On the Road to Find Out

There’s a problem when any journey ends. Namely ‘when does the next one begin?’ It seems that generally it doesn’t. Reality has to be faced after any long journey. After all, maybe they’re only ‘gap year’s’ or ‘once in a lifetime’ experience anyway. Shiny shoes need to be applied to feet, as does a shiny new hairless face as the gripping urge to quell debts or just to get back to a ‘normal’ existence becomes too much to bear.

The urge has yet to reach my door. The idea of being able to maintain the travelling lifestyle seems to much of an option. But what is this travelling lifestyle? I think all I really mean is to be able to lead a life that is not stuck in any one place. This means working via the laptop (meaning not-being restricted to any one location) while also pursuing opportunities that involve the possibility of working abroad.

This is why I currently find myself in Barcelona. The first 7-8 weeks since I returned have been a mixture of catching up with friends and of working out new possibilities. Any idea of being able to make money from writing means that you need to be an expert in an area. Seeing as I completely fell in love with Brazilian music this seems to be the way I’m heading – maybe I should mention more how that is unfolding in another post.

My trip to Barcelona is happening because PopMatters have asked me to write about the Primavera Sound festival (I say asked when perhaps relented to my constant badgering would be a better way of putting it!) This means writing for a well-read music magazine as well as the opportunity to make contacts, enjoy Barca, and above all else, take a dip in the ocean.

In news of writing going online I did just notice that A Different League have put up my article on the World Cup in 1930. It can be found here:
World Cup Retrospect – Uruguay 30 (A Different League)

I believe I mentioned hypersensitive head in a previous post. I believe it’s something that the doctor just made up as I did have a very sensitive head and I think he was looking forward to having some lunch. Anyway, it’s something that I’ve suffered for over a year, which sometimes disappears but tends to re-emerge when I’m working a lot. Which means that it could be caused by stress, but seeing as I never feel stressed at all this is doubtful. The reason explanation I believe is that it is exacerbated when I drink a lot of caffeine, which is what I normally do when I’m working. For the past week, I have been working on plenty of little projects, and the hypersensitivity came back, being pretty horrible on Saturday. So yesterday (Sunday) I decided to completely give up caffeine for the day. It was one of the worst decisions of my life. I felt foggy for the whole day, my head still hurt and I couldn’t even begin to do anything that could be deemed creative. Instead, I read a book and watched a couple of DVDs, as well as some football, which goes without saying.

Today, after being completely disheartened by the whole experience of being without caffeine, I have decided to get back on the wagon, and have subsequently felt pretty damn good.

It makes me it impossible to decided whether to ever seriously consider giving up caffeine or sticking with it and just putting up with the fact that every now and again I will touch my scalp and have to put up with a jolt of pain. It is quite clear that caffeine affects me in strange ways. I had to give up mate in Argentina because I had started to feel really harsh pains behind my right eyes, and finally realised that the pains coincided with the days when I was sucking up mate like a newly born does milk. A family who have serious issues with migraines also makes me think that my genetics just ain’t good for these things.

The debate will go on, no doubt in my mind as much as anywhere else. I know for sure the idea of sitting in a cafe without a coffee in my hand or sitting outside on the garden furniture without a pot of tea in close proximity seem pretty impossible, so for now I will continue to swill my way through that caffeine goodness.

I’ve been back in England for over two weeks now and the change of scenery hasn’t had as debilitating effect as may have been predicted. This is perhaps due to the fact that I’ve been doing very little, and therefore, not too much of a change from my last couple of months in Brazil, where a strenuous day involved a yoga session and a swim in the ocean.

I’m not sure how much longer I can keep this going (I am looking for web design work at the moment mind, it’s just nothing’s biting just yet!). It’s a curious situation trying to do so little in a country like England, a country that prides itself on suffering. The worker who only does 20 hours per week is seen as being on perennial holiday while the 50 hour a week labourer is able to sit on his perch dictating the ills of the nation without reproach, he is after all a shining example of what this country needs. It doesn’t matter that he’s always in tired and in a full mood, he’s done an honest week’s work and that’s alright.

It’s something I’ve never understood but which still has embedded itself somewhere in my psyche. I talk of doing nothing for two weeks but I have been doing plenty of writing, reading, playing guitar, furious plan-making and have designed two web sites. It’s far more than when I was a student. I suppose then I would have said I was studying then at least I would have an excuse.

I made a commitment a couple of years ago that I would never return to 9-5 mediocrity. It’s something which I’m damned on continuing even if it does mean the current precariousness of trying to earn money through web design. It’s something which I will hopefully continue somewhere else though, somewhere a bit more continental than here, somewhere where I don’t seem like such an unworthy citizen.

Before I wrote this article I read a review of a new movie Cemetery Junction which helped awaken in me this annoyance at glowering suffering. It’s a review by David Cox in The Guardian where he criticises the movie based on the fact that it isn’t glum enough. It’s one of the most ridiculous reviews I’ve ever read, as if the fact his own experiences in the 70s (when this film is set) were so bad he can’t imagine anyone having a nice time. It’s also possible that this review is aimed at Ricky Gervais, someone that people used to like or were not bothered about, but now that he’s a big fish in Hollywood seems to get a lot of hate from English people, disgusted at the success he’s managed to achieve. Hollywood changes people, you should be suffering like the rest of us!

It is still raining in Rio, though fortunately not as much as previously in the week, and thankfully forecasts are that it will stop completely tomorrow. The floods carried on til Friday (bringing the death toll upto 205 people) with the worst mudslide happening on Wednesday in Niteroi. Over 100 to 150 bodies have been pulled from that mudslide alone.

This is a video from ITN News focusing on the floods:

For me it’s the carioca at the end who says the most interesting thing. Why isn’t Rio prepared for tropical levels of rainfall? It’s obviously a big problem, and one which is explained by the poorly-built homes that adorn many of the hills. As I previously suggested it seems that the Government will therefore use these incidents as a reason to move its poorer residents. This has already begun to happen, with resident groups getting in their complaints early.

It does seem I may have picked the perfect moment to traverse oceans. England has been dry and calm over Easter weekend, only a cold wind to grumble about, but the bouts of sunshine have at least given the illusion that the tides are turning and that the snow which has been covering this place for the past three months and finally gone back to where it came from.

There’s certainly no possibility of using the words ‘dry’ and ‘calm’ in Rio de Janeiro right now. For the past few days there has been continual rainfall, of the tropical variety. I have just been reading some of the reports which are putting the death toll at a minimum of 72 people but most likely rising to over 100.

The majority of casualties have come from mudslides occurring all over the city (Rio’s hills are full of favelas and improvised housing), particularly in the Niteroi and Sao Goncalo areas. It’s the second time this year that such fateful mudslides have occurred. In January, at least 85 people died after a series of torrential rain.

Rainfall was 11 inches over two days starting on Monday afternoon. I have no idea how much rain this actually is, but it is some kind of record so must be a hell of a lot. More rain is forecast for Thursday and Friday.

It will be interesting to see how Rio deals with this event. They are one of the main cities for the 2014 World Cup and are also the hosts for the 2016 Olympics. I wouldn’t be surprised if it saw the Government step up the need to shift its poor citizens from their hill-based favelas to alternative housing. I almost feel certain this will happen in some way, though I would have major doubts over how they would find alternative housing for so many people. As well as causing so much disruption to the city (residents have been told to stay in their homes, children are not able to go to school), the rain has also caused some power shortages, especially in Barra da Tijuca where much of the Olympic activity will be taking place. As the first Olympics in South America there will be so much weight on Rio to excel as hosts and so I have no doubts they will take many proactive actions.

More links on the flooding:

Big Floods in Brazil (Euronet / 7th April 2010)
Flooding in Rio de Janeiro (BBC News / 7th April 2010)
April 2010 Rio de Janeiro floods and mudslides (Wikipedia)

You see, what I’ve gone and done already is I’ve lied. I’ve gone and called this article ‘The Essentials.’ There really is no essentials and even if there was I don’t think I’d be the person to be telling folk about them. This really is just my idea of some interesting things to bring back from Brazil, or even just interesting things to buy while in Brazil. A few ideas that shy away from the normal Christ statue and Brazil football shirt.

1. Cachaca

This is quite an obvious choice for me but it’s got to be done. For between 5 and 6 Reais you can pick up a bottle of Velho Barreiro, by far my favourite of the cachacas, or at least of the dirt-cheap cachacas. Plus, as an added bonus it comes in this fancy bottle which makes it seem like a fine rum, or at least something that would cost you up to 20 pounds, not the 2 pounds that it will actually cost you. It’s the perfect gift. The only other alternative for this price is 51, which is pretty good in Caipirinhas but pretty bob for all else.

2. Aviação Butter

This may seem like an odd choice. It is butter after all. But Aviacao butter is like no other. It has one unparalleled asset. On the front of the tin is a picture of a cow with a plane flying above it. You don’t get this with just any butter ya know!

Plus, this butter has a lot of history, it’s a tin that has lasted for many generations of Brazilians, and is something they use a lot. As butters go it’s very distinctive, probably due to the fact that they have added about a kilo of salt into each tin. The best way to enjoy it is with some boiled root vegetables (add it just before eating), i.e. potatoes, parsnips or batatas barao (if you’re in Brazil) and enjoy!

3. Rapadura

Rapadura is unrefined sugar straight from the sugarcane factories. It’s pretty darn common in Brazil and is also the healthiest way to sweeten anything (or maybe I should say joint-healthiest as jaggery is also pretty good). Even brown sugar and demerera are refined in some way, making rapadura one of the purest you can find. Buying it in Europe and North America is possible but costs a fortune compared to its price in Brazil. Buy a block I say and then whenever you are making something with sugar, simply use a bit of rapadura instead of the usual stuff.

Interestingly, the Germans at some point decided that they’d come up with the name ‘rapadura’ and managed to trademark it, meaning that whenever this stuff was exported from Brazil they would have to cover up the name or design new packaging. A ridiculous situation which I believe has now been resolved, but only after one of the Brazilian sugarcane companies spent years trying to copyright ‘sauerkraut’ to show those Germans what it felt like to have something copyrighted which you love so much!

4. Havaianas

Wait a second, this one doesn’t involve food. I think I’ve made a mistake! Okay, so maybe there is room for one entry here that doesn’t involve shoving things into my gob. Everyone who goes to Brazil should buy some Havaianas. There are stores on just about every corner selling them, plus there is the beautifully-designed new store on Rua Oscar Freire in Sao Paulo. I bought several pairs; they do make good presents. Anyone venturing to Brazil should wait until they arrive before buying any flip-flops, there is so much choice and they are unbelievably cheap, between 7 and 25 Reais, which equates to between 2 and 8 pounds.

I think that’s about it for now. Maybe I’ll make this a part one if I can think of anything else that I’ve missed. Otherwise, there you have it, a very brief idea of some things that are definitely uniquely Brazilian that you should buy.

English soil is once again under my footsteps. Concepts such as having a mobile phone, finding work and bitterly cold, moist afternoons are concepts I once again have to embrace. The first two of these I will be doing whatever I can to avoid, the third is unavoidable. I can’t pretend it’s all doom and gloom. God how I missed jacket potatoes, and god how I enjoyed having one for dinner on my first day back. Can there be a baked bean breakfast on the horizon? I sincerely hope so.

One thing I have been wondering since I got back has been whether to continue this blog. How does the relevance of what I write change when I am no longer travelling? Ultimately, I have decided to try and keep it going. I actually have quite a few stories which are yet to be told on these pages and so I will be adding these, especially since I will now be trying my damned hardest to avoid any real work, and these could be the perfect foil to make me believe that I am being productive while also not actually really doing anything that productive at all.

During these next months I will also be trying to work out further travels, especially since I currently have no ties at all, and am wanting to make the most of this arrangement, so will be trying to write a little about my travails in finding further overseas exploits (I have current ideas to either return to Brazil or instead live in Berlin – they both sound like great choices!) My hope with all of this is to at least keep it personal and not seem like one of those terrible expanded blogs that has articles about all kinds of places but never actually tells you about the person. I will try my best.

For now,
Tchau!

Well I’m certainly not gonna make it sound like I’ve done much over the past week, seeing as I can’t even get my act together to write an entry on this blog. There’s just something about Trindade that makes the idea of sitting down at a computer for any length of time the worst idea in the world. The social cost is too great, not to mention the fact that I could be better spending time surfing, sitting on the beach, finding trails, following the river, listening to music, watching football, drinking beer, etc., etc. The distractions are too great!

That’s not to say there have been some glimpses of productivity though. I have cooked a number of meals, the last of which in exchange for a massage from two lovely swedish girls (an exchange which I believe will be fulfilled very soon) and discovered that we’re allowed to use the table football, pool table and table tennis in the guesthouse over the road (a realisation that has pretty much ruined any chance of me ever doing anything else).

The lesson here really is that Trindade is no place to come to stimulate the brain or achieve anything of note. It is the gateway onto a slippery slope of sweet bliss, which I have absolutely no qualms to be swinging my way down. Until I finally leave Trindade, which is a time getting closer and closer, this may well be my last update for a while!

It’s closing in on three weeks since I arrived back in Trindade. I still can’t see myself leaving anytime soon. Especially now that the sun has come. It may not last for too much longer but we have had a whole week of sun which for a couple of weeks seemed like an alien prospect.

The hardest part of any day is to decide what to do. There are six beaches to choose from with seemingly one for every occasion. Cachadaco is my favourite of the beaches nearby, a long beach with a few stray currents which sometimes produce perfect waves for surfing. As you have to trek over a hill for 10 minutes it also seems to be one of the most deserted beaches around here.

Praia do Meio is the beach where all the Brazilians come and hang out. It is always packed with bronzing tourists, generally stuffing their faces at all the restaurants on the beach. Praia dos Ranchos is definitely the spot in the nighttime, the perfect place to pick up a Gabriela at Rogerio’s, something which I’m sure I’ve already mentioned a few times. Following on from that beach is Praia da Fora (kind of a chilled-out family beach) and then Praia Cepilho at the end. This is the number one spot for surfing. It’s only a small beach but it has a real nice point break which brings huge waves up to the coast, making it a great place both to surf and to watch. No surprise then that the next World Cup of surfing will be held right there.

My favourite beach of them all though has to be Praia Brava. It’s not a beach to go to every day seeing as it takes an hour and a half of walking but it is definitely worth trying to go as often as possible. At the moment the sun is too hot for me to even contemplate 3 hours of walking under it so I am waiting for a few clouds before I next go.

It’s the most deserted of all the beaches here in Trindade, and the only one that is closed. It also happens to be a nudist beach but so far I’ve only ever seen one naked man on there. A very disappointing innings really. It is quite common to see many different birds on the trail to the beach, as well as a few giant lizards if you’re lucky. Instead of taking the trail back now I walk up the river starting at the beach. This route will eventually take you to my favourite waterfall. A beautiful set of four falls which you can climb up, before taking the route back to the bottom again before doing it all again.

As well as all this, there is the waterfall and swallowing rock just near the hostel, the trail to the Indian’s head and the fact that there are always plenty of people to meet and of course my mistress, Gabriela, always waiting down at the beach. Leaving just doesn’t seem like a possibility!

There are two main reasons that I’ve been writing less since I arrived in Trindade (on the green coast of Rio state). First is the fact that being in a small fishing village with rainforests on all sides and a plethora of beaches doesn’t make sitting down and spending a good portion of the day on the internet a tempting option. The second is cachaça. This is the national drink of Brazil, and is used to make caipirinhas, a cocktail made from mixing cachaça, lime, sugar and ice, and which is increasingly becoming popular in other countries. This is reflected in the price, with caipirinhas sold in the bars of Rio, Sao Paulo and any-other tourist-leaning city for upto 15 or 20 Reais, which is about 5 pounds, and ridiculously over-priced. Until 1990 cachaça and caipirinhas were both drinks primarily of the working class. The word caipirinha is derived from the word caipira, which means something along the lines of country bumpkin in portuguese. After that point brewers started making artesanal cachaças by aging the drink (made by distilling sugarcane, in a similar process to most brandies) in wooden casks, giving the alcohol a deeper flavour as well as colouring it a golden brown. In addition, the rising popularity of caipirinhas in the United States meant that exports became a lot more common and that visitors were more aware of this drink, which was now available in pretty much every bar you can find in Brazil.

To buy a bottle of unaged cachaça will set you back around 5 Reais. Considering you can then get around 20 or more caipirinhas from that bottle it’s no surprise that bars are more than willing to bask in its popularity and sell it for 15 Reais a glass. Drinking cachaça in this way is only the tip of the iceberg though. Since arriving in Trindade I’ve discovered far more ways in which people enjoy it. It’s not too surprising that this village would be so steeped in the drink, it’s an hour’s bus journey from Paraty, a place generally seen as some kind of cachaça capital. The drink was in fact actually known as paraty before its other titles of cachaça and pinga (which is more common here) were introduced. In addition, they hold the Pinga Festival every August where a mountain of artesanal cachaças and cachaças flavoured with all kinds of fruits and spices are available as shots from hundreds of vendors on the street.

My current poison and reason for spending many daylight hours flat out when I really should be doing something more productive is Gabriela. This is cachaça infused with honey, cloves and cinnamon. Thanks to these spices it does have something of the mulled wine about it and it most certainly warms up the stomach. I’ve also been told that in the south of Brazil they drink a very similar thing which they serve hot (I’m guessing on those days when the temperature is only 15 degrees or someting). There’s a bar on Praia dos Ranchos here in Trindade, called Rogerio’s, who only plays vinyl records, all of which are from the 70s and 80s. Nights spent drinking Gabriela and listening to scratchy Led Zeppelin and Supertramp records have becoming something quite legendary, at least in my eyes anyway!

Another great tipple is Pinga com Mel, which is quite simply cachaça with honey. Even stronger than gabriela but half the price at just 2 Reais a glass (that’s less than one pound) it’s too strong for me to drink solidly. I prefer a beer by the side just to take the edge off every now and again.

There is something that will always appeal to me about these drinks over the over-priced caipirinhas. It seems simple to me. If you want a caipirinha then you buy a bottle of cachaça and a few limes and make your own, and if you want to drink what the people drink, then you look for the shoddy-looking old water machine in the corner, or the jerry can with a price on the side, to get a taste of what the people actually drink, and also get a little bit fuzzy in the mouth at the same time.