ANYWHERE - 9 - amazonia to patagonia

I arrived in Amazonia coming from the Darié jungle, a strait of land that separates Central America from South America, let's say, so, the thing is, there are no proper roads in this area, only some muddy paths, paths generally taken mainly by illegal migrants coming from the south with the goal of reaching Mexico and then the United States, and they are mainly, Haitians, and other Caribbeans, Colombians, Venezuelans and even Africans that manage to fly from Africa to Brazil, and then come up, cross all Amazonia, Colombia and pay to locals that guide them through the Darien jungle. And so, here we go, advancing in the opposite direction of them and while we advance we hear some stories they tell us… people coming from Senegal, Guinea, Sierra Leone, etc. Most of them said good things about Brazil, their host country, but now, here, the Darié jungle is a different thing, rapes and robberies are common, and a broken leg can be fatal. Law enforcement is non-existent, and the weather is very rainy, with frequent flash floods. I got to know the names. This is, on the Colombian side there is the big delta of the Atrato River, which creates a long flat marshland and the Serranía del Baudó, a mountain range that extends along Colombia's Pacific coast into Panama and is home to the Embera-Wounaan and Guna people with whom I became acquainted… and through my approaches, I learned that some of the Guna people have a high incidence rate of albinism, which led to their nickname of "White Indians'' between the surrounded villagers, but In Guna philosophy, the albinistic people, or "sipu", as they say, is given a special place in their society hierarchy, and so, they are considered specials. As they told me, they have the specific duty of defending the moon against a dragon which tries to eat it on occasion during a lunar eclipse, and so, only they are allowed to go outside on the night of a lunar eclipse and to use specially made bows and arrows to shoot down the dragon trying to eat the moon… Then, it was the Guna people that put me in contact with other tribes that occupy the northern areas of Colombia, like the Wayuu and Zenú, which in turn put me in contact with the Yanomami, who live mainly on the border area between Venezuela and Brazil. The Yanomami people practice ritual endocannibalism, in which they consume the bones of deceased kinsmen. The body is wrapped in leaves and placed in the forest some distance from their villages; then after insects have consumed the soft tissue, the bones are collected and cremated. The ashes are then mixed with a kind of soup made from bananas, which is consumed by the entire community. The ashes may be preserved in a gourd and the ritual repeated annually until the ashes are gone. In daily conversation, no reference may be made to a dead person except on the annual "day of remembrance", when the ashes of the dead are consumed and people recall the lives of their deceased relatives. This tradition also exists among other tribes, on the Brazilian side. In the mornings, while the men are off hunting, the women and young children go off in search of termite nests and other grubs, which will later be roasted at the family hearths. The women also pursue frogs, terrestrial crabs, or caterpillars, or even look for vines that can be woven into baskets. While some women gather these small sources of food, others go off and fish for several hours during the day. The women also prepare cassava, shredding the roots and expressing the toxic juice, then roasting the flour to make flat cakes, which they cook over a small pile of coals. Well, it was took a hallucinating trip that took me through the meandering channels of the Rio Negro “Black River”, that flows from north Brazil until the city of Manaus, where it mixed with the Amazon river, properly saying. Then, from Manaus I took several buses to Lindó, Bom Jesus, and Itapiranga, a villa on the north bank of the Urubu river, and from there I had to follow through the water again. The Urubu river led us to the Uatumã River, and the Uatumã River led us to the Amazon river properly saying. Then I got in a bigger vessel, with some tourists. We passed Lago Comprido, Lago do Limão, Lago Moratinga, the Madabá Lake, the Acará Mirim lake, the Bom Jesus, the Balaio, and then the Lagoa Paru. Plus, along the river we visited some villages with mixed people, indians and brazilians, like Porto Alegre, Bom Futuro, Nova Vista, Aqui Perto, São Lázaro and then we got to Santarem, a city properly saying, with about three hundred thousand people of population. From this city I took the road again, direction south, I went to Leitoso, and from Leitoso to Marabá, then I entered the state of Maranhão, and finally I arrived at Salvador (the one that saves), originally called São Salvador da Bahia de Todos os Santos (the great savior of all saints’ bay), the capital of the Bahia state, a city with the largest number of African descendants in the world, mostly of Yoruba origin, it says in wikipedia. So, I went to the beach, on the Atlantic sea again, crossed the “All the Saints” bay and arrived at Itaparica island, where I stayed living for some days, in a kind surf community, where I also learned some Capoeira moves. Then I hit the road again, heading south. First I got a ride with a guy from São Paulo, he came to visit family here, and so, as mote for conversation, he asks me what kind of Brazilian things are famous outside Brazil, and straightway I tell him “the hips from Brazilian women, Carnival and the Brazilian heavy metal band Sepultura”, and by its turn, he tell me that, he was also a fan of of this band “but just until the album Roots, then they exchanged the vocalist, Max left and a new American guy came to be the front man of the band, and I didn't like him, and still don’t like… for me, he looks more a pugilist than a musician… and since he got in the band there was big ruptures between the fans of the band…” And so, I tell him that I’m a big fan of the album Roots as well, plus, I avow that I very much appreciate this crossover of heavy-metal sound with the Brazilian rhythms that are evident in some tracks of the “roots” album, and then I remember “What about this tribe that participated in one of the tracks from the album… are they from Amazonia? If yes, it's possible that I have just crossed paths with them, coz I’m coming from there… I mean, from Amazonia…”; “No, no, they are not from Amazonia, the Xavante tribe are from east Brazil, from Mato Grosso, the interior… not only the Amazon has Indian blood…” he says. And then he explains to me that the expression “Mato Grosso” actually means “thick bushes” and we exchange smiles about that. And, as it goes, we then speak about other bands that cross heavy metal with folk music, the folk-metal genre. He refers to “Mago de Oz”, a spanish band with some sort of Celtic influences, and other northern european bands that mix viking music with heavy metal, and I say that “I’m not a big fan of celtic or viking music but… I used to listen to the american death metal band Nile, a band with an Egyptian imaginarium, mainly in the lyrics…” And then we start to speak about soap operas, another thing that Brazil exports to the world, I say that last time I was in Turkey they were watching a Brazilian soap opera in the prime-time, and he says that “here is also happening the same… we are importing a lot of Turkish soap operas in the recent times, they are getting popular here… it looks like the Turkish are so or more dramatic as us, that's why this is phenomenon is happening… I guess”, and I ask him if he is following any of these soap-operas and he says. “Yes, I watched a bit of Kurt Seyit ve Shura, just to understand about it… it’s about the adventures of two people in love who are forced to leave their lives and family behind and escape, more precisely, it’s about the journey of Kurt, a handsome lieutenant from Crimea, and Shura, the beautiful daughter of a noble Russian family, and it shows the days of magnificence in Petrograd-Russia, and then the occupied Istanbul, during the war time, it's a very dramatic thing,” he says and then “but, have you been to Turkey?” he asks. “Yes!” I say, “a couple of times… I wanted to go to the middle-east, to see the Arab countries, but it happened that I got stuck in Turkey” I say, “and just then I understood, Turkey is not an Arab country at all, rather the opposite, nowadays the young Turks hate Arabs” I say. And then “Beside Turkey, where have you been more?” he asks. “Well, I have been to a lot of countries…” I say, “But where?” he insists. “Well, I have been to almost all European countries, minus the Nordics… I have been to Syria before the war, Egypt, Iran, India, Indonesia and also some countries in Africa…”; “And South America, only Brazil?”; “No” I say “As I was telling you, before Amazonia I have been to Colombia, Panama and other Central American countries…” And then we start a conversation about the Central American countries and Mexico and the United States… And when we got close to the state of Minas Gerais, the man arrived at his destination and I just got another ride, this time with a middle aged guy, wearing a tie, his face more swarthy than the previous one. We started to talk about international politics, and then, just to contradict, I said “So, Lula is in power again!”; “Yes, indeed!”; “Directly from the jail to the power… hum”; “Yes, this is Brazil… but, by the way, do you know what the word Lula means?” he asks. “No idea… isn't it just a name?”; “No, it's not just a name”, he says, “Lula” actually means squid, yes that tubular thing from under the seas, ahah”. “Oh, is it!?”; “yes, but his real name is Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva” he says, and then begins to explain me his biography… and so, I let him talk…“Lula began his career as a metalworker when he was still a teenager, and later he would become a trade unionist… So, during the military dictatorship in Brazil, he led major workers' strikes, and helped start the Workers' Party during 80’s… his first presidency was marked by the consolidation of social welfare programs such as Bolsa Família and Fome Zero, which propelled Brazil to leave the United Nations' Hunger Map… so, during his two terms in office, he undertook radical reforms in the country, which eventually led to growth in GDP, reduction in public debt and inflation, and helping twenty million Brazilians escape poverty… Poverty, inequality, illiteracy, unemployment, infant mortality, and child labor rates fell significantly, while the minimum wage and average income increased, and access to school, university, and health care was expanded… he also played a prominent role in foreign policy, both on a regional level and as part of global trade and environmental negotiations... so Lula is considered one of the most popular politicians in the history of Brazil, but, despite its popularity, his first term was marked by notable scandals, such as the Mensalão scandal and the Sanguessugas scandal, also known as the “Mafia das Ambulancias!”; “oh, Ambulances Mafia, funny, what was that about?” I ask. “That was, actually, a corruption scandal based on the discovery of a gang, were Lula was involved, whose objective was to divert public money intended for the purchase of ambulances...”; “ahah, funny” I say, “What about his last imprisonment and subsequent release!?”; “That is a big story, but to cut it short, it was more and less like this… Lula was convicted on charges of money laundering and corruption in a controversial trial that was later nullified by the Supreme Court Justices, due to the court lacking proper jurisdiction over the case… and, before the annulment of his cases, Lula was actually sentenced to nine and a half years in prison, and after an unsuccessful appeal, was arrested and spent almost two years detained... until that, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal judge presiding over the case, Sergio Moro, who served as Minister of Justice and Public Security in the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro, was biased, and all of the cases Moro had brought against Lula were actually annulled… then, following the court ruling, Lula was legally allowed to make another run for president, defeating Bolsonaro in the runoff and would became the first Brazilian president to have been elected to a third term, and the first to have defeated an incumbent president in an election…”; “oh, but, I can’t still understand what he was accused of!”; “it’s difficult to explain… say, it all started with an accusation referring to the concealment of ownership of a triplex penthouse in Guarujá, on the coast of São Paulo, received as a bribe in exchange for favors at Petrobras, the main petroleum industry in this country… and then a series of minor cases linked to passive corruption and money laundering would follow… cases without conclusive evidence, that later, would be taken to international court… more precisely to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, that would consider his arrest illegal… and then, a long ideological struggle would ensue between the international court and the national government until his release…”; and, as he actually finish to say those things, some silence would follow… until my intervention, “What about Dilma Rousseff?”; “I don't like her…” he would say, and then, I would actually be damped somewhere in the suburb of a small town in the middle of Espirito Santo state… and so, now, as I walk along some secondary road with a few warehouses and small patchs of forests I'm actually listening some kind of bird singing, some kind of owl but now it, probably the so-called night-jar, sometimes called goat-sucker, due to an ancient folk tale saying that this kind of birds used to suck the milk from goats during the night and so, that was a warning… a warning for something that would happen with me later that night… thus, as I walk, some car would actually stop in the middle of the nowhere, a car with a few guys inside... this is, thinking that I was a gringo, say, American, they would give me a ride and try to steal on the way, but, I had nothing valuable to steal, so, they would actually take me to the beach and... try to suck me, to rape me, but... they were actually ineffective in their efforts… this is, I managed to escape, I would run along the beach, and, eventually, on the going, I would somehow reach some kind of yamanja ceremony, and well, I participated on it and then I would run away from it… this is, when I came back to the road it was already morning … and so, this time l wouldn't go with anyone, coz, now, I wanted to choose the driver that would take me, and not be chosen, thus, I would hide myself in the middle of the bushes in a roundabout, and there I would wait during some time... until that… meandering in the middle of the road, a brand new Jeep would finally approach, this is, as it comes, popish-electronic-dance-music is actually blasting from the insides, and well, on the approach, I can already understand something like “O qui é qui ééééé… esse amor dá-água… deve sentir muito… o que que ééééé… esse amor dá-água... deve sentir muito… underwater love... underwater love…”, this is, actually a song from Smoke City, I mean, a trip hop band I actually know from places, I mean, a band actually mixing electronic music with homy styles such as samba and bossa nova, and so, as the car turns around the roundabout, it would continue like “O qui-é qui ééééé… esse amor dá-água… deve sentir muito… aiiii... “O qui-é qui ééééé… underwater love… so deep... aiiiiii… underwater love… aiiiiii… so deep… esse amor com muita paixão… aiiiiii” and, at some point, from the back of the bushes I would finally get out, this is, here I go, at this point already appearing in the middle of the road with my arms turned up, and, well, as the car brakes, inside, eventually I would see two young females with freaky hair wobbling in the air and bulgy eyes now getting lost, this is, as the car stops, almost on the ditch, straight away the back door opens, as if automatically, and, on my I approach I'm actually receiving grumpy bidding to get in. And so, after a couple of “sorryies”, once inside, the girls are actually unleashing their anger on me, and then, as the music comes back, here we go, already hitting the road again, this is, after a few questions, a few suppositions, the driver, this is, the one with red hair and a slender face, just says “never-mind it OK, we are also fugitives like you OK, I mean, we just stole this car from my parents, and… quer dizer, we are actually on the going to the big city...” she says, while the other on the side also says something, I mean, actually something in Portuguese language that I can't really understand, and so, as the sound from the stereo comes back, here they go, making their head and shoulders shake, this is, now, we are actually listening to some jungle, some drum n’ bass music… this is, british styles of music... and so, in the meanwhile, the other girl, I mean, the one with bluish hair and a more chubby face, is already asking me, now in some kind of broken english, “But... if you no brazil, ueare you, and, uere you go?”; “well, from uhere I'm from... I'm not sure” I say, “but, my name is Shima, they say, and actually, I just came from Amazonia, this is, I was there living with the natives and stuff…”; “oh, you really mean it?” the driver kinda asks, “yes, I mean it!”; “Don't you tell me that you, also got tired of that kind of monkey life and, you are also on the move to the city!?”; “Yes, I'm telling you that, it's actually something like that, yes…'' I say, and so, both of the girls softly laugh on this one and then... the driver speaks again, “My name is actually Mila and I don't like boys Ok, but, it looks that my inner-self is actually accepting you…” she says. And then, the other one, say, the one with blueish hair, also advances like this “My name is actually Daphne, and, but, I have nothing to do with Greek mythology OK!”; “Okkkkkkkkk!” I just say and then, “but, are you sisters?” I manage to ask. “Yes, Criminal sisters” the driver actually says while turning up the music volume again. And so now, I even have to grab myself on the back o the front seat coz Mila's driving style is turning uooouuuh. And so, at this point, Daphne begins to speak louder, again in portuguese, and then, it's Mila's time, again, probably making the translation “But, what's this story about Amazonia, where have you been before that?”; “Oh, I'm not sure, my memory is actually fucked up, something is missing… that's why I'm on the road, I mean, I do not know who I'm and from where I'm actually from! I mean, I have been to countries I no longer remember, but, I still can recall that, the time I spent in Amazonia was actually wonderful, thinking about that now, it looks like that was ages ago, but, in truth, it was just some days ago, I guess… “What?” says Daphne, and then, “so, just tell us where have you have been in Amazonia?” Mila asks. And I, well “I remember names like Porto Alegre, Bom Futuro, Nova Vista, Aqui Perto, São Lázaro, Santarém, Leitoso, Marabá, and obviously, São Salvador da Bahia de Todos os Santos” I say, and they, I mean, they even clap hands as they listen to this, and then, Daphne even pass me some kind of rolled up joint, and so, I take some deep puffs on it, some deep puffs that make me stick against the back of the seat, and so, in the meanwhile, they even tell me that they want to know nothing more about my persona, and then, the music volume is turned up again, and, actually, the selection goes from goa-trance to dubstep, and then, from dubstep to afrobeat, and then, from afrobeat to tekno-punk, and then, from tekno-punk to acid-house, and then, from acid-house to lowfi-electro-ethno-something or whatever... and, further, as we relax ourselves, "Aren’t you tired of traveling?” Mila just asks, and, “no, never!” I say, and then “mentirozo” Daphne just says , this is, as we leave the main road we take another smaller roads by the coast, and on the going we actually pass small towns like Quissamã, Macaé, Rio das Ostras, Cabo Frio, Marica and so, at the end of the afternoon we actually arrive at Guanabara bay, just on the other side of Rio de Janeiro, and, accordingly, while crossing the Niteroi-Rio bridge, a bridge with almost ten kilometers, down there on our right hand, I actually see a big island, this is, as it goes, they tell me that that is the “Ilha do Governador” or “Governor's Island”, and “it is on this island that lays a famous house of correction, to where the social actually send the worst vagabonds in the country…” says the voice of the experienced… and then, “around there, there are huge fleas and ticks everywhere, I mean, at the houses, in the supermarkets, on the beach… it’s disgusting… you should never go there…” she voice of experience finishes to say. And so, then, as we reach the end of the bridge, we actually pass a decrepit portuary zone, they call Caju, then it's the São Cristóvão neighborhood, a neighborhood with numerous early colonial-period buildings, and then Maracanã, “a middle-class neighborhood where is Maracanã stadium”, one of them also says, this is, “a stadium used for major football matches between the main Rio’s football clubs, like Flamengo, Fluminense, Botafogo, and Vasco da Gama...” and then, we reach Tijuca, “one of the most traditional districts of Rio de Janeiro…” Daphne says, and then Mila clarifies “Tijuca is a name from the Tupi (Brazilian Indians) language and means "rotten water", this is, “ty” means “water" and “îuk-rotten", and the name actually refers the Tijuca lagoon, a big lagoon that has some islands where some freaks live, including our grandma, and so yes, it’s there our destination… it’s there we are going…” and then, as we reach the top of the hill, also called “morro da boa-vista – hill of the good view” we can already see the just-said lagoon and the atlantic ocean on the back. And, then, as we go down the Itanhangá neighborhood, “a name also of tupi origin, meaning stone devil, a combination of “itá” meaning “stone” and “anhanga” meaning “devil…” Daphne just explains. And then, at the bottom of the hill, we take a small boat with other local tourists and soon we are actually getting to the Gigóia island, an island with no cars, only barren walking streets… and not many houses also, some over the water… and so, in the meanwhile, I get to know their grandma, Dona Aparecida, who owns a small cafe in one of these areas, on an embankment between the forest and a swamp area… and well, later, Dona Aparecida, actually a Cowrie-shell reader, a practice taken from the Yoruba religion, in Africa, would start read my future, so, the shells are thrown and the number of shells that fall with the opening facing up is associated with a certain Odu, and, accordingly, each Odu is actually associated with a certain Orisha that says who we are and what we are doing here in this world and what's our destination… and so, as it goes, Dona Aparecida tells me that my name is “Shima… and you are here because you have something to learn here, on this island, but your destination is south, and you are over the command of Yamanja, so your element is silver, you should visit Mar del Plata - Silver Sea, a coastal city in Argentina”. So, said and done, down the coast I go, and this is, I actually manage to get to this city “Mar de Plata”, but once there I find nothing special, “Mar de Plata” is actually an important fishing port, and it was on this port, between the fishermen, that I would find my reason, this is, I just get aboard some fishing boat that take me even further south, to Monte Dinero - Money Mount, that is already on the mouth of Patagonia, and once there, I would get on another ship that take me across the Strait of Magellan, an arm of sea connecting the Pacific with the Atlantic ocean, also separating mainland South America from Tierra del Fuego, so, I get to Punta Arenas, historically known as Sandy Point, the capital city of Chile's southernmost region, Magallanes and Antarctica Chilena, located on the Brunswick Peninsula, and once there, I get in touch with a bunch of mischievous hippies that would take me to the Dawson Island, an area that was inhabited by the Kawésqar, also called the Alcalufe that also lived in another islands west of Tierra del Fuego, later decimated by European miners, that flocked to the area in search of gold, this is, by the time of the Chilean military dictatorship, Augusto Pinochet used the island to house political prisoners suspected of being communist activists, and there they stayed under the strict control of the Chilean Navy. And so, once on the Dawson island, I run away from the European hippies and I get lost in this island, freezing myself, until that I find some cottage, and actually, in front of this cottage there is a man cutting wood, and so, this man, first he ignore me, pretending he's not seeing me and just then, he actually invites me to come inside, and well, as it goes, while we warm up by the fireplace, he confesses to me that he also got lost many times, that is, he have traveled all around the world, got tired of people and finished here. This is, “I toured all Europe several times, I sailed the Bosporus, I have been to China, I put down the anchor on the Bay of Bengal, I have been to the Solomon islands, living with cannibals, I visited Alaska, and I have been to the Arabias, I toured all around the Persian sea, I have been to the Tasman sea, got to know the devil of Tasmania, I have been everywhere, I got tired of everything, and now I’m just here, alone, and I’m Ok”.