Pat Hudson
in Latin America

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Part 1

February to April, 1998

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Brazil

In the middle of the night, my good ex-house-mate, Mike, dropped Andy and I at Birmingham Airport. As Mike drove off (driving my car and wearing my coat!) I thought: "Wow! Into the unknown then!"

A fair few hours later we were touching down in Rio. Rio!!! From Birmingham to Rio de Janeiro, you can hardly get more of a transformation. For the past thirty-six days, the temperature hasn't dropped below 75 degrees F (day or night!). The thought of anything colder makes me shudder. I can honestly say that since I handed my notice in at Jaguar, I have never been less than 100% sure that I was doing the right thing.

Rio de Janeiro

Music and dancing and all night romancing - well unfortunately not the latter - at the Copa, Copacabana.

In true British style, Andy and I (without the mad dogs) headed straight for Ipanema Beach. It was noon on the first day. We spent the next two days in bed with sunstroke. Even when we emerged, the local restaurant owner offered us money to sit in his fish tank, as there hadn't been any fresh lobster around recently.

The Carnival wasn't what we expected though it was still good fun. All the float processions now take place in a huge purpose-built stadium where tickets cost $140. We found a cheaper option of sitting by the entrance, just as good a view but total cost around 50p - for the metro. Similarly all the wild parties have now moved into the clubs (again tickets around $100) but all the little squares had 'parties' till around 4am so this is where we ended up.

I know that beauty is only skin deep but the women here must be extremely thick skinned! Our infantile description of women has gone from lots of 10s and 11s and 12s to simply 'wow!' The most popular programme on TV appears to be two hours of 50 overtly smiling semi-clad nymphets dancing around and playing battleships (?!). When we first switched on we thought we'd died and gone to testosterone heaven but after a couple of days even this gets repetitive.

There's a rumour that Ayrton Senna used to be a bus driver in Rio. It appears that bonus payments are made to the drivers based on how many cars they can swerve past (joker played when the lights are red). They must get bored of the official route - one day we caught our usual No. 5 bus and ended up with a guided tour through the city to a small town in the hills (where incidentally we drank gorgeous fresh mango juice).

Porto Seguro

Serious hammock action Leaving the bright lights of Rio and its fascinating mountains, we travelled for 22 hours to Porto Segoro and went to three villages - Arraial d'Ajuda (laid back), Trancoso (seriously laid back) and the no roads/cars/electricity or running water islet of Caraiva (past horizontal). I think the most hassly thing we did in these three weeks was to change money and buy bus tickets.

The people are very friendly but the services can be hopeless. We went to a bank with a Thomas Cook travellers cheques logo that didn't change Thomas Cook travellers cheques, then to a ticket office with pictures of Morro de Sao Paulo that didn't sell tickets to Morro de Sao Paulo.

In Trancoso we had another bizarre series of events and ended up staying in a Brazilian women's hostel with some girls from Chile and a mad Argentinian, discussing stars and Mayan/Inca temples (my real reason for coming to South America). I also translated a four-page story of 'The Yousala' (?) (an ancient Sanskript representation of the cosmos) from Portuguese to English. It took two days and by the time I had finished the woman who makes them had had a baby!

Having made some good friends in Trancoso I found I had made a few too many - bugs in the sand (bichos de pe) had burrowed into my feet and the only remedy was to cut them out with a needle. There were 42!

On the better side we went to two tremendous parties. The first was in an open-air club overlooking the bay; the second was in a deep lush valley with a serious sound system and UV paintings.

Lencois

A further twelve hours up the coast we entered the Diamantina National Park and the sleepy hamlet of Lencois. After nearly a month on the beach, its hills made a refreshing change. Five easy days were spent climbing hills and swimming in rock pools and subterranean caves - crystal clear to the bottom, 35 metres below.

Half of Israel appeared to be staying in the town and again good friends were made. The bichos de pe had decided to party again and I spent an hour in "surgery" with one nurse cutting them out of my left foot and another nurse cutting my right foot.

Salvador

The city of Salvador lives on music, cafes, and art. We stayed in the old colonial district of Pelourinho. Lots of excellent open-air music, a relaxed style (especially for a city of nearly two million people). Managed to get in to see Bahia (Salvador) vs. Santos (Sao Paulo) in the Cupo du Brasil quarter-final. The game was a 3-3 firecracker with drums bellowing throughout.

Foz do Iguacu

The gigantic Iguacu Falls straddle the borders of three countries - Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. They are over 3km wide and make Niagara Falls look like a dripping tap.

The descent towards the Falls on the Brazilian side was like a wildlife sanctuary - over 500 types of butterflies as well as spiders, raccoons, lizards and condors flying overhead on the thermals. We took the walkway 100 metres into the falls, needless to say the view was stupendous and we got drenched. The same volume of water flows through the Falls in an hour as through the Thames in a year!

On the second day we went to the Argentinian side for one my most memorable experiences. The weather had turned bad - tropical rainstorm, thunder and lightning, the lot - so it was with a look of surprise that two Argentinian boatmen met us at the high point of the falls.

Twice the Argentinians have built a catwalk into the eye of the falls (the second time only in 1988) known as Garganta del Diablo (Devil's Throat). Both times the water has smashed the catwalks apart, wrapping foot-wide steel 'I' beams around rocks like straws. So now, in the pouring rain, a motorized dinghy took us 800 metres out to the nearest part of the catwalk still standing.

As we climbed aboard the catwalk, the boatmen wouldn't let us take the lifejackets - they were expensive! A 400-metre walk along the rickety catwalk brought us to a sight that was simply breathtaking - directly down into the eye of the falls. Because of the sheer amount of water being thrown back up we could rarely see the bottom. Turning around we found the boatmen were coming back - we had made sure that the four pesos we had paid were for a return trip!

The town itself is a bit of a hole, growing from the future commercialisation of the area, so we decided to move out.

Paraguay

Our first border crossing wasn't what we expected because, well, the bus simply didn't stop! So we thought: "Looks like we're in Paraguay, let's see what happens." Mistake. On arrival at the capital, Asuncion, a friendly policeman met us as we got off the bus. We were the only travellers in the city at the time. An Israeli we had met before had joked that if you run out of toilet roll, just use the Paraguay pages from your guidebook as no-one ever goes there (which is what attracted us to the place).

The policeman was kind enough to let us sit down in his warm office and, since we didn't have a stamp in our passport, generously offered to relieve us of a few of those US dollars that had been weighing us down so much. (A common scam I think, I'm sure the bus driver got a cut.) He then had the audacity to advise us that the area was dangerous and we should take a taxi!

A quick tour of the city in the morning failed to inspire us and so we headed for the bus station. We went south into Argentina and 24 hours later we were in ...

Buenos Aires

I believe that bad things happen for a reason and so I hoped that the bad experiences of the past 24 hours would bring us to Buenos Aires for a reason. I was right. I can honestly say that the week we ended up staying in this great city was one of the best of my life. From this point on we became totally relaxed and happy with the whole travelling deal.

On arrival we were driven to a hotel by a genuinely helpful taxi driver who gave us a free tour of the city centre. Having not eaten for two or three days we went straight out and had the biggest (it didn't even fit on the plate), most succulent steak I've ever tasted. And all for a fiver. I would pity a vegetarian in this city.

The next day we went to a really cool bar where we got chatting (in Spanish!) to a barmaid (hello Ada!) who then invited us out. Two bars and a free entry to a club later, we were saying our goodbyes because it was 6am and we had booked a ferry to Uruguay, which was leaving in twenty minutes! After quick nap on the first set of seats we found, we arrived in Colonia, where we were met for a tour of the city. We took the last ferry back to Buenos Aires at midnight and, having sworn blind that we were having a night off, we went out to a seriously funky club until 7am.

The Rolling Stones

On the culture side, we spent afternoons reading Argentianian papers (slowly) in old style gentlemen's club/cafe/tango halls such as Cafe Tortoni where the likes of Borges and Gardel used to hang out. We even went to the ballet at the Teatro Colon - a 2,000-seat, 7 storey, 150 year old, ornate theatre.

This capacity was miniature compared to seeing Bob and Mick - the Rolling Stones, supported by Bob Dylan, in the River Plate Stadium. It was strange to see 120,000 Argentinians singing perfectly along to Brown Sugar et al. It was a fantastic concert in every respect with both of us getting (being carried!) to within 10 feet of the stage. We even got to stand on the penalty spot (posts still up).

After a week of partying, culture and great people, we reluctantly said goodbye and I resolved to return for a longer visit.

Chile

A short (18-hour) bus journey brought us to the town of Mendoza and the foothills of the Andes. A simple confusion between 'dos y media' and 'doce y media' meant a different bus was caught over the Andes. What a trip! Climbing to a height of 4,000 metres with Mt. Aconcagua jutting into the clouds, a further 3,000 snowy metres higher.

Standing outside at the border was quite literally chilly! Amazingly a train track still exists across this pass, though in places it has been thrown into the ravines. The next day the road was closed due to heavy snowfall. Snow - and I came here to escape the English winter!

Santiago

A few hours later we were arriving in the capital of Chile - Santiago. The city is surrounded by the Andes which, unfortunately, gives it a smog problem. However, a local we had met in Brazil showed us a friendly hostel and the week in Santiago steadily improved.

On arrival at the hostel we were told that after you cook, don't wash up. Yep, that's right, they do that. As the hostel resembled a huge student house we settled into a routine where Andy cooked and I didn't wash up! I like to do my share.

Again we had fun changing travellers cheques (at one point they even thought Andy's name was Thomas Cook) but in the end cash points were the most effective.

Chess, riddles and philosophy were the way of the day at the hostel (the first time I'd fully utilised my brain for years) though we saw a cracking local football match in the rickety stadium next to the hostel.

We took a day trip to the seaside towns of Vina del Mar and Valpairoso, the latter primarily because it is the site of the funkiest circuit on Sony Playstation's 'Wipeout 2097'!

Atacama Desert

A 30-hour ride brought us to the Atacama Desert, 15,000 feet above sea level. Parts of the desert are the driest places on the earth. There were mud geysers (mad geezers?!), hot springs and biting winds.

Now we're crossing the border to Bolivia. Tune in next time as we visit my principal reason for travelling - the ancient Inca and Mayan temples. Until then, its goodnight from me and goodnight from him. Hope you're all well and speak to you soon.

Ate a proxima,

Pat