SOUTH AMERICA 1966 - 6 COUNTRIES 1966 1 of 4
December 23, 1965 - January 16, 1966
THIS ENTRY IS STRICTLY A PLACE-HOLDER; IT DEMONSTRATES MY ABYSMAL WRITING! IT NEEDS EXTENSIVE EDITING. BUT HERE IT IS!!! JUST IGNORE THE CRYPTIC NOTES.
Table of Contents for South American trip by DATE
December 23, 1965. . . . . . 1
December 24, 1965. . . . . . 2
December 25, 1965. . . . . . 7
December 26, 1965. . . . . . 13
December 27, 1965. . . . . . 14
December 28, 1965. . . . . . 15
December 29, 1965. . . . . . 20
December 30, 1965. . . . . . 24
December 31, 1965. . . . . . 34
January 1, 1966 . . . . . . 34
January 2, 1966 . . . . . . 37
January 3, 1966 . . . . . . 40
January 4, 1966 . . . . . . 41
January 5, 1966 . . . . . . 42
January 6, 1966 . . . . . . 45
January 7, 1966 . . . . . . 53
January 8, 1966 . . . . . . 53
January 9, 1966 . . . . . . 53
January 10, 1966 . . . . . . 53
January 11, 1966 . . . . . . 53
January 12, 1966 . . . . . . 53
January 13, 1966 . . . . . . 53
January 14, 1966 . . . . . . 53
January 15, 1966 . . . . . . 53
January 16, 1966 . . . . . . 53
SOUTH AMERICA
Thursday, December 23: The beginning of the trip to South America begins as inauspiciously as the trip around the United States. Into cab at 5:15 (after getting to street at 5:05 and being refused twice) at 72nd Street, and get to the Queensborough Bridge, after passing a fire at 64th and a stalled Volkswagen at 60th, at 5:45 PM. Desperation begins to set in. Bridge traffic is slow until we pass a wreck that blocks two lanes, and things speed up until we hit the first red light on Queens Boulevard. The meter hasn't been put on, and on being asked why, he says that the rate is a flat $5.50, and I agree with gratitude. He talks about flying to Nassau and tells about the time he spent in Japan in the Army---I play stupid and say that Japan, except for Tokyo, probably hasn't changed much. Traffic on the Van Wyck is stop and go, but we finally get to airport at 6:30 on the dot. Cathy is sitting rather dejectedly in the waiting rom, saying she'd gotten there in 30 minutes from 5 to 5:30, but that all the others had gotten seats before, and all that were left were two on the wing (on the left, per Wayne of Ardel), so that was that. I start on end of one line and chatted with Cathy, then decided that pushy women were getting ahead, and left for another line. The three dwindled to one while another woman (1) sidled up and got her family's luggage on. Then another fellow (presumably drunk) got on left of line and his ticket was checked before mine. Then the woman came back and exchanged pleasantries, probably about not charging two tourist class passengers with a limit of 44 pounds allowance apiece anything for 121 pounds of luggage. He, like Sheldon, fussed with everything for five minutes "arranging" after doing thirty seconds of good work. Then he finally got me (at 7 PM) and said he was sorry he didn't have seven hands. I didn't bother to suggest he would use the two hands he HAD with greater efficiency. Finally got checked in with seat assignment at 7:10. Talked to Cathy and complained of terrific heat. I'd packed my trench coat and scarf and gloves and beret, and now I removed my tweed jacket. Others were standing about the room, looking perfectly content chattering away in furs and overcoats and scarves and mufflers. I mentioned that these were all Cariocas; that this was COLD compared to the heat in Rio. Cathy said she's thinking the same thing. I drew my notebook out and Cathy pulled out her "pad" of noteslips stapled together and we laughed about that. She asked for Fodor's down in the ticket line, and gave me HER lousy book. So SHE has Fodor's through the next day. At 7:25 we joke about plane being announced and loaded and off in five minutes. Then a voice, proclaiming that the mike was being repaired, announced the departure of Flight 855 through gate 3. What looked like 200 people streamed off toward the gate. I guess actually it must be about 200 people, what with six across for at least thirty rows and four across for at least 10 rows, add about ten crew, and we fly with 230. I'm awfully nervous as flight loads and I banter nothings with Cathy, and she doesn't help by telling the ONE thing that brings air crashes to mind "A photo of an ordinary man in a business suit and a tie still strapped in his seat floating, dead, in the water. Why he could have been an ordinary IBM guy on a trip." The plane roared down the strip. Lift-off produces hideous grating that I explain is the wheels being folded up. Long Island drops behind us and we sail out over the water. The conversation goes on and on, and the Chinese fellow next to us, a very far-traveled man, joins in. He bets dinner won't be served until 11. A cocktail wagon with drinks for 25 comes around, and both have a drink; I don't. Meals are served as the plane gets bumpy, and Cathy reminds us of her last bumpy flight from Ireland when the peas wouldn't stay on the fork. A small piece of chicken is hardly satisfactory, but the cold lunch meal, salmon and cheese on pieces of bread are helpful in rounding out the meal. Chinese fellow orders two bottles of wine, which he says will make us sleepy, and it does, so when the waitress picks up the trays and tells us to close the blinds, we feel like sleeping. I have an odd pain in my eyes. We figure coffee will keep us awake, so we have none. They pass out little knit red slippers, but when I take my shoes off, the cold breeze below the seats makes me put them back on. They also pass out "What's My Line" face masks, a good idea. I lean back and prepare to sleep, but quickly ask for blanket to put around feet to ward off the chill. Put in ear plugs, put on face mask, adjust pillow, and lay awake. At 11:30 he finishes a cigarette and the lights go off except for the crazy Boeing 707 stars, which Cathy says don't look as bad as I'd described them.
Friday, December 24: At 12 I look at my watch and still hope for sleep, because I'm reasonably drowsy. Contemplate taking a Paradorm but tell myself I'm becoming calm---a downright lie. People fuss and read and talk, but there are no snores. Look at watch at 12:30 and it's getting even colder. If I can look at my watch only every half hour, the time til 6 AM and landing can pass in a reasonable way. Adjust pillow and try to relax head, but hands have nowhere to go. Look at watch at 1 and fear the evening WILL be terribly long. Always that haunting fear that suddenly, with a wrench to the stomach, the plane will DROP, as people scream, and continue to drop into the sea. Or a bomb, planted to blow up that gray-haired priest Senator, sends us all hurtling, bleeding, suffocated, out into the tenuous atmosphere---or is cruising at 33,000 feet in the stratosphere? Then at 2, the low point, the plane gives a drop and I hear Cathy coughing and smell a sour smell, and she's using her white paper bag. She gets out and I raise the shade to see stars and stars, and red lights reflecting off the wing. She comes back and time passes slowly. The word wretched sticks in my mind at stays---wretched, wretched, wretched. Watch say 2:30. I get a cramp in my leg. Cathy asks for her coat and I take mine. Putting coat on allows me to double blanket to protect feet more. Frigid feet, blowing breeze, cold neck, can't sleep, wretched. Rio seems TERRIBLY far away, and I get to the point that if the plane dropped into the ocean I wouldn't even CARE; it would happen and it would happen to ME, and it didn't matter: I was too WRETCHED to even let the thought bother me. Again the plane bumps along, again Cathy coughs, again the sour smell. Wine and cocktails. Then at 3:00 I push two hours ahead to five, and realize the sun MIGHT be showing. The old woman in front puts her blind up, and about 30 of the horizon has turned from gray to orange-blue-pink. The beginning of sunrise in the Southern Hemisphere. Earlier I'd impressed the fact on myself that somewhere, far below, the equator was passing under the plane. The rattles of the plane again impressed with the fact that the wings FLAP their way through the sky, and they must be made rather well. But now there's something to LOOK at, and despite the sandy feeling of the eyeballs proclaiming that I haven't slept, I feel reasonably awake. The sky remained the same for awhile, and then Cathy moved and I asked her to change places and she did, so I had the window for the rest of the trip. The sky got lighter, but still no information from the foggy ground. We SHOULD be over Brazil by now. Then glints of reflection appeared on the ground, but as these widened and got clearer, it appeared to be a series of rifts in clouds. A gray mass stretched below the plane; all was covered with foggy clouds. Lighter and lighter, and the redly pink changed to gold which brightened until it seemed the sky could hold no more brightness without the actual orb of the sun. The Japanese in front started fiddling with his camera. It became obvious WHERE the sun would rise, gold rims above and below a cleft, and then, at 3:40, breathtakingly, a dot which grew in a second to a slice, and with gasping swiftness expanded to a semi-circle. I'd heard of "instant sunrises in the desert," but I'd hardly believed it. As the molten globe grew, it quickly became invisible beneath its glow, and in minutes even sunglasses were powerless to enable me to look at the sun. Then the glare dimmed as it reached the highest broad level of clouds, and the light became an incredibly pearly gray tone, casting the earth in silver. Flocculent clouds below began to appear in a uniform desert. NOTHING of the ground appeared. The sun burnished the clouds, and then began rising in earnest, finally leaving the clouds behind and blazing in the unprotective air. Almost perceptively the flat clouds lightened as the sun rose. Then, in the far distance, silver ribbons of river appeared, then vanished as the angle changed. This was SO much better than trying to sleep. At 4 AM the sun was well up, and trays for breakfast had been put down, but Cathy was having none of it. Chinese still feigned sleep. The clouds broke slightly, and as breakfast was served at 4:30 there were jumbled inchoate masses of featureless mountains below. No direction apparent, no lines of roads, no blocks of houses, no clumps of different types of trees, though at that altitude it was difficult to tell if what looked like a child's sandbox of green sand piled up in random, reasonably uniformly high, piles of featureless sand, might really contain actually differentiating features which were obliterated by height. A few rivers appeared, but they, too, appeared random and erratic, north-south, east-west, sharp turns, slow turns, islands into swamps into side-streams. Again completely chaotic. Breakfast was comprised of a roll of hard-scrambled egg, pieces of ham and salami and chicken loaf, coffee and toast and rolls with butter, and watered orange juice (watered with WHAT water?). But then again the clouds closed in and a great expanse of featureless cloud modulated to high-standing masses in the distance. Chinese tried to joke, but Cathy only sarcastically smiled and said, "Oh, I feel just FINE." At 5 AM, the descent started over featureless clouds and I contemplated the plane having to be diverted to Brasilia or Sao Paulo. But, as usual, as it flew lower and got nearer the coast, the plane sank through an opening to hit a lower level of clouds. Naturally the plane started vibrating as it lowered, and the Chinese and I and Cathy talked to ward off the fear of falling. The plane side-slipped sickeningly, the engines were gunned, and that little pulse in the metal wing kept beating and beating. Still clouds and I feared there would be nothing to see. Then, as plane got still lower, and the wheels ripped down with that horrid grating, the plane fell through the last layer of clouds onto a small white-housed village on the shore of some water. I thought of Petropolis because it was north and looked so clean and pleasant. The atmosphere was gray, and in front I could see craggy hills rising to the cloud cover, but no sign of Sugar Loaf or Corcovado. Plane fell steadily over water now, islands off to the left in the sea, until a land edge, flat and grassy, appeared under the wing and then the white on black of a runway end. The landing was good and the engines reverse-roared us to a stop. I said to Cathy "Welcome to Rio," and she said "Thanks" rather dryly. She was still using the bag with her sick little coughs. Everyone dashed for the exits and Cathy and I gathered up the shoes and the face cover, the ear plugs and the map of Brazil (I finally located one with a map on TWO sides) and coats, and we were about the last off the plane. The Chinese, who spent the landing talking with an old man and his daughter from Vassar behind us, was such a con man that he GAVE his name to the rich old man and NOT to us. Of course, we weren't the greatest company with Cathy's nausea and my tendency toward monosyllabalism when I'm traveling. (2) Cathy took an AGE to gather herself up and we could only follow the last people walking toward the airport. The temperature was stated to be 71, but the plane was completely enveloped in moisture so that the windows were all gopped with fog. We stepped out to COMPLETE dampness. The sky was black and the ground vaguely moist. The heat wasn't so bad, but the impression of moisture was inescapable. We had landed in Rio at 5:50, just 9 hours and 50 minutes after takeoff at 8 PM. With the two time zones and DST in Rio, the time was really 9 AM as we stepped into the airport. It was so small a two-story building it looked like a large western train station. Hardly what one would think of as the entrance to one of the world's capitols. The first impression (3) of the people was of a dark-skinned bright-eyed good humor and laziness. We walked into the arched arcade and followed some people, but the guard waved us the other way. We had the choice "In Transit" or "To the City," and though Cathy wanted to take the first, I said, "No, here." Then I noticed how TERRIBLY pale she was. We got at the end of a line created by solid Brazilians until we saw the other line moving faster, so we joined IT. Waited, sweating, as people filed past the "Inspector" and the "Stamper" of the Passports, Cards of Entry, and Vaccination Certificates. Just before Cathy got hers looked at, a travel agent bustled over with five passports to push through, and I resisted an impulse to tell Cathy---"THAT'S how we should travel, as opposed to how YOU like to travel." We got stamped and wandered into a large room. Baggage racks with baggage, a far room that said "Customs" and "Cash," and a side door that said "Baggage" and "Exit." We didn't know from nothing. The baggage rack appeared to be for stewards and stewardesses, so I said "Cathy, let's go to "baggage"; we went, but it was only a half-door, and NOT the proper place. Back to big room. See luggage being unloaded and found MY bag, completely sopping wet, the baggage ticket crumbling, the lock dripping drops of water. Amazing. Took it and Cathy took hers. What next? Look around and put it on racks. Nothing. Move to another rack. Nothing. Cathy sits down, VERY pale; people rush around. Finally a guy starts asking for baggage list and AGAIN the Cariocans go first. Bitchy American couple complains, tries to strike up conversation, but I'm monosyllabically quenching. Finally to ours and Cathy staggers up. All OK and guy grabs them and puts them on cart---our three and couple's ten and off he runs. My mind shouts and I grab Cathy to "follow them." I remember something about a desk, but it's hard to say where the official line ends and the CROOKS begin. Baggage goes through baggage door and we go through Exit, probably the oldest glass revolving door in existence. Really old. We're following, dazed, sheep to slaughter, and fellow comes forward and says "Meester Zolnezuck?" "Yes?" "I'm Tony." WONDERFUL. I chase after Cathy, but she's in a daze. "Cathy?" No answer. I mutter to Tony than she's been sick. We talk and he says "Where's baggage?" Wild look around, no Cathy, no baggage. Look for other couple and they've piled into a cab. Tony takes bags off (blare of trumpets). I say "Cathy, this is Tony," and she's obviously enormously relieved, and we're in good hands. HE takes us to desk for 9000 cr. ticket for cab, and HE takes us to bank, where the worst happens and before tough with one corroded eye and an old gray-whiskered wino she takes out ALL her money to peel off 5 20's for cash. But everyone eyes us. I have $40 and 2 $25 travelers checks, and travelers checks go for 2100 cr. for 8400 cr., and the $140 for 2200 cr. (now we know why we should take cash) is 308,000 cr., a total of 392,000 cr. STAGGERING. Pocket an enormous amount of bills and sheepishly follow Tony to cab, Cathy trailing her LOADED pocketbook. I felt $$$$$$$$ all over. Tony suggested coffee and Cathy said she ABSOLUTELY couldn't, HAD to get to the hotel. Tony talked and got cab and off we went to the City. Out onto turning highway through suburbs, past a part of the Universaidad do Brasil, past other suburbs, into the warehouse and dock area of the city. For the first time the PRESENCE of TREES everywhere was great, and also a church on a hill invited comments. We all talked away (4) and I kept discarding sweaters and jackets and opening shirts, etc., in the damp warmness. Down the Avenue Brasil past the ornate Cemetery de Caju, with marble grotesqueries peeping over the walls, past the docks of the Av. Rodriques Alvea, looking to side for mountain, but fog cuts visibility. Buildings going up all over, with some NICE apartments. Turn onto the Avenida Rio Branco and look at all trucks and tall buildings, and pedestrians threading the needles of traffic and busses; Tony shouts across to someone he knows, and the spirit of Christmas is present in trees and signs and bustle and 80 heat. Pass Avenida Presidente Vargas and hit the beach at Gloria for the Museum of Modern Art (awfully STARK), the monument to the dead of WW II, the Gloria Hotel where Bobby Kennedy stayed, and down the lovely beach of Flamengo, with Sugar Loaf crowned with clouds before us. Pass around to Botafogo and ANOTHER beach, and through tunnel to the Avenida de Copacabana. All sidewalks are mosaic, ALL stores are bright, and we swing down R. Republica do Peru for the first FANTASTIC sight of the impressive sweep of hotels along Copacabana Beach. A light haze is in the air, and the beach is almost empty, but the huge green combers curling in convince me that "this is the place." All flags flying at the Copacabana Palace Hotel as Tony advises 1000 cr. tip, for which he is thanked, and into sepulchrally silent and cool lobby of the hotel. Tony takes over and we sign slip and get keys with jumble about singles and doubles. Cathy is 330; I am 331, but we're at OPPOSITE sides of building. Cathy off to sleep, and Tony and I to my place where I put on green pants and short sleeved shirt to take embarrassingly large quantity of money (including 50 $1's) to bank safe. THEN out to street and wander Rua Copacabana. Nice shops and lovely little specialty places and a LOT of junk shops all mixed in. We have a Coke to quench my thirst, and catch a bus to Ipanema. Get off and look at empty beach, except for debris. (5) Tony laments that all the beaches are dirty, but I just gape in amazement at the vast expanse of sand RIGHT IN the CITY. Wander the park of the Gardens of Allah and catch another bus through Leblon and Gavea past the Jockey Club and Botanical Gardens and back to Botafogo and to Laranjeiras. By this time it's 1 and I'm hungry, so we stop at Charrusca Gaucha, and have GREAT lunch from 1:30 to 3.
B: The place looks like a Viennese bierstube, and the long tables with flowers are set up for a large party, and Tony says many school groups come here. There are stacks of skewered meat around a broiling charcoal pit. There are many people eating, and MANY students parade in and out through the meal (6) I'm entranced with the idea of a filet mignon for 2200 cr., and order it with fried potatoes. It comes with Chopp, a very alcoholic beer that has none of the bitterness of American beer, and goes down very smoothly, to quench a fierce thirst. The alcohol colors the rest of the meal. (7) The meat is tough and cut in an odd way, as if an arm were cut off below the wrist and halfway up to the elbow, then cut in half. And then split lengthwise to give purchase to the knife. Though tough, and the membrane which would correspond to the skin of the wrist is particularly tough, but it's well done and only a bit pink. He says that only a few days have passed since the cow was alive, and Cathy pointed out that as meat AGES it gets more tender, which is true, but one can go too far and eat rotten meat, and fresh mat can't be that bad, though it's not particularly flavorful or juicy. A second beer follows the first and I feel floatingly high. The meal fills and I can't finish. He also recommended farofa and ovos, cooked lumps of egg in something like shredded nuts, which are VERY dry in the mouth, and DEMAND a taste of beer. I'm FULL at the end, and then he suggests dessert. Fruits de Caju, he explains, is the red fruit above the cashew nut, and they cook them (they're too delicate to export or can) and serve them with cream. I can't resist. The dark gray fruit is cold but surprisingly meaty, like hard figs, and a taste rather like figs, but more of a malt-like taste is gaseous in the back of the throat. I'm POSITIVELY filled and he asks if I've had mamao. I haven't and he describes it as a small cylinder split in half, so I listen and then he's talking to the (8) waiter and in a flash a plate with an ENORMOUS wedge of cantaloupe-colored fruit covered with speckled-black round seeds comes out. Oh, NO! I'm stuffed, but eat anyway, scraping the seeds off and taking a knife to wedge the pieces into my mouth. There's a fibrous pithy taste, then a flash of dull sweetness, then a sort of tang that's the opposite of sweet, but not bitter. Then Tony suggested that I try sugar, and I was amazed at the sandy small-grained quality of the sugar, and the SPEED with which it dissolved. The taste changed from second to second, but it's so soft that it vanishes in the throat. It's NOT predominantly sweet, and has a touch of the orange-peanut cottony orange taste that I vaguely don't like, so I'm not entranced by the fruit. Sugar seems to deaden one or two of the five or six tastes, like sugar does to tea, so I prefer it without sugar. At THAT point I'm ABSOLUTELY stuffed, and pay about 7000 cr. for a GREAT meal. We have to walk to digest, and see a seashell fountain in a little square and see the circular, bare church of St Judas Tadeo, the patron saint of good luck if you pray to him the first Sunday of the year. Then he shows me the start of the tramway to Corcovado, which snakes up the hill, and is only 800 cr. We walk around a bit BEFORE this and the Larenjiera section is vaguely nice, but Tony says there are dozens of people in one room. Maybe, but some of the houses are newly painted and the grounds are nicely trimmed, and some of them look like palaces on their little walled plots. Grab a bus back to the center of town, Tony asking if I'm tired, and we go to the bus station and meet his GIRL friend, who at first doesn't like me along, but I vaguely grow on her. We shop for bathing suits and I stand outside and watch the passing parade. At one point I stare at an approaching tall pretty Negro girl. She looks, does a startled double take, then turns back and smiles. Amazing how easy it could be. Shop and shop, and we all laugh and he buys coffee for three, for only 105 cr., and then she's off on a bus and he takes me back to the hotel. I get back into room about 5, and unpack a bit and write a bit, then decide I can't do much else but go for a walk. Walk all the way south over the beach, and get stopped by a barricade at the end. Takes twenty minutes. Walk back by way of Copacabana, and finally get back to hotel room, VERY tired, (9) about 10. Order a bottle of mineral water (the second, had one at 6 PM), drank it all but a bit for brushing teeth in the AM, and got to bed at 10:15. Lay, surprised, not able to sleep, and Cathy phones at 10:30 to say she was in bed, had slept and eaten toast, and was going to bed again. We arranged to call each other, not before 8, and then I went to sleep.
Saturday, December 25: Woke at 5, again at 6:45, then at 8, and again at 8:30. Lay around (10) and Cathy called at 9:30 to meet in the hall at 10. From the map we decided to go to church first, and got there at 10:45 in time for the sermon of the 10:30 Mass. Church is jammed, most people very casual and 60% of the women with bare heads. They sing "Silent Night" at Communion. MERRY CHRISTMAS. Cathy looks better, though still pale, and Mass is over at 11:25 and we dash off for breakfast. The pergola is open and breezy and we sit looking at the pool on one side and the ocean on the other. Have an omelette "con presunto" and it's pretty good, but the orange juice is watered. Go to room to change to bathing suits and go down to swimming level and walk to beach. Tony has arranged to meet us between 2 and 4 at the hotel. Cathy goes into the water and I walk off south to see the world. Watch a dozen fellows building five peaks of sand and soak a board, but wander away disappointed when they only put the board on the humps and form a seat that lowers to five inches when ten fellows sit on it. (11) There's a lot of batting a soggy-sounding ball back and forth with large ping-pong paddles and playing "keep-away" with a soccer ball. Tumbling and hand-standing and (12) looking avidly at the girls in bikinis. At the edge there's a cleft in the rock, and I climb out to see a fellow (13) diving off into the perilous waves. One fellow shoots by, body-surfing a wave, and it looks awfully odd to see a human torpedo shaking his head to clear his eyes, arms folded back on his (14) chest, barreling along on a wave. Great feat. Two fellows share a pair of swim fins, and many have surf boards which they're rather inept at handling. But the water is beautifully green and the combers are IMMENSE, and the green curl and foam are infinitely fascinating. Start back at 1:45 and get to Hotel at 2:15 to find Cathy gone. To room and put on shorts, and meet Cathy and write a bit and wait for Tony. At 3:30 he calls and says he'll be there at 6:30. She and I decide to get bus to Botanical Gardens, but none SAY Gardens and my enthusiasm hits a LOW ebb: Cathy talking (trying to talk) to a Portuguese, but no information is exchanged. Look at few more busses and decide to walk in ENORMOUS heat. Backs of hands burn, walks are hot and residential and walking is hard as we cross the pass to find the lagoon before us. Pizarro again! Stagger to foot of hill, DYING of thirst, and sit in shade looking at Corcovado and the favelas and the hills. Walk along lagoon and pass the phenomenal Panorama Palace, and decide there's NO place along the lagoon. Getting toward 5, and Cathy says "Down here." Still, everywhere's favelas covered hill and people wandering the streets in bathing suits. (15) K page 12: (Get a bit closer look at the favelas on the hill (I never DO see them; Cathy and Terry supposedly enter one for a macumba session the night of the day I leave Rio), and end up in a place reasonably close to what Cathy wanted: a sidewalk café. This is on an open corner and we get orange drinks from cool water and open and wipe lips, but I suppose THAT would do no good. But I drink TWO bottles before Cathy drinks one, and we're back to Ipanema. Walk along to rocks to watch surfing. (18) Fabulous sport. Cathy doesn't appear, so I go back to hunt for her and she's protecting herself from the sun as I should be doing, and we try to find a cab, spot an IBM Cafeteria Santa Claus in a window, and worry about meeting Tony at 6:30. Finally catch a bus and get back at 6:40 and he's talking to Syd Feinberg (or someone) and says he's been waiting since 5. Fine. So where to go? We agree on Niteroi. Catch bus to ferry and get on HUGE one full of seats which pushes off JUST as it begins to lightning and rain. Get wet for awhile. But when boat gets underway the back is protected and we watch multiple flash-flash-flashes of light up Rio. Get off in rain and wait til it slows before dashing for a bus. Tony makes the point that all Cariocans like to talk, and he certainly asks advice left and right, and GETS it, too. Wander along beach, looking across to light on Sugar Loaf and Christ lit on Corcovado. Would be GREAT by day. He asks someone where to eat and they suggest Texas Restaurant. OK, Cathy is introduced to Guarana and I to chuchu (cucumber?) and I have veal scallopine and Cathy a steak and Tony had a big feast for Christmas dinner so he drank beer as I did, and from two yesterday I go to THREE today. Urp. We end up with fresh fruit compote of mamao, bananas, oranges, and apple, which is good in Brazilian wine, then, AGAIN after we're full, comes the pineapple, fresh and crispy light, soaking in wine, a PERFECT combination in their city-water ice cubes. But it's so LIGHTLY delicious I can't resist eating more and MORE, and finally it's all gone. Cold and pineapple crunching with freshness and melting in the mouth with the dry-turned-sweet wine. A FABULOUS dessert, surpassing even my first caju and mamao. Groan out of restaurant and again walk to get rid of energy. Along beach to see clam shells and BRIGHT lights to stop the _______ on the beach, and the rocks in the bay. It's stopped raining, but the streets are slick and as we slip along we laugh at our unequilibrium. Finally get to an enormous fence and Tony finds it's the home of the governor of Rio de Janeiro State, where Niteroi is (as opposed to Guanabara State, where RIO is), and he gets told where to catch a bus, which we do, back to ferry station. Tony wants cigarettes, so we search and find a little shop where Tony gives us BOTH glasses of LIQUID caju, and Cathy doesn't like it, but I finish mine. He talks to a fellow who used to be Chief of Police (19). By this time it's 1 AM and we're groaning about having to be ready for Jose at 9 at the hotel. I ask Tony to stay at my place (20) but he says his family would worry, and it's not much more than 45 minutes each way, anyway. He leaves us in "care" of a fellow who falls asleep and wakes to look for us AFTER we LEFT the bus at our stop.
December 26: So Cathy and I get to bed at 2 and ask to get up at 8:15 and 8:45. We do, and get down to lobby and at 9:15 Jose drives up. We go out to Two Brothers and stop to look over the ocean (after re-seeing Ipanema and the rocks again), then up to Barra de Tijuca for JAMMED beach of waveless waters and we're impressed not by the roar of the surf but by the yells of the kids. This, they say, is where Rio comes when it's tired of non-swimming in the warm waves of Copacabana. Drive along to see rows and rows of cars on quiet beaches and dozens of "clubs" for swimming, with every conceivable style of architecture. With those and the homes of Sao Paulo, Brazilian architects have it MADE. Stop at the Cascatina, the Tauney Falls, on Alta da Boa Vista, and we're only slightly removed from the heat that's been knocking us out all afternoon. Butterflies amaze us, and the lower stream is pleasant though clogged with junk. We walk down hill to square while Jose gets the car and we finish the jarco (which we bought earlier). Stopped at a roadside stand and watched them grind cane for sugar juice, naturally sweet, and Jose quaffed a whole GLASS of it. They ordered their specialty: Hack the bottom off a cocoanut (a green one, larger than the brown, which is INSIDE the green, which is all inedible fibre) off, to give it stability, back the top off, and cut a small hole, in which you insert a straw to drink the clear (surprise!) not terribly cocoanutty (surprise!) Cool and refreshing (yes, yes) liquid. Then, finished, the guy takes his LOUSY knife and hacks off two spoons, also making the sides flat for stability, then hacks the now empty nut in half so we can use its own spoons to eat its own meat. How's THAT? (21) Also nibble at corn on the cob that's MUCH too hard to be good, then end up with mineral water. Later we find the jarca, that thing that looks like a slimy fat aye-aye on the roadside and the veriest crud inside. Add to that the welcome fact that it isn't squishy, and that it's not particularly sweet, and you have an interesting fruit, though not one you'd DIE without. We stopped by the park with the old palace and lounge by the lake watching picaninnies swim in three feet of water. We finally drive back to the center of town to see the Main Streets again. Jose shows us where he lives and invites us over at 8, and drops Tony off, who has a date. Then he drive us back to our hotel (over our protests) and we're frankly exhausted from being so all-fired pleasantly surprised and agreeable from 9 AM to 5 PM. Meet at 6 and decide to try the Jardim Churrascia on Avenida do Peru, and it has the same sort of food, and Cathy causes a GREAT commotion by staring with "Do you speak English?" We finally order, I pork, she steak, and the meal is good though not exceptional. The cream of chicken soup looked like a standard "cream of" base to which ANYTHING was added. Flies, DAMN flies kept bothering us all through meal, as did squabbling kids. Sobremesas were interesting when I said I DIDN'T want ice cream and then ended up with sorvette, which turned out to BE ice cream. Finished in time to catch a bus and be fashionably late at Jose Marino's. He has SIX rooms plus terrace, living room, bedroom, study, kitchen, bathroom and maid's room. I talked my lousy French with his wife, who had TAUGHT it, and we all chatted and watched TV (the Horn Show with the Rio Milton Berle) and we listened to Andy Williams records and ate bread pudding in which the raisins hadn't had their seeds removed. We talked of their baby, the weather, travel, and IBM. He showed us to the bus, and Cathy wanted a snack, so we try one place to get thrown out because we're not eating a meal. So we stop under the Via Veneto-like awninged chairs off the Excelsior Hotel and get served beer that ISN'T Chopp, and isn't very good, either, and we get high and tired enough to go to bed, after agreeing that we can't POSSIBLY stay and wait for Terri.
December 27: NOR can we meet her, so all we can do is GO somewhere, which we DO, now that we know that most busses are CIRCLE busses, and take a Leblon bus that stops and then a Jockey that stops right where we want; the Botanical Gardens.
A page 5
Follows a greenish gray page labeled "Rio Crud?" Then a page of Portuguese vocabulary, then jottings from the Botanical Gardens.
Cypress Maricopa, from California, beautifully leaved, but regular, growing in peace and seclusion as opposed to gnarled-twisted-grotesques fighting salt spray and wind and scrabbling roots in rocky clefts. Ceiba, a beautifully asymetric tree with triangular buttresses of roots and scattered fronds circling the branches like cloud wisps. Very Africa, but it's from Brazil. ENORMOUS clumps of bamboo. Eucalyptus from Australia without the down-gaitered look, but gray-mottled, diseased-flesh look. Sandy soil; falling-leaf flutters of butterflies, intermittent rasps of calling insects and incessant chirr of locusts. Literal long-drawn MELODIES of birds and the wet heat. Tunnels of bamboo shut out the light and prevent growth beneath. Green ropes of vines look like snakes crawling up trunks and lines of leaves look like fantastic feathered serpents sunning themselves the length of small trees. Caterpillars hang disgustingly close to mouth level from bamboo roof. Carapa guaninna is an enormously fronded tree that has more saprophytic life than life of its own. Its branches are literally rows of flower pots on which cactus and other succulent leaves grow. Ravenala Madagascariensis are huge clumps of palm fans. Rock pots support dozens of types of Familia Araceae (Anthurium). Cathy and I separate by six feet and two BRILLIANT rust and black and white butterflies collide and separate and flutter off. Beet-sized hard nuts startle by falling a few feet off. Jarco (?) lies splattered in the path and we steer clear. Cathy laughs: "At least you have a HAT on." Bamboo groves form a breathy cathedral of yellow-green, brilliant, translucent light. With closeup camera the royal palm trunks are MAPS of pink splotches, rust globules, gray masses, cracks, green plants, little fungoid splotches, marvelous in color. Dried brown calyx cones are gathered by a family. We look at one and hand it over for a "Mult' obbrigada." Fans of striking clarity are drawn with precisionist exactness, green and black. Red thick-bodied dragonflies hover in shafts of sun. There's a fresh, undifferentiable sweetness in the air. Crows, birds, mouse-like squeaks hit the ears. Iridescent butterfly leaves palpitate on the air; water-striders fight above fingerings fighting the current in a tiny stream: but they fight to stay in the same place. Their bodies are transparent, their opacity exhausted by their struggles. Green-mirror flies hover and land on the banks. Fish nibble on pills (?) that are oozy seeds. Little five petaled flowers are orange and pink and red to white on the stream bank. Stream ends in two waterfalls. Roots grasp rocks to reach food. Roots of two trees covering 200-400 square feet, creating walls 6-8 inches high in the grass. NOTHING like a hairy bamboo! Small section of Amazonia with 4 foot Victoria Regia leaves, but overall the park is TOO civilized. Corcovado looms dully through breaks of trees LOADED with other plants---seemingly dozens of types. Two locked greenhouses, one full of pitcher plants, the other with HUNDREDS of pots of every violet in the world. Leaves SO red and violet and yellow they hurt the eyes in the STRAIGHT-above sun. Small, newly planted tea roses look hot and frustrated under the sun. The white-yellow sand walks reflect the heat into the face. HOT. Few squirrels chew nuts in palms. Birds, large and small, black and brown and yellow, shatter about.
This, waiting for the trolley to the top of Sugar Loaf from 2:35 PM: (As the sky got darker and darker the wind increased. The heavy wires supporting the cable car gave off a violoncello "chumn." and it bowed away from true, swinging toward me and going "chumnm" as the wind blew them together. It was not hot now, but cool, and in the distance of Guanabara Bay the horizon disappeared under a gray curtain of rain. Clouds curled across the sun, and long rays of light pointed down at Copacabana and Botafogo, forming a radiant backdrop for the Christ of Corcovado, which itself cast a shadow of darkness into the valley of Flamengo. The clouds turned from silver to gold as the lowering sun veered toward sunset. The orange car, at a perfect angle of approach, seemed not to move but to GROW in size, and with a last "Chun" it anchored in the side of the building, and the last face was the wide-eyed, wide-mouthed face of a little girl with tight pigtails and blue dress, aghast at the bays and beaches spread below. Tourists gushed from the car and bubbled around the side, clicking cameras and cursing in various languages over their cameras and openings. The birds slid faster down the slopes of air, and ascended so fast that wobbly adjustments of pitch seemed necessary to keep them from mounting forever. There seemed to be a race between the sun meeting the horizon and the clouds covering the sunset as, like yesterday, the black clouds came blowing out of the north. Still the brown dots played in the green surf dotted with white spray, past the white boats on the dark gray sea, and the peaks of the two brothers, one now in silhouette, the rigid butte-like mesa, nameless mountains, Corcovado, the peak with radio towers, the peak like the towers of the Beresford, the high, distant peaks almost hidden in the haze, all stand against the corona of the sun. Darkness settles in toward Niteroi, as lightning flashes over the hills. Hawks find a circular elevator of ascending air and escalate into the heights, then veer off and coast down in their own patterns. Lightning repeatedly pokes at the same place in the hills. As the sun begins to break below the clouds, various rooftops and windows reflect the rays like lighted lamps. Legs of light march across the land, and again, with a rumbly rattle the orange box drops, stomach and swallow fast, out of the building and spins toward the next peak. The shadows become more distinct around the mountains as the sun gets closer to earth. A black parallelogram of shadow extends down the side of the mesa. The statue of Christ is now black against the sky; and as the light of the sun increases on the parapet, the wind from the same direction increases as if the solar pressure pushed bodily against my shirt. Black birds swirled in smoky air, and boats below glinted with reflected sun. It looked as if the city, smoking, were about to burst into flames as the sun touched the mountains behind it. The side of Corcovado is distinct in its rifts and cracks, and the radio towers impale clouds on their tips. Somehow the obscuring clouds seem to stand between earth and sun always, but pockets allow shafts of light to blaze out across the firmament. The low hum of thunder peals more and more frequently as the storm passes. Planes taking off come amazingly close to the rocks, one off to the side and below, one directly below. The mesa takes on the exaggerated height of a donjon tower. Clouds grow darker and are touched with brown. Wind-ripples spread in circular area in the bat off Urca. As the wind increases further, the page flaps nervously as it's turned, and no more planes take off. Odd single points reflect light as the city darkens, and the white wakes of boats are even more in contrast to the dull sea. Shadows lengthen along the wooded slopes and all lines of rock and tree and building and crag seem to follow the magical pointing fingers of the sun. Gary billows, touched with copped, move in as if to obscure the sun, but the sun reaches an open space and casts gleams of pearl and purest gold. The wind stops for a moment and leaves a strange quiet, then continues in the grasses below with a dry rustle. Small white clouds away from the sun gleam on, unaffected by the waning light. Birds can be seen for incredible distances up the corridors of light to the sun. The whole ocean horizon takes on a red cover as if fooled into anticipating a sunrise. Some few auto lights appear in the serpentine streets, more obvious than the dark steel hulks that follow them. The major part of the sea seems unaffected by the wind that rips the Pao D'Acucar. An instant camera, with infinite focus, with 180 angle range, projected past a wind machine---only that could capture the scene, and then one is sure that the bright light would totally eclipse the detail of the darker city. As the sun blazes with new vigor, free of the clouds, RAIN begins and dots with spots of cold the cold hands of the wind. A half-eye of sun lowers out of a sleepy lid of cloud and lights the arm of the man who rode up on the roof of the car. Stars of sun blotch my now-wet glasses as people begin to line the railing for the sinking of the sun and the lighting of the lights of Rio. Car headlights are now off in the greater light of the sun. The aircraft carrier has turned almost completely around. Lightning still glimmers on the hills of Niteroi, and for one last BLINDING time the sun, full orb, shines out with WARMTH. Sunset begins in earnest at 7:15 as the sun sinks into clouds, permitting direct regard again, and turned the lower clouds mamao-melon-orange. The sea behind the invisible brothers took the same tint from the sky. The sky ABOVE was still blue, but the clouds were streaked with apricot and blue. Islands seemed more distant as they grew darker in the sea still lit by the sun. The intermediate shadows vanished, and the whole city was dark against the sun, now one diameter above it and dimming fast. A rainbow fragment raised into a swatch of white cloud and vanished. A wall of blue cloud filled the sky at the rear, and the brightest colors were the whites of the dim beach-front buildings of Niteroi. The wind ceased being cutting and a plane took off ahead of us. Apricot dispersed to almost orange, and blue became gray. One billboard lit up along a highway. Most clouds are now either charcoal or white, depending on their level. The orb now almost vanished into the lowest branches of cloud. All clouds are dark, and the sun vanishes behind the cloud. As the sun goes out with the skylight, the city looks more distant: at 7:40 many lights are on, but the only light in back is the string along Niteroi. All turns to gray except for a red patch on the horizon. Maybe the sun will show there. Darkness falls swiftly, and it's strange: Corcovado is not lit YET. Red glints, like pomegranate seeds, appear on the horizon. Lights in the station below come on. The lights come on very slowly, but finally it becomes clear that the light has been on the statue for quite a while, but it doesn't show white against the still gray sky. The strings along Copacabana beach come on, and the strings along the roads in the hills show habitation where I thought none was possible. Still the lighting blasted over the horizon of mountains, and even over the hills behind the city. Finally the dark only became clammy with an absolute DEW of dampness. We rush into the building and the hand is sticky with the wet, and the breeze makes the shirt stick to your back. All sit on the concrete seats and tremble as the wind cuts through the building. One wonders if the wind might even reach the pitch that the cable car must stop, but they continue the trolley because of the need to empty the top. There is a solitary light on the top of the car, which inches its way up the slope. Finally the silhouette of the building becomes clear under the pall of light, and we get into the car for the long way down. In the city the dampness will be unalloyed by the breeze and again it will be warm.)
E: (On the night of the 28th, the first time I wear a suit, I fell TERRIBLY stupid. In the first place after one DAY one shirt is in tatters. It's absolutely limp and damp and not fit to wear again, but it's under a suit jacket getting warmed and wetter waiting for Cathy and Terry to come down at 8:20 for the show at the Theatro Republica. My shirts surely won't last, and my underwear is in SAD shape.)
F: (Petropolis is a rather shoddy city, despite the brightness of the highly polished floors in the Museo Imperial and the magnificent simplicity of the Imperial Crown, fashioned of gold, rimmed at the bottom with pearls, with diamonds as the only other decoration. The REST of the town is open air semi-squalor, narrow sidewalks past open air shops that seemed to sell all cheap plastics and the shoddiest of materials. A few shops stand out, but all in all they are depressing. Hotel Quitandinha is rococo on a GRAND scale, but heavy chandeliers of wood, no matter how huge, painted white, smacks of hugely proportioned fun house. Two boy scouts say they'll lead us to the Museum, but we fail to see them get off the bus and have a LONG walk back.)
G: (First look at Sao Paulo is DEFINITELY off-beat. First of all I rend the ears of the angels and saints with my beseechings to God to let the plane---shudder---Cruziero do Sul---fly only a few minutes longer, to let it get through the storm---in which the pilot seemed to AIM at the darkest part of the clouds---and that it wouldn't kill all those people obviously below in the red dirt-streeted, red tile-roofed city below. I check in at hotel (was supposed to come TOMORROW with two OTHERS) and go to the eighth floor lounge to pick up street map of the city.)
I took off from the hotel in the general direction of the art museum, hoping it might be open late. The city's being built in two street levels is confusing for a second until one gets the hang of the overpasses and continuities. Pass Avenida 9 April the first time and get to the National Theater and the park arrows from it, which is infested with CATS. They sleep in yellow and black balls along the circumferences of flower beds, washing themselves in contorted positions smack in the middle of the sidewalks, and one statue "Forca" has one rake-eared white kitten perched in a corner of the stepped pedestal, another lying on the floor of the statue, and one terribly incongruously perched on the FACE of someone who's being downtrodden by Force. A dad-blamed HUMMINGBIRD just flew past in the airport! Anyway, there's the typical urine smell of parks and some really cruddy-haired, shaggy-clothed characters are hanging around. (16) Walk back up and double back to 9 April, proclaimed by the Galleria of 9 April, and won't it be wonderful when New York catches onto the idea of a GALLERY. When the first building between 5th and 57th and 56th, for example, one of those cruddy little junk jade shops, comes down and is replaced by a gallery, I would LIKE to have a piece of the investment. With three or even four levels, stretching around steps and stairwells and pools and fountains, open in part to the sun (amazing in NYC), affording quick passage in mid-clock, a building 200 x 50, having 2 50 foot frontages on which to charge rent and have show windows, could have, AT LEAST, 800 feet, for two floors, or 1600 feet over 4 floors, for 16 times as much storefront space. GREAT. And it looks festive decorated for Christmas, too, with handy projecting balconies for looping holiday trinkets. Well-lighted, affording protection in a rain, GREAT for browsers and last minute shoppers, I suppose they have common washroom facilities, so even 40 tenants needn't have 40 sets of plumbing. Merely boxes for display purposes. Continue down the street looking for the facade, though not actually poking into each entryway, there was no sign of the art museum! This seemed to be so for ALL Sao Paulo. Walk down toward the Praca da Republica and it's a large well-laid out park with little bandstands, ponds with little bridges over them, popcorn sellers that offer TERRIBLY small bags of fresh popped corn, their blowtorch standing, blowing, nearby. At this point it begins to rain slightly. Walk down to Av. Dom Joao II, and up toward the white State Bank which looks as if it has a lighthouse-like observatory on top. The rain comes harder and the traffic gets worse. If I thought RIO was bad compared to NYC, SP is a phenomenon. It's not rare to see a speeding vehicle miss a RUNNING pedestrian by as little as a foot. People literally PAT their way through traffic, feeling distances and fending fenders by outstretched hands. Where in Rio this was done in SPARSE traffic with more room to spare with a rather jolly look on the face, here it's done very seriously and solemnly, in NYC Times Square traffic density, with CROWDS of pedestrians.
So I make my way through 5 or 6 of these traffic jams (one at each corner, helped by a whistle-waving traffic cop who seems to aim to kill pedestrians). Climb the hill past beggars and meeting friends and burgeoning umbrella edges. Walk in the street a bit, as in NYC, because the sidewalks are so crowded and narrow. Get to the bank and it's great metal gates are closing, and the separate elevator colonnades show no floor above 26, though there are certainly over 30. Walk around all sides and there appear to be no signs of an observatory, so I get out my trusty map and try to locate the Cathedral, the only thing that seems to have a chance of being open (Butantan closes at 4 PM) that I'd care to see that I haven't seen. Get reversed in directions and as the rain starts in earnest I dodge in and out from under awnings and get into something that turns out to be the Basilica of San Bento (Saint Toilet of Japan?), and it's hardly Cathedral status. Get out to find it raining harder, and its close to 6 so all businesses are closing and traffic is getting worse. I guess I just assume the rain will stop in an HOUR at MOST. Raining even harder as I dodge umbrellas and puddles and runoffs from awnings and walk on curb and in street and at one second skid two inches on one heel and become again convinced how simple it would be, in an instant, to be put out of commission for a week: fall and break something, get poked seriously with an umbrella, get hit by something falling or by a car. All sorts of goodies. The rumble of thunder might have indicated a longer storm, and the drops were fat as I reached the Praca do Se. It's a bus depot and there are lines of people, and there are also two covered areas, one of a manger with live sheep and ducks and a trough of money in front, another a manger with live people waiting for busses that can't get through the fearsome traffic jam of 7 PM in the rain. Into the Cathedral and this MUST be it, huge and St. John Divine pillared with an ENORMOUSLY high undecorated cupola and oddly-lighted Bethlehem scene. Pity, but the crypt is closed, as are the aisles beside the altar. Sit hugging my wetness and hope it stops raining.)
H from p. 20 (top of SA page 10)
((On the AM of December 29, trying to decide whether I swim or go to Corcovado, I decide I have to leave TODAY to Sao Paulo (and pass maid and think of tip and wallet holds only 5000's and 200 and 100. I ask if 200 and 100 is enough and she shrugs and says OK. So that's that, but how CHEAP can I get?) and have the fine runaround with Varig, ending with NO information. Decide to take off to Iguacu and HOPE to find the information I need to get to Sete Quedas at the airport in Iguacu. Since the fellow at Varig seems so CERTAIN that I'll be able to squeeze one more into Hotel Das Cataratas, I'll take him at his word and hope to catch a hopefully-not-legendary bus to 7 falls. So Terry and Cathy and I sit in my room while I pack and decide how and where and when to meet, either in BA on the second or in Montevideo on the third. And that cuts ASUNCION off the schedule, providing the PLANES connect.))
I from p. 24
((Ah, the fatigue; oh, how TERRIBLY tired I am at this 6:30 am on December 30. Got into hotel at 2:45 am, stumbled upstairs to room, rang for a bottle of mineral water, gave the waiter the orange rinds that were smelling up the room, gulped it down avidly and then tore my clothes off to stumble into bed---but only AFTER calling to be wakened at 5:30 am. WOW. Then also I wonder WHERE the Hotel das Cataratas is. Is it in Brazil or Argentina? So I search for Chuck's letter TWICE through all the stuff, but can't find it. Somehow it doesn't worry me. Fall into bed in the rough position of a wooden board. Stiff with tension, tight with fatigue. I'd debated leaving a few gulps of mineral water, but I'd emptied the bottle into the glass and emptied the glass. Up to take a nerve pill, but it goes down hard no matter how much saliva I muster, and three hours later I'm still swallowing with a reddish, rust-tasting chunk in my throat just ABOVE the valve that leads to the stomach. Officially to bed at 3:30, but I look at my watch at 3:45. Doze only long enough to come up with that hideous sensation of flying with the roar of motors in my ears, and suddenly the motors STOP! Wake with a start and mutter anguishedly. Begin kicking myself for scheduling a vacation with so MANY flights. Twelve whole flights, essentially one every two days, with the time in RIO, now blissfully past, as the longest no-flight interlude. The next longest I guess will be across the lakes. I look at watch again at 5:15 and the thought comes slamming home---is the flight from Congonhas or Viracopas??? Staggering thought. I lie in anguished positions until 5:20, then turn lights on to get things settled. Jam stuff into luggage---I'm SURELY going to have trouble with shirts at the end---will have to get at LEAST one with fringe and the good one cleaned at Iguacu--that is after I check postponing flight and the non-existent hotel reservations and the way of getting to Sete Quedas. Though my eyes are gritty and my mouth extends with yawns that I'm too TIRED to yawn fully, I have a lot of work ahead of me. The only saving thought is an early dinner at the hotel, writing a few postcards, then to bed about 8---how WONDERFUL that would be. But a second ago the flight is announced and the stewardess looks at me and says something, then smiles as I don't understand, then says two horrid words, "Airport's Closed." Not REALLY terribly anguished. The fact that the Jaragua was NOT air-conditioned didn't bother me at all (though the NOISE did, reflecting off that odd metal louvered sun-shade that would NOT stay in the horizontal position to allow a view of the horizon) because the evening was actually COOL. The rain certainly helped things by wetting everything with a gray blanket, and it rained almost all night. The FIRST sight out the cab window was encouraging, but more than once he had to put on his windshield wipers. at this point I'm glad I called, because at least, hopefully, at 5:30 the airport WAS open. As it's now 7 and no move for the planes have been made, the flight will certainly be late and I could be---sigh---sleeping blissfully. I debated a bit and WORE my suit jacket more by default (the suitcase was closed when I remembered the shirt and jacket in the closet) than by reason, but the actually nippy air at the airport made me glad I had it---though the added pocket space didn't lead me to put in a paperback, which I may later wish I had. The CONTINUITY of grayness in the last two days makes me worry about the weather at Iguacu. Terrible to take so much time to GET there and not be able to SEE it. At least I can be glad the pneumonia that should have hit last night hasn't hit.
III from I, above
I'm HUNGRY. So, as it turns out, I go (17) to try to see what I'd order and don't see ANYTHING in the airport. Too dull to inquire whether they serve food on the flight. Stupid. At 8 am the clouds loom worse, not better. A few planes HAVE taken off, but all to the north. What started as "minutes" and stretched to "un hora" has gone further, and has shown no sign of getting shorter. A pernicious fly buzzes around my face.
J from p. 25
(((Notes on the way to Hotel das Cataratas: Platinum-blue butterflies; an object lesson in wood clearing by fire (and what it does to nearby trees); dogs dyed red by dirt; road unfinished for stream overflow; Amish-type donkey carts; boy urinating; kids running after and hollering; road, like a ribbon, climbing between arched trees; corn, and corn-like grass; smoke from falls in distance; capybara scooting off road; detour for stalled truck; incredibly orange-colored water; wall of creeping-willow; impenetrable forest the first time along road.
A butterfly was chasing me: I held out my hand and it landed and probed with its proboscis. I THOUGHT a bird flew into the falls to be dashed to death, but 10 minutes later, undashed, it flew back OUT. Spiders with 4-inch legs!!)))
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MONDAY, DECEMBER 27. (Oh, yes, we had breakfast (where I learned the names of the fruits) at the Breakfast Room that Cathy had discovered, but except (22) that the compote of PRESERVED fruit was lousy and the grease in which the bacon and eggs were fried made me NAUSEOUS to my stomach, it was perfectly forgettable. Add to this the certainty that dinner is awfully expensive for Rio, I never again ate in the hotel. Onto bus at 1 and back to the Hotel and Terri is there (though she takes five minutes to unlock the door) feeling great even though her hair looks just as bad in the humidity as Cathy's does. Since we can't wait for Sugar Loaf any more, Cathy and I decide to orient Terry that way and we wait for bus. And wait, and wait. We KNOW it says Urca, so first one gives us the number and the fact it stops two blocks away. Second one passes before we get to stop and the third seems to be an eon away. We fill Terri in and she tells us about HER trip (and we meet the two people who sat behind her that she didn't like at BOTH the Sugar Loaf tramway AND at the restaurant under Fred's) (23) Anyway we get out and sit down in line, giving me a chance to write (C on P. 7) while C&T make fun of me. T keeps saying she's not going up, but she does. Ride up is great as I have corner seat and the vision almost crushes the fear that still rides with me. Even the jolt at the end, when I picture the car, me screaming, sliding off the ramp and down the hill, doesn't prevent me from staying until last to gape over the city. The view from the FIRST hill is enough to keep one looking, but we go on up to second and eat and slide down sliding boards and climb trees and concrete ramps and clamber around the side of the loaf. Sunset is great, though damp and cold. (D P. 7) We're tired riding back down the hill, standing this time, which permits the knees to visibly quiver at the jolt of the quick first descent, and find we don't know what to do that evening. We go up to newspapers to find much is closed on Monday, and we call Rio 1800 to find they're remodeling. Tony hasn't called and we're feeling a bit, but not too, guilty. Decide to go back to the restaurant that threw us out before and stop at one BEFORE that and they face out and I face IN to watch a fellow (handsome, smart, deadly with girls, bored with this one, trying to be suave and diplomatic and tactful yet say "no" all at the same time), (24) and a girl (ugly, tired, a bit drunk, merely desperate, in love with him and wanting to touch him but not knowing how without disgusting him). (25) We eat and talk about SBC and management and Analyst's duties and Manager's duties and the summary seemed to be "SBC could exist as it IS, it's making money," so if they lose good people, so WHAT? If the good people TRY to be good, and SBC rebuffs them, QUIT; SBC deserves it. T admitted it was bitter, but any other way was useless. C wanted the encouragement to specialize without having to do the extra work necessary to specialize. She wanted the benefits of a Jack Seelye without WORKING like he does. And Dick Tilden is leaving. THEN, to stay to see the end when the fellow and girl walked out, he obviously winning because they weren't in bed, as SHE wanted to be, we started a discussion about guilt, and I said that if a person committed an act on another person that that other person SERIOUSLY WANTED, even if murder or rape or etc., it was NOT a sin. Of course, THEY didn't take to that. So AGAIN we were up till 1, and agreed to meet at 11.
Page 15
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 28. So I woke up early and took towel (and got it exchanged) and went swimming in the OCEAN----the SOUTH ATLANTIC!! (Go to N, page 16)
L from p. 34
A bush of OVER 200 flowers, with an average of ONE butterfly/flower: a flutter bush. Brown, brown and white, yellow, yellow and white, lime green, orange, black and brown, red brown black, red black white, gray, red orange, surprisingly NO blue. IMPOSSIBLE to photograph falls. Lightning bugs as big as bumble bees, with lights like small flashlights, beetles like armored cars, so when you inadvertently put your hand on one on a railing, it feels like a pebble and it walks away unharmed. Spiders with 4-inch leg span. Three foot red and black banded snake, two white stripes in each black band, meanders along path. HUGE fluttery wings brush past your ear at night. Lightning playing through fog around hotel at night. Cicadas tremendously loud. A foot-long, rat-like creature pokes out JUST as I feel I've seen no ANIMALS. It stops, nose quivering, still. I stop, still. It blinks, I blink. It wiggles ears; I try, but nothing happens. It turns head, I turn head; it flees. I jump as people laugh behind me (not AT me). They pass, rat (tailless) comes out again and crosses path. Some creature whistles a popcorn machine note, then stops. Three-inch millipedes crawl on wet ledges, small furry caterpillars walk. Huge ant masses cross path. Hawks wheel, just plain robins and sparrows abound. There are 35 falls from top level, one almost the size of Niagara, before the MAIN fall is even REACHED, and probably 90% of the water comes over the main fall. Amazing butterfly SHAPES. FANTASTIC, the "80" one is black and white and red with wings CLOSED, green and black and blue and silver with the wings OPEN. Gray mottled one flies past and I think, "GOSH, I wish I could see it closer," and in next SECOND it lands on my knee. The ragged winged one is now permanently on my shoe, and the redblackbluegreen one is sitting on this TABLET half the time. A red and black lands on finger. A three-inch lizard with a two-inch tail and a four-inch lizard with a three-inch tail come by and look at me.
M from p. 34
Water up from under car wheels looks like auto ran over HUGE animal which sprays blood up as we pass. Trees dressed in greenery look like huge women with leafy headdresses dressed in vines, or like enormous Carnival floats. In shadow dull, but now out in sun, green leaves, dull before, GLINT hard-ly under the sun. Down just possible hill to brown river on which floats a blue and red boat (whose motor won't start). Pass a FOOT long lizard on the road, and the river is crowded (2 or 3 per square inch) with tiny striders. Canoes along river---people LIVING there. Odd stone wall of fitted rocks in one place????? Lacy-lovely groves of fern forest. Two red bands about three feet up and 8 feet up indicate river was once more swollen than it is now. What an ENORMOUS quantity of water over the falls! FIERCE blue sky, FIERCE green trees, FIERCE red river, FIERCE white clouds. River and sun going in and out of clouds for chiaroscuro. Not to mention all-colored butterflies and white wake of boat and still the INFINITE variety of SHAPES of trees, of COLORS of green, of ARRANGEMENTS of leaves and twigs and trees and vines and shorelines and hanging loops of rope and berries and flowers on trees. Complete TENT of vines, with trees as poles holding up the irregular roof. Little waterfalls come to the river to drink. Green smells, all the green smells in the world. The wind holds your hair out of your eyes. Fields of corn on one hilltop the only reminder of man, except for oversized debris (very occasional) in the river. Air temperature is MERELY perfection, and so fresh you could take a BATH in it. Wood warehouses on shore---no docks, only slides---houses above. VERY rarely does one see EARTH on any bank, only sunken trees. Brazil green and yellow, Argentina blue and white, Paraguay red white and blue markers on river of three countries. Then for the obvious reasons it turns into a buying spree. Cross the International Bridge (Porte de Amizade) and get to dreary little place selling plastic paper flags and American toys and liquor; (26) real German couple buys a Paraguayan bag for 10 American dollars. Hm. Then to the Aduana of Presidente Stroesner and there, for no real good reason, to the "Gran Hotel Acaray," where the slot machines they're about to install are scattered around the entranceway. Then the reason becomes apparent as a Miami Beach type who speaks Spanish urges the German couple to go in. Will we stay for hours and drink? The hotel is just opening for business, but aside from the casino and an ideal view of the Bridge, I have NO idea why ANYONE would come to this obscure corner of Paraguay. The only thing about this town that is really a pity is that I had to leave the falls at 11:15, before the sun really burned through to light up the falls, and that the sky is getting darkly clouded and thunder rumbles quietly, implying another wet night with no lights on the Falls. Everyone has scattered to the winds and there still seems to be no idea how long we stay. The Falls are really incredible from the biological point of view. Where ELSE would the air be full of butterflies so eager for a different drink that once you coax them to taste of you, they can hardly be pushed away---they're practically intoxicated by you. At one point I had six all poised on one hand, and could move the hand without disturbing any. Some of the larger and more exotic ones seemed unapproachable, but then I had thought the black and red ones were unapproachable, and I ended up with THREE of them. Given time, who KNOWS what might happen. The tour started at 2, and at 5 we finally decided to leave the hotel. Stop and pick up tickets for the flight to Guaira, and then stop to let two girls buy some liquor, and it dawns on me that TONIGHT is New Year's Eve and there will probably be no early sleep for me that was so great LAST night--bed at 10:15 or 10:30 after fuss with ear plugs and curtains, and wake at 8:15. About 10 hours sleep suited me just fine, making the average for the last two nights ALMOST 6 hours. I'm sure that in the same way a smoker's lungs are black from smoke, a Brazilian's lungs are red from the dust of the streets.