on a language course. She found the English kind and more sincere than Brazilians but much less outgoing. She commented that Brazilians kiss where the English shake hands - for the English, a kiss implies friendship.
The head man says that Brits are polite while people from the US are rude.
I counter that he has been exceptionally lucky in the Brits he's met and unlucky in the North Americans.
He condemns Argentines as equally arrogant.
Argentines believe they are the best.
Brazilians are always trying to come first.
I quote. Quoting is easier than deciphering the suttle differences.
Later a Brazilian with a business the Uruguayan side of town complains that Uruguayan are greedy. Unemployment payment is the fault. Pay double the unemployment benefit or a Uruguayan won't work. He complains that he has to pay US$ 400 a month. Thank God (or the Uruguayan Government) for unemployment benefit.
I stay in a modern hotel with dirty bedspreads.

GENTLE COUNTRY

SANTO DO LIVRAMENTO: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23
A good road with few cars or trucks runs straight north to Brazil across gently undulating country. I rode south last years through Peru and Bolivia. Garbage littered the landscape, lay heaped beside the roads and surrounded every town. Uruguay is clean. Forestry is expanding - the dreaded Australian eucalyptus, devourer of soil, harbinger of erosion. A lone white heron watches me from a creek. Traffic cones narrow the road on the outskirts of town. Cops wave me through. How could I tell that I had entered Brazil? I spend the next three hours hunting Immigration and Customs. All directions take me to a main road which is closed for a fiesta. A team of single seater planes do acrobatics overhead. Drivers watch the planes in preference to the road. I find Urugayan offices first. They are beside the main road. For Brazilian Immigration I ride thirty blocks. Customs is five kilometres out of town.

ESCAPE

Silvia, Raffa and Trindad (on horseback)


TO BRAZIL: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23
My cousin, Brian, has ordered Raffa, the gaucho, to stop me leaving unless I am absolutely fit. I argue that no man my age is ever absolutely fit. The bike starts. Dogs bark, gambol and try eating my hand. I kiss Silvia and Raffa goodbye and speed (10 kph) down the grass track to the dirt road. I have escaped the delightful comforts of Los Tajamares.
I am Latin in that I share the importance given by Latins to the wider family relationship. The Deannes are cousins at three or four generations distance. They are family. And I hate them. I hate them because I will miss them every day of what remains of my life. Hopefully my young and their young will extend our sense of belonging to each other.

GOD BLESS CORPORATE AMERICA

LOS TAJAMARES: MONDAY, OCTOBER 22
When not coughing, inhaling water vapour or downing glasses of Vitamin C the past few days, I have been working with Clare. Clare is copy-editing my book that comes out next March. Extraordinary to be able to work with someone in London while on a South American estancia some fifty miles from the nearest small town. Some emails have been delayed a day, few come in the order in which they were posted. The book and the emails contain many bad words. To name a few: Bush, Blair, terrorist, liars, torture, Halliburton, corruption.
Clare and I suspect that THEY are reading our mail. I have advised Clare to put a couple of bolsters in the bed and sleep on the floor for a while - better still, move in with an elderly relative who has always voted Tory and is a member of the Tory Party.
While waiting for mail from Clare, I skimmed BBC News. DynCorp is a splendid US corporation, very similar to Halliburton. DynCorp is training the Iraq police. Keeping records is an essential part of police work. DynCorp are unable to produce records for 1.2 billion US dollars of Government funds. Nor can they explain why they built themselves an Olympic size swimming pool in Iraq and purchsed a bunch of top of the line executive trailers ~ you know, those vast things in which movie stars have affairs. DynCorp also train the Afghan police. Both Afghan and Iraq police are notoriously corrupt - DynCorp must feel right at home. And DynCorp run the anti-cocaine aerial spraying in Columbia, another nice little earner. Over the past twelve months DynCorp shares have fluctuated between $10 and $25. If the President and Board bought and sold at the correct moment, they should be wealthy. Perhaps they can stop mislaying Government funds.

OSTRICHES ARE SNOBS

LOS TAJAMARES: MONDAY, OCTOBER 22
Five ostriches stalk past the house and down the slope towards the two ponds. I have my camera. I want them to look in my direction. I whistle and shout. Shouting makes me cough. The ostriches pay no attention. I curse them for being snobs. Long necks, they would be easy victims of the guillotine. Back in the kitchen I drape a towel over my head and inhale steam...and recall that ostriches are reputed to bury their heads in the sand. Communication between my copy editor's server and hotmail seems somewhat haphazard. Her comments on various chapters are lost in the ether. Pray God the chapters come through by tomorrow. I am determined to leave for Brazil on Wednesday.

FLU AND GUILT

LOS TAJAMARES: SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21
Rain falls much of the day. I am editing OLD MAN ON A BIKE for the copy editor. The electricity supply cuts out a few times. I do the steam and towel routine, acorbic acid, and try not to cough. Sylvia fusses and prepares coffee and cooks too much lunch. I suggest that an egg would be perfect for dinner. A glass door opens from the study onto a terrace. The dogs sit on the terrace and watch me type. The dogs are trying to make me feel guilty. I feel guilty at staying so many days at Los Tajamares. Brian and Carmen called this morning and made me promise not to leave until I felt absolutely fit. Old men seldom feel absolutely fit. I would be here for ever.

NO PEARS, FIVE PARTRIDGE

LOS TAJAMARES: SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20
I sit at the kitchen table, a towel over my head, and inhale water vapour. The steam eases my chest. I drink vast amounts of acorbic acid disolved in water. A covey of five partridge peck the far side of the garden fence. Carmen should plant a pear tree. Coughing hurts. My nose runs. So do my eyes. I sit with a roll of lavatory paper in my lap and watch the final of the Rugby World Cup on satelite TV. The players are disgustingly fit.

CARE

LOS TAJAMARES: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19
My cousins, Brian and Carmen, have departed for the vet in Montevideo with a very small, very sick dog, a miniature Yorkshire terrier. Poor beast won't eat and is very yellow. The dog belongs to their daughters. Brian and Carmen care for it. We have a Border terrier at home that belongs to our two sons. We look after it.