Waterfalls

The man at the restaurant last night told me that I should change my course slightly and head north to Prudentopolis because there were waterfalls that were worth the trip. I don’t know much about waterfalls and don’t think I’ve ever seen any big ones before, and given that I want to explore all the sideroads and all the small places, given that I ‘have time,’ Jesus, given that I am not ‘returning to work,’ given that I am not ‘on vacation,’ given that I am not rushing some place for kilometers, given that I am living on a bike but not biking for a living, given that, Christ, like Kierkegaard said, I wake up and ask myself what do I want to do rather than what do I have to do, Christ, what a luxury all this is, what a luxury that I don’t care about $R55 versus $R40 versus $R30 (read: my last three hotel bills). I woke at 7:15 this morning and got my shit together and shit three times and ate my breakfast downstairs (café de manha) of coffee with milk and papaya and melon and ham and cheese and some whole grain bread and jam. I never eat enough in the morning and always have to kill a 1000 calorie bag of granola later. It was cloud covered and cool today and the sun cream I put all over the head and face and arms and legs was overkill but would have been great in yesterday’s sun. I rode 40k of tough rollers and gave a thumbs up and ‘ohm-pa’ to every truck driver who passed. They returned in kind with great honks and cheers. It’s farmland out here, big agribusiness, but beautiful. I then rode 12k down a small road that had killer rollers but was very pretty and arrived in Prudentopolis at 2:15, way too early to stop for anything. I rode around town and found the best hotel (note--what I'm calling the 'best' hotel is the best combination of location, price, and security)--$R55—and dropped off my bags in the room and asked for directions to the waterfalls and began to ride on another highway in the opposite direction of my destination. I rode 12k on a good highway and passed three ceramic factories burning wood and using local mud for to making tiles. The smoke wasn’t bad because it was local trees. I turned off the road to follow the signs for the waterfalls and rode on rocky dirt roads for 4k for the first fall, which was slightly beautiful. I rode another steep descent of 1k to reach the next fall, which was the first big waterfall--of the kind they film in the movies--I had ever seen. There were some men fishing at the base but other than them it was deserted. It had been used earlier as a paper plant and there were remnants of the plant and the damn and I thought of the natives who once lived there and got the following idea:

Guy buys all the land near the falls and along the river and gets his buddies, maybe pays people, to protect it all. The goal of the guy and all the land he ‘owns’ is just to protect all the jungle around the river and the falls. Later, some other fella encroaches on the river and tries to dump in the river. Guy who bought the land uses his buddies (all heavily armed) to approach the other fellow and tell him to stop. Guy won’t stop: this constitutes a tort or perhaps assault on the other guy’s land. He then has to use his fellas to start waxing the other fellas who are dumping in his river. Turns out other guy is buddies with some folks who have a ‘country,’ with a flag and uniforms and songs and shit. They beat him to it—this guy who bought the land (and it was a lot of land) to protect the falls and the river and the land could have had a flag and uniforms and television and language and press center and all that shit too but he didn’t want it and some other fella beat him to it. So the other fella gets to use ‘tax’ money to fight the other guy and the other fella gets to use ‘TV’ and other shit to say bad shit about the other guy and uses all kinds of bad words, like ‘terrorist,’ to describe the guy who is protecting his land. The good guy thinks, “Shit, I mean if I needed a theme song, if I knew it would have helped, I would have gotten a ‘flag’ too and uniforms and theme song and press releases and all that shit. Because I know my ‘country’ is way better than that fella's ‘country.’ Shit, all I wanted to do was preserve the land and live simple, and I got my fellas to gather with me with guns to tell people to fuck off if they fucked with us. But now this fella has all this cash and all these guns and he’s got a fucking flag and a theme song and is spreading shit about us on TV. Fuck.”

What brand is your murder? 

After the ride to the waterfalls I went to get a bite to eat at a local place I spotted earlier. Two Ukrainian gals, late teens, early twenties, worked the joints, and attracted the local Ukrainian guys. When I got back in to town after the waterfalls I read a plaque that said the city was a butch of Ukrainians. I asked the gals if they were Ukrainian and sure as shit they were. I didn’t understand the menu and instead of a nice meal I got a fried meat pastry and a beer. I paid $R8.00 and asked the gals where for my next beer and they said they didn’t drink beer. My chatting with the girls was fine though, I just wanted more food. I headed to the grocery for some pizza.