Porto Alegre and Parobe

9/27/12 Porto Alegre

I built a box for the Bike Friday in Denver and packed the bike without any issues and bought a suitcase for $6 at a resale shop for the panniers and boarded a plane to Porto Alegre. In Dallas a family from Sao Paulo befriended me and immediately the language began to take its hold. The 24 year old daughter, Camila, insisted I sit with them on the plane to Sao Paulo and so accommodations were made and I did so. The conversation (in Portuguese) made the flight pass quickly and upon arrival I gathered my box and suitcase and cleared customs and obtained a new ticket to Porto Alegre as I has missed my flight due to a late arrival. Upon arrival in Porto Alegre I took a cab to the hostel and my cab driver, being proud of his city, took the scenic way. 

There are no westerners in the hostel. Almost all of the folks here are Brazilians here to study long term or short term (I also met two Uruguayans, one here for medical care). Nelson (named after Mandela), a bearded, thoughtful, and intellectual fellow talked of my journey late into the night on Wednesday. He gave me a good route to get to the coast and I will follow his advice. Anna Maria, who works here, lived in Queens for 20 years before returning to South America due to poor economic conditions in the states. She’s from Montevideo originally, but speaks fluent Portuguese.

Of all the things to delay my departure—I had wanted to ride to the coast on Thursday morning, but won’t begin until Friday, tomorrow--I had a big problem installing my Schwalbe tires on the rims. They wanted to fight my thumbs. I’ve had tough times with tires, mostly wire-beaded tires, but these fellas were real, real bad, made worse by their small size and high tension. I finally prevailed, but I had to steam the last tire over the stove in the kitchen.  Schwalbe needs to put out some good advice with their tires or provide a free coupon for a bottle of cachaca.

The rest of the installation went perfectly. I put locktight on all rack bolts, I tightened the headset to perfection with a 40mm headset wrench, I adjusted both the height and angle of the saddle, and inflated the tires to their maximum of 70 psi. Paulo and Virginia, two of the proprietors, really dug the bike. Everyone asked if the smaller bike required more work. 

I rode around the city aimlessly for a few hours. Many areas had been redeveloped in the 60s and 70s with highrise blocks. Some newer office buildings are scattered about. The old part of the city is paved in cobblestones and there are still a few older artifices remaining, including several old, beautiful churches. The pedestrian areas are filled human beings of mostly European descent—30% Italian, 30% German, 30% Portuguese, and a 10% mixture of other folks, all of them worth mentioning, but too numerous to mention. 

When I returned I was instructed in the art of drinking erva mate.  I had incorrectly purchased toasted erva mate—what is really called tea here—and had put it in the gourd (chimarroa) from the kitchen and drank from the typical metal filter straw (bomba). This is how Fernando, the 18-year-old I rode with recently in Colorado, prepared his erva mate, so I figured I knew what I was doing. When I returned to make another cup, I was informed I wasn’t drinking erva mate, and that even if I was I wasn’t doing so correctly. One gentleman came out and poured a large amount of a ground green herb into the gourd and then turned the gourd on its side so that only half the gourd was filled with the erva mate. He then poured in hot water—not boiling, but hot—so that the erva mate clumped on one side. Somehow the clump stayed together, the top of the clump still dry. One takes a sip from the bomba and when the water is emptied from the gourd a delightful noise is made. One then continues to drink the erva mate in this manner, pouring in new hot water from a thermos. The drink is both a social and a solitary drink. In a large group, the person who makes the erva mate drinks first, then passes the drink to the next person who fills the chimarroa with hot water, drinks, and passes on once again. But the drink was also a gift from God to a tribal chief, who, when alone in the wild, would have a the chimarroa as a companion to keep him company. It is a perfect companion for a lonely cyclist, and so I have purchased my own chimmarao and I expect it will be an excellent companion on solitary nights. It provides great mental clarity and cures most ailments. (Updae: on Friday morning I was given a gift of a chimarroa and a bag of erva mate, so now I have two chimarroa. I was also given a great t-shirt of the hostel, which solves my issue of buying local clothes to fit in.)

The Hostel Tche is a fine place. “Tche” is a local gaucho (the name for inhabitants of Rio Grande do Sol) term, kind of like “dude.” I’ve made a lot of friends here already, among them Dutta (an Indian with deep roots here),Nelson, Paulo, Virginia, and Uda (I’m leaving out at least 10 people from last night—please excuse my overwhelmed head) who have been incredibly helpful. The Paulista family on the plane seemed to be underwhelmed by Porto Alegre, and I’m very confused. This is the capital of the gaucho state and isn’t touristed at all—it’s a perfect starting point for exploration in Brazil. At Porto Tche hostel and the surrounding environs of Porto Alegre I have been able to experience a very diverse snapshot of gaucho culture and the various Brazilians who pass through Porto Alegre from all parties of Brazil. Perhaps most importantly, I learned to drink from a chimarrao and now have the strength of erva mate, given by god to solitary travelers.

9/28/12 6:58 p.m. Parobe

The ride out of Porto Alegre was tough because the traffic was fast and dense and aggressive and the roads were windy and the shoulders were littered with trash, glass, and sand. The large trucks had to get where they were going and on the exits it was tough to stand my ground but I did. Moraline had told me to ask a local for good directions out of town to avoid the favelas, and I did ask but I still hit all the favelas. Just 30 minutes in to the ride, after going the wrong way once, I found myself riding along side shanties made of found wood and sheet metal and open sewers and horses and donkeys grazing in the grass along side a super modern highway. There is a middle class in Porto Alegre, but the dirt poor people contrast significantly to the middle class and the clash is ponographic compared to the large, shiny factories and the high end stores nearby. Horses and donkeys pulled carts, but I didn’t know what they pulled. Did they bring goods to market? What goods were they? Were the horses and donkeys a form of protest, like skaters in the 80s at the mall? If they had goods, what were they? Certainly not fruits in vegetables grown in the favelas? Maybe they had horses for the same reason I have a bicycle: it’s a sweet form a freedom not tied up in some fucked up matrix. I’ve already written about the horse and the bicycle (they are close brothers), so I should know this. 

I didn’t take any good photos of the favelas because I didn’t have time to get in their and make friends and learn stories and I don’t know with all my gear if that would have been a good idea. But I wanted to learn stories and then take photos. But I can’t just take photos of something everyone thinks is somehow exotic. I don’t know if favelas mean poverty. I don’t know what the fuck poverty is. I’m in a $35 dollar hotel in total luxury and the receptionist, Ledomara, is one of the hottest and sweetest women I have ever spoken with in my life and she, she stopped me as I walked to my room tonight. “Can I ask you an indiscreet question?” (NOTE: all these conversations take place in Portuguese. Depending on how I feel, I can sometimes speak very well. When I feel ill or tired or hungover, my language skills, including English, are terrible.)

Uh, yeah, what could be so indiscrete? Did you ride your bike here? Yeah. I did. I’m on a bike journey. To where? Manuas (most Northern city I could surmise). How many kilometers? 3500. No 4000. But I might do more, depending on the, the—Route? Yes, route. Depending on the route, I might ride a lot more. Wow, that is very cool. Yeah, I plan to camp and stay in hotels like this. What’s your name? Ledomara. Wow that’s really beautiful. Yeah, well I didn’t like my name. You didn’t? But you like it now, right? Yeah, I do, because it’s rare. On Facebook there’s only one more Ledomara and she’s from Bello Horizonte. 

She is a petite and radiant brunette with piecing brown eyes and dark skin. I can’t give her a number to rank her beauty because I can’t throw her in the trash pile of American skanks. I also can’t giver her a telephone number because I don’t have one. We talked about beaches and how I’m now an eva mate connoisseur “I like to drink evra mate especially in the winter. Yeah, in the summer, I like to (and then she interrupts me) SHOP. And at that point I told her I had to go upstairs to write a little bit and then I walked away and left her. 

I just made a pig out of myself with the local sausage, peanut pastries, wine, and huge avocados here. I’ve had three gourds of erva mate already, drinking the powder with cold tap water. I think of how my hosts might have affected my writing yesterday—I was afraid I would publish my ideas on a blog and offend them. I am afraid American women will read my blog and get me killed. I don’t want separate writings—I don’t want one my family can read and one that is philosophical and one that is sexual. I just want to write the shit as it happens. 

I reached a highway that was very modern but prohibited bicycles. In retrospect, I should have just followed the highway and gotten off when I needed to, but instead I took a detour and found myself in miserable, highly trafficked industrial areas. A bus driver first told me to turn around and my spirits deflated. Then he told me an alternate route but I could not follow him. Eventually I followed a large elevated concrete train platform. There were more shanties and just behind them nice villages I wanted to explore, but it would involve climbing and take me off my route. Right now I’ve resolved myself to riding off course and exploring these cities, because Parobe, for example, can’t be seen for what it is one mile off the side of the highway. It hides its value deeply within its hilly streets and reveals its old, sharp stone cobblestones, terribly beautiful women, and hundreds of cafes and meat shops and vegetable stands and bars and butchers and sweet shops and terribly beautiful women. 

Things got better in Novo Hamburgo. I realized I had no chance of hitting the coast but was gratified that I was out of the shitty industrial hellhole I had been riding in for 50km. I asked three times for the turn off for the highway that would take me to 101 to the coast. I finally reached the highway and not too far in to my new route a highly precocious teenage kid on a mountain bike rode next to me for 10km and he spoke of Brazil in very intellectual terms, told me he was coming back from soccer practice, and asked me if I was documenting my journey with some sociological or anthropological society. I gave him my email and told him there would be some account. 

The road began to reveal green pastures and foothills with huge grazing cattle. I had told myself that I would stop riding at 5 because a very smart woman at the hostel told me not to ride at dark (because "it gets complicated"), as it gets dark at 6, and in looking at the map Parobe would have to be the town. After climbing up and down the very steep hills of Parobe, I began to think I would have to commando camp on the outskirts, perhaps not a good idea. But I stopped to speak with a man in front of his shop and he gave me instructions to the only hotel in town, where I them met Ledomara.I will hit the beaches tomorrow and plan on camping there with my military fighting knife. 

 In the morning as I ate bread, cheese, papaya, melon, jam, and drank my cafe de manha (o cafezinho) I spoke another 30 minutes with Ledomara about her small hometown, about the spirit of adventure, and about becoming Facebook friends. Facebook really has its hooks in people--there is no more convenient way to keep in touch with people while traveling, but I don't want facebook to know what I'm doing or who I'm meeting or what I'm thinking or what I think is important. I hope Facebook just can't figure me out. I hope I ruin its marketing data as a big fat tail outlier.