SOUTH AMERICA 1966 - 6 COUNTRIES 1966 2 of 4

N from p. 15

The beach loses much of its charm because I leave my glasses behind, but the waves are nice, having grown much smaller since the day before, thus they're playable with. Find the people are looking at me---I'd far rather look at them! Many plastic rafts about and most are in the part where the waves break farthest out. Water is just about right, too cold to jump right into, but once you get used to it, you can stay in; it never gets like a bathtub. Leave fairly soon and find it's 10:30. Awkward deciding what to do with sand and wet. Shoes must go on as I cross the street, so sand gets outside and inside shoes, so I take them off at step-shower, but of course they're still SANDY. Water is clean so I'm reluctant to dump sand there, but I do. Ask for key for shower, then soap, then take a shower with soap. But towel is a bit sandy from laying on beach, and feet can't go into sandy shoes, so there's much shaking and getting rid of sand. Then the floor's lousy and I'm compelled to scrub it. But then must get back to room, and wet trunks come ON again and shirt goes on top, so of course IT gets wet. What a MESS. Wonder how you're supposed to do it? C said check things there, but they don't have much room. Oh, well. We're told to take a 472, Triagen, to get to the bus station to get to Petropolis. OK, so we walk to divider street and stand and stand and stand and wait. Finally a crowded car comes and we're on for a long time until C can sit down. We finally get near dock area and she says "Is this it?" But I hear (assuming I believe her) "This is it," so I get off, then ask C, "How did you KNOW this was it?" She looks a dagger at me and corrects my ears. I say it's close enough to walk and we try it, in heat, for a while, until the girls insist we catch ANOTHER 472. AGAIN ride and ride and I'm SURE we've missed it when I see the familiar word Satre, and wonder why it rings a bell, and C says, "HERE it is," and it IS, right behind the Satre sign. C said she could have followed the woman on the bus with the suitcase who had gotten off the PREVIOUS stop. Into station and see sign for bus: Rio-Petropolis, but see people handing in tickets, so we decide to go upstairs to BUY. C offers suggestions on round trip, but I go to window (after stopping to puzzle Unica (unique, one-way?) and Facil (facile, easy?) (THEY were companies) and say "Rio-Petropolis-Rio" and he sells us three tickets for 750 cr each. Surprisingly, the ticket has the HOUR on it. We get down to 12:30 bus and get on. THEN we see that the ticket also has SEAT number. Whatta system! To cop all coincidence, the woman on 472 puts her suitcase on rack and sits next to me. We try very hard to converse, and I get the fact OK that 15 de Novembre Avenida is both where the bus stops and where the Museum is, but I ALSO get the idea that the ticket is round trip. We start pretty much on time and I get TWO stops from her for "Keensay, Keensay" minutes, which I take to be 50, 50. Maybe it was "Who knows? Who knows?" Through city to airport, then past factories and refineries and then we start climbing up and up and up until a series of mountains with a series of roads, but all the roads are switchbacks of the same one, which goes and goes and climbs and climbs and it gets cooler and cooler, and finally we enter the city of Petropolis. (BB)

from p. 36

Water may be MANY colors, but SPRAY from a waterfall is ALWAYS WHITE. A half-inch long grasshopper made of green blown glass and clockwork legs with antennae fully FIVE times its length.

(BB) Pass the Hotel Quitandinha and then get into the city proper, for the most part on one main street with what can only be a sewage stream in a moat along the road, making short bridges necessary to every home. Some are merely nice, but others are magnificent newly-painted pink and white palaces perched on the side of the hill. Many of the places are rather old however, hinting that the glories of the town may have flourished some years ago. Bus stops and my loquacious (but uncommunicative) woman tells us to cross the street and buy tickets for return. We discuss hour and inadvertently snub two Portuguese tourists who volunteered to help us, but we took that 5:30 after they took the 4:30. Wander into the center of town to look around, but decide we're hungry and the only place to eat seems to be the hotel. So we grab a cab and ride out that long road AGAIN. Get to the hotel as the cabby says something that ends in "ici," so if Portuguese is like French, that means here, and since we're at the front of the hotel, I say "ici" whereupon he drives to the BACK of the hotel. Much laughter, but none from the driver. He asks someone something and they answer something and he grumbles something then drives back to front. There we're taken charge of by a friendly fellow who shows us down HUGE halls, dark and empty, to the huge dim and practically empty dining room. One couple and a small child dine in antiquated splendor. If the frame around the mirror was once gold, it now looked like gesso; if the decorations were made to look like anything but wood roughly carved or plaster haphazardly cast, they made a mistake. The flowered wallpaper was spotted and streaked and the woodwork badly needed painting. The china cabinet contained the cracked pottery with the faded Q that we had on the table. The heavy draperies were holed and patched, and the ENORMOUS chandeliers, meant to look imposing, were only astonishingly large. It probably looks how the Fontainebleau will look 50 years from now. The menu is quite expensive, even if you're "Social" but if you're "Nao Social," as we WEREN'T members of the club, it was 50% MORE. All in all it added up to 12,000, a mightily expensive meal for Brazil, for rather mediocre food, except that we seemed to identify chu-chu as cucumber. We went to our respective restrooms and met in the hall to look around some more. Enormous proportions were everywhere, HUGE mirrors and RANKS of chairs and SETS of sofas and expanses of carpets and DOZENS of windows. Like a rather nice little Swiss chalet gone smack out of its mind on dimension. I see signs that museum is only open till 5, so we get ready to leave after I guy set of post cards for the lavish price of 1500. CARDS always seem high. He asks if we want to call cab, and next bus comes. Fine, we'll wait for bus. Two boy scouts say

they'll guide us there. Us three old ladies say OK. Sadly, it gets later and later, and bus is almost empty when it comes, but after a few blocks is completely jammed. Boy scouts whisper something to ticket taker and move up front. We assume they're deserting us, which means we AGAIN ride to end of line. Ask directions and a woman says "That way." Again ask and it's "that way" STILL. Turn off the Ave. de Novembre (curse woman on bus) and RACE along gardens. Run up walk and a large pink and white two-story Versailles rises before us. We've had to come almost COMPLETELY around it. Get oversized shower clog-style dust mops for our feet and we skate across slick polished floor to the crown room (F, p. 9). Rather nice regal items, then out to typical museum rooms of silver pieces, glassware, paintings, furniture, china, presentation gifts and one lovely room of fans. Haven't seen such lovely wood floors since Kyoto. Race pell mell as guards close windows and lock doors, and get an impression of something imported from Europe at ENORMOUS expense which was really probably out of the question in South American tropics. In about 15 minutes in all, and walk more slowly out past screaming macaws and flowering trees and get to main gate. Dawdle back to bus stop looking into shops, and T decided she wants a headband so we wander through a Kresge type place filled with plastics and find nothing of interest except MANY names from USA. Debate going to church, but it looks like they're only building it so we pass it by. Walk around block and look at small carts selling toys, combs, hairpins, nail polish, and other assorted junk. Buy some orange drinks and finally get to bus with seats 1,2, and 3. I write (F, p. 19) and doze on the way down, except when careening around curves. Clouds that appeared to be ready to release GALLONS of water in a second which rolled down on Hotel Quitandinha as we waited for the bus never did let loose, but they covered the mountain tops and gave an eerie dimness to the countryside. (AA)

P from p. 38

Very difficult to find a comfortable place in Hotel Das Cararatas to write. Try my room, but get tired of writing on my knee. Go to front porch, but at 4 pm the sun is westering and the heat is too much. Try the Christmas tree (made from a triangularly bladed cactus-like thing sprayed silver of such hardiness that nary a spine can fall) room, but two Peace Corps girls are smoking and laughing while playing checkers and the rumble of the floor waxer from the lobby's too loud, anyway the cloth card table cover itches my hot arms, so I move into the library (HA, with books PAINTED onto cabinet shelves) and have only the sound of pool from next door and the quieter (though EVER present---if they had a Chapel, I'm SURE it would be in the Chapel) gargle of Muzak, and the screams of kids. Oh, yes, the varnish on the table sticks, but there's nice cross ventilation, which means I can hear the roar of falls and rattle of door from front and the rumble of floorwaxer and cicadas from back.

(AA) My eyes close and close and close again and finally I give up and snooze, as C did, on the bus. Out at the station and stand waiting for bus. And wait and wait. When it comes IT IS JAMMED. Sudden starts and stops keep people jumping, and every so often someone plows through and gets your knees dirty when they try to pull their legs through. To top things, a ticket checker comes through---somehow---the tightly-packed mob to punch holes in your little paper stub, which in the meantime is being ground into a yellow paste by the ebb and flow of human mass around you. And this on what MUST be the longest (and most expensive, 160 cr) bus ride in Rio. We try to move up, but that doesn't help. Since we're standing we can only see the feet of the passersby. And then the ticket-taker and ticket-checker are mad at the driver because he keeps stopping and nobody (can) gets on. Much tugging on the bell cord and sullen looks. On and on and on, more and more tired and bedraggled. This is how these gay Cariocans live?? Finally T gets a seat, then C, and finally we're at our stop, just as night is falling. Tonight NOT being Monday, we'd decided on a show, and asked the porter if the Theatro National needed reservations; No, he assured us it didn't. We had 20 minutes to get dressed and 15 minutes to cab to the theater. Great. I get down early and brought this along to write

E, p. 9

, but they're down only a MINUTE late and grab a cab. The hotel man knew the TIME well, because though the taxi TORE along, we drove up at the door at JUST 8:40. But the door was gated and dark. Out to read sign that "We wanted to give our people a holiday, so we did, see you Jan. 3." GREAT. In cab we mumble about lousy Rio, and turn to cab driver for aid. He shakes his head that MOST is strip or closed. (I READ this into what he doesn't say.) Then he thinks of "Cinelandia" and this is where he takes us, and we find that "Three shows" are all here, and we give him 2500cr. and he leaves. No one wants to see "Sound of Music" (neither as Musica Devina Musica or La Novica Rebelada) or "My Fair Lady," and there's a drama and a variety show being previewed, but all have "character" parts, so it can't be ALL song and dance. Wander farther, down and up streets, and pass, almost, a variety show "International," with magicians and cyclists and singers, etc. Suggest this can't be ALL bad, for only 3000. But we have 20 minutes before 9:15 and no one's going in yet, so we walk further. Cathy says "That's the National Academy" and people are filing in. I remember bit about opera and ballet and I say "Hey, let's go see what's ON." Run across and look for billboards, but there aren't any. Look for box offices, up and down ornate steps, but there AREN'T any. People nicely dressed filing in, looking belonging and holding tickets imprinted something like "Leyxe" or Feyhe, or Yekai, and I assume it's someone's name. Pass candy stand and STILL see no tickets. Head man comes over and says something, and we say something (what, doesn't matter, because no one understand a word) and he motions us to follow him. We do, and I expect to be led to a sort of director's box where last seats, possibly even COMPLIMENTARY seats, are kept. He open door and goes down steps. We go through, and are in the auditorium! I look back and C says my face was DEFINITELY a study. He motions to first three seats and we sit and he leaves. We move to NEXT row when two people move over. So seats weren't reserved, anyway. Boxes on two levels are full, the orchestra is filling, and a few scattered people sit in the lower of two levels of balconies. It's definitely the classic Opera House style, white and gold in rather faded splendor. Brown curtains in silence and two vases of flowers are at either side. We sit convulsed with laughter at the absurdity of having marvelous seats for we have NO idea WHAT. People solemnly read 3 or 4 large mimeographed pages. I catch phrase "Pico do Mount Everest." GREAT help; Finally I ask fellow behind to borrow it and as close as we can see, it's a graduation. Laugh even more and debate leaving, but both C and I are determined to see WHAT's behind the curtain. T wants to leave, but we stay. House lights dim, last light goes out, curtain opens---to stage packed with people with a HUGE "Ordem and Progresso" flag behind. Band strikes up and everyone stands. Band is LOUSY. Grad looks at me and winks. We stand dumb. Music is over, applause. I whisper (?) to T: "Leave NOW." No, she doesn't want to. "GO before the first speaker STARTS." No, she doesn't want to. "NOW, GO," and I push. We creep out just as applause dies. Three mortified laughers stagger into the hall. MUST be another way out: stairs to locked gate. Head man looks at us in surprise as three faces contorted and red from laughter or from trying to STOP laughter, straggle out. We bounce down steps, T affirming "I was never so embarrassed in my LIFE." I say, "WE'LL be talking about THIS for a long time." and I bet we will. It's only 9:30 so we head for the variety show. Up flights of stairs to a cruddy theater with a four piece band at side and 20-30 people in audience. Magician is on, fooling with silks. Same old stunts, but audience doesn't laugh and applaud at ALL, until a good one with chopped and dropped paper coming out whole produces some scattered applause. A cyclist in blue tights has a good way of getting out of scrapes, but is MUCH too nervous. A singer is LOUSY on one high, held note. Magician comes on as a juggler, and is pretty bad with hats and balls. Girl is even worse. NOW I can say thank goodness they had no animal acts. Terrible vaudeville fellow and girl instrumentalists and jokers followed by AWFUL fellow who comes out in red, recites a poem, changes to green, ditto, blue, ditto, black, ditto, white. Magician AGAIN makes girl float and does disappearing ring bit, elaborate with replacements and slight of hand cards and doves. Family is GOOD with whirling plates on 20-30 balancing poles, and the music for them is even better. As a climax (!) an oldish man

in silver lamé suit comes out and tries to kill himself, a blond midget, and the girl singer on roller skates on a table. He attempts a turn and falls off and, dazed, is helped back on for a successful try. Spins should REALLY hurt the poor girls who hit too hard. Grand finale with everyone spinning. Applause. Whole troupe marches out, very scattered applause. Curtain opens again on almost silence. Everyone leaves. OH, boy, grab cab back to hotel, then change in mid-stream to Fred's. Fred's is closed until New Year's Eve. We eat pizza in little restaurant below Fred's as energetic boys and girls rehearse to happy music upstairs. Oh, yes, for tomorrow night we reserved three seats on the "Rio by night" tour. With Rio 1800, Fred's Theater National (Olympic?) all closed, Rio is a LOUSY place for night life during the Christmas holidays. It starts to rain and we have long wet slippery way home to hotel. Agree to meet the next AM at 10 to go to Corcovado. Bed at 1.

Page 20

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 29. I wake about 7 and at 8:30 begin sorting through things. This is the 29th and I find ticket that says I go Sao Paulo-Ascuncion on the 30th!! Look out window and it's cool (so no beach), and cloudy, so no Corcovado. Decide to check planes in and out of Iguacu. HAD debated not going, but suddenly RIO seemed DEAD (as it tends to be when cloudy weather shuts off the beaches, the two mountaintops, and Paqueta) and I felt like getting out TODAY, as I would have to to get to Iguacu. Delightfully surprised to find Varig in back of the hotel, so they OK flight by telephone but say if I want to do anything about hotel reservations at Iguacu, I have to go to see them at 11 Rua Mexico. Withdraw 50,000cr and grab cab to 11 Rua Mexico, which THEY think is the U.S. Embassy, but I see as Varig, and go to third floor and ask for Mr. Realtur, but get sent down to baggage Department for REALTUR.

Chap who speaks good English shows me nice photos of Iguacu, but no one ELSE helps, but they send me around corner to checks flights after "You can ALWAYS find room for one more at Hotel Das Cataratas.' OK, I'm willing to trust them. (((How odd, my hand is terribly cramped from writing this much))). Around corner and find I have to go around ANOTHER corner for INTERNATIONAL flights, back to national, and back to baggage and scribble most of that junk on the last few pages.

H, p. 10

Varig ends up by saying "You can take care of all plane connections at Foz do Iguacu," but at LEAST I know I'm going to IGUACU! So I grab a cab back to hotel and C and T come to my room to talk as I pack at 11. I get amount of bill and we agree that I'll take all the money and they'll meet me either in BA on the 2nd or Montevideo on the 3rd. They'd planned to shop (UGH) on Av. Rio Branco, and we decide (C decides) in a burst of wisdom to have lunch at the Museum of Modern Art! Great idea. I pay bill and at 12:30 puzzle cab driver about MMA and tell him to just IGNORE my suitcase. He drives THROUGH outskirts and airport but leaves us off at MMA. I leave suitcase at desk and we go up ramp to LOVELY modern glass-enclosed bamboo-curtained, REAL air conditioned, FRENCH and ENGLISH waitered restaurant with GOOD china and silver and service (though STILL only two menus, but that's one more than we USUALLY get in Rio). Celery and carrots are good as appetizers and C has soup. Butter is a brick with a serpentine drawn on it. Prices are high and cover (first) is 750, but STILL everything is so nice we DON'T mind it. They goof on T's duck bigarade, but since she always eats so much faster than we do, that's fine. Desserts are yummy and at 2:10 I pay bill in what is CERTAINLY the best AMERICAN-FRENCH restaurant in Rio. And all the businessmen seemed to think so too. We were all a BIT, but not too much, out of place in no-tie and slacks. I look for cab for a bit, and T suggests I cross bridge and take cab, but I say I'll walk and I do. It's HOT going, and I must shift my bag from hand to hand every 10 steps. VERY hot sun, VERY humid, and I'm dripping and panting as I FINALLY enter airport. Ask at information for Rio-Sao Paulo, and finally SOMEONE remembers the phrase I'd forgotten: "Punta Aerea." Next plane leaves at 3, which isn't bad for 2:45, but am just a BIT disgruntled to find the 2:45 hasn't left yet, but I wait, and my heart sinks to see the plane: Cruziero do Sul. All the terrible warnings from Chuck crowd back and I'm trembling, partly from the race across with the bag, partly from fear. Inside, is DEVILISHLY hot and I sit and drip in dreaded anticipation of LOUSY flying and a crash. Finally it warms up (engines do---inside couldn't be hotter) and vents come on, but still I drip. Motor coughs, coughs, coughs, REFUSES to clear up. Plane sits, warming up. I contemplate being let off. Warms up, stops, starts, coughs. How HIDEOUS. Finally, with a rattle, it takes off, my stomach clenched with tension. Santos Dumont falls below and Botafogo and Catete fall by the side. Christ appears to be actually ascending on a cloud from a mountaintop far below him. The look at the outstretched benevolent arms is actually encouraging, as if nothing could possibly happen bad within that loving embrace. The scope of the embrace goes just so far. Sugar Loaf looms above, and it's fun to see the scruffy bit of green on top that we roamed in as compared with the immense sheer sides of rock. Miraculously the plane curves past Copacabana and the whole sweep of beach lies just outside my window. Each hotel is distinctly visible, the Copa Palace the only one with a blue gem of a swimming pool, the rest a white facade against the rather empty beaches. The rocky promontory on which I stood passes by, and I can literally recognize the shapes of the waves on certain shelves of rocks. Surfers look odd far out in the narrow emerald fringe between the white surf and the blue gray of the depths. Ipanema and Leblon slide past, and the two brothers look like one from my angle. The roads go into the hills and about this time the clouds begin to close in. Only every so often can I catch a glimpse of beach to show we're continuing down the coast. Then we fly above thunder clouds and I begin to dry off, but not for long before the plane begins to bob and weave and I start LITERALLY PRAYING to GOD for a safe trip. The general theme is "Oh, God, your land is so beautiful, don't scare me so to SEE it. It's all so lovely, but don't terrify me so much that I can't APPRECIATE it." "Don't let the plane fall, don't let the plane sway, don't let the plane roll." But the pilot continues to hit every high cloud, and I'm almost crazy with fear when the engine starts to cough. My face remains impassive, I think, though possibly slightly gray. I sat and drink whatever they give me, but only out of habit. It's truly a TERRIBLE flight and each change in altitude, each variation of noise level from the engines, each cough, and I tremble and beseech God to save me, AND the people on the plane, AND the people below. try closing my eyes to rest, and see buildings surprisingly close in the suburbs of Sao Paulo. Circle about twice in and out of the lowest clouds, so I can see unending redness of the earth, patches of green, and whiteness of houses. Over the obelisk, the circular low building and a square building, connected by a free-form concrete amoeba, that I later find to have been Ibarapuero Park. The obelisk is, as invariably, to the dead of the 1932 revolution, the circle is an air museum and the amoeba is a system of connecting corridors. Building after building flies past and I begin to get tied up in surroundings, meanwhile THANKING God that I'd gotten THIS far without mixing my red blood and white brains with the red earth and white buildings down there. CURSED be the name of Cruziero do Sul.

Finally land and I fear that if ALL flights are as harrowing as this, I'll never take off AGAIN. Wander weak-kneed into the airport and try to find my luggage. Finally give it to the Puerta Aerea people and they traipse all over to Cruziero do Sul to get it, and then take me to taxi. I tell him the Jaragua and settle down for long, traffic-laden (well, it IS 9:45 pm) trip into the city, by way of various streets noted in back, including the "Push me" statue, (sorry, the "Don't Push" statue) which is much too stable to be fun.

I begin to feel driver's giving me a runaround, but blame it on one-way streets. Finally drive up to the door and boy grabs my bag and I'm in the lobby of the Jaragua Hotel in the heart of Sao Paulo, South American, STRAIGHT from a flight from Rio de Janeiro!!

Go to G, p. 10

Q The motor made strange turning groaning sounds as if it had life of its own, but a dying life, like the laguarto we had just mortally injured, which lay waiting, suffering, for our wheel to finish as our motor was finished.

from p. 37

Much Portuguese vocabulary.

R from p. 37

Seven Falls: Room only 5 x 11, but thank goodness it appeared to be bug-free. I didn't see a single piece of soap in the place. Washed with damp washcloth---felt good, finished with a spritz of alcohol.

S from p. 37

Splashes left barefoot bear footprints on the window.

T from p. 34

Recommended by Ginny Pauley: In Buenos Aires, in La Boca, try the Spada Vecchio on Friday or Saturday nights.
Chilean wines: San Pedro, Unduragga, and San Elena (more expensive is better).

END OF BOOK ONE. START OF BOOK TWO

Since I'll have at the MOST three books, this is somewhat of a turning point: turning point NOTED.

U from IIII, p. 12

Continued from the end of

IIII,

someplace in the stupid middle of book 1: Watch a "after-work" catholic come into a side altar and beat his

breast and mumble prayers and make literally numberless signs of the cross on his forehead and lips in the best accepted old-lady version of praying. Lights go out in some of the side aisles, but that only makes it more dramatic. A bell rings and many troupe off to a side chapel where something is going on. Mass? And go to outside door to see that it's raining harder than ever, and for fifteen minutes the traffic doesn't move an INCH. Back inside for a bit, then go to front door to see chances of catching a cab or bus there. Woman bleached blond and two Indian types caring for her children run to steps and she handkerchief-mops their foreheads and breasts and combs the older one's hair. MUST be her mother. Traffic moves only very slowly, and as 7:30 comes and the tour's at 9, it dawns on me that I MUST get to the hotel and get washed and dressed or I'll miss the tour. Taxi and bus, beside being unknowns, seem dreadfully slow, so there's only one way left, to walk. I stand waiting for rain to slow, but it doesn't, then dash down steps, trying to avoid lakes on one of the landings. Threading stopped traffic is easy, and many stores have overhangs that it's possible to walk under. Make my miserable way back to as close as I can tell in the center of town, making references to the map, get caught on a safety island by STREAMS of traffic and STREAMS of rain, both without a letup for poor me. Over to the other side and I recognize the little park I came down. Dash up steps and try the wrong direction, then, completely soaked and dripping, walk sullenly, looking neither left nor right, neither smiling nor frowning, to the desk and demand my key. Up to room and strip and close drapes and put shoes upside down over bed lamps, making it into some grotesque pigeon-toed monster. Drape pants over floor lamp to dry, hang soaking shirt on chair, and jump into blissfully hot shower, to make the wet legitimate. Dress quickly and tackle the oranges of the "With my compliments" fruit basket to help stifle the pangs of hunger until the tour dinner. Make a mess of my suitcase, but get dressed and down to lobby in still-wet shoes at 8:55. Write these words and a high-school looking kid comes through and announces he's the tour. Off to the omnipresent VW station wagon, and other couple from "Bouf-allo" and myself are alone with him. Drive way back out to airport area and beyond for the Japanese section and the cat-house of Takeshi Suzuki, a pleasantly ersatz building with stone floors, no regulations about removing shoes, tables and chairs, VERY authentic looking Japanese waitresses, and pushy hostess. She says the little private rooms upstairs are all taken and Carlos, our guide, says that the wealthy Japanese will pay $40 for food and entertainment and STAY the NIGHT, and from loving caresses I see on the balcony of one of the rooms from the garden, I didn't have to guess what KIND of entertainment went on all night. Sao Paulo certainly IS the businessman's town. We get served steaming towels that we bounce around a bit before soaking our faces in them. Then there's sake (and the dishes are soaked in hot water just as the abominable Brazilian cafezinho is) and three little dried fish, heads, tails, eyes, entrails, fins, ALL, lying on their little wooden platter, for an odd sandwich of thin salami slices and thin lime slices and the salami is QUITE good. We talk stupidly about So Paulo and students and USA and tests and Japan and food and habits, then I stroll in lovely garden lit by lanterns and pools and hedges and the love-scene on the second floor. While Carlos gets cab I drop

hints about how great Izu REALLY is, and how they should not miss it IF they get to Japan. Off again for a long haul, and I'm glad I have the driver to talk to, to the Rest Bierhalle, on the Av. Lavandisior. There's a crowd outside that vanishes as the car is parked, and there are two enormous joined rooms sitting 1000 under the stern tutelage of the owner, a fat stern German reminding of Tom Hamilton of Mensa, and comparably unpleasant at first glance, with their smug pink pig faces. His sidekick looks like a retired SS man who just shaved off his mustache who walked with an American-inflicted limp, I'm sure. Four or five soccer teams are having parties, and every five or ten minutes the band would be stopped by crescendoing cheers for each team and their team-followers. Then Porky would waddle sternly down to shut them off and cut off their beer supply.

The band would play and couples would dance, hop, strut, and bounce around the floor, and I thought that was worst until the floor was cleared and an Argentina Rocca type in a blue silk jump suit open to the fourth button and in black boots,

who looked definitely sick, jumped around the floor. Carlos "knew" the waitress, which means the waitress knew we were a tour, had a schedule to meet, and didn't really have a leg to stand on if we complained we DIDN'T have, as advertised, all we could eat or drink. the pork I had was TERRIBLY undone---and I might not get dysentery from the trip, but I sure might get WORSE---and the dumpling was laughably hard in the center. The butter, as usual, was soft and saltless, and I'm getting to like it less and less. The beer was Chopps (pronounced, I was chagrined to hear, shops, not chops), but even THAT tasted bad. Dessert was a tough apple strudel with ersatz cream. We'd been hungered to a hone-edge by 10:30 when we started, but by 11 when we finished we were certainly ready to leave. Then on to the center of town and Quitandinha, a place empty save for a fringe of single colored some-on girls on the periphery, one real catch of a rich old man at ringside, and our lively group. Stupidly I forgot and ordered a vodka and tonic, and it came laden with city ice cubes and tasted LOUSY anyway, so after the first sip it was untouched. Couples danced and danced and ONE lively thing was the Bahian, a step-step-step dance to a cute lilt from Bahia. At 1 (the ticket said floor show at 12:30 and 1:30, and the tour was supposed to be over at 2), the couple left and I felt my "man" had gone for good, too. The Public Relations (he SAID so himself) man tried to cheer me up and offered me a girl,

and after a number of years Carlos came back and danced with one of the girls and they sent one over to me. She was Maria Jose, smelled good, but too MUCH good,

probably weighed 160. She could NOT talk English, did NOT want my vodka, and didn't press the point when I wouldn't order her a whisky and soda. Time DID drag on and I stayed with the boob tourist's tenacity to get his %*&!?@#% MONEY'S worth. For 25,000cr, $11+, there must be SOMETHING more than a 4000cr dinner. Carlos assured me the show would go on. At 1:30 a party of 8 drunken loud Paulistas arrived with a magnum of Haig. Twice as big for half the name. FINALLY the lights dimmed and we went through the Cadomble, the Batuque, and the Samba. I suppose it was oddly interesting enough, but the girls WERE fat.

Carlos' AFTER explanation of calling up the goddess of salt water, sweet water, hunt, beauty, etc., was interesting, but he couldn't remember all of it. When the drunk Paulistas weren't shouting cute phrases at the dancers and bothered to applaud, the "cast" livened up, but mainly the framework ONLY of the dances came across. Maybe I WOULD like to see this during Carnival! The framework looked GOOD. Back to hotel at 2:45 and I'm numb with fatigue and mumble about how late it is and hop out of seat and slam door. I don't know if he was surprised or disgusted or what. I didn't look and I didn't care. Up to room and left word for 5:30.

Page 24

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30.

I, p 10

But then, at 8, the flight takes off and I get on first and get right rear seat. Again rend heavens with prayer, but as plane breaks through first layer of cloud WITHOUT heavy bouncing, I thank God until He's blue in the face, if He has a Face. I'm very awake, so I stare out over the cloud banks between Sao Paulo and Curitiba. Amazingly, much is over the coast, with beaches coming in on a small sand spit separating the ocean from a stagnant lake. The clouds close in and I continue to stare, until 1 1/2 hours later we land at Curitiba. Kind of like two stops in India between Calcutta and Agra---KNOW the cities are large, but stop so far OUTSIDE them we may as well land in the middle of nowhere. We have a half-hour here, and I write a bit and browse around a bit,

and I wonder about the girl with the four Peace Corps fellows and she turns out to be married to one of them. Makes it look legal, anyway. Delighted at the revelation that having CONFIDENCE in the pilots (good, strong, capable, well-trained men) and the planes (good, fine, well-maintained Varig) can go a long way toward making a flight pleasant. I guess I can now understand T's reluctance to fly certain lines. Probably would have been better for the whole trip had I simply NOT taken Cruziero do Sul. For the first hop I had a steward next to me, when he wasn't serving a snack which included grape-ade which I drank without a whimper. If Varig wants to serve poison (does this make sense?) all I can do is drink it. Flight to Guanapuava is uneventful except that I have a native next to me. Still cloudy and when there aren't clouds there are odd trees, OK from the side but weird from the top in their symmetry. Step out onto red dust earth as two honest to goodness gauchos come tramping up in their boots, spurs, chaps, odd aprons, and caps. One gray beard's the most courageous and by dang he asks to be let into the plane and looks around and carries off a couple box lunches. By now it's twelve thirty and the air is warm, but not unpleasantly so. I walk around trying to ease sore muscles in back of neck and trying top get ONE GOOD DEEP breath. It's almost as if I were tremendously high, which I don't think is the case, though I'm sure lack of sleep plays a large part. Finally get all the cowboys off the plane and the luggage unloaded onto the earthy-rusty Varig truck with mud-clogged wheels. Someone tries to take my seat, but my neighbor says "Esta occupado" and I "Obrigato" him for it. On to Cascavel. By this time I'm feeling awfully sleepy and a bit sick. I keep trying to look out the window because the breaks in the clouds are more and more frequent and there's more to see. But I keep breathing deeply and breaking into a sweat. Hope I'm not going to be sick. Still combination of forest and farmland, not far from flat, broken occasionally by rivers. When the sun hits, things are VERY green. When I demand myself to think of the difference between this and USA farmland, I come up with the fact that the farms below are small and irregular, and that the roads are red dirt and there is still much native forest. Many cornfields have skeletons of trees lying in them, remaining from the recent year when the land was cleared and burned. On the ground this process of land-clearing was even more evident. I can't recall seeing ANY such activity in the US, and here it seemed to be the MAIN activity. Very few farms were remnant-less of the once-covering forest. As the plane sinks through the clouds (the ride is bumpy, but with my confidence, the FLOOR could fall out of the plane, and I'd have faith in the pilots. Maybe it was just fatigue) to Cascavel, I DEFINITELY don't feel well. Fear I might be pale. Glad the last leg is short. All the others stand around the airport (even more forsaken than the one before) chatting away and I stagger around taking deep breaths and trying not to feel dizzy. Contemplate taking a shopping bag to the seat, but as a third party sits next to me the idea goes. I CAN hold my BREATH for 45 minutes if need be. the sky is almost completely clear, since we're flying at about 1000 feet, and ALL is visible below, and RIVERS appear more and more. The minutes pass and I concentrate on inhaling and holding my stomach DOWN each time the plane goes DOWN, and exhaling as the plane goes up, thus PUSHING the stomach down. ALL a problem of mind over matter. Begin to fly over the bends of a large river and all suspect it's the Iguacu. Then everyone races to the left side and I can't see a blamed thing and am beginning to undo my seat belt when the plane banks and the bends of the river appear below my side, and then a crescent drops away, and then a larger crescent, and then a cloud of spray and THERE is Iguacu Falls. from the air, naturally, they look small, but the pink and white toy block Hotel das Cataratas looks small too, as does an observation tower at one side. Foam and falls, many breaks in the lip, but the whole are enormous crescents falling onto many levels. Gasp audibly and then it's past. Drops are bearable as I press my head against the curtain and concentrate on breathing. At LAST we land, the third dirt runway on this flight and the third dirt runway of my entire life. Breathe deeply, walk a straight line, breathe deeply. The airport is close and wood-raftered rustic, and as I stand in the middle of the floor I can feel my legs trembling, my head light and spinning. It would NOT do for me to FAINT here. The line of tan on the backs of my hands has gone, and I'm SURE I'm deathly pale. Wander back and forth to convince myself I'm on LAND and I should recover, and I find myself beginning to think of other than myself. Fellow from Hotel Cataratas is very helpful in changing plane ticket and getting me a room and getting my luggage, but he can say nothing of Sete Quedas. Go to information and an exasperating old man says there are two busses a day, one at 7 am taking 14 hours (yes, yes, he nods, it DOES get in at 2100), and one at noon taking 21 hours. Yes, there IS a plane up on Saturday and Mondays, including January 1. Are you SURE Jan. 1? Yes, DEFINITELY January 1. So, I think, I can take a PLANE up at NOON on the first and take a BUS back on the second. Then leave on the third. Fine. People start piling into 2 VW Microbuses and I get into second next to omni-present German couple and

it turns out I chose the best seat, as the bus PIVOTS around that point, and if I lean forward, my head remains stationary while EVERYONE else bounces around. GREAT trip in, with glorious first impressions

J, p. 12

Get to desk first with cross-eyes fellow who speaks good English and fill out forms and get a room that turns out to be occupied, get another room: 219. It's same size as Copa Palace (both smaller than Jaragua), again a double bed and antiquated (except for Jaragua) bathroom. Toilet doesn't even FLUSH, merely dilutes the urine, and there's an amazing sign on the wall telling all to drop their dirty (!) paper into the waste basket. You see, there's this CONTEST in BRAZIL for the biggest pile of dirty TOILET paper, and THIS hotel's BOUND to win!!

go to Y, p. 26

V from p. 40

How's that for variety--sent four cards from Iguacu 1/3/66, to Bill in Maine, Eddie in New York, Rita in Ohio, and Chuck in California.

W from p. 40

Plaque in front of Hotel das Cataratas says it was inaugurated November 1958. Whether that means it was built in 1958 or came under the STATE in 1958, the place sure looks older than 30 years, though it's hard to decide whether the floors have the slipperiness of newness or of long hard usage.

X from p. 40

After lovely midnight swim I get to room at 12:15 and to bed at 12:30.

Wake at 5:30 and again at 7:00 and bemoan my fate. Lying around to 8 makes me feel better, so I shower and pack and eat breakfast on the veranda and drink all the hot chocolate with my pills, and since my stomach's tight and my hands shiver slightly, I take a Paradorm. Today will probably be my day of most flights and though I'm delighted it's clear (except for the ever-lasting fluffy clouds) I'm still jittery nervous and so assume it's the thought of the upcoming flight to Asuncion, two or three stops between Asuncion and Montevideo, and then Montevideo to Buenos Aires. Get final bill for final day and decide I need just one dollar to come out even. Hope it doesn't give me any problems. Can see me

[goodbye to the Timbauva tree) (40 minutes each way on that crazy red brick road between town and hotel) (onto bus at 10:15 and to airport at 11, and such a marvel of emptiness at the Varig counter I've never seen. It looks as if one of the waves from the Falls swept through and left everything picked clean except the wooden benches. At this point I remember that the plane I came in on was about two hours late, and if that was the plane that connected to Asuncion, the clearness of the weather HERE doesn't matter, but the weather in Sao Paulo does. I'm beginning to think, ONE nerve pill wasn't enough!]

(X) running all over town to get $1 changed. Have enough time to get my shoes polished, too, and the little kids really don't know how to do it, but it's better than it was before, so that's an improvement)).

Y from p. 25

Spend a LONG time unpacking because I figure I'll finally have a chance to sort things out. This becomes true and I'm vaguely organized for the first time on the trip. Then, seeing that dinner isn't until 8, I walk down to the Falls. It seems that almost no one else is there, and I have the place to myself. The first impression is that they're small, and I have to keep comparing the falls to the size of the trees (the crud on this page is from the armrest of the airport) and later to the tiny people walking along the bridges on the Argentine side. I begin to think the Argentine side would be better, but then see that WE can see the falls but they can only cross above them, getting only side glimpses of the cascades. AND we have the advantage of being able to look at THEM. The greatest fall

XX from p. 40

(((400cr for a SHINE!---these kids make good MONEY. 20 cents!) (It's 11:30 and still no sign of the plane that should leave for Asuncion at 11:45! This is beginning to be frightening!)(11:35 and I must REALLY stop thinking about it)))

is perpetually obscured by spray at cloudy times, and even in the best of sun only the shifting winds can reveal more of the lip then is ordinarily visible for more than a few moments at a time. That's ONE of the reasons why it's impossible to get good photos from the ground, and from the air, even with the Hotel as a landmark for size comparison, the whole thing fades into a kind of splendid insignificance. The butterflies are absolutely amazing in the range of their size, shape and color. They're all over, and their colors blend with the amazing flowers and vines. Go a few feet down the path and stop and stare in amazement, then a few feet more and repeat this process, and so on down the path. The path is reasonably well-kept, showing signs of constant repair with cracked walks being cemented shut and water-rotted wood being replaced by new hewn logs. In some places the paths are slippery with slime, and a steady rain, not merely a dew or a mist, comes straight down and wets the clothes completely. But the sun, when it's out, is warm enough to DRY completely despite the high humidity. Trees overhead, wetted with moisture, drip huge drops on everyone. C&T would have LOVED it, hair perfectly straight and perfectly wet.

XXX from p. 40

((((It's NOW 11:16, and then the news comes that the plane is over an hour late, and will probably arrive here at 1 pm. So I've missed my connection, and all I have to worry about is seeing if I can get to BA by 2 pm of the 5th. Shouldn't be very hard, but we'll see. It appears I'LL PROBABLY be spending overnight in Asuncion and will be missing Montevideo. Guess that's OK since I'm spending so LITTLE time in BA and will probably be back, so I can spend more time in Montevideo and get out to Punta del Este. At least some sort of cool breeze blows in from open doors, and now that I KNOW I've missed it, I can only wait to see Asuncion to see HOW soon I can get to BA)))

The spray billows into the air and DIRECTLY becomes clouds, which probably helps to explain the ever-lasting billows of clouds over this area. Not a night will pass that I can't see lightning, over the hotel, in the middle distance, very far away over the horizon reflected against horizon clouds in a clear starry night. To a lesser extent than ocean waves, but still to a great extent, the power and force and CONTINUITY of the water power across the lip and dashing itself to spray against the rocks in the cauldron, rushing off to a new fall, to mingle in a boiling river that produces eddies and hills far downstream as the water, like an underwater swimmer, flings itself from the precipice and swims underwater to a point far downstream. Then it comes up for air in huge inverted-place like surfaces of a turbulent mound of water. Mountains rise and waves form to crash against each other, but finally the agitation is calmed and all the water eventually heads down the last few feet of the Iguacu River to join the Parana.

Go to GG, p. 33

Z from p. 40

(Then, surprise, at 12:30 the plane to Asuncion lands)(Unfortunately, perhaps, the possibility of MAKING the plane appears---if they leave at 1, take one hour to get to Asuncion, that gives me a chance to catch the Pluna 2:15, assuming (and it's very possible) that it's a bit late, too). (And we taxi off at 12:55!) (Plane flies at grass roots level, barely 1000 feet up, CERTAINLY not 20 tree heights from the ground. Skirt a rainstorm, fly just under clouds, make turns as if this was a lesson in flying planes. I sit urging it on, encouraged by waves from everyone in the airport waiting to go to Porto Alegre and Passeo Fundo for completely unknown reasons. Lunch is pretty good, with guarana, luke-warm from the bottle, two tiny ham and cheese sandwiches, a hard boiled egg which I eat with all the rolls, then, surprise, not a sweet roll but a piece of fried chicken, which I eat with cake. An apple and orange finish it off. We begin to land at 1:55 and I have high hopes, but we fly over VERY distant city and quite a distance up the Rio Paraguay before lowering and landing at the first asphalt airport in a long time. I dash for door before plane stops and get to customs first. Short kindly man ushers me through to Pluna and a LOVELY girl who speaks English says she'll take care of me, but they only have one problem: NO SEATS! She said the flight was full two weeks ago; BULL to those in Foz do Iguacu. She says there's no one on the waiting list, so if there's a cancellation, I get on. I do!

ZZ from p. 41

(The scene of lower Paraguay can only be described as other-worldly. What must be water since I can see the sun reflecting off ripples, is lined with STRAIGHT lines that must be a mile long. Land comes and goes into water on a STRAIGHT LINE, and the line continues into the water, to be echoed in a raised line of trees(?) on an island. In many cases the lines are parallel, like enormous ski-trails 1000 feet apart. All colors are gray-blue-green and very pallid. The gray blue note gives way to gray green land, and the land is pocked by what look like craters; in another place, a huge GOLF course, with tees and fairways and greens and sand traps and a number of holes laid out, appears to be made for GIANTS using the Unisphere as a ball. These crater-like things appear to be around farms, probably small plowed plots. A road appears to break the monotony, and then the land tends to hills, but this time with huge straight lines of river connecting lakes look for all the world like the pattern on a paisley shirt, down to odd straight lines which seem to connect each to the next nearest one. Overall are clouds and the shadows of clouds. This Pluna Viscount recalls tome that I LIKE Viscounts, with their large oval picture windows allowing a large lateral view without stooping or craning. NOW odd-shaped lakes appear, blue-black, surrounded by light green areas, surrounded by dark green rocky-like areas, surrounded by dark lines that tend to be round, rather than to follow the shape of the lake. These are set, some touching, some alone, in the midst of a pale green expanse that has a tendency to shade to yellow. Every so often small dry patches of farm. How ODD it all is. Old definitions don't seem to HOLD. There's a HUGE river with islands, but the islands are rivers of land surrounded by water, strips of land. And strips of water, and areas of land and areas of water, till the islands have water and the water has islands. Huge plain areas of what must be swamp are relieved by islands of land ON land, but habited and farmed, as opposed to soft and unused. Dots of trees on an island continuing into the water. Two raised places joined by a straight line, land on one side, water on another. Patches of sandy dry areas, patches of water, patches of land, patches of trees, strips of all of these. As WILD land and waterscapes as I've seen. Huge lake and huge land mass. Land mass has lakes, and in each lake, filling 75% of the area, lies an island the EXACT shape of the lake. Like looking at a culture of GERM cells through a microscope: some amoebas were resting islands in lake, others are splitting, others moving jelly-like arms. WILD. One area fades imperceptibly into another: land-water-trees. In other places, it's sure LAND in light green, in others WATER must be light green. The change of colors WITH the terrain is not quite exactly parallel. Areas look like Bontecou's sculpture with lakes for the holes. There are stream-like patterns in trees on land, and somewhere there obviously WERE lakes now filled in. (130 Guarani for $1 in Paraguay). NOW they're places (we must have flown OUT of Paraguay at that last river and over a bit of Argentina and now over Uruguay. Farms look like bomb blasts connected by roads. WHAT could make so many RAYS from a common crater. I don't know. Maybe each farm is on the highest ground and the lines are arroyos for runoff? And still odd: perfectly road-like objects maybe 300 yards across. Merely RINGS of sand? WHAT have I diagrammed on the next page? THAT was in Argentina, because at 3:35, 1 hour and 20 minutes out, we cross what MUST be the Rio Uruguay. A VERY odd color of water: blue violet on Brazil side, RED violet on Argentine side. NOW, in Uruguay, we start chopping forest into little rectangular areas and place them at odd angles on the land, about 10 rectangle-lengths apart. Then, as we go further south, start leaving tiny squares free in the center. Finally, at 4:55, we land, and I get off plane at 5, after a cold-sore-lipped nurse checks my immigration record. Then decide I'm FOR Montevideo, not in transit, and get in line for the ritual of getting in and out of a country: Customs, something that strikes me as being EXCEEDINGLY childish and STUPID. Imagine doing anything like SEARCHING LUGGAGE or CHECKING A PASSPORT in these days of international travel and communication. Then on the plane, there's some religious girls' tour on the plane and the marble corridors echo with their shouts. THEN there are lousy old women who push in front of the fat fellow who was sitting next to me on the plane, and then everyone makes a mad rush as some stupid official starts calling off names. Of course, the girls' tour gets called first. Thank God the plane only carried 48, and not 148. The LAST bit of the flight was superbly spectacular, despite the fact that the pilot INSISTED on flying at EXACTLY cloud level and we bounced around for about fifteen lousy minutes. At least this time we land like we're landing in the outskirts of the city, not way out in the country. THIS set of suburbs have some of the MOST BEAUTIFUL FARMS. They appear to be mainly orchards, with large trees equally spaced about 30x30. But the plots are small, the rows are straight, the colors change from field to field, the size and direction and texture of the rows change, ranging from corduroy through chenille through crates of oranges in size and savor. Roads and houses interrupt to make things most pleasant. Maybe it's because I'm glad to see something recognizable after the chaos of the swamps))

ZZZ from p. 41

((It's 5:15 and not half the names are called. I was wrong with 5:30 and T is probably wrong with 6 pm. I only hope I get out of here by DARK. Of course, since my form was filled out absolutely last, it's only just that I be last---but then strict justice always struck me as a rather banal way of running things. It APPEARS that a woman rushed IN to greet women there, tried to get OUT, and the man won't let her go out. She looks like she insists he'll never call her name, as she has no card. He insists she remain: I'll be interested in seeing how it comes out. Anyway, it gives them time to unload the baggage. Hope they have lockers. Funny to imagine T&C's and my meeting in front of the Victoria Plaza Hotel. "Well, fancy meeting YOU here?" "Well, let me tell YOU what happened." So I'm in four countries today (Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina) thanks to three airlines (Varig, Pluna, Areolineas Argentina). Quite a record. Pity I wasn't in the CAPITAL of Brazil. It'll probably take DAYS to find a cab into the city. The plane was terribly social, as if everyone had stars in their eyes imagining themselves as part of the "jet set." Much walking back and forth and conversing and sitting on arm rests and blocking of aisles and laughing. If anyone would have been in the least interested in young, quite pretty, eligible females speaking Spanish, they would have had a ball.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize that farther south it might get dark early and that I may end up seeing Montevideo only by night. Seems very little hope of getting to Punta del Este. So save it for next time, as I've often said before. Must have time for more vacations, and places to GO for them. So at 5:30 I appear to finish THAT and go look for my luggage. Should be easy, it should be the only one left. Nothing like resorting to alphabetic order))).

ZZZZ from p. 41

(((FDR National Park of eucalyptus outside Curasco airport in Montevideo.

Italian hospital looked like a Cannes resort hotel. For a fast look, Montevideo looks GOOD. I get luggage and went to AA---did they reserve? On contrary, all flights are booked. Oh. Kindly girl struggles with my French until she discovers I speak English. Big misunderstanding and laugh. She calls Victoria Plaza Hotel. No messages and no girls waiting. I presume they didn't come. Bus to city is 20P, but they don't appear to be ready to leave. Cab costs $6 US, and I ask if anyone speaks English. They call someone from the other room, but in the meantime I find it takes 25 minutes to center of town and will cost $6. So I say OK to fellow who takes initiative (and I have to spend the $10 I foolishly changed into pesos in SOME way, so I decide to DO it). (Parque Hotel on beach, about 300 pesos for a room). Streets are wide as if newly laid out. Homes are beautifully painted, lawned, and shuttered, and I know he's taking me into best part of town. We come out to the beach, which he says is all free. Oh, yes, all flights WERE taken, and I told girl to put me on waiting list. I ended up 5th on the list waiting for 40 seats, and ended up number 39 on plane. MARVELS. The apartments along the beach are models of what such apartments should be: glassed for view, shuttered for privacy, balconied for air, varied to please the eye, spacious for graciousness, etc. It makes Copacabana and Miami Beach look stodgy and stale. So, I get into Uruguay at 5 and LEAVE at 7:40, plane seat to plane seat. HA.

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SOUTH AMERICA 1966 - 6 COUNTRIES 1966 2 of 4