Journal
Brazil (April)
Day one Brazil. I’m running down a long deserted beach in Florianapolis, the south. The early morning sun casts a strong glare on the breaking waves. My eyes are squinting. Sweat beads begin to form on my warm skin. A chopper appears in the distance, small and silhouetted. As it grows nearer it hugs the waters edge and I can hear the blades rotating like a distant lawnmower. My pace quickens. As it nears, the “Ride of the Valkyries” starts rolling in my head. I’m striding on the hard sand. For a moment the sun is lost behind the huge metal insect. The rotating blades drown out the pumping surf. And then, with a sudden dive, she swoops down before me and passes to my side, with pilot and co-pilot saluting the early morning runner. As the sun reflects their headsets through brown tinted glass, my internal stereo system switches to “Cafe del Mar”, the bit where the synths drop and the bass climbs back in. The adrenalin starts flowing. Endorphins start flying. I start sprinting. Until finally I collapse, like Rocky on the steps of Philadelphia. And as I’’m lying there, alone on the sand, heart racing, I’m thinking….
how fekin’ old my legs are!! What the bejaysus…did I swap bodies with an old lady? I used to be fast but that effort wouldn’t have qualified for a Monty Python sketch. So I get thinking about being 31 and old, when a crab crawls up to my nose and stares at me. And I’m wondering if he’s thinking “sheite, look at that old bald dude with knackered legs” or is he just thinking crab thoughts like “I’m sick of running sideways” or “shrimp sucks”…
So day two in Brazil has been a stiff one. Tired legs and dinky ankles. But it’s good to be here. And it was good to have left Buenos Aires. That place is messy, very messy… a city that sleeps by day and lives by night. And it lives frenetically. I spent three weeks in Buenos Aires, two without my parents. And I’m sure in those two weeks I explored its every orifice. Yeh I gave Buenos Aires everything I could. It tried to knock me down but I limped through and made it to the bus terminal, destination Florianapolis, Brazil.
Buenos Aires is something very special. But to really know Buenos Aires, one has to become a creature of the night. And that means eating at 10pm, hitting the clubs at about 3am (they’re empty at 2am) and staying out until at least 9am and sleeping until about 2pm, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday night. To not go clubbing is to only partly know Buenos Aires. At least that’s how I sold it to myself so as to embrace, with a clear conscience, two weeks of pure nocturnal hedonism. My favourite club in BA and of any city I’ve ever been has to be Club Sesenta y Nueve (Club 69). A fusion of hardhouse, on stage breakdancing and quirky theatre acts pushed all the boundaries. Guys dressed as fairies dancing, girls whipping each other and a bloke dressed in top hat and tails with a pet Octopus on his arm. I didn’t know whether to cheer the DJ who had the place shifting serious gears, or to cheer the on stage weirdness to my left. Or to dance another jig. Surely London wants this club. Financiers welcome. Everyone loves weird.
I’m glad too to have graced the soccer pitches of Buenos Aires. The real heart of Argentinean football is Boca Juniors, the working class team of Buenos Aires and the club where Maradona played his game. Boca stadium is smaller and the most passion filled stadium I ever visited. I spent as much time in awe of the fans, dancing wildly in the Blue and Yellow of Boca, as I did at the pace of play on field. In front of me was Maradonas box (a lifetime gift from the club), and the fat man himself. He was unmissable as he waved to the crowd. His popularity here is indescribable. For a country with a stormy history, many say Maradona has been the only source of happiness in 50 years. He is worshipped by all.
I watched as an obese Maradona left his box, returned, left and then finally his whole party disappeared with about twenty minutes to go. I asked the fan beside me was it normal. It wasn’t. Then I see the news later that day that he had taken seriously ill. We were left wondering had we attended his last ever game. But happily he seems to be recovering. A few days later I spent a couple of hours outside his clinic watching the circus. While many were praying to a shrine of the great man, a group of supporters were reliving all the great moments through a book of newspaper clippings. To read the letters of goodwill on the walls was very moving. One young girl had written, “Diego, when I was old enough to understand, my parents told me of this great man who had brought a very special thing to Argentina. And then I watched the TV recordings. Please stay alive because I now live my life so that one day I might meet you”.
I’m proud to have come all the way from Lima, Peru to Florianapolis, Brazil without leaving the ground. There’s been some long bus journeys. But there’s something very magic about waking up with the sun setting over a new land, new vegetation and different coloured skin. To see the local people proudly sweeping the street outside their homes and to watch the land change colour with the rising sun.
I now vow to get fitter and fight age head-on, bald head on that is. My first excercise was to eat a giant Brazilian buffet lunch until I couldn’t budge from my seat. I reckon you need a good fill before you embark on any challenge!
Your traveling friend…
Jameshino