I have the wackiest experiences here in Brazil. My voyage to Camocim proved to be another one of those experiences with my overnight visit in Jijoca. I was in Acarau, doing research, remember the yogurt entry, ah yes. I was in Acarau, and heading to Camocim next.Unfortunatley there is no direct way to travel from Acarau to Camocim if you are without your own car. After contemplating ridiculous travel options such as returning all the way to Fortaleza (5 hours) only to go about 2 hours further up the road or leaving at 4 am to take a car to Sobral, where I’d have to wait 8 hours to catch a bus to Camocim, I decided perhaps the best option was to go to Jijoca, spend the night and catch a car in the morning. First heading from Curral Velho into Acarau was no easy picnic. No one was quite sure what time the car was going from Acarau to Jijoca. Rumor had it, 9 AM. So with 3 large bags (once again I had left my house 3 weeks ago for both a vacation and research trip), when 8:30 came and there was no car in sight, I tried to arrange for a moto to take me. Said moto didn’t arrive until 9:05 and I clambored aboard, getting some help from my new friends to load me and my bags onto the moto. Once again can I just say riding a moto in soft sand is never a good idea. have I not learned from my medical experiences here? Nor does that idea get better if you add on an extra person and three pieces of luggage.
The trip to Acarau was painful in the fact that it felt like I was trying to fight gravity the whole time by keeping my bags and my body on the moto. Lambadas, the Portuguese word for speed bumps, are not my friends. So 9:15 I make it to Acarau, the car to Jijoca is still there and fortunately (or not) is leaving at 11 AM. Ok fastforward, I make the car, and get to Jijoca but I am once again left with that familiar feeling of not knowing where to get off. Thankfully Jijoca is small and the car driver was nice and pointed me in the direction of a “simple but good pousada.”
Well it was cheap allright. For 10 reals, I got a room to store my stuff for the day, and a bed. The bad news: no ventilation making it the hottest room in the world, yes that’s right no windows and yes that’s right I am 2 degrees below the equator. Sigh, this is not the kind of place you’d want to spend a lot of time. Anyway I ditch my bags and take to the street, hunting for information about arriving in Camocim. I am informed that there is a car that goes at 4 AM. I continue to pace up and down mainstreet chatting with every moto taxi guy to see if they have any friends that can take me in a car, today. They do not.
While taking a break from the afternoon sun, I finish a PhD application, take that Stanford (!), and think about how unbelievingly hot it is in the internet café. After a rallying afternoon snack of yogurt and bread, I am finally able to hunt down the Camocim driver, who happily agrees to take me at 4 am. But no, the story is not over yet.
I go out for an early dinner, and as I am roaming main street trying to decide which of the 4 restaurants I will dare to eat at, a guy calls out to me from a table asking me if I am Brazilian (in Portuguese.). I say no, in Portuguese and he then switches to English asking me where I’m form. I say the US and he is too, kind of. Joseph is Brazilian but has lived for the last 25 years in the US. He bought a pousada in Jericocoara and is, with his buddy (the head of the bank), having a bite to eat before heading to Jericocoara. They invite me to join them, and with the only other option being dinner by myself, I agree.
Well so it turns out Joseph is divorced, with two kids and it sounds like there is some bitterness, anger and resentment there. He is there with Banco de Brasil, the head of the bank in Jijoca. Joseph and Banco de Brasil (picture a large fat banker with black hair. I am kind of picturing the Monopoly banker, top hat and all but with a big fat body, and brazilian looking face., you can almost see him tightly holding wads of cash in his fat little fists….and I’ve digressed…..) ok so Joseph, BB and I are all chatting away. I’m happy for some conversation and they look happy to have a young female sitting at their dinner table.
Enter the mysterious Mr. O an elderly local character of 72, who seems friendly with BB. Mr. O and Joseph then realize that they have met before and Mr. O invites himself to sit down with us for a whiskey. Now side note: all these fellas are drinking, and me being the only female, and also alone in Jijoca, I am happily sipping guava juice, which Joseph informed me is good for closing the stomach if it is open too much. In case you need to open your stomach, go to the Papaya, according to Joseph. Ok, back to the Mysterious Mr. O. Who gets on my good-side right away by saying I speak like a local and not like some foreigner, but then gets right back on my bad side by a) saying he worships George Bush and wishes Obama were never President and b) switching between speaking poetry to me and giving me a history lesson of the Portuguese language in Brazil. Sigh.
So after I make it through the history lesson, Mr. O gets on the phone and says he has someone I have to talk to……turns out he has a son who lives in Fortaleza, who he wants me to meet. So he whips out his I-phone (insert my astonished look of someone in Jijoca has an i-phone and it’s not the bank president?) and calls his son. Then passes the phone to me and says talk! So I chuckle thinking that I would apologize for the dad insisting I talk to his son, but the son is totally keen on it. He starts chatting to me in Portuguese and then when he finds out I’m from the US, well darn tootin’ hasn’t he been to Wisconsin. So never having been to Wisconsin and not knowing much about it other than the capital, and its reputation for cheese, he says he wants to meet me when I get back to Fortaleza. He is studying a master’s in math.
Anyway after chatting with math man, and him wanting my number, his dad then offers to “have his driver” take me to Camocim at a reasonable hour of the morning. Now this is seriously tempting. I think the guy is somewhat trustworthy, he has a son in college, who has been to the US, and we are sitting with the head of Banco de Brasil albeit in Jijoca and with Joseph. However I decline as I am not sure how to go about canceling the plans I already have in motion. Joseph and BB try to convince me to go party with them in Jericocoara for the weekend, and after kissing me multiple times on the cheek to say good-bye, Joseph and BB both ask for my number and want to take me out some other time. They head off for party town and I am left with Mysterious Mr. O, who after two whiskeys is happily mumbling about his driver taking me to Camocim and quoting poetry, possibly about the history of Brazil. We run into the guy I talked to about going to Camocim, and Mr. O says, “Oh DRIVER! I have found you. Will you take this girl to Camocim tomorrow morning at 6:30 AM?” To which, the driver says, no, I already talked to her and he’s leaving at 4 AM. Mr. O turns and gives me this half shrug, and says happy to be of service to my future daughter in law. Then he slaps the driver on the back and says “to the Domino’s Driver!”
And Finally Camocim!
So I woke up at 3:30 to make sure I was outside and ready for my 4 AM ride from Jijoca to Camocim. I was slightly preoccupied that I was not going to get a ride. I had talked the day before to the guy’s friend, who had been drinking when he told me he would have his friend pick me up at 4 am. So at 4:10, I was considerably nervous. I saw one motorcycle go by at 4:20 and at 4:30, I was trying to plan how in the world I would get to Camocim that day and not stay in the hottest hotel in the world in Jijoca for another day. Finally at 4:43, my ride arrives. (Now why in the world anyone would willingly choose to start the car-pool to Camocim at 4 am and not at a reasonable hour is beyond me….and no it’s not exactly like the Jijoca to Camocim run is big for commuters….) So when a truck pulled up that had wooden seats in the truck bed and a covered top, in I went. When I hopped in, everyone looked like refugees because they were all huddled up (a few women and some children) under a few blankets. I thought this was kind of funny that I was catching a ride with the refugees to Camocim, but 5 minutes into the journey I realized the joke was on the gringo. They were all huddled up because traveling on the highway in a fairly open truck bed at 4:45 is really really cold! I managed to survive the chill and an hour and a half later I arrived in Camocim.
WHEW I had made it! Camocim!
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