Next Stop: Pinturas Rupestres

Compared to the 120 million year old dinotracks that I saw in Sousa, my next stop appears positively contemporary - circa 5,000 year old cave paintings in Lajedo da Soledade, a small community near Apodi, 75km south of Mossoró, Rio Grande do Norte. The paintings - approximately fifty-two in total - are located in and around ragged limestone caves, remnants of when the area was covered by the sea. Again, a pretty neat visit, both for the paintings as well as the surreal calcareous landscape. One area was off unfortunately limits as it was currently experiencing a bee infestation. I considered it wise to stay away....

Dinolicious

During the first couple of years that I worked with Brazil, my colleagues and I used to complain - light-heartedly, of course - that things just weren't as adventurous as they used to be. While our predecesors got to go on amazing epic journies involving all-terrain vehicles and dug-out canoes, all we got to do was go to Brasilia. And Rio, if we were really lucky. However, after this, my most recent journey, I feel as if I can officially join the ranks of the workplace adventurous.

Aside from the sites/projects that were on my official agenda, I managed to arrange three small Off the Beaten Path sidetrips, one of which was the Valley of the Dinosaurs just outside of Sousa, Paraiba. The actual site isn't that big and can easily be visited in an hour - but it was definitely worth the travel as there are metres and metres of fossilised or petrified dinosaur footprints. Unfortunately, as in most of Brazil, there isn't a whole lot of money to invest in excavating the site and uncovering its whole potential. But still, the tracks that exist - estimated to be 120 million years old - are pretty neat. My only word of warning is to watch out for the killer, or at least highly damaging, wasps!

You Know You Have Been in the Interior When...

5. The highway that you are driving on suddenly disappears and reappears as what Canadians would essentially call a logging trail.
4. The ancient old man that you meet and his even more ancient wife are full of stories of the Germans that "settled" in the area post WWII.
3. When you are walking down a dusty village street, you notice a sunbleached cow jaw - teeth intact - lying on the ground. No one else bats an eye.
2. The nearest gas station is called Our Lady of the Impossible.

And the number one sign that you have been in the Interior...

1. You haven't seen a vegetable in a week!

More stories from the Interior to follow....

Adventuring

I am going on an adventure!


Tomorrow morning, I am leaving on a four or five day adventure to the interiorzão of the States of Paraiba and Rio Grande do Norte to visit four projects that we supported in the last few years. It's an epic journey involving a couple of thousand kilometres [that's a lot for Brazilian roads!] and hotels that cost less than CAN$10 a night! I'll start off in Bayeux, a suburb of João Pessoa, then head waaaaay into the sertão - back, hinter or drylands - to the community of Curralinhos near the city of Sousa. From there, I'll head north to Triungo Potiguar, found only on the most detailed of maps, and then further north to Mossoró. After Mossoró, I'll head back to Recife via Natal.

The cool thing is that there are some pretty neat rest stops that I can make on the way. Near João Pessoa is the eastern-most point in the Americas, where the sun rises first. Although I won't be there for sunrise [that would be cool], it would still be fun to stop and wave to Africa!

Sousa, on the other hand, is home to one of the most important palaeontological sites in the world - the Valley of the Dinosaurs - the pièce de resistance of which are the metres and metres of petrified dinosaur footprints. Overall, the region contains the immortalised footprints of over fifty different types of dinosaurs. I have cleverly scheduled a break right around the time when we should be near the site....

And lastly, but definitely not leastly, near the town of Apodi, on the way to Mossoró, is the archaeological site of Lajedo de Soledade which is home to cave paintings estimated to be between three and ten thousand years old. I'm rather pleased that I will be able to stop both here and in Sousa. Since these places are so distant and isolated, it is hard to think that I would have made the trip just to spend an hour or two at the sites. However, if I happen to be in the neighbourhood in any case, it just makes sense!

Initially, the trip was going to be even more adventurous, as I was going to do it by bus. However, after intense research into the bus schedules and routes, we discovered that this would, perhaps, be a bit too adventurous as some of the time would have been spent on the back of flatbed trucks and the like! I've travelled on the back of flatbed trucks before, but thought that this maybe wasn't the moment to do it! So ... car it is, plus the added opportunity to tack on the side visits.

Até logo!

Guests from Hell?

On this, the eve of the arrival of my 30th guest since I landed in Brazil two and a half years ago (my first guest arriving four days after I did!), I thought it apropos to link to this article on guests from hell that the Expatters linked to a few weeks back. Like them, I have to say that I have certainly not had any guests from hell. On the contrary, I am amazed and pleased at how many people have made the effort to trek themselves to Sao Paulo and/or Recife to visit me, often travelling for more than 24 straight hours to do so. I also have to disagree with some of the advice being given to guest-receiving expats in the article, two in particular:

Do not receive guests for the first six months of an overseas posting. While I admit that I see the logic behind this, the pros of receiving guests early on are at least as advantageous as receiving them later on. While the "insiders' tour" will be less extensive and life might be a bit disorganised, early days guests give the host a chance to explore his or her new surroundings, particularly if new friendships have yet to be formed. I'd rather spend a weekend with an old friend early on, than all alone because I haven't made new friends yet.

To discourage long stays, do not keep a fully set-up guest room: Give guests the sofa, whether or not it converts to a bed. This is a bit extreme, no? Should we not give our guests most comfortable space possible, whether it is their own room or a sofa/sleeping space in a common area?

While I have heard first-hand stories of friends or acquaintances of friends inviting themselves to stay with expat hosts, this hasn't been the case here. Maybe being so bloody far from everything does have its uses! On the other hand, I am becoming a much more conscientious hostess. This time around, I even managed to arrange enough groceries for my new guest's breakfast! Seja bem-vindo Daniel - may your stay be the product of months of careful training!

My Cat is More Famous than I

This afternoon, my friend André, who house and cat sat for me over the Christmas holidays (I was truly spoiled), took me to a triple birthday party of friends of his. I didn't know anyone there and the introductions went something like this:

André: I'd like to present Karen to you.
New Friend: Hi Karen, Nice to meet you. (starts moving on).
André: Wait, Karen is Felix's mother.
New Friend: Ah! Felix. Oh KAREN! Hi Karen, Hi! How are you? How is Felix? Is Felix fine? Can we come see Felix?

Repeat scenario.

Repeat again.

Repeat one more time.

I'm being upstaged by my cat!! Ah well, he is is rather a charmer!

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiilma

Last week I had a meeting in Casa Caiada - literally, The Whitewashed House - a municipality just past Olinda, maybe 20km outside of Recife. Following the meeting, I stood on the sidewalk of the main street hoping that a cab would pass by and whisk me back into town. After what seemed like longer than I should have had to wait, a cab passed and I flagged it down. I got in the cab, and immediately regretted my decision. Perhaps I should have waited for the next one....

The car was a flimsy model, one in which the material protecting the driver and passengers from the outside world was as thick as a piece of cardboard, perhaps just as strong. The seatbelts were non existant [as they are in the majority of cabs here] and the latch on the door was precarious at best. As I nervously settled in, I wondered whether I should tell the driver that I was actually going to be getting out much, much sooner and then grab a different car back. It was when I leaned over to check that the meter was running properly, that I noticed ... the driver HAD NO SHOES! Not even the ubquitous havaianas or other brand of flip-flops. In fact, his feet were huge with splayed toes and clearly looked like they had never known a pair of shoes. I decided to take my chances, obviously the fellow had survived until now and perhaps the fare could be put towards some variety of footware, but honestly, I half expected that the floor of the car would fall through and he [and I] would both have to propel ourselves forward using our feet. It looked like it had been done before!

Buchada Revisited

Today found us lunching in the hillside town of Gravatá, some 70 km inland from Recife. We ate at a small, but cute, place which boasted "Bread, Coffee and Regional Specialities". One of the specialties, of course, being buchada.... At some point in the meal, the buchada was removed from an individual plate and placed on the collective plate in the centre of the table. One of my eating mates carefully opened the stomach and everyone started carefully transfering pieces of the meal to their plates. The adventurous and empirical side of me was mightily tempted. The side of me which wrote the post linked to above, however, resisted....

Everyone else seemed to enjoy it!

(Almost) Gone with the Wind

Yet another sign in the You Know it's Windy When Series...

Sign 6: You walk into your open-varanda living room to discover that the only reason why your carpet isn't floating on the ceiling is that it happens to be pinned down on one side by a massive couch.

Now that's windy!

How the West Northeast was Really Nearly Almost Won

Remember Lampião? The outlaw/bandit who terrorised the Northeast for years in the early years of last century? Well ... I've finally discovered how, in fact, he and his band of cangaceiros were able to do so. You see, for Carnaval, two of my intrepid guests decided to dress up as the Man himself, endearing themselves, in the process, to the large majority of the Municipal Ball's attendees, but I digress [as I tend to do]. In any case, as part of their schtick, we purchased authentic[-looking] cangaceiro hats in Recife's market place and went about acquiring bits and bobs to accentuate their look.

As it turns out, the costumes were an immediate success and both cangaceiras made many fast friends. As the evening wore on, however, we noticed a rather strong smell coming from them, and through further investigation, we discovered that it emanated from their hats. Yes, it turns out that the hats STUNK to high heaven [and back]. No one was even willing to get close at that point....

Immediately after the Ball, the hats were uncerimoniously delivered to my back room where it was hoped that the smell would dissipate. A month later, I have to say, the whole back portion of my apartment continues to reek smell and I can barely make it into the back room. And that my friends, is scientific proof, of how the Northeast was really nearly almost won!

Ask Not For Whom the Bell Tolls

Last night while I was tinkering away on the computer, my interphone started ringing distantly in the background. As it was after 11pm and I was expecting no visitors, I imagined that it was a wrong number, as it usually is. Ten minutes later though, the phone started ringing again. Still, I tinkered away, only being able to imagine that it was a case of mistaken dialing [or mould-infused crossed-cables, but I digress].

This morning, I woke up to find out that there was no water in the building. Perhaps the call was for me after all....

Anyone? Anyone?

Most apartment buildings in Recife have some kind of sculpture or statue on the front lawn or walkway, usually having something to do with naked women and/or the sea; naked women, naked women with sea blown hair; naked women from the sea; naked women looking at the sea, naked women ... well ... you get the idea. While my building has some strange stylised sundial [us Canadians being rather proper folks], what I am really trying to figure out, is this sculpture on a neighbouring building...

My Big Fat Greek Childhood

It never ceases to amaze me that my quasi-Greek childhood tends to become relevant at the oddest moments. One of the most memorable was during the year that I studied in England. A bunch of my flatmates and friends were sitting around the kitchen table chatting [nothing shocking so far as this is where we were usually to be found]. Alex, a Greek friend-of-the-flat, was going on and on about something, when, finally needing to interject, I turned to him and told him to blow up, 'eh - in Greek of course. The one foot jump in the air and the look on his face was priceless! All movement in the kitchen stopped, while Alex regained his balance and looked at me trying to get words out of his mouth. But, but, but, how? why? It was then that I explained that the primary and secondary schools that I went to in Montreal were overwhelmingly Greek and that learning a few of the more, um, essential, words in Greek was almost part of the official curriculum.

Fast-forward to last Wednesday in Recife, Brazil and the swank going away party of the Japanese Consul General....

As happens with diplomatic functions, everyone was standing around in small groups chitchatting, admiring the location [well deserved in this case], and trying to figure out how to hold a plate of food, a glass of drink, eat, and shake people's hands at the same time. I digress, but this is not an easy task. At the moment, I found myself talking to the Honourary Consul (HC) of Venezuela, when we were joined by the younger HC of Cyprus [it also never ceases to amaze me to see which countries have honourary consuls in Recife]. Obviously the two HCs were on close terms and they immediately started joking around and slapping each other on the back. Turning to me, the younger of the two joked to the other, Ah! Perhaps we should start speaking in Greek, you know, to protect the young lady.... Explaining the phenomena of my Big Fat Greek Childhood, I cautioned them carefully. Amazed that I could come out with anything in Greek, I unfortunately had to limit the display of my knowledge, most of it, being, well, unsuitable to a diplomatic event!

If, when I was thirteen years old, someone had told me to pay better attention to the locker-talk going on around me because one day I would meet the Honourary Consul for Cyprus while on posting in Recife, and would need to hold a meaningful conversation in Greek, would I have believed them?

Exagerou?

During Carnaval, the billboards of Recife are taken over by a tight monopoly of sponsors (a mixture of public & private), each flogging their Carnaval-related product or message of choice. There was one rather important message, however, missing from the melée. The tops ads in descending order were:

1. For all Carnaval-related fun, use a condom, condom, condom.
2. If you drink, don't drive.
3. Carnaval Beer & Soft Drinks - Hmmmmm .... see above?!
4. Post-Carnaval Aspirin & Antiacids.
5. Carnaval-related activites and events.

Perhaps a sunscreen one or two would have been useful as well?