Brasil

            by Justin Skye

 

They say that the rain forest is a wonderful place, teeming with many animals, but how can a place with so much rain possibly contain such vast quantities of life? My own experience while traveling in the rainforest is characterized by an absence of any life except for my five companions, and the occasional chaotic swarm of frenzied ants desperately trying to escape the fast forming river in the middle of the steep footpath.

            When I arrived in Brasil (spelled the way BraSilians spell it), I was surprised by how hot it was. Even though it was winter there, it must have been a hundred and three degrees. The sky was so bright, brighter then I had ever seen it before. I had to squint while I looked over the parking lot in order to see if my friend Icaro was waiting for me, who of course was late and I had to wonder around the airport for forty-five minutes waiting for him, but it was not all that bad. While at the airport, this group of extremely hot Brasilian girls came up to me.

            “Are you American? Are you lost? Do you need a ride anywhere? A place to sleep?” These Brasilian girls were sincerely worried about me. I was actually contemplating their offer. I did not mind their offer on a place to sleep at all, but before I could say anything, I heard a voice.

            “Justin! How are you?” My friend Icaro had finally decided to show up.

           

After a month of living in Brasil, while in Joinville, I was thrilled when I was invited to go on a Backpacking trip to the top of Monte Carla and back. At the time the sky was clear and bright however as the trip came ever closer clouds began to form over the sky, and an occasional rainstorm would pass during the nights. No one seemed to care about the weather, and I began to worry. I formed images in my head about hiking in the rain and being swept away to my doom in a flash flood.

I went with my friend Icaro and all of his friends from Joinville, Japa (Raphael,) Poe, Gabriel, and Elizabeth. Icaro had been my best friend for two years, and he had never changed through out the time I had known him. He was a petite guy, skinny and narrow at the shoulders. His hair how ever was always a wild mess and looked almost like an afro, but he made up for his hair with his striking facial structure; cut jaw, deep eyes and otherwise handsome features. All the girls loved him. Japa, is the only Japanese person in Brasil, or at least the only one that I saw while I was there. He was very friendly, and even though his English was horrible, we were very close friends. Poe on the other hand was not a friendly guy, He was short, had blond hair and bushy eyebrows. He never talked, and when he did, he would make sure I didn’t understand what he was saying. Gabriel was a tall and had that prep haircut, with the nice little part in the middle and combed perfectly. He also had the worst acne on his chin that I‘ve ever seen. Sometimes I would watch him pick at his chin, which he did almost constantly, weather he was standing, talking or eating. He would just always be squeezing or scratching his pimples relentlessly. I don’t remember Elizabeth much, the only time I saw her was on that particular trip, and even then I rarely saw because she was always hanging back with Icaro (as most girls did).

            We arrived there via automobile and began to walk with all of our gear down a wagon trail until we reached a river that was full of all sorts of crocodiles, or so the others claimed.

            “Hey, you guys never said anything about crossing a river,” I dropped my bag on the ground and began to stretch.

            “Why, are you afraid of a little water Justin?” Icaro also dropped his back and then started to take his shoes off.

            “No! But I would rather not get all wet and cold. And besides, aren’t there like piranhas or man eating leeches in here?” I asked as I turned and faced the river .

            “No, don’t worry it’s way too cold for that here,” Icaro answered while hopping on one foot working on taking off his sock.

            “Yeah, but there are those crocodiles,” Gabriel broke away from picking at his chin and walked up to us.

            “Oh yeah, you can’t forget about those crocodiles,” Elizabeth also wanted to join in on tormenting me.

            “Wait, the water is like hella cold, and if the water is too cold for leaches wouldn’t it be too cold for crocodiles too?”

            “Hey Justin, did I ever tell you about that other American that we brought hiking with us, and he didn’t believe us, and was eaten by crocodiles?” Japa asked.

            “Fine!” I started to cross the river by jumping from stone to stone. Suddenly my foot missed its mark and I fell face first into the river. I then stood up dripping with water and looked back at the others.

            “Justin quick, get out of the river there’s a crocodile!” The others started yelling.

            “Shut up guys, there are no crocodiles in Brasil!” My leg brushed against a submerged rock. “Ahhhhhhhhhh!” I screamed loudly and quickly scrambled to the other side of the river.

 

 

            Once we all had crossed the river and began to walk up the narrow footpath, it started to rain.   Being the ignorant city dweller that I am, I did not bring a rain jacket, poncho, or even long sleeved shirt. All I had was some t-shirts and my old Dr. Know sweatshirt, which was hardly adequate for the rain forest. All of the others in my fellowship except Icaro had no excuse for not bringing the necessary attire. Japa claimed that he had not brought a jacket, poncho sweatshirt, or even long sleeved t-shirt because he went on this trip every year, and it had never rained before.

            None of us were really prepared for this trip, or for the adventure to come. I had only one pair of shoes, some old converse that were holier then Christ. The only thing that was holding these old blue ankle cut converse from falling apart was the floss I had stitched them together with while in Rio de Janeiro. Nevertheless, these converse were reliable. I had taken them all over the world with me, and even though they were little better then sandals, I was the only one of my friends on that trip that did not fall flat on their face in the first ten minutes after in started to rain.

           

As we marched up a steep footpath to the top of the mountain, a raging river began to flow down the center of the path. We walked in single file; spaced close together so we could catch each other when we slipped. The easiest way to stop ones self from slipping is to grab on to another object and humans do this almost automatically when they fall. On this hiking trip when you began to slip you would grab out at another object. Most often, that was a tree, but in Brasil, all of the trees have spikes on them. I still bare scares on my palms from those trees.

            After we had lunch, we continued on our way, breaking up into groups of two based on the speed we could travel. Japa and I went ahead of the rest and were the first to reach a cliff that hung over a vast area of rain forest, where you could see clouds clinging to mountaintops in the distance. We sat on some rocks, and Japa began to clean out our pipe pipe.

            In Brasil, everyone talks to Claudia. Even the police can be seen walking down the street talking to her. Even though parents disapprove of their children having conversations, it is not nearly as taboo as in America. There they care more about the children not doing their homework, than getting acquainted with Claudia.

            Japa used a long stick he found on the ground to push the build up within the pipe pipe out. After he finished, I took out Claudia, and began to tear off pieces of the brick to fill the pipe pipe. Yes that is right, a whole brick of Claudia that Icaro and me had purchased for less then 45 Real (pronounced He-aye-sch and about 15 American dollars).

Something like that in America would cost over two hundred dollars. We had so much it was unbelievable. More then we two alone could possible talk to in a lifetime, yet, we still managed to finish. I am sure that the fact that we constantly were talking helped, and every night was a party, especially the night of “One Cat, and a Hundred Bowls.”

            It was a night like any other. Icaro, Japa, Poe, and I decide to hang out one night. We started by going to the “Corner,” the place were everyone in Joinville hangs out. There we all drink for a while with the rest of the kids before we go play some soccer. But first, we go behind the field and have a conversation, then play. Next, we all go to a churchyard, until our lighter breaks. After getting a new lighter, we find a nice little place behind a Toyota dealership where we sit and enjoy the evening. A couple hours go by. In the background, the Ramones are playing out of some people’s truck around the corner. Suddenly Icaro stands up and looks out in to the distance.

            “Guys, a dead cat.” Icaro turns around, and we all see tears pouring out of his eyes. He turns back around and points, we all see the dead cat squashed in the middle of the street. “I’m going to kick it.” Icaro announces and runs over there at full speed and kicks the body. The cat goes flying in the air, guts spewing, blood splattering. Icaro walks back and takes talks with us some more. “Crap guys, I got blood on my shoe.” He wipes it off on some bushes.

            “Kick the cat again!” Japa yells. Icaro takes off again at full speed, his afro waving in the wind, and kicks the cat. Then rears up for a running start and kicks again. From around the corner come cheers from spectators as Icaro kicks the cat harder and harder, all while “Beat on the Brat with a Baseball Bat” is playing.

            Two years later, Icaro tells me that it was not a cat, but a sweatshirt on the ground and I was just so out of it that I believed everything he said.

 

Poe and Gabriel arrived at the cliff where Japa and I are, followed shortly after by Icaro and Elizabeth. We took out some crackers and laranja syrup, and had a small snack while enjoying the view.

            We walked for the rest of the afternoon onwards to the top of the mountain, when evening approached we had reached the mountaintops. It had gone from raining to misting, and all we could see was a grassy path and then a steep fall into the mysterious mist.

* * *

            My major concern while in Brasil was getting laid, and I tirelessly tried to achieve this. The second day I was in Brasil Icaro took me to a girls 15^th birthday. 15^th birthdays for girls are a big deal in Brasil. They have huge parties where everyone has to wear a suit. The parents of the girl supply food, Claudia and lots of beer.

            I can tell you now that I have never seen so many hot girls in one place. It was amazing, and I must have drooled on every girl at that party.

 

Well coming back from the bathroom I see a slender girl with long black hair and dark eyes dressed in a silver dress snug against her body walking down the stairs.

            “Hi I’m Justin.” I say as she reaches me in the middle of the staircase. She stops and looks at me blankly, her dark eyes unreflecting in the dim light. “Oi,” I repeat, “eu Justin.” She raises an eyebrow and licks her lips. “Eu não falo português.” I manage to say but in a horrible accent. Her mouth gasps open and she slaps me, and then walks down the stairs, her high heels clapping loudly on the tiled floor. I stand there very confused.

 

            My linguistics skills for the most part failed to attract any women in Brasil. I had to rely on my friends to hook me up, which was even worst then trying to do it myself. You see when guys in Brazil are working on hooking you up with someone, they just don’t do it to help you, they do in order to create entertainment for themselves (what would you expect for a country where no one watches TV?). Once at a party, I was interested in this cute girl with red curly hair, light green eyes, and plump red lips, but I couldn’t speak with her because of a certain language barrier, so I asked some friends to help me.

            “Yeah no problem.” My friend Paulo says, “I got you covered brother.” The next thing I know, there are twenty boys running around trying to “fix me up.”

            A couple minutes later this random girl with crossed eyes and buckteeth walks up to me and tries to kiss me. I quickly push her away. From around the room I hear laughing.

            I walk over to my friend Paulo and start to yell at him.

            “That is not the girl I asked for you to talk to me for!” Paulo can’t respond, instead he just curls up in a ball on the floor laughing hysterically.

            Between this and girls making out with me and then asking to see my foot long penis, my friends never hooked me up with any Brasilians.

 

            There was one girl though. A girl that made my whole experiences in Brasil worth it.

            Back then, even before I went to Brasil, I would go to punk shows whenever I could. I would never miss an opportunity to go and listen to some crappy band torturing their instruments. Before Icaro went back to Brasil, he would be my partner in such opportunities and when I came to visit him in Brasil; it was not a surprise that we ended up continuing these trips to punk clubs.

            We were invited to a punk club in downtown Joinville by some friends whose band happened to be playing there that night. They were called Lara (pronounced Ladda.) Icaro and I arrived there with Japa and Poe. The club was nothing like I expected. It looked more like a house, and was half way up a hill, secluded from any other buildings around it. The moon was full but hidden behind dark clouds. We entered a gate on the street level and walked on the dirt up the hill until we reached the club. It was five Real at the door. Inside it was dark and there was a desk selling beer and shirts. Icaro and the others went into the bathroom to smoke. I did not follow them, instead I walked up a staircase from where I could hear the familiar torture of instruments I was so used to. On the second floor, there was a small stage where the bands played, a place to dance and some seats in the back of the room. I sat at an empty table in the far corner observing the people around me and the band. A guy that looked familiar tapped me on the shoulder and handed me uno litros dos Cashasa. I began to sip it slowly and take in the music, and after a while, I noticed that I had drank more then half the bottle. I tried to stand up but lost balance and stumbled to the wall for support.

            A cute girl with purple hair and wearing a Lara shirt came up to me, grabbed me by the hand and dragged me onto the dance floor. We held hands facing each other and began to spin. She had dark skin and brown eyes. Her lips were smooth and silky and were decorated with a ring pierced in the center of her lower lip. I looked into her eyes and she blushed. We spun around for what seemed like hours, until the music had finally stopped.

I took her by the hand and we walked down the stairs to some tables on a porch out front. The music started again and we could hear it from outside of the second floor window. We just sat there for a while looking into each other’s eyes. Then finally, we introduced ourselves to each other, and began to talk. I don’t remember our conversation, but that’s not important. We hung out for the remainder of the night, and before we parted, she gave me her telephone number.

The next day my friend Icaro called her for me, and she agreed to meet us a week later at the International Hard Rock Festival in Camboriu (pronounced Cambodio.)

The kids of Joinville chartered a bus to the festival at about ten Real apiece. We brought a couple ounces of Claudia with us and burnt through the hour-long ride by having long conversations at the back of the bus and in the bathroom, paying no mind to the por favor não fume sign. Fume not to be confused with Fome, one meaning to smoke, and the other meaning hungry, a mistake that I often made.

We arrived at the Festival shortly after nightfall. The festival was held inside a big warehouse on the beach. Before going inside, I met with the Girl and we walked down the beach drinking Cashasa and talking to each other. It began to rain, and we took refuge inside of the warehouse. It cost a bag of rice and five Real to get in. Their must have been two thousand people inside that warehouse. I never felt so miserable in my life. It was stuffy, everything was wet, the music sucked, but I was happy.

            She took me down some stairs and to a balcony on the right of the stage. We walked to the far wall opposite to the railing to a coach. She pushed me down on the coach and sat on my lap with her legs spread to either side of me. She moved closer to me and began to kiss me. Her lips were soft and her mouth warm. We sat there through two bands, tying our tongues together and swapping pounds of spit. After we decide to take a break in order to breathe, while between bands, I found my friend Icaro. He told me that Claudia had been taken away from him when he was entering. I told him what I had been doing and he passed me a condom.

“You’ll need this,” he said and then disappeared into the crowd. I found the Girl again just as the music started and we went back to the couch that we had been sitting at and continued to make out. After a while, she stopped and looked me in the eyes.

“I want lay for you.” She said. I didn’t need to be psychic in order to understand what she meant by that. We walked around for a while, off the balcony and up the stairs to the merchandise counters in back. There was no place that was not filled with less then a hundred people. We then remembered how there were those pay bathrooms on at the edge of the beach, they only cost one Real (about thirty cents.) We ran out the front door of the warehouse, out into the rain and across the street to the beach and on too the sand. There we found the bathroom and paid the Real (I wish).

* * *

 

            We reached our campsite just before nightfall, the rain had not stopped, but luckily are site was underneath an overhanging rock. It could almost be called a cave. I took off my large backpack and then turned to help Japa take off his. While the others set up the tent, Japa and I went off to find some firewood. Everything was soaked, but underneath another overhanging rock, we found some logs that must have been set aside by previous back packers.

            By the time we returned the tent had been assembled. Japa tried to start the fire as I prepared the ramen we had packed. The wind was blowing hard, and mist blew into our campsite, keeping Japa from starting the fire. We all crowded around the fireplace trying to protect it from the weather. We finally decided to throw the plastic wrappers of the ramen on the flames hoping that it would help. It did. The fire lit up big and bright, and we were finally able to eat.

            That night we all crowded into the small tent. Passing the pipe pipe around and drinking Casasha.

“Hey guys, did I ever tell you about the time Icaro drank too much at a party and had to go to the hospital?” I announced while passing the pipe pipe to Poe.

“Hey Justin, come on. They don’t want to hear that one,” Icaro tried to convince me not to tell the story of him throwing up all over him self. This is somewhat ironic, because a week later I did the same after a party in Belo Horizonte. I should never have embarrassed him that night. Talk about Karma.

I woke up at about 1 pm the next day and crawled over the sleeping bodies to the opening of the tent. I unzipped the flaps and squinted as I opened them. The clouds had cleared and the sun was shinning bright and hot. I went to the fire, which was still burning and added some more wood. Before I could make some more ramen for breakfast, I had to walk down to the creek to fill the pot with water.

By the time the others were all up, I had finished making breakfast. Icaro was the last to come out of the tent, and when he did, we all saw the imprint of the pipe pipe on the side of his face.  Six people and five pillows sometimes causes people to use strange things in substituting.

We packed up our bags and decided to go swimming at the river to remove the stench of our night away, before being picked up by Japa’s mom. We followed one of the creeks down the hill until we came upon the river. We were astonished to see at least twenty nude people running around and bathing in the river. People our age. Now you may think ending up at a nudist’s party at a river in the middle of a jungle weird or unusual but hey, this is Brasil.