Our Journal

Brasilia to the Iguazu 

They say Brasilia is a failure, that design cannot ignore basic human nature.  But in the case of traffic, it is a miracle, the only latin city without traffic problems.  We drove out past the twelve lane expressways where drivers are polite and stay in their lanes and stop for pedestrians at crosswalks.  But as soon as we were outside the city back on two lane pothole pocked road, it was every man for himself, drivers exploding with all the pent up recklessness they couldn’t express in a city that had already accounted for the Brazilian driver.  Talk about environment affecting behavior. 

We battled trucks all day, hit small patches of rain, but overall made great time as the roads smoothed out.  We settled on the destination of Frutal where a whole platoon of police stopped us outside of town.  They were on a mission to find something wrong and started flipping through are papers.  With big smiles and purposefully bad Portuguese we bombarded them with questions about anything we could think of… “Is this town big?  How many people live here?  Is there a hotel in town?  Are they celebrating carnival?...” – they got it from both sides and it worked, we hit the reflex that every Brazilian seems to have, that it is very important that you like them and more important that you like Brazil.  Papers where soon handed back, a good thing since later we found out that on the front page in bold print our bike registration ended December 11, over two months ago.  In town we found the hotel, unpacked, and walked to the plaza to see how carnival in small cowboy town Brazil is handled. 

The name Frutal turned out to be telling, there were fruits all over the place.  A giant group of some of the worst cross dressers paraded through town following a king, between the bleachers up to the stage.  The crowd thickened around 1 am.  Axe bands played with four drummers on stage and dance performances that would require an id to see in the states.  Watching a crowd of Brazilians respond to axe music is like looking at a mound of angry ants, everyone in movement.  The singer called for everyone to run back out between the stands, then called for everyone to come charging back.  They loved it.  We sat on the side and watched, drained from the 600 km on the road.  Even if we could have participated, we had a long drive the following day.  We weaved through their frenzy back to the hotel. 

The next day we drove out early and only stopped to fill up most of the day.  The further south we went the better the roads, toll roads no different from U.S. interstates.  The farms get bigger and greener with expansive views up rolling road curves.  This was what one imagines of motorcycle travel, the mind is allowed to wander without two lane truck hell to deal with.  At sundown we made it to Campo Murao, a smallish town about 350 km from Iguazu Falls.  We had covered over 700 km, nothing to shake a stick at.  And this town was…  something different.  Clean, tree lined streets, nicely paved roads, a beautiful looking school, street cafes and restaurants…  where were we?  The gas attendant was the friendliest guy in Brazil and directed us toward the center.  We stopped and talked to a cop who was all smiles and directed us toward a hotel.  The girls at the front desk all had shirts with a word on the front.  There was “Perdao”, “Alegre”, and “Luz” – all smiles.  We had not really seen anything in southern Brazil.  Something tells me they have a very well kept secret in the south that they don’t want anyone to know about.  I mean, they stop for pedestrians at crosswalks here too, what is this?  We ate at an pizza place owned by a Dutch guy who came to Campo Murao 20 years ago, and never left.  He looked at us, smiled, and said, “You like the town.  Yes, there are very beautiful women here.”  Not much to disagree with there.  Carnaval concerts were getting started, more axe, but the crowd looked really young, and our minds were exhausted from driving all day. 

We slept in late, got the oil changed on my bike, and midday drove on to Iguazu.  It was an annoying drive.  So much to look at on the sides of the road - the giant silos, a German beer garden, the giant matte cup at the entrance to Mattelandia – but the roads were trafficked with trucks and curves and we had just driven two long days.  Leaving one town, a guy pulled up right behind me and clearly wanted me to get over in the right lane, but traffic was wizzing by there so I just slowed a little.  He kept getting closer, then pulled on the side and tried to force me off the road.  Then, he pulled in front and braked, causing me to brake sending the bike into a hook slide.  Cars slowed behind us fearing to pass.  At the next light, I stayed behind him.  My idle was low so I had to keep a pulsating rev going.  He put truck in reverse as if to hit me but cars began to line up around us.  He ended up running the red light and exited quickly.  Gosh, he probably saw my plates and thought I was Venezuelan.  And probably his wife left him for a Venezuelan on a motorcycle years ago.  Yes, and Castro is probably right, Chavez's life is in danger...???

From my latest vocabulary in portuguese...  conto de fadas - fairy tale. 

Anyway, after adrenaline had left the blood stream, arriving in Iguazu we stopped for gas and looked over and saw the same hotel whose pool we had raided five years before.  Here was where Matt had demonstrated the circular lap in their round pool.  No vacancies so we drove into town.  At stoplights an aggressive tourist guide jumped in front of my bike shoving pictures of hotels in my face.  I accelerated past only to have him speed up beside me on a moped at the next light.  I caved in and he drove us to a hotel, a hole with no safe parking for the bikes.  To tired to fight him, we followed him to another hotel, then another, until we tried to politely tell him that we were mostly hungry and were stopping to eat.  Another mistake… Oh! You want a restaurant… - and then Matt pulled out the devil stare and started waving his hands… No! No! No!  This was a Matt rarely seen, in fact I can only remember it from a few years ago in Bolivia, eating late night street food when a homeless guy was trying to get a bite of Matt’s burger.  Matt looked at him like a lunatic and with demon voice gargled, “Yo soy el Diablo!”  The guy wasn’t around long.  Back in Iguazu, we drove to the center and stopped at the first hotel we saw.  Quiet street, half the price. 

It was the 7^th of December and our visas ran out the next day.  Carnaval was still going on but it was a cab ride out to the concerts and we were both tired.  December 8^th, “8/2” as we’ve been calling it had arrived and we were no long welcome in the country.  The border area is confusing and you can just drive out of the country without anyone stopping you but the Argentinean police sent us back to get Brazilian exit stamps.  The official looked at our passports and smirked, Your last day, then sent us over to vehicle control.  The fat man saw us coming and didn’t get up right away, after all he was talking to his buddies.  He waved us over to an empty office where we waited for him.  He took one look at our papers and pointed straight to the bold print that indicated our bike registration was only good until December 11^th.  No one had even seen this, including ourselves, until this moment.  So we played the game waiting for the moment to say, Any way could we just pay this fine here, with you? big eyed, innocent.  But no, this was something strange, something… elusive.  I mean he was a border official.  And this was Latin America, right?  And hell, an American with bad paperwork at the border is just like Christmas at Carnival.  The negotiations were short.  He made some phone calls, some hushed voices, numbers thrown around, and then told us to visit the Receita Federal the following day to pay a fine which, he threatened, could be the price of the bike. 

I thought, Oh, we are screwed now, this is organized corruption, not to be done out here in the open, but in some dirty, dark, office where they will put us through mental anguish.  We found the office that afternoon just so we would be ready.  The guard out front was all smiles.  Yeah, they love to smile a lot, just before they Jackie Chan you! 

We needed to relieve stress, the last hurrah carnival parade was still going on.  Here on the border, carnival doesn’t get the people as excited, they all looked lost and walked around bumping into each other like zombies, but then again, it was the last night of carnival.  They had been doing this for days.  Back at the hotel, we watched the same parade on TV.  Meanwhile in Rio, we got glimpses of institutionalized frenzy.  To be reckoned with another day. 

At the office by 12:00 but were told to come back at 2:00.  No one knew where to tell us to go so we waited in one line, then got sent upstairs.  After more waiting we were told that the main official wouldn’t be coming in (it was the day after carnival after all) and to come back the following morning.  The mini official told us to write, in Portuguese, a formal request to extend our bike registration until the 8^th, which had already passed, to go with our already expired visas in our passports.  We asked him to write it for us, as a joke really, but he did it, and we took it down to some kind of internal mail office where they all read it.  They were detaining us in Brazil.  Of course there are far worse things so we enjoyed a meatathon where waiters parade with swords, each bearing a different cut of something, nothing too exotic past the chicken hearts.  We stayed almost four hours, eating and resting in cycles. 

Early the next day we waited again, got sent upstairs again, and waited some more…  We met the main official and he advised we go walk around town, it was going to take a while.  But we stayed.  And waited.   We had now spent a couple of days pondering the price of this bribe, how many different ways it would be divided by the time we found the right guy to pay.  And then, the official walks out with a paper, smiles, shakes our hands, and sends us on our way with instructions to hurry to the border before any shift changes, calls had already been made.  No bribe, no corruption, just a little confusion about what to do with us since we had in fact broken a rule.  This was incredible.  Maybe I am brainwashed from six months here, but Brazil is the greatest country of the Latin Americas and I honestly believe that there are many Brazilians who honestly believe in what is inscribed on their flag – Ordem y Progresso.  We didn’t waste time getting to the border.  Back to the passport office where the official remembered us.  Back to vehicle control where we once again… waited.  But in the end, we were free to go, not that we wanted to.  We really didn’t want to.  Over the bridge into Argentina. 

I have it embedded in my head.  Latin American borders = complications.  But that really isn’t fair because entrance into Argentina was quick and efficient.  No fancy explaining to do, just some forms to fill out and a lot of questions to answer, mostly eager to hear about our plans.  This is no El Paso / Juarez cloudy transition where it’s hard to say where Mexico begins and Texas ends.  Argentina is distinctly Argentinean without a trace of Brazil evident, the language of course being the first shock.  We could actually understand them, but when we went to speak Spanish it came out as garbled Portuguese and Spanish which no one could understand.  We found a hotel and walked around a small, quiet town that looked like small town Texas or Tennessee.  We visited the falls which at high tourist season comes off as something like a Disneyland which trains full of tourists going to lookout points you literally have to cue in line for to see.  People get aggressive with their picture taking asking you to step aside or just pushing.  But, away from the rush the falls are incredible with main drops and many mini falls to visit.  It’s nothing that can be photographed without a helicopter, it’s just too big.  But the sensations are intense.  Looking at the main falls is dizzying seeing so much white water in motion.  After days expecting the Jackie Chan, this was perfect.  We went out to a bar/disco one night and laughed heartily at how Argentinians respond to music.  I mean, I wouldn’t go so far as to call them gringos, but they really don’t dance like most latins.  In fact, we felt right at home.  I forgot how all about the cumbia that we heard in Bolivia five years ago and how they line up, girls on one side, guys on the other.  They are a festive bunch, in their own Argentinian way and we will have to spend some time here to get used to them. 

Thanks for all the comments about where to go from here.  While we are in Argentina, we are driving to another border crossing with Paraguay 300 km from here and will drive to Ausuncion, I think.  Not having a real plan is the idea.  We’ll see where it goes. 

un abrazo…

contact us:  chris@isabm.com   matt@isabm.com