Channelling the Cane Spirits

Thursday 27.03.08

Candelaria, where I was staying, is Bogota's oldest barrio, a snaking suburb of low-rise and ancient colonial buildings between the city centre and a mountain range that marks the city's eastern edge. The place is crawling with people during the day: tourists, business people and thousands of university students. Present too in alarming numbers are the police, the tourist police (who visit the hostel nightly without fail), camouflaged army personnel of seemingly every rank and private security dog-handlers. It was the latter that had me most concerned – Why did the government hire security firms for 'on the beat' work? What was with the heavy blind-man-cum-nightstick leash all about? And is that a golden retriever? What is that going to do, nuzzle me to death?

I was collected in the evening by my friend Juan, who I'd met in Iguazu back in August. He took me to the Zona Rosa in the northern suburbs, and it was here I had my first taste of Aguardiente. The name literally means 'Firewater', it's aniseed flavoured and tends to sneak up on you at about 1.30am. Liquor comes in a box in Colombia. Not only do the country's favourite rums, aguardientes and red wines come in 1-litre easy pour Tetra-Paks, but they also come in 250ml fun-size varieties, perfect for slamming down 'on the go' or sucked up with a straw for playlunch. Try swapping that for a peanut butter sandwich!

Despite morning sunshine turning to bitter hail every afternoon, I was positive the good weather would hold out at least until after I had visited Monserrate atop the mountain range. The first thing I'd noticed once the cog-train had climbed the frighteningly steep slope was the complete change in temperature. The second was dark clouds lurking about the place like a bunch of hooded teenagers at 7-11. The general trend would be downhill, I surmised as I snapped a couple of shots and slowly began to ice over. By the time the rain commenced I was already heading off the precipice in a gondola to the station below. I chose the scenic route for the walk home and before long was huddled under a conifer begging a disgruntled canine security guard to share his easement. He refused. Eventually I took advantage of a less sodden spell, but soon the sleet began and I found myself hurtling down a treacherous embankment with a drizzle of other stranded nitwits. The next ten minutes were spent charging from doorway to doorway to escape the worst of it, but I was halfway to 'drowned cuy' when I finally reached the hostel.

It was Juan's birthday party on Saturday night, and we celebrated with his girlfriend Ana and friends in their apartment before a few of us headed to the Zona Rosa again. There was quite the lineup outside 'The Basement', but according to Bacon's Law, we knew someone who knew someone who knew someone who could get us in immediately, but sadly neither that person nor Kevin Bacon himself could let us enter without paying. The club attempted to be everything that every other Latin club was, and for that it was hugely popular. I'd hate to complain about the music selection, but when Salsa is followed by Reggaetón, and then into Latin Rock, Cumbia, Hard Dance and a ballad or two, the whole thing becomes incredibly hard to follow. In times like these I start drinking and looking to the lasers for guidance. This time they told me to go home, and I wasn't in the mood to argue.

Sometimes when travelling you encounter a group of street-savvy folk who are highly motivated to get smashed every single night. I had been spending the week with such a group, including an American named Levi and Daniel from Sydney, but I'd been finishing a magazine edition. In fact it'd been ages since I'd had a good blowout, and on Tuesday night I was ready to cut loose. With Candelaria too dangerous to loiter in at night, the mayhem was confined within the hostel, but when I was finally ready to retire, from outside came a bit of a commotion. The night guard took his nightstick and went to investigate while I scanned the security cameras. Lo and behold, Daniel and Levi had crawled up onto the roof to watch the sunrise, but after breaking a couple of tiles, the cops swooped, yelling "Ladrones!" and pointing their guns. I grabbed a nearby ladder and rescued them from the roof while the hostel guard convinced them not to fire. At the end of it all, we were handed free beers and kicked on until 9am. I wasn't relishing the thought of catching a flight in the coming evening.

Thursday 25.10.07

Between the hostel recepcionista loading YouTube videos at 5am and a snoring roommate, my sleep patterns were sufficiently disturbed to ensure I overslept, to be frantically woken by my English travelling buddies an hour late and hurried to the ferry terminal. We were leaving Argentina for Uruguay, just across the Rio de la Plata.

The drab blue painted ferry looked like a huge prison transport from the rear, and what transpired for the next few hours was tantamount to torture in comfortable chairs when the football hooligans showed up. There was apparently a match to be played in Montevideo (Uruguay's capital) that evening between a local team, Defensor and River Plate, one of the biggest clubs in Argentina. The pre-match chanting begun even before we launched from the Argentine shore, accompanied by wall and table banging, foot-stomping and other loutish behaviour; the combined effects of which eventually felt akin to taking a cheesegrater to the ears. When we alighted in Colonia del Sacramento and boarded a coach for Montevideo, we found with considerable relief that the band of lunatics were on a different bus.

Two bus journeys, a couple of siestas and five hours later, we were over the other side of the country at Punta del Este - the most popular beach resort in South America, crowded with Brasilians and Argentineans during summer. As night fell just two months before Christmas it was apparent the town's many apartment blocks were unoccupied at this time and its eating places woefully barren.

When I finally emerged from our gloomy dormitory after a night of asymmetrical precipitation outside, I ascertained why the place had such a reputation with the beach-going elite. With shades of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, palm trees line the sweeping beachfront promenades and even the condominiums appear stately against bright blue sky. The prime real-estate is found on a slender promontory and near its tip lies a wharf, berthing several yachts only fathomless pockets could float. Right next door was a sizable flotilla of humble fishing boats, with ocean gulls and black seals frolicking nearby, probably waiting for the next business trip to return.

The Uruguayan sun was much stronger than we expected, and every single one of us was burned while sunbathing on the sand. I spent Friday evening with some girls from Montevideo I had met on the bus and their friend Adam from Canada, and discovered the radiation from our nearest star had got the better of them as well. Despite the prodigious amount of underage drinking that was occurring all over the promenade, there was not a bar open at night in the town.

We were far more cautious on Saturday with our bodies. With apparently nothing at all to do in Punta del Este apart from tomar sol (sunbathe), from which our bodies forbade us, we jumped aboard a bus in the early evening bound for Montevideo.

Friday 19.10.05

It was the moment i had been waiting for for two weeks, when we arrived in Tierra Santa in the north of the city in the early afternoon. Though I can never claim to have had the most saintly of intentions when I went, I couldn't have guessed how entertaining our visit would be. It is after all, a theological theme park, a notion perhaps steeped more in kitsch than genuine religious reverence.

We were greeted at the entrance by life-size figures of animals, palm trees, shepherds and oddly, fairies. The fun only increased when we entered the park and ascended an artificial mountain to behold the crucifixion scene, all painstakingly recreated in fibreglass. Below us spread a fibreglass metropolis designed to represent an ancient city in the Middle East, setting the stage for the biblical re-enactments to come. We learned that Jesus conceivably used a whip to expel the prostitutes and money-changers off the steps of the temple, and later suffered the same punishment at the hands of the Romans prior to his martyrdom. Other religions were also honoured, such as Islam and Judaism, while even Gandhi had a little alcove in a corner. The most impressive sight was La Resurrección, featuring a 50 foot Jesucristo rising out of the artificial mountain every hour to the tune of Hallelujah and rapturous applause from the visiting church and school groups.

We were present for the Miracle de Creación, which came complete with lasers, smoke machines and a Spanish voice over. Thankfully the school kids stopped screaming after God created light (bulbs) and rolled the fibreglass animals out on rails. I soon came to realise, as we exited the park, that I will probably be spending my afterlife in purgatory, an even more daunting prospect considering I never had previously believed in its existence.

The weekend seemed to only feature nightclubs, sleep, drinking and probably plenty of bizarre moments which seem to escape me right now, but I'm sure to have enjoyed. Ever have that feeling? Somewhere along the way Adam left for Australia, and in an unconnected incident I broke my previous record for 'Biggest and Juiciest Steak Ever', one that possibly left me almost a kilogram heavier. As the weekend became Monday, so sleep gradually took over until it was all-consuming; and with the weather slowly getting warmer, it would be prudent to heed previous self-advice and begin the diet.

I was finally ready for a brief foray on Tuesday night, this time to Puerto Madero. This area of the city was once destined to become the city's port, but was closed in preference to the current port, a couple of kilometres or so north of the city centre. Puerto Madero fell into disrepair and disrepute until the 1990s, where a gradual revamp has seen it transform into one of the city's trendiest (and expensive) areas. Harbour cranes, relics of the past are lit up at night, standing guard over the channel which runs through the middle of the suburb.

Saturday 25.08.07

On Thursday night sometime during sleep, my left foot had been bitten by an insect, and for the last couple of days had been swelling slowly and causing a bit of discomfort. The creature, named Mbarigüí in Guaraní, the language of the indigenous group of the same name, is a sandfly that lives in the region, and a known vector of the disease Leishmaniasis. Sharing a dormitory with some Irish lads, i awoke at the sound of them returning at 6am a little south of sobriety and discovered (after hopping to the bathroom) that my foot now resembled a blown-up pink rubber glove. Time for an anti-histamine injection, I found out once daylight hit, and once the un-pleasantries were over and done with, said foot began to deflate again. At night, a group of us went out for a Parrillada, the Argentinean equivalent of a mixed grill, and on offer aside from the usual meats were Latin American specialities Morcilla, a type of black pudding, and cow's tongue.

It was a very cold and wet day on Sunday as i left for Paraguay, just over the river actually, to a town called Ciudad del Este. Unable to share the title of having the grandest waterfall in the world, Ciudad del Este nevertheless receives several consolation prizes, such as: "Biggest power output out of any hydroelectric project in the world" (Itaipu Dam); "The grandest waterfalls in the world that no longer exist" (Siete Quedas - drowned by Itaipu); and my personal favourite, "Biggest Black Market in South America".

I was delighted to find that about ₲4500 (Guaranís) were equal to AUS$1, and so armed with a wad of currency that would make Pablo Escobar proud, i was ready for Paraguay. My hotel room, situated near to the bus station in case of a required quick exit, was as much of a disappointment in looks as it was in price. I left again as soon as I could to explore the centre of town.

Ciudad del Este on a raining and cold Sunday afternoon was almost completely deserted. As I waited for the bus, a stray dog wandered by me, to stop and tear at a full plastic bag amid a pile of rubbish. When my transport arrived, I leaped a full metre over a puddle from curb to lowest step. I was bemused upon noticing the floor was made out of wood palings, as if someone had encased their back patio in metal, stuck some wheels on and taken it for a drive. It was so bleak outside i failed to recognise the centre of the city, and upon querying the driver, he let me out so i could catch one back in the other direction. I could have been forgiven. The centre of town was boarded and shut up as if the day didn't exist. People gathered in tiny pockets here and there, and occasionally a car passed, but otherwise all was strangely silent. Wandering through an open door covered in Korean writing, I discovered an empty Korean restaurant. Apparently it, like the rest of the city, was closed but thankfully they decided to feed me.

I wandered my neighbourhood some more, watching poor families crowded under awnings or around open fires on bare concrete. Stray animals - dogs, cats and chickens nosed about in relative harmony while drawn plastic sheets over fences and against walls amidst piles of rubbish suggested their use for habitation. Eventually, i chanced upon the stadium for the local football team, 3 de Febrero, and i paid ₲10,000 for a place on the concrete bleachers. The stadium was in a poor, dilapidated state, rusted through and crumbling and the carpark littered with refuse and the large shells of hundreds of expended fireworks. Under the stadium lights I had finally found life in Ciudad del Este, albeit less than 100 souls, as the local team played Guaraní, a team from Asunción. Although i saw no goals scored, it became apparent the locals were to pull off a victory, though i was far too busy hunched and over trying to stay warm and comfortable on the cold concrete to care.

As the weather slowly but surely improved on Monday morning, i caught public transport in the direction of Itaipu Dam. The whole city, passing by through the grimy windows of the bus, seems to be covered completely in red soil. It was all over the floors of the buses, up the sides of cars and piled up in heaps on the sides of the roads. I knew we were getting close to the dam when legions of high-tension towers appeared everywhere, like menacing steel robots marching over the horizon. I learned in the free guided tour that the project, shared by Brasil and Paraguay, generates the most power out of any hydroelectric plant in the world, though it is no longer the largest. The spillway alone, used only to regulate the water level, can pump out water equal to 40 Iguazu Falls. Its eighteen turbines located deep in the bowels of the structure, generate such a surplus for Paraguay that it sells most of its power to its partner. Brasil - one of the world's biggest countries in size, population and economic output, gets 25% of its energy needs from this source alone.

This time, the centre of Ciudad del Este was teeming with life, and stalls set up on every flat surface that wasn't a vehicle thoroughfare. The goods for sale were not so much duty free as they were dirt cheap; not so much bargain basement as they were clever fakes; and not so much cheap imitations as they were stolen. It was a consumer assault. Fake football shirts towered above mobile phone accessories; pirated DVDs made bedfellows of butterfly knives and knuckle dusters; while the power tools and watches leered at the rugs and apparel. Malls filled with electronics goods opened out to the streets, people desperately attempted to sell socks by the handful, while the cologne salesmen hinted at the purchase of animals down in a place i dared not tread. The beckoning, the pushing, the haggling, the poverty and the struggle rushed and fell and changed hands in a flurry and a whisper, and most consumers would cross back into Brasil by day's end.

Only a short time passed before i caught the bus to Asunción, the nation's capital. My ₲40,000, six hour ride turned out more comfortable than expected, and the doughnut-shaped crusty pastries and hot, ultra-sweet tea sold en route for only ₲1000 each were a bonus. I settled into my new hotel overlooking a park, Plaza Uruguaya, and relished the fact I was completely alone in this place.

Thursday 02.08.07

The moment i stepped off the airport bus into the Cidade Alta of Salvador, I began to be harassed by a teenage beggar. I was on my way to the Pelourinho, the oldest standing part of the city - a small bairro (neighbourhood) of colonial buildings, and one of the few places safe for tourists. I shrugged him off, checking over my shoulder to ensure he wasn't following. It didn't matter. Soon i was being chased by another, determined to escort me to my new hostel (for a charge of course). As luck would have it, I bumped into a woman who worked at the very same place, and like a vehicle's windshield, she deflected any more attempts to latch on as if they were gnats on a country highway. This behaviour, seen at about 7.30am in the morning, was but a precursor for things to come.

Later that day, i made my way to the Plano Inclinado, another way of moving between the Cidades Alta e Baixa (Upper and Lower Cities). Two antique carriages make a short journey on rails on a slope of about 40º between the two halves of the historical centre. At night we wandered the Pelourinho amidst crowds of people, tourists and locals alike. At this time the district throbs with African energy, exciting all senses: The beating drums, the spectacle of performance, the smell of sweat, the push of the crowd, the taste of the local cooking, and there is a sixth feeling, a tangible charisma that sweeps you away.

Salvador, once the capital of colonial Brasil, is without doubt the most affronting place i have ever seen. It is Brasil's 4th largest city, and having fallen into major disrepair through neglect, is now in a process of restoration. The Pelourinho has been restored, and is mostly safe for tourists, but foreigners are constantly being accosted by dozens of hawkers, paupers, beggars and artists. The remainder of the Cidades Alta e Baixa are not the safest places to be walking around in daylight, and are downright dangerous after dark. Me and a couple of guys found ourselves in one such area in search of a cheap dinner. Recommended by the restaurant owner not to walk back the way we came, we took some bad advice and found ourselves in a deserted, dark lane. Every building still standing was completely boarded up, some with their old interiors heaped in piles over the street. We shouldn't have been there.

It happens so fast. There are shouts from behind, and momentarily maybe six people are upon you, wielding weapons. Is that a flash of a knife? You scramble for your cash to hand over, as unfamiliar hands are grabbing you, reaching into your pockets. Details stick out like bandannas obscuring faces, rags tied over handles of weapons. You are spun around, and moments later, like a chilling breeze, they disappear just as quickly as they arrived. You realise what has just happened seconds after the event, as if it were a dream. Taking stock of your former possessions, you suddenly realise it could have been a lot worse. 60 Reals (AUS$40) from me and more from the others has gone, but in a dark place with the wrong movements, more than money could have been lost.

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Out on some exposed rocks off the beach in Barra, a few kilometres away from the intensity of the streets of central Salvador, life is simple. Spongy mosses, sea urchins and other aquatic species call this tidal climate home. The ever-burning Sun provides energy and light, the drenching waves bring nutrients, and breathing goes in and out, over and over.