Here’s a bit of waffle I wrote in Rio bus station while waiting for the  bus to Foz do Iguacu a few days ago. I’ll do a separate post about things to do in Rio when the  motivation and inspiration to write fully take hold. You know how it is when you sit down to write and the words are stale and uninspiring and send you to sleep. I couldn’t possibly put you through the dullness of having to read them.

An adaptation of an old song: “Sitting in a big bus station, with a ticket for my destination…(hums)…” I am, however, definitely far from Homeward Bound, and only at the beginning of this semi-planned adventure in Latin America. With another cafe com leite in front of me, my eyes are surveying this hubub hub of people intersecting here for one time only in history. There will never be another moment when this exact same cross section of humanity will inhabit the same place in history at the same time. I don’t know what we are sharing, but we are sharing this  moment. It would be different if something momentous happened, if a bomb went off, for example. It would give a focus for our shared togetherness. As it is, we simply share “the leaving of Rio,” and are together for one last time.

This would, I suppose, be a good time to talk about Rio, and everything that my memory can summon up since the time I last talked to you in Houston.  Many of you will already know about my change in travel fortune,when I was suddenly and unexpectedly upgraded to business class. I revelled in the service, and in the seat that became a bed with a push of a button. Even the three hour delay while a new tyre was fitted could not dampen my enthusiasm for this new found silver platter status. When the pilot tells you that then plane is not functioning as it should be, your heart begins to lose its confidence. You will have guessed that the plane did land safely, and this thirty hour old journeyman headed for a taxi to take him to his luxury, Rio penthouse.

I stood at one o’clock outside the Hotel Mundo Novo  in Lapa, glanced up at the sign, took note of a distinct lack of windows and wondered what calamity had befallen me. Maybe fate was about to make me pay for that business class upgrade. As I stepped into a little courtyard and turned the key to room 102, I wondered what I had done to deserve the calamity that had befallen me. Yet that dismal, windowless, brown cell would grow on me over the next few days. It became my wifi refuge, a place to cool down, to contact and be contacted. The breakfast was the same every day: two fresh bread rolls, butter, a kind of thick jam paste, four cream crackers, a packet of dry biscuits, a pot of coffee and a pot of hot milk.  It was simple, unchanging, predictable, yet somehow satisfying and comforting.  In my new era  without identifiable roots, it is nice to be rooted for a few days at least.  The staff were friendly in a businesslike, hotel kind of way and appreciated my feeble attempts at Portuguese pleasantries.  The shower had three settings which I recognised as winter, spring and summer. All i can say is that I hate to think how cold the water gets in summer. The biggest excitement at Hotel Mundo Novo was coming down to breakfast on day three and discovering three members of Polish stoner metal band Belzebong.  I’d seen them live the night before in a little bar just down the road called La Esquina. Their lyrics are astoundingly simple: they don’t have any! They just play instrumentals, driving beats and apocalyptic riffs that the faithful fans doom out to. Now I know why I should have brought my leathers and my Halloween hair and make-up. I showed them photos I’d taken of them on what was the last night of their South American tour.  I would say that my hotel was very well situated. I could be in about ten different bars and restaurants less than a minute from the front door, as well as a host of downmarket shops.  The Seleron steps (more on these in a more informative, less waffly post) were just five minutes walk away and Cinelandia Metro station about twice that distance. This all meant being able to get to the major sights with a short metro/bus combo ride and being able to walk out of a bar and straight into the hotel, thus avoiding the risks associated with wandering the streets of Rio at night.

Ok I’m off now. Talk soon. I’ll try and get round to telling you something about the sights and sounds of Rio in a later post. Ciao.

Words and pics by Si @cre8ivations

My cell

The Seleron Steps (just round the corner)

Belzebong in their full metallic element. (poor quality iphone pic!)