New paradise found.

After my last post, I ended up on an adventure to the municipal hospital that I know I didnt sign up for. Don´t worry, it was nothing serious. Liam had suggested I hit the local health spot to get my ankle checked out since it would be a free visit, and I thought it was a good idea. Might as well. So after a few errands I went to see the doctor (it was probably my 5th visit to a hospital in Brazil, so I knew what I was doing). Didn´t understand a word the doctor said. He did give me a shot on my ass, which I still have yet to confirm was an anti-inflammatory. He then told me something about doing something else and for about 10 minutes I sat stumped. ´´Imagine,´´ he kept saying. Imagine what, I kept answering back. Imagination? What would I need to imagine about my leg? Imagine that I didn´t have a club foot? Then it hit me. ´´Images?´´ I directed at him. Yes. He wanted me to get X-rays, but the radiology center was not in the town.
So I walked out of the hospital with a bum foot and my right ass cheek sore. Not a pretty sight. Though I have noticed that if you have any small defect, as a woman, men leave you the hell alone. I was grateful because I was getting so sick of being leered at like fresh carne at a churrascaria. A Brazilian girl started walking with me and though I couldnt understand anything she said (and I was highly suspicious as well), we ended up on a two-hour voyage to find this radiology center. I got X-rayed and a soft cast put on my foot that went all the way to my knee, with strict instructions that I was to keep it on for 8 days and ONLY to get the soft cast removed by a doctor. Pshah.
I was able to find help carrying my backpack from one form of public transportation to the next but when I got to Goaninhas, I was so happy to see two other travelers getting off on the same stop. We shared a cab ride to Praia da Pipa and it was a fateful one -- the travelers were actually a couple, him from Valencia, Spain, and she from Santa Fe, Argentina. I have never met a couple so in love in my life. Or so nice, either. He had just sold his restaurant in Valencia and with the proceeds and photos of Praia da Pipa in hand, Paco and Solita decided to move to this gorgeous beachside town to open a bar. Pretty ballsy for a 30-year-old and 21-year-old. But meeting them, you can believe they can do anything, that love will get them through it.

They celebrated my birthday with me and we had an absolutely splendid meal. Their generous spirit has been extended in the form of help, from physical (using them as human crutches anytime we walk on the cobblestone road to getting acai and water for me) to mental (´´Dont worry, it will get better soon!´´). We have already worked out a plan that if I come back to Praia da Pipa, I can work in their bar for room and board. Paco and Solita are more than just charming -- they´re in love.
Which brings me to this new discovery about myself, as I turn to reflect on turning 29. On this trip I have found myself softening to couples in ostentatious displays of love and passion, and the wiles of kids enjoying their naivete. I was thinking, this isnt because I am getting older and thus less vulernable to the tenderness that life can bring sometimes, it´s that I am coming to peace with the world. Yea, as a teenager I rebeled pretty hard, but I see how as time passes on and you live more experiences, you become more compassionate and thus your outlook brightens. This all came to me while I was holed up in my hotel room at Ponto do Galinhas, reading The Art of Happiness. It´s a book by an idiot psychologist who conducts tons of interviews with the Dalai Lama about how he is able to view life the way he does, and how the rest of us could do it. Yea, some of it is horse poo but it led me in this path of thinking. I am no longer as angry as I was before, and I have been angry for so much of my life. Angry because L.A. friggin sucks and it really affected me. I am hoping this feeling stays with me for awhile. (But my friends, I know you enjoy my hard-edged nature, so dont worry, that still remains intact. I still really, really, really hate children.)
When we woke up yesterday, I immediately cut off my soft cast. Screw that thing. There was no way I was going to the beach with it on and no way that I was not going to go to the beach because of it. Wow, was my foot ugly underneath. All bloated and it looked ready to fart or spew something putrid. My new friends gasped at the sight of it and were concerned I had made a stupid preemptive move. I didnt care.
And damn was it worth it. Praia Madeiro in this town is the most beautiful beach I have seen so far. The water was at a perfect temperature. And dolphins! Tons of them playing in the water. I wanted to dance and scream at the top of my lungs. It was positively exhilirating to see all of this, with tall cliffs and coconut trees as the backdrop. I went into the water and had my realization number 2: saltwater doesnt sting your eyes. A little too late to learn this fact that everyone probably already knows, but one of my main fears about the ocean is water getting in my eyes. And realization number 3: When a wave overcomes me, it is really only a quick second before I am back on top again.
So yea, I have really found my paradise, but supposedly Jericoacoara, my next destination, is even better. Everyone´s been right -- the north beaches in Brazil are stunning. It is hot and humid as hell up here, but I am dealing with it by laying in the hammock and rehabilitating.
Here´s something totally off the subject, but goes to show you about this small network that you inevitably travel within when visiting continents: Paco was at the Internet cafe, sitting next to a blonde. She glanced over at his screen, in which he was going through his photos from the day, and saw me in a few of them. She was surprised, she has been looking for me because she knew I was in town, so she asked him where I was staying. Turns out it was Sarah, who I had met in Olinda and went to Ponto do Galinhas with! Coincedence or what! And get this: So Sarah and I were having dinner yesterday after she found my hotel, and up comes to the table a guy I had met in my hotel in Olinda. He said he had heard ´´through the grapevine´´ about the accident with my foot. How crazy is that? How the hell did he know about my accident all the way back in Olinda? I didnt get to press him further on it but it makes me a bit paranoid...
Thank you for putting up with my rambling, badly written posts so far. I write them not really with an audience in mind, or rather, with me as the only audience.

Pain in the sprain.

I sprained my ankle yesterday. First time ever. I was rushing to get off the bus with my big-ass heavy backpack in front of me and I misjudged the distance between the last step and the pavement. Down I went. I couldn´t get up for about 15 seconds because the pain was so great, I was sure I had broken it. Luckily I was with a group of people I had met at the hostel in Olinda, so they helped me up and took a look at the injury. In 30 seconds it swelled up to the size of a lemon and I couldn´t put any weight on it. We had to catch another bus, so one of them, Liam from Canada, kindly carried my larger bag and another, Sarah from Indiana, took my smaller one. I limped along.
So the bus journey to Ponto do Galinhas was too long. I had gotten some ice from a vendor and stuffed them into a Ziploc bag (those are handy to bring along on any trip), but since the weather is so hot up here in the north, the ice melted 15 minutes later. So I had to get creative. Two-thirds into the trip a guy hopped aboard selling popsicles for 25 cents so I bought one and tied it to my ankle. It helped a little bit.
Walking around to find a hotel friggin sucked. I was just so slow. Eventually we decided they´d go find a place while I waited. So I waited. And waited. In the end, Liam and I opted to pay $1 more to stay in a hotel with a TV and air conditioner rather than a hot hostel. And then what did we do? I went to the beach. Hobbled along. I should have been resting, I know. Ponto do Galinhas is a well-known beach here, and it deserves the recognition. The town is so named because it was a former point of slave import. Since this had been illegal, the shipowners would use the term ´´galinhas´´ -- which means hen (as in chicken) -- to disguise what the true nature of their cargo was. So if a guy had said he had a shipment of galinhas coming in, he actually meant he was waiting for a load of Angolan slaves imprisoned underneath the clucking chickens. I am really surprised that they havent changed the name of ths place considering the history. You have chicken statues and chicken souvenirs everywhere here as well, so you can take home your very own galinha. Note my sarcasm.
This morning my foot feels better but the whole top is now also swollen. This injury has really thrown a kink into my travels, because I was supposed to leave today to continue heading northward. I dread having to deal with my luggage -- Brazil is not handicapped-friendly, that´s for sure.
We´re here in the middle of a four-day festival that happens in the evenings, with lots of live performances of traditional Brazilian music, like forro and axe, and capoeira. After watching an incredible capoeira dance yesterday, I went to a juice bar and had what they call an energetico, a mix of guarana syrup, nut powder, acai and more. It is supposed to give you a kick in the ass. Every few minutes firecrackers would go off -- these ones here are especially loud and annoying -- and the poor waiter would duck under the table. It was a reflex he couldn´t control, a nervous tick developed probably from going up in the favela.
I´m heading off tomorrow, no matter what my foot will be like, to Praia de Pipa, another famous beach of the northeast. From what I´ve been hearing from other travelers, it´s been a highlight of their Brazil travels. I´ll be spending my birthday there. 29 and only getting older, wiser, and I hope less anal about things.
It is a gorgeous day but I really should go back to my hotel and rest up for what will undoubtedly be an insane day of travel -- because of this ankle thing -- tomorrow. Wish me luck! And being that I put myself back on antibiotics because I think I have another staph infection as a result of a mosquito bite, I really need it. These mosquitos are unrelenting and nothing is working.
I am already getting excited about Colombia. It´s supposed to be the best country to visit out of South America. I´ll let you know.

Olinda II.

So the first night I was here in Olinda I went to a huge outdoor party that happens every Sunday in this small town. There´s reggae, samba, forro and more Afro Brazilian music live and at a small building turned rudimentary club, and everyone gets wasted. I had earlier in the day met Rasmulsin, a guide who at first I was weary of because I didnt know what he was trying to pull over me -- I said I didnt need a guide -- and it turned out he was happy to meet a tourist who wasnt scared of the locals. He took me around to some of the more interesting points of Olinda, including the shops that specialize in cachaca, where we sampled i dont know how many shots of cachaca, including one made with 32 herbs that has the strength of Viagra. It was pretty smooth actually, didnt leave a burning aftertaste. I met a bunch of locals, which was really great. Olinda is a very quiet town so you dont really interact with people behind closed doors too much and Sunday was the perfect time to meet the local characters. I also met a local poet who I gladly purchased a work from, and he gave me a complimentary spoken word performance, impromptu. The guy walks around town with a pirate-type hat with 8 million reais´ worth of old coins. Rich man!
I have been hanging out with a Portuguese woman and a Sao Paulo girl who I met at the first hostel I was in. I´ve since changed to a hostel that doesnt have a persistent moldy smell. They are incredibly fun to be with and you cant believe with the difference in ages between all of us, that we can get along so well.
And is there such a thing as a bad beach in Brazil? Yea. Went to one today. Filthy. Not even worth talking about.
I have so much more to write about but I have to go run and re-take some photos that turned out to be too blurry. NEVER buy the Nikon Coolpix S3. It is a piece of wet shit.

Olinda is muito linda.

Hello from beautiful Olinda, where everything is always tudo bem. Yan, I didnt do the hike to Cachoeira Fumaca in Chapada Diamantina because unfortunately, I was too lazy to do it. Bad excuse, yeah, definitely... next time, I hope...
I went back to my old stomping grounds after Lencois for a day, Salvador. Salvador is a very important city in the north, in the state of Bahia, for many things -- for being a cultural center, for its always happy people, for its crime rate (funny how those things still go hand in hand here) and moreover, for their Carnaval, which is supposedly better than the one in Rio every February. I could definitely see it being a more insane party in Salvador. The capacity people have for drinking here is a little more than what I have seen in the south so far. I was in Salvador -- specifically, the Pelourinho, which is the colonial, historical part, a UNESCO World Heritage site -- last year for a few days and it hasnt really changed too much. There are new shops and restaurants, but you can still follow percussion bands through the streets, which I did. You can still have Cuban ice cream at the shop near the former whipping post. I had an excellent vegetarian moqueca meal at a restaurant in the Pelourinho. Moqueca is usually made with fish so it is almost a sin to make it with only veggies, but man, I havent been crapping regularly so I needed to greens. Anyway, it´s a stew made with tomatoes and palm oil and goddamn tasty.

That held me over for the overnight bus ride to Maceio, a beach city. When I got there, guess what, it was raining. Things kind of cleared up a bit and I went on a boat ride, against the advice of the tourist office, to a natural pool to see tropical fish. I saw nada of course, because the rain had kicked up too much dirt so the water wasnt clear. On my tiny fishing boat were two Italians, and they suggested we try going to a beach further south, Praia dos Frances. I could definitely see it being beautiful as much as Brazilians say it is -- if it hadn´t been cloudy, that is. So the next day, I took off to Recife, another cultural heart of the north, but all I kept hearing about is how dangerous it is. I opted to stay in Olinda, the town right next to it, a more intimate, older, historical place.
So far, so good. Rain and mosquitoes, yea. Dancing to reggae. More soon. My time is running out at this Internet place and I need to get back to my pousada because it isnt that great for me to be walking around at this hour anyway!

Diamonds are forever -- until they´re all mined.

Thank you for all the concerned emails! Sounds like word is getting to the States amongst the always-top news of weather and who´s marrying who that Sao Paulo was in such dire straits. I´m totally fine. I almost didnt make it to the airport that night of my last posting; the police wanted everyone off the streets by 8 p.m. and the taxi drivers were planning to stop running around that time as well. Too dangerous, they said. The international airport had been closed down and I couldnt get any information about the domestic one. Two really great people at the hotel helped me out; I cant even begin to tell you how beyond stressed I was. Sure, I wanted to stay longer in Sao Paulo, but not under those conditions! I did eventually manage to catch a taxi near my pousada before the lock-down and we flew like the Concorde through empty boulevards, usually veins of black tar clogged with traffic. It was really eerie to see the city -- the world´s third largest i think? -- so bloody deserted at that early hour.

I spent the night at the airport and caught a morning bus to Lencois to check out the Chapada Diamantina region, all forests and squat mountains, with caves and waterfalls thrown in to make it all the more interesting. This area is (was?) rife with diamonds, though I am not sure how much of it is left. The next day I got on a tour -- it is impossible to see the sights without a car -- and made shapes of animals and people out of stalagmites and stalcitites in a cave and kayaked around another one with emerald water, hiked along a waterfall called the Poco do Diablo and climbed atop one of those pudgy mountains called Pai Inacio. The weather could have been better, I admit. It had rained the evening previous -- quite an anomaly for this time of year, but the sun finally came out. It is amazing how much you depend on weather when traveling.
Today´s weather was very warm with no white dandruff of clouds to ruin the view, but I took it easy rather than hike it in the hot sun. I got bit the first night by mosquitoes on my chin and hand, both of which have turned into swollen members on my body. So I´m walking around with an obese face and hand. Not a pleasant sight but it´s nice because i dont give a crap!

So I am officially in the northern region of Brazil now, which is as different as a foot and nose could be from each other. This is the cultural heart of Brazil, with a large Afro Brazilian population really bringing color to the country. It is also the poor region of Brazil, which unfortunately means you have to watch your back a lot more. No more walking around with full pockets -- leave that stuff at home. The houses here are really basic, with walls that function to divide spaces but dont reach the ceiling, which means you really dont have as much privacy as you´d like.
I am really missing Sao Paulo already. I´ve talked to a few Brazilians about Sao Paulo and they think I am absolutely loca for loving it so much, much less for wanting to exchanging my plush life in Los Angeles for the chaos of SP. Yea, I think I could be crazy too because it is a concrete jungle. The way I see it, SP is like NY in some ways, and Rio is sort of like the L.A. of Brazil. You have die-hards loyal to either one, so there is a small rivalry between the two cities and regions. But Rio doesnt´t have an area of town where I could get abundant Japanese or Arabic food. SP´s rent in the nice part of town -- and I know for a fact, because I went to the real estate office and got a printout of places to rent -- is no more than $600 for a three-bedroom house. So now what, about Barcelona? Oh, my problems. It´s great to have such a problem as this...
I am off to get some made-to-order banana bread from a bakery here in this tiny town. I ordered it yesterday from the restaurant, and how can you beat $2 for a loaf? Now that´s crazy.

Sao Paulo: City of God.

I dont know if you guys have been getting these news over there (click on link above), but there is some seriously heavy shit happening here in Sao Paulo and Sao Paulo state. A very large gang called PCC started waging a very horrendous attack against the police here last week and everyone is scared. It is now focused on civilians as well. Today someone threw two grenades into the metro and four buses were held up this morning. The city completely shut down at 2 p.m. 90 cops have died in Sao Paulo state since only Friday. Panic has already set and the feeling is really becoming as infectious as my staph-laden mosquito bite was last month...
I have been hanging out with another American and two Brits and as having been witnesses of crimes on the national level in our own countries, we are weary but maybe not as alarmed for our safety as we probably should. We dont believe in panic and to see the reaction to all of this and in turn respond with skepticism and cynicism is definitely naive, I admit. We are foreigners in a foreign war so we really are trying to understand what is going on. These attacks and uprisings started from the jails in Sao Paulo state, the thugs inside aided by those outside who owe them favors. Cell phones were used from the inside. Everyone is freaking out and glued to the news, and the roads are a mess because people are trying to go home.
I am leaving tonight to head north, and I think it should be much safer there since this gang war is primarily based in SP. I am not leaving because of this violence -- unusual in the city as the locals have told me... many of them said they have never been this close to violence before because SP is very safe usually -- but I will be glad to continue to be a tourist.
On another note, Skol Beats was really thrilling. I stayed in the drum and bass tent till the very end -- at 8 in the morning. When I finally wandered outside, all I could see was a sea of bodies coming down, people sleeping all over the place. But all the Brazilians looked as fresh as then did when they came in. These kids know how to party...

Rain go away!

One forgets while traveling in Brazil that it actually rains here. And gets cold. I took off for the weekend to Ilha Grande, a quite popular and renown destination among Brazilians about a few hours south of Rio de Janeiro. Images of lying on the sand in between tropical forests and clear water beckoned. So what did I get when I woke up on the bus? Rain. Torrential downpour. Raining in paradise. I got off the bus, bleary eyed and annoyed, and quickly made friends with two Brazilian guys who were sharing the same sentiments about the weather. Turns out they are journalists and were visiting Ilha Grande for a few days to put together a monthly tourist supplement for their town paper. I tagged along with them and they were able to negotiate a private boat for us and a Brazilian couple. The rain sucked, but the smoke was good -- one of them was keeping a stash in his camera, which we also relied on for the next few days when things got a little boring and when the beer ran out. At 10:30 am it was probably the only thing that could relax me. And speaking of the pot here, it isnt as good as in the states, by any means. But everyone here smokes it.
To make a long story short, so I spent the weekend in paradise, except it was rained on my paradise. The sun came out for a few hours on the second day and I made a mad dash to the most famous of the beaches on the island (and supposedly one of the best beaches in all of Brazil), Praia Lopes Mendes. Yes, gorgeous. White powdery sand, clear water and the water temp was beautiful even for the weather.

I am now in Paraty (see photos), a neocolonial town on the coast two hours south of Ilha Grande. I knew it would have the same weather, but at least there is an old part of town I could walk around in even if it rains. The main sights all revolve around water though. I made it out to Trindade, a small village with two divine beaches, this morning and baked in the intermittent sun. It was actually a tranquil experience to watch the battle between the clouds and the sun. One minute the rays of the sun would pierce the hearts of the clouds, who were marching steadily across the sky, unabated by the heat coming from the simmering planet, and they´d die. But then would come a new front, full of pale soldiers with brave faces. In the end, by sheer number, the clouds won.

I found a copy of Granta here in a tourist bookstore, which I only so gladly exchanged with an autobiographical account by a Jew during the Holocaust. It wasnt happy reading and I needed something more inspirational.

Close encounters.

OK, why is it that as soon as I sit down at the computer and log into my Blogspot account, I forget everything that I was going to post about? It´s kind of like when I walk into Target -- a feeling of being overwhelmed covers me and I get lost and forget my official, original purpose for being there. So it happens again.
I will start with my last night in Sao Joao del Rei. Lilianne made me try her one-of-a-kind ravioli stuffed with pork sausage and provolone, which was very tasty. The sauce would have made any Italian proud. Diogo -- her friend and employee who I´ve been hanging out with as well for the past few nights in SJ del Rei, has been trying to learn the kitchen so that when she opens her bigger restaurant by July she will have help -- made me the molten lava cake. It was a little overcooked but I devoured it anyway. He also mixed the best caipirinha I´ve ever had. Who´d he learn it from? Lilly. And the additional secret ingredient? Mint! Note to self: Add mint. I can hear all the purists chiding me right now...
We were at the restaurant for a few hours, talking and gossiping like old friends. There~s really nothing like being in the kitchen of a chef and trying everything in his or her fridge. They had heard I was at the cybercafe earlier in the day and asked why was I there. I responded with a question instead: How the hell does word get around so fast in that town? I asked them how they knew I had stopped by the cafe; they said the mom of Camilo, the owner, ran into them during the day sometime and said something about it. But I had never met Camilo´s mother before that day so god knows how she knew I was friends with Lilly and Diogo. Kind of a scary thought, right, that everyone always knows your whereabouts and what you´re doing? This will come up later; I´ll explain in a sec.
I told Lilly and Diogo about a strange message that was handed to me at my hotel when I returned from sightseeing all day. It was written in Spanish and said something like ´´Please call this number about the book.´´ I was puzzled. Yea, I had been looking for a Portuguese-English dictionary in all the shops, but this was really weird. For 10 minutes I was baffled. Then it hit me. The girl I had been talking to the other night, the lesbian, she had wanted to give me a book written by a Chinese-American girl about her American identity but Asian heritage. OK, no big deal. But I had to meet Lilly at the restaurant and I was late, so I didnt call the number. Lilly and Diogo tsk-tsk´d when I shared the tale and said this girl was in love with me. Diogo, who is gay, said her dropping by the hotel was too much and both of them were similarly spooked by the whole thing.
Fast forward to 10:30 pm, when Diogo, Lilly and I went to teh cybercafe for drinks and for me to pick up some more MP3s Camilo had prepared for me. Guess who shows up? The girl, whose name is Paola. Diogo and Lilly started whispering and I told them to shut up and not be rude. They didnt like her because I had been ´´monopolized´´ or ´´manipulated´´ (i couldnt understand what word they were using) into talking her the entire night the other day. Paola and I said hello and she said she had dropped off another note at my hotel that she couldnt get the book back from her friend and then heard I was at the cybercafe. Christ, so who the hell else knew I was at the cafe this time? Geez louise. Anyway, the night went on and through the haze and drinking we did she tried to engross me in deep conversation but really, since it was my last night in the town, I wanted to talk to Diogo and Lilly. I hope I wasnt too rude. But in the end, I felt like an asshole anyway because I dont know if this girl was being sincere about wanting to speak English with an American or if she wanted more. I would have felt the same way if it were a guy, so sexual preference has nothing to do with it obviously. So yea, I feel like a dick for thinking this, but if even Diogo and Lilly thought it was too much as well, then my gut must be somewhat correct.
I retired to my hotel and said a long goodbye to Lilly and Diogo. We promised to meet again but when traveling it is just so hard to know if this will ever happen. Hanging out with them was great but again, made me miss my friends at home. Diogo and I already have half-joked about a more permanent solution in the case I want to ever become legal in Brazil, if I decide to move here, if you catch my drift, and Lilly could also hire me to work in her restaurant -- I am not beyond cleaning toilets -- for a legal permit.
The next morning I took the bus to Ouro Preto, but on the way managed to attract every single weirdo -- mental, really -- between SJ del Rei and Ouro Preto. On the bus a crazy old lady sat next to me and kept talking to herself or me, I couldnt figure it out, in Portuguese even though she knew I dont speak a word of the language. She took out some flowers and I almost died from an allergy attack, which I dont really get often. Thank god when the bus ride was over.
Ouro Preto is a gorgeous town. It was originally a gold mining town mostly inhabited by slaves a long time ago, and there are at least 7 churches here done in a baroque/rococco style. All the roads are cobblestone and steep, so I have been getting a workout. Also had to pay a few times to get into some churches, so there I go again, breaking my rule of giving money to a religious entity. After this I was planning to go north to Diamantina, which has buildings similar in architecture to what I have been seeing the past week in all the cities I´ve visited, but I think I´ve had my share of neo-colonial for a while. So I´m heading to Ilha Grande instead tomorrow evening on an overnight bus. Ilha Grande is supposed to be like Ilha do Mel -- all tropical and beach and remote and quiet during the week. I am looking forward to a few days laying under the sun. I just hope the mosquitoes aren´t going to be bad again... need to go pick up some stronger repellent anyway because my 30% Deet is doing jack!
So you wont hear from me for awhile, probably until I get back into Sao Paulo next week sometime (havent decided when, but Skolbeats is next Saturday).

AA.

I have to stop drinking. So after I logged off the Internet after my last posting, I found a tiny and intimate restaurant and started chatting with the chef. Turns out that meeting set my next few days here. Only 26 years old, Lilliane has owned her restaurant for a year now and her food was the best I´ve had in awhile -- curried chicken breast on a bed of lettuce and sliced mango, with a divine chocolate molten lava cake to follow. Those who know me dont deny that I think about food more than sex, so you can imagine what a happy and satisfied chica I was after all the beans and rice I´ve been eating. She insisted that we go out after she closed the restaurant at 1, and I appreciated the offer. At midnight I met her, drank some wine with Lilliane and a few friends and after a stop at her house and meeting her family, she took me to a cybercafe turned bar newly opened by another friend. Talk about a prom moment. I was the princess of the ball. Everyone wanted to talk to me because I was American and they wanted to practice their English. I was bum-rushed by a sweet but slightly overbearing lesbian who wouldnt leave me alone -- she couldnt keep her eyes off me, and I´m not bragging, it really was like that -- but I have never met anyone who loves Americans so much. We all stayed up till 5 in the morning drinking and talking and smoking. I´m coming back there tonight to pick up a CD of must-have Brazilian hip-hop the owner is making for me. I shouldnt have mixed cachaca with beer and wine though, that´s the only regret of the night.
I had to get up 4 hours later to catch a scenic train ride 14 km to neo-colonial Tiradentes, a small town marked by its architecture and cultural heritage. I almost didnt make it because I couldnt fall out of bed, I was so exhausted from god knows how many nights of drinking. On the ride back though, we rolled through an insane thunderstorm, definitely the highlight of the trip. And in the evening, it was back with Lilliane and her friends. We went to a friend´s house to hang out a bit and smoke before heading to dinner and do a bit of work -- I had offered to translate her menu into English. But god, I could hardly keep my eyes open so I hope I did a satisfactory job. She dropped me back at the hotel around 10:30 and I landed into dreamland.

So today I´ve been walking around Sao Jaio del Rei, which is similarly colonial with a historical center of town that´s the only thing to see. There are at least 5 baroque-style churches here, and I broke one of my rules -- never pay an entrance fee to a church. I am so anti-religious and I hate that my money is going to an organization that believes and promotes such a ridiculous concept as God. But anyway, I excused it because I wanted to see the inside of the main church. Gorgeous, I wasnt disappointed. I am looking forward to dinner tonight because Lilliane has promised to make her famous risotto for me even though she´s keeping the restaurant closed this evening. I cant wait for the chocolate cake!


Speaking of food, there is no acai in town, so I´m dying and havent been eating breakfast. I´ll post a photo of acai with granola and banana for you guys to check out.