Well, here I am in the internet cafe in the bus station of Feira de Santana again. Since I still have two hours until my bus to BH gets here, I figured I´d blog.
First of all, I almost missed the bus from BH to F de S last Friday because Carolina wrote me a note Friday morning saying she´d give me a ride to the bus station. Fine. I went to capoeira, packed my bags, and waited for her to show up. About 5:30, Claudia and Zé came home, and Bia came home shortly after. At 6:15, Claudia asked me what time my bus was leaving, and I told her 7. She called Carolina, who was at UFMG, and who, as it turns out, was convinced that my bus left at 8. She hurried home, grabbed a bag of clothes (she was going to a party in the center but didn´t have time to shower and change because of my bus) and we rushed out to sit in traffic for 20 minutes. When we got close to the bus station, she parked illegally kind of in an intersection and we ran the rest of the way to my bus. We had plenty of time, as it turns out - I arrived at the bus at 6:55 but we didn´t leave until 7:15 because someone on the bus appeared to be moving to Salvador or something - they had a ton of stuff and it took awhile to get it all in the underbelly of the bus.
Now, to skip forward to Saturday night in F de S after my blog post about it - after the internet cafe closed, the bus station started to get a little sketchy. Almost all of the normal-looking people got on busses, and the bus station emptied out except for me and a handful of people who looked really ill and like they hadn´t showered in a couple of years and like they were not waiting to travel, but rather hunkering down for the night. There´s a restaurant/snack bar thing sort of attached to the main waiting area, and there were a couple of people in there and two employees and TV, so I decided that looked like a safer and healthier place to wait for my bus. While I was in there, I got to talking to three men, two of them named José and the other one named João. One of the José´s was really old and looked vaguely Italian, the other one was probably in his early thirties, and João was maybe 50. João started the conversation, and when he found out I was American, he almost had a heart attack. He gushed on and on about what a great country the US was, and how he was so excited to meet me and that I was the first American he´d met, and I was so lucky to come from such a great country, and wasn´t it wonderful how we´d saved the day in both of the world wars... It was really awkward, because I don´t share his opinion and I was trying to tell him that the US wasn´t all it´s cracked up to be and that war isn´t everything and that Brazil is pretty great too, but he´d have none of it. The young José started talking about how he didn´t agree with the US involvement in Iraq, and I tried to agree with him, but João was really mad that we were criticizing his favorite country so we shut up. Also, he was kind of drowning us out with his pro-American banter. I ate some fried dough balls with fish inside, which were better than they sound, and then I said goodbye to my buddies and got on my bus. If you ever find yourself in the bus station in F de S at midnight, I would highly suggest staking out a spot in the restaurant, it felt a lot safer than the general waiting area.
My bus ride to Lençóis was uneventful, I think I slept most of the way there, and when I arrived at 5AM I was greeted by Arnaldo, one of the town´s many tour guides. He brought me to Pousada da Rita and promised to come back that afternoon to tell me all about the great places he could take me. Rita, the pousada owner, told me that there was one other person staying there and that he was having breakfast at 9, and how did that sound to me? I said it was fine, and went to sleep for a couple of hours. After waking up and showering, I went to eat breakfast and met my pousada-mate, whose name I don´t remember. What I do remember is that he was Italian and he had a fever and went back to sleep after he ate. When I finished eating Arnaldo came back and tried to get me to go on a three-day trek with him. I considered it, but then decided that sleeping in a cave and bathing in a river and pooping in a hole and carrying all the food I was going to eat for three days didn´t sound that great. He told me that he had a group of people going on a short hike to some waterfalls nearby later that afternoon, so I agreed to do that with him. I took a walk around town, had some açai, and then headed back to the pousada.
Arnaldo showed up at 2 but I wasn´t quite ready to go. I asked him who else was coming with us, and he said there were some Germans but they were moving in to their pousada, and that he´d come back for me in 20 minutes. He came back, and we started off through town. I asked him about the Germans again, and he said they were in town getting their things in order. I assumed that we´d be going by their pousada to pick them up, but pretty soon we left town and started walking on a little trail and I deduced that the Germans were not coming. If I´d known it would be just the two of us I don´t think I would have gone, but I didn´t know and I didn´t want to make a fuss, so off we went into the wild green yonder.
The hike was nice, we visited Rio do Serrano, Cachoeirinha, Salão de Areias, and Cachoeira da Primavera (in Portuguese, cachoeira is waterfall, in case you were wondering). There were other people out on the trails, but it was still a little odd, just the two of us.
When we got back, I showered again, to get the waterfall microbes off of me, and then walked around in search of dinner. I ended up eating at this Arabic/Italian/Greek restaurant. I had something that the English version of the menu called "Pizza with Cronchy Dow," which I didn´t understand, and the Portuguese version of the menu called it a pizza with a casquinha, which is, as far as I know, a little peel (like on fruit) or a cone (like with ice cream inside). So, I really had no idea what I was in for, but I chose it because it had Gorgonzola cheese and sun-dried tomatoes, and I miss cheese with flavor. Minas cheese is very mild, and I was ready for a little spice in my life. It turned out to be pieces of pita pocket that had been toasted a little and a plate of toppings, which included the promised Gorgonzola and sun-dried tomatoes as well as olives, tomato paste stuff, and lettuce. It was really delicious, and a bargain at only U$5.
After dinner I went to the bank, which thankfully took my card, and on my way back to Pousada da Rita, a table set up next to bank caught my eye. Hanging from the awning on the table were several brightly colored paper lanterns, shaped like stars, which were lit from within. It was so pretty I couldn´t resist going over to look at them closer, and I ended up buying one for myself. The guy who was selling them, Diego, was born in Brazil but grew up in Argentina, so his Portuguese was liberally peppered with Spanish, but that´s ok because Argentine Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese are pretty much the same thing. He was really nice and I talked to him for quite awhile.
Well, now it´s time to go get my things and get on the bus for another 23 hour ride of fun back to BH, but when I get a chance I´ll pick up where I left off.
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