I arrived in Amazonia coming from the Darié jungle, a bridge area 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, 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 will guide them through the Darien jungle. So, here we are, 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. 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 we became acquainted… we were living with them, in their cottages… we even helped them in some tasks… 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 an hallucinating trip that took me through the meandering channels of the Rio Negro “Black River”, that flows from north Brasil 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 Sepultura 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 primetime, 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 people 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… Then when we got close to the state of Minas Gerais, the man arrived at his destination and I catched 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… And 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. 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 (leeches) Scandal, also known as the “Mafia of the Ambulances”; “And that was about what?” I ask. “It was a corruption scandal that broke out around two thousand six, the discovery of a gang whose objective was to divert public money intended for the purchase of ambulances. Among its main involvers were former deputies of the Lula government…”; “Ambulances mafia, ahah, funny” I say, “What about his last imprisonment and subsequent release… what was it all about, I know nothing about that…”; “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… Before the annulment of his cases, Lula was sentenced to nine and a half years in prison, and after an unsuccessful appeal, Lula was arrested circa two thousand eighteen and spent 580 days in jail and then released, when the Supreme Federal Court ruled that his imprisonment was unlawful… later, in the beginning of two thousand one, 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 annulled later thats ame year… then, following the court ruling, Lula was legally allowed to make another run for president, defeating Bolsonaro in the runoff and he 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…”; “but I can’t understand, what he was accused of what, after all?”; “it’s difficult to explain but… 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 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 then some silence would follow… until my intervention, “What about Dilma Rousseff?”; “I don't like her…” and then silence again, I was left somewhere in the suburb of a small town in the middle of Espirito Santo state… and as I walked I was listening some kind of bird singing, kind of a owl but now a owl, probably the so-called nightjar, sometimes called goatsuckers, due to ancient folk tales saying that this kind of birds used to suck the milk from goats and so that was a warning… a warning for what happened with me later that night… so, a couple of guys gave me a ride, they thought I was American, they tried to steal me, but I had nothing valuable to steal, then, they they took me to the beach and they tried to suck me, to rape me, but they were innefective in their efforts… I managed to escape, I ran along the beach all night, I passed some kind of ceremony, maybe a yamanja cerimony, I participated on it, and I runed away from it… then it was morning again, and I came back to the road… I walked a bit, but this time l wouldn't go with anyone, I wanted to choose the driver that would take me, so, in a roundabout, I hid in the middle of the bushes, and I waited until that… meandering from one side of the road to the other, a brand new Jeep was approaching, pop-electronic-dance-music blasting, and I recognized the song, “Underwater Love” from Smoke City, a trip hop band from the UK, mixing electronic music with Brazilian styles such as samba and bossa nova, with mixed up lyrics, both in Portuguese and English, and this one was going more and less like this “O que que ééééé… esse amor d'água… deve sentir muito parecido… this is it… Underwater love… It is so deep… Underwater love… so beautifully… esse amor com paixão… aiii… esse amor com paixão, aiii, que coisa… after the rain comes sun… after the sun comes rain again… and the way I feel it slipping all over me… this must be…”. And so, from the bushes I suddenly got out and to the middle of the road with arms up and abruptly the car braked, almost stopping in the ditch, and inside, I can see now, two female mischievous smiles, bulgy eyes staring at me and the back door already open… so, I got in and here we go now. The girls inspecting my complexion while making some dancing moves with head and shoulders and new songs come by, drum n’ bass, jungle… and so, in the meanwhile, the driver, this is, the one with red hair and slender face, instead of making questions she make statements, she says “we are fugitives, I stole this Jeep from my parents, that are politicians, boring people, and so… we are heading south, we are going to Rio, and you, you are coming with us… now you have no chance…”, and the other girl, seated on the side, this one with bluish hair and more chubby face, is already asking me “But you are not brazilian, we see, so, from where are you from, afterall? And what were you doing in the middle of that roundabout? “Yes it’s true, I’m not Brazilian, I’m coming from a fictional country, my name is Shima, and actually, I came all the way from Amazonia until here, this is, I was there, living with the natives and now…”; “now you got tired of monkey and you wanna go to the city… isn’t it?”; “something like that, yes… you can put it like that…'' and so, both of the girls laughed softly and then, the driver spoke again, “My name is Mila and I don't like boys but it’s Ok, it looks that my inner-self is accepting you…” she completed. And the other one, the one with blueish hair, also advanced like this “My name is Daphne, but I have nothing to do with Greek mythology ok, Daphne the nymph associated with fountains, wells, springs, streams, brooks, nevermind about it ok”. “Ok!” I say and then “are you sisters?” I managed to ask. “Criminal sisters” said the driver while turning up the music volume again. And I had to grab myself on the front seat cause Mila's driving style turned somehow crazy, and so, while we zigzagged, Daphne began to speak louder, but still sweet, and she said “What is this story that you are coming from a fictional country, what you mean with that? Listen… Brazil is the fictional country number one… no one will ever beat us… OK… never… you know!”; “I know!” I say. “I already experienced it… but my memory is fucked up, I don’t knows my nationality… something is missing in me… that is why, for me, fiction and reality became the same thing… I mean, I have been traveling the world… I met all kinds of crazies, as you may understand… I have been to countries I no longer remember, but the time I spent in Amazonia was wonderful, thinking about that now, it looks like it was ages ago, but in truth, it was just some days ago, I guess… “What?” says Mila. “We don’t believe you… so, tell us where you have been in Amazonia?” Daphne asks. “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 clap hands as they listen to this, then they pass me some kind of cigarette, I take some deep puffs, that make me stand against the back of the seat, and they tell me to not worry, they want to know nothing more, they know already everything about me, there is no need of more excuses. And the music playing now on the stereo, it goes from goa-trance to dubstep, and from dubstep to afrobeat and from afrobeat to tekno-punk, and from tekno-punk to acid-house, and from acid-house to pop brazilian music or whatever... and "Aren’t you tired of traveling?” asks the driver, Mila. "No, never, I'm still looking for new countries, new people, new strange situations...", I say. “And how all that started, why you became a traveler?”; Daphne asks. “Well, I started being a runway, like you… it looks… and just then, after my runaway years, I became a real traveler…”; “And why did you run away?”; “Well, let's not talk about that…”. So, then we left the main road and took another smaller roads by the coast, we passed small towns like Quissamã, Macaé, Rio das Ostras, Cabo Frio, Marica and at the end of the afternoon we arrived at Guanabara bay, other side of Rio de Janeiro, then we crossed the Niteroi-Rio bridge, a bridge with almost ten kilometers, and while crossing it I see a big Island, down there on our right hand, we speak about it, they tell me that that is the “Ilha do Governador” or Governor's Island, and “also it is on this island that lays a famous house of correction, to where the social assistance technicians send the worst vagabonds in the city… says the voice of the experienced… over there, there are huge fleas and ticks everywhere, at the houses, in the supermarkets, on the beach… it’s disgusting… never go there…” Then we reach the end of the bridge, we pass a decrepit portuary zone, they call Caju, then São Cristóvão, with numerous early colonial-period buildings, then Maracanã, a middle-class neighborhood where is Maracanã stadium, 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… and it has the third largest urban forest in the world…” Daphne says, and then Mila clarifies “Tijuca is a name from the Tupi (brazilian Indians) language and means "rotten water", from “ty - water" and “îuk-rotten", and the name refers to the Tijuca lagoon, a big lagoon that has some islands where some freaks live, including our grandma, and 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 so, 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 explains. And then, at the bottom of the hill, we take a small boat with other local tourists and soon we get to Gigóia island, an island with no cars, only barren walking streets… and not many houses also, some over the water… and 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 so, later, Dona Aparecida, a Cowrie-shell reader, a practice taken from the Yoruba religion, in Africa, would read my future, and so, the shells are thrown and the number of shells that fall with the opening facing up is associated with a certain Odu, and each Odu is associated with a certain Orisha that say who we are and what we are doing here and what's our destination… so, as it goes, Dona Aparecida tell 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”. And so, said and done, down the coast I go, and I manage to get to this city “Mar de Plata”, but once there I found nothing special, “Mar de Plata” is actually an important fishing port, and it was on this port, between the fishermen, that I found my reason, I got aboard some fishing boat that took even southern, to Monte Dinero - Money Mount, that is already on the mouth of Patagonia, and then I got on another ship that took me across the Strait of Magellan, an arm of sea connecting the Pacific with the Atlantic ocean, and also separating mainland South America from Tierra del Fuego, and 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, and by the time of the Chilean military dictatorship, Augusto Pinochet used the island to house political prisoners suspected of being communist activists, and they were under the strict control of the Chilean Navy. But all this are waters under the bridge. So, once on the Dawson island, I run away from the European hippies and I get lost in this island, freezing myself, until I find some cottage, and in front of this cottage there is a man cutting wood, so, this man, first he ignore me, pretending he is not seeing me and just then, he invites me to come inside, and 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. “I toured all Europe several times, I sailed the Bosphorus, I have been to China, I got anchor on the Bay of Bengal, I have been to the Solomon islands, living with cannibals, I visited Alaska, I have been to the Arabias, I toured 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 here alone, and I’m Ok”.
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