Homage to Brasília

Top: Two self portraits.
Bottom: Four sources of light.

I spent the weekend trippin' through the desert and into a strange mess of earth that the Brazilian government has set apart as a national park called Chapada dos Veadeiros. I stuffed my backpack on Friday morning and went to work for the last time. Rosa dropped Ivan and me off at the embassy and went home, resting with a sore back. Jeff and I got a driver to take us to the procurement building for another great lunch. By the time I got back, Rosa had returned to the embassy to take Ivan and me to the bus station.

There were only seven other passengers riding with us as we rolled out of the station at 3 o'clock. The bus bobbed down the highways through plains, dry yellow fields, fallow red soil, clay, dirt, blue skies and bright clouds. We stopped at every little town on the way, picking up weathered leathery men and women and children, grandchildren. Piling into the bus, filling the seats, curiously gazing at me and my headphones as they traveled home? To visit family? To work?

Click. Click. Click.

We rode until the sun set and as its light barely lingered in the sky, the houses and trees of an anonymous town reflected a quiet television blue, without the flicker. The driver turned on the florescent lights in the cabin and I wished he'd turn them off, to let me see night, until I remembered the little white halo shaped light in my grandma's kitchen in Sunset, Utah.

I remembered the simple house, the olive green refrigerator that she had bought the day I was born in 1978, the reminder that "nothing tastes as good as being thin feels" magneted to the door. The linoleum flooring, the tiny table, the giant decorative wooden spoon and fork, the rotary phone mounted on the wall, the cuckoo clock and its pinecone shaped weights, the sink and the window above it that looked into the shallow back yard, its dusty garden and its sprinklers. So I remembered that house and the light inside of it and the dry cool Utah nights outside. I rode the bus and I felt the light like the light in my grandma's kitchen and I imagined the dry night blowing by outside.

Estou escrevendo um livro. Posso tirar uma foto?

The trip dragged on and on, clouds lined the horizon, white, then pink, then pale blue until the night came. We stopped at this store and everybody got out for a snack. I ate a doughy ball full of cheese at the counter when a worn-out looking man of German descent asked for a "little can" (latinha) meaning a beer. He asked for one that was full. The man behind the counter laughed a little and gave it to him saying that "a little humor is good for life," the german looking man said "what?" and the man behind the counter repeated himself.

Our ride to São Jorge. Here's the interior. Here's what it looks like from inside while bangin' down a dirt road at night.

I don't know how late it was when we arrived in Alto Paraiso, but our trip wasn't over and the locals made it sound like it would be difficult for us to make the final leg of the trip. We had to get to a small town called São Jorge that sits on the edge of the park. We were offered a ride for 70 reais, but we turned it down because the bus ride to Alto Paraiso had only cost us about 20 reais a piece. We waited around until another guy offered us a ride for 60 reais. It was beginning to look like we weren't going to make it, so we took the ride.

Yeah, that's the car pictured above, and it you check the picture of the interior, you're right, there's no passenger seat. The washboarded dirt road rattled our bones as dust and cold air filled the little machine. Ivan and I pulled our T-shirts over our noses and filtered the air, but when we arrived in São Jorge, we were covered in red dust, just like the plants that line the road.

Our hippie driver was from Porto Alegre in southern Brazil. He had come to São Jorge to be a guide and "flee civilization." He wasn't a typical hippie though, he had short hair, and earring, and a nordic lumberjack type build. He jangled the car into the little town and stopped it. We asked him where we could find a place to stay and he told us we'd have to walk because his car wouldn't start again for a while.

We spent our first night in a little wooden loft with a small bed downstairs, a double on the upper level, and a beautiful cactus outside. It cost us 85 reais and included a nice breakfast and an excellent lunch buffet that would be greatly appreciated the next day.

Before turning in, Ivan and I went to a nice little pizza place for dinner. Ivan picked the olives off of his pizza and threw one onto the candle. The sliced olive landed perfectly around the wick without extinguishing the flame. I swear, it's the most amazing thing I've ever seen. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that Ivan will never accomplish anything greater for the rest of his life.

Don't go chasin' waterfalls!? Why not?

Chapada dos Veadeiros, like Yellowstone, is one of those plots of land that stands out like a boil on the face of the earth. Everything is marred, leaking, cracked and broken. It's amazing and fun because the rocks and water don't seem like they should be there. They shouldn't square off so nicely. There shouldn't be so much water in the middle of the desert. I mean look at this! It's a wonderland, and I love it.

Rock. Near. Close.

No one can enter the park without a guide. Guides are paid a flat rate of 50 reais per tour and they can take a maximum of 10 people out at a time. I would have liked to save a few reais and go with a larger group, but we only went with two other guys. There was a geology student conference going on in town and the park was full of drunken college students. Our guide, Bruno, expressed that he did not want to take a larger group because he didn't feel like escorting a bunch of disrespectful drunken kids to go cliff jumping...hmmm! that sounds familiar.

Anyway, Bruno was a cool cat and he did nothing more than walk us to picturesque sites and places to swim. Ivan broke his water bottle and he assured us that we could drink the water from the river, so we did! Yeah, it was great. The water is laced with a bit of tannic acid and they say its good for your skin. It doesn't taste like anything and I haven't felt sick at all. It felt good to drink river water.

The process to become a guide requires a year of residence in the area, a course in lifesaving and rescue methods, a course in geology/botany/zoology and an internship. However, no photography course is required. Ivan and I had Bruno snap one of those requisite 'look! we're falling off of a cliff' shots and he cut off our feet. It almost ruined the effect, but my convincing facial expression made up for his mistake.

Gainer 1-2-3

At my request, Bruno took us to some great cliff jumping spots and I had a good ol' time frolicking about the crazy geology. I dazzled many with the gainer, or as the Brazilians call it: o mortal. It is the coolest dive I know how to do. All you do is run forward, jump out, and lift up your legs to do a back flip. It's fun and it looks cool. We found a great cliff with just enough hang time to let me experiment with it. I determined to do a double gainer. That's right: two back flips.

The secret to doing a double front flip (the other coolest dive I know) is throwing yourself forward really hard and not coming untucked until the very last moment. Well, I did a few practice gainers and determined that I could probably do a double if I didn't untuck. I was wrong. I've tried to do one and a half gainers off of diving boards and I end up painfully slapping my back on the water every time I try to pull out of the tuck. This time, I didn't pull out at all and I ended up landing on the back of my neck and shoulders. WHAM! Ooh! It stung, but it felt good to at least try. There weren't too many witnesses, but the fat guy waiting to jump off of the cliff after me looked down at me and asked, "are yoo CRAIZEE?" Yes I is, and I'm going to stay that way until I get the double gainer down. What a glorious day it will be!

In heaven, everything is fine.

A few bottles of river water later, we got back to the hotel for a well-received lunch buffet. Ivan and I stuffed ourselves and moved out of the hotel to a cheaper hostel. The new place only cost us 40 reais and it had a bigger bathroom and a fan! We had breakfast too, but no lunch which didn't matter because we were leaving early the next morning. The thing is that nowhere in São Jorge are credit cards accepted. Not knowing this, we didn't bring a lot of cash. It's ok though. The entire trip ended up costing something like $70 (just over 200 reais), that's buses, crazy car rides, hostels, guide, and food.

I got in the new hostel's hammock and read an article about The Left Banke in an excellent magazine called The Big Takeover that Ron let me borrow. Seriously people, this is an amazing music magazine. Check it out! Now! The music of Lilys put me to sleep and I woke up to the night pictured above.

A few lone crickets chirped in the background, that cool florescent light was back, the neighbors were listening to old Bob Marley. So old that it was pre-reggae Bob, back when he was singing ska. "Judge Not," "One Cup of Coffee," the original "Stir it Up," and "Simmer Down" all played faintly in the night as I woke up in a sunburnt, failed-double-gainer-sore haze.

*sigh*

It doesn't get better than that.