So here I am, trying out an online diary format of my travels where I write a little bit each day about what / who I got up to during my month-long trek around South America.
I’ll try to be brutally honest on everything; the blistering highs, frigid lows and tepid mediums. Along with the various fascinating thoughts and personal feelings I have on each subject, however dull to the reader this may be.
Day 1:
I think this shall be the most boring day in the entire series, which as every writer knows is the best tactic for hooking the reader. But whatever, Ledes are hard.
Honestly, there isn’t much content to work with – I got up at the asscrack of dawn to get to the Cape Town airport where I was informed that the flight was full and they probably wouldn’t have a seat available for me – the archetypical start to every great adventure, very Tolkien-inspired in its design.
Luckily someone who couldn’t be arsed to wake up before the sun missed their flight and I was able to gleefully adopt his/her/their space, thus beginning the journey of a thousand waiting rooms and airports without lounges. I arrived in São Paulo without any problems and was faced with a Sophie-like choice; do I take the hellishly long bus ride from São Paulo central station to Rio, which is only in eight hours time and thus required booking the cheap and highly unrecommended one-star motel until then. Or do I hop on a two-hour flight that left in the next few hours and land in Rio nice and early to start my trip for a minimal extra amount of money?
Attached is a photo from the bus I’m currently riding as I write this.
The grandiose life of a penny pincher. Not attached is a picture of the hotel as I don’t wish to spark a PTSD episode for myself. Maybe I’ll be able to tell my children/cats about it one day on my deathbed as I embrace the sweet void of nothingness with wide open legs.
However, I am excited; tomorrow is my first true day of exploration and partying in this country, and hopefully I’ll be able to titillate you with more exciting observations… but no promises.
Day 2:
And so it begins! After some tossing and turning in the bus, I managed to fall into a peaceful sleep just as the bus pulled into the Rio station. Dull-eyed and shaven-tailed I stumbled from my steel chariot to the taxi rank so I could find my way to my hostel. Despite my bedraggled appearance and the people’s lack of ability to speak English (how rude), I managed to find myself travelling down the main roads of Rio on my way to Copacabana, where I would call home for the next few days.
I arrived a little earlier than agreed upon for the check-in time but was delighted by the friendly staff’s insistence that I simply leave my bags by them and go to explore while my room was being cleaned and prepared. I was very happy to comply and set foot for the front door when I was suddenly and sharply reprimanded by a lady in the reception. I halted, aghast that somehow I had already offended someone here, and confused on how.
She marched over to me with a furrowed expression and fired a question in rapid Portuguese. I looked over helplessly at the first girl who had been helping me. She cocked a single brow before responding in kind to the hurt party and turning to help another customer.
I was then taken to a mirrored area and given a few vials of glitter, complete creative freedom, and warned not to leave again while trying to pull that shit. And so, bedazzled and less bedraggled, I made my way over to the Copacabana beachfront area of Rio De Janeiro.
Now I’ve been to beaches before, quite a few, all over the world, and there’s only so many times you can lose your breath at the sight of white sand and blue water… however, this was one of those times, mainly because of one important difference;
The men.
Good damn lord the men. These manly men walking on their legs and doing menly and manly things galore. I saw many natural wonders along the beach that day – The view from Mureta do Leme, performers along the beachside and even a rainbow flying fish (still less gay than I was) but I’ll always hold those men close to my heart…and eventually other body parts, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
After my exploration thirst was sated, I started to meander over back to my hostel to complete my proper check-in when my eyes were hooked on a vision in facial glitter and lycra. A goddess of movement, she glided over to me and handed me a pamphlet for a flash Zumba-party, which I would come to discover was just as necessary as oxygen to the Brazilian people. At the time I just thought it was neat.
I decided I was a bit too sober to engage immediately, so I parked my carcass a the nearby beach bar and sampled some of the local ice-cold brews and watched them like the freak I am. Eventually, the growing numbers of people who joined the free lesson and the liquid courage fermenting my brain convinced me to give it a go. I had done Zumba before in a gym back home once and I had alcohol, what could go wrong?
I went on to dance many times in the coming month, but few come close to that high I experienced that day – the combination of beautiful people all dancing hip to hip, the music pulsating in tune with my elevated heartbeat and locking eyes with the beautiful male Zumba instructor who couldn’t speak a word of English (how charming) but still managed to add me on Instagram – it sparked an epiphany that this was real; I was travelling completely alone in a foreign country where for the first time I was in complete control. There was no one else here that I had to arrange anything with, no one to watch my back, no one to worry about.
I could do it, and I would go on to do it. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Again.
Eventually, my feet and heart rate couldn’t keep up within the tempest of tunes and I bid adieu.
I managed to stumble back to my hostel, drunk on Brazilain beer and bodies, racing the sun as it began to make its own wayward path down towards the horizon. I checked in properly, had a shower and at the glitter receptionists insistence went to join a hostel party taking place upstairs.
Trying to socialise in a setting where you don’t know anyone is difficult. When no one speaks any english it seems like an additional unfair handicap. But with the help of some more beer and my first taste of Brazilian beef rolled in their special crunchy flour, I was well on my way to still not being able to communicate with anyone. Thank god the girls decided to hold an impromptu twerking lesson otherwise it could have been awkward.
And that kids, is how your mom learned how to shake her bodanadong to relieve any social anxiety – and it hasn’t worked since.
Filled with new confidence within my dancing abilities and communication skills, I made my way to the Sambadrome to witness my first ever Carnival – around 70% of my reason for coming on this trip. I noticed a few drops had begun falling from the sky but I wasn’t about to let that ruin what was shaping up to be the perfect first day.
After surviving what turned into a torrential downpour, dazed and confused directions on where I was supposed to get into the Sambadrome, I made my glorious and wet way to my seat to watch the show.
There’s a reason people travel all over to this event; its spectacular and stunning and many other adjectives that don’t do justice. The ongoing battle between the different faction of colours across the spectrum went on throughout the rain speckled night. There were times I didn’t know if there was a thunderstorm in the sky or if my senses were confusing the crowd’s cacophony as heavenly war cries.
I saw a parade of Djinns and Mermaids, a catwalk of Eldritch horrors and Divine beauties. My eyes and ears were overflowing with sensory stimulation from the synchronised marching of the performers in tandem with the spectator’s side antics.
It was with a full heart, a buzzing head, and an exhausted body that I collapsed into my first ever hostel bed that night.
