A Smell of Being

The Linger Loco!

Chapter 15: A Smell of Being

The driver of the moto-taxi toots his horn as we push

through a crowded street market. The town is alive with

activity, and once through we pull up outside a taxi-office

and haul our bags inside. There’s a car leaving for Inapari

on the border with Brazil in one hour. I ask the driver what

the road ahead is like, but he smiles and shrugs his shoulders.

We assume it can’t be any worse than the journey

from Cusco. Chilling on a comfortable sofa in the office for

a few minutes, we quickly become bored and decide to

take a look around the market. Chris hunts for chocolate

while I stumble across a stall with pirate CD’s for 25p each.

Purchasing a selection of Reggaetton compilations (the gritty

Latin pop that has become the nations favourite), and the

best of ‘The Rolling Stones’ in preparation for Rio, we return

to the taxi office and find our bags have been tightly

packed into the boot of the car. Our fellow passengers have

arrived and we are ready to head for Brazil.

A young friendly guy in a denim shirt and khaki shorts

sits in the front of the car, and we jump in the back with a

young woman and her son. Zipping through the traffic we

all become acquainted, and soon find ourselves down by

the port on the Rio Madre de Dios waiting for a small car

ferry. The boat eventually arrives and we watch as the

driver zooms up the gangplank. We’re transported across

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the brown river, and find a wide straight road on the other

side that has been cut directly through the thick jungle. It’s

sandy and unpaved and is bright red in colour. The car

slides as the wheels struggle to gain traction on the dry

sandy surface. It’s like we’re driving on ice and the driver

turns into each skid, as we fly like a rally car towards

Brazil. We pass the occasional motorbike or horse and cart,

and leave them in a thick cloud of dust as we zoom by.

Some of them have handkerchiefs tied over their mouth

and nose. The young kid with the woman jumps around in

the back; he’s restless and plays with a toy car on the back

parcel shelf. I learn they’re on their way to visit her husband’s

family in a town called Iberia. She seems nervous

and confesses to me that she doesn’t like to make the journey

all the way out here with her son, which I can totally

understand.

Some hours later we arrive in the dusty little town of

Iberia. We say goodbye to the guy in the denim shirt, who

runs across the road and climbs into an old Jeep. The

woman and her child wave goodbye too, and disappear

down the road. The taxi driver smiles and pulls up outside

a shop on the corner of a tree-shaded plaza. Chris runs in

and grabs some refreshments, and while he’s paying at the

counter a new passenger jumps in the front seat of the car.

He’s a thin man and is wearing bright red shorts, a green

vest top and a baseball cap. He looks Peruvian, but his

clothes look more footballer/surfer style – a clear indication

that we’re close to Brazil. We relax in the back as the car

speeds off once more towards the border. We’re excited by

the prospect of seeing the new $80 million bridge in

Inapari that opened only a few days ago. We’d seen pictures

in the newspaper of the Peruvian and Brazilian

Presidents shaking hands, and officially opening the

bridge that will link the two countries together.

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The prospect of crossing into a new country with a reputation

for harsh poverty and violence is a little daunting,

and I begin to feel nervous when we arrive at the border

town and pull up outside the Peruvian immigration office.

We walk inside the building with our rucksacks and smile

at the official. He asks for our passports and studies each

one for a few minutes before stamping them. Relieved to

have the formalities out of the way, we wander down a

dusty deserted high street with a few ramshackle shops

and cafés. Unsure how we get to Brazil from Inapari, we

grab a coffee in a small café and watch a group of black

vultures hop around someone’s backyard. A smart

Brazilian guy wearing jeans and a black T-shirt suddenly

approaches us. He has shades on his head and is wearing

fashionable white slip-on trainers. He asks in Spanish if

we’re going to Brazil and points at his car across the street.

It’s a black VW Santana saloon with tinted windows. We

assume he’s a taxi driver and ask how much to Brasileia, a

small town across the border. He gives us the option of

waiting two hours for more people to arrive to share the

price, or pay a bit extra and leave right away. Preferring to

leave before it gets dark we opt to pay the extra and, after

changing some Peruvian cash for Brazilian reals with the

girl in the café, we jump into his air-con Santana.

Approaching the impressive new suspension bridge, with

the Peruvian and Brazilian flags standing proudly either

side, I snap a few photos out of the window and capture a

billboard promoting the new ‘Trans-Oceanic Highway’.

Having only been open for two days we assume we must

be the first tourists to cross the bridge, and I feel quite

proud to be exploring a new frontier.

On the other side of the bridge, we discover there isn’t an

immigration checkpoint in the once isolated town of Assis

Brasil, so we decide to try and sort things out in the next

town of Brasileia. The road is a smooth tarmac highway

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complete with an orange stripe painted down the middle.

It feels like we’ve been zapped into the future, from the

jungle dirt tracks of Peru to the modern world of Brazil.

I’m immediately aware of the lack of jungle here and

glance out over open fields. We pass the entrance to a large

cattle ranch with a private road that disappears into the

distance. The jungle has been heavily cultivated and bulldozed

here, and I fear we’re looking at the future of the

Peruvian Amazon and the Madre de Dios. The driver slips

a CD into the stereo and American Country and Western

music blasts from the speakers. It’s deeply surreal to go

from jungle to the Wild West in the short time it takes to

cross a twenty-metre bridge, and it suddenly occurs to me

how different North America, Europe and much of the

world must have looked before humans started cultivating

it. For the past few hundred years, we have been busy

destroying the natural forests of the world to feed our

greedy over-populated civilisations. It had all happened so

fast, humans appeared on this planet from nowhere, and

in a very short time we have quickly succeeded at destroying

much of the world’s natural wildernesses. I guess at

least we can be reassured by the fact that the earth is a

robust little planet, and has survived destruction many

times in its six billion years of existence. Meteorites,

volcanic eruptions and natural shifts in climate change

have wiped out 90% of the planet’s organisms on multiple

occasions, and will no doubt do so again, although,

probably long, long after we have eaten ourselves into

extinction.

We arrive in the small town of Brasilia in the late afternoon.

The driver drops us off near a taxi rank, and zooms

off before we’ve had a chance to ask him where the immigration

office is. We’re immediately accosted by a smiley

overweight Brazilian guy in a colourful Hawaiian shirt. He

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offers to take us to Rio Branco, the first city of any size in

this remote part of Brazil. We agree, but I try to explain to

him that we need to visit immigration first so we can get

our passports stamped. He doesn’t understand, which is

excusable being as he speaks Portuguese and not Spanish,

and we have to stop him from taking us out of town and

hitting the highway. The guy finally clocks on and takes us

to the local police station. He tells us he’ll be back in one

hour, and that we should wait for him to return. Heading

inside the police station we stand nervously behind the

counter, and wait for the large gentleman in uniform to

look up from his desk. He stands up and stares at us sternly.

I smile and Chris mumbles a “Bom dia”. He’s an enormous

guy with thick hairy forearms and a big bushy moustache

that hangs from his top lip. He has a deep tan but looks

European, and is wearing a black uniform and a badge

with Policia Militar stitched onto it. I notice he has a handgun

and a baton strapped to his belt. He glares at us, but I

can see he’s smirking behind his moustache as we hand

over our passports. Looking confused the cop studies our

documents and asks “Que pais?” I recognise the word

‘pais’ meaning country, as it’s similar in Spanish.

‘Uh, Inglaterra,’ I reply.

He laughs out loud. ‘Inglês?’

‘Sim.’

He laughs again and calls his colleague over. His skinny

friend stands next to him and studies our documents with

interest. He points to our Peruvian exit stamp.

“Entrada para Brazil, aqui?” Chris grins, trying hard to

look cool and unfazed by the awkward situation.

The cops look confused. They walk around the office

and rummage through an old grey filing cabinet. The big

cop eventually makes a call and talks in a low voice to

someone on the other end of the phone. He places down

the receiver and mutters something to the skinny cop.

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They eventually manage to work things out, and we realise

pretty quickly that they’re not used to foreigners crossing

this border. It seems bizarre that Brazil’s borders would be

left so wide open, and I assume it’s because they are either

happy for people to find their way into Brazil (a country

roughly the size of Europe), or they have a tough punishment

for anyone found illegally inside its borders. In a

country with a reputation for housing some of the worst

prisons in the world, we smile politely and wait in anticipation

for our passports to be stamped. With good humour the

cop mentions Tony Blair and Iraq, and we smile back pronouncing

that it’s crazy, “Loco”. The cultural divide between

Brazil and England seems smaller than Peru, and I find the

two police guys to have a relaxed, informal attitude that is

familiar. He stamps a month entry period in our passports

and hands them back. We shake his enormous hand and bid

him good day. We wait on the steps outside for our taxi to

return. The sun is low now flooding the street in soft

orange light, and hearing a car horn across the street we

see our chubby friend waving out of the window. We run

across the road and toss our rucksacks in the boot. There’re

two more guys sitting in the car. They both look over at us

and smile. The driver puts some soft rock music on the

stereo and heads out into the countryside, where we pass

more cattle ranches and a landscape without trees. We

arrive in Rio Branco around nine o’clock in the evening,

and showing the driver a hotel on the map he drops us off

right outside. The city itself is large and modern with big

casinos and love motels illuminating the outskirts. I had

not expected it to be so grand, and heading through the

doorway to the hotel I smile in the realisation that we have

finally arrived in Brazil.

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* * *

Sitting hunched over on the toilet, I watch a mosquito

buzz between my hairy legs. It hovers above my crotch and

quickly flies off when I dump a load into the pan. My

stomach growls, and I tut as the horrific smell of excrement

drifts up my nostrils. You don’t have to be a genius

to work out that I’ve got some kind of a stomach bug. It

must’ve been that fish soup I had last night from a small,

rather rundown café around the corner from the hotel. I

knew we shouldn’t have gone inside, but it was late and

we were both starving. As I sit here with my pants around

my ankles, I pray my stomach will be better before our

long bus journey tonight to Cuiaba and the Pantanal, the

world’s largest inland swamp. The last thing I want to do

is kill everyone onboard with my ass odour. I whip up my

trousers and exit the bathroom.

‘Close the fucking door!’ Si screams, thrusting his head

out of the bedroom window. ‘Jesus Christ, you need to see

a doctor.’

‘“Where there is a stink of shit, there is a smell of being.”’

I smile, dancing across the room.

Abandoning the hotel room we sing a “bom dia” to the

smartly dressed woman working behind reception, and

hang a right out of the hotel towards the main shopping

area. It still hasn’t really sunk in yet that we’re in Brazil,

and that we made it here overland all the way from Buenos

Aires. I’m excited to be roaming around this vast country

with a population of over 186 million people. The ethnic

mix of the locals walking through the hot streets of the city

is truly striking. A genetic cocktail with African,

Indigenous and Portuguese people at its core, with the

occasional blonde-hair-blue-eyed Northern European

thrown in for good measure. Si informs me Rio Branco,

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meaning ‘White River’, is the capital of the state of Acre.

The nearest major city is Manaus 1445km north up the

Amazon River. It’s far more developed than Puerto

Maldonado and I wonder if this is because it is linked by

road to the commercial centres of Brasilia, São Paulo and

Rio de Janeiro thousands of kilometres in the southeast.

We soon find ourselves in the commercial district of the

city, and dodge the crowds of people spilling out of the

many shops lined up along the busy high street. It’s not the

most attractive place I’ve ever visited, although, the grand

town hall at the far end of the plaza is pretty impressive.

We stand outside the white Palacio Rio Branco, Acre’s first

capital building. It looks immaculate with four Greek-like

columns at the entrance and both the Brazilian flag and

the Acre’s state flag either side of the steps. Deciding to

take a look around the museum, we wander through various

rooms with black and white photographs on the walls of

rubber tappers from the turn of the century. The original

copy of the treaty of Petropolis signed in 1903, which gave

Brazil the state of Acre is on display in a glass case. Before

this time Bolivia owned Acre, but for a pile of cash and the

promise of a railroad (that was never built) Bolivia handed it

over to Brazil. At this time the Amazon was fairly

untouched, the lungs of the planet where healthy, unlike

today where more than 12 football-field size areas of rainforest

are destroyed every half an hour.

Walking through a doorway, we look at photographs and

study information about Chico Mendes, a Brazilian rubber

tapper and trade union activist, who was awarded many

prizes by foreign countries for his organisation of peaceful

protests against illegal logging. Sadly, he was killed in

1988 under the order of two landowners. Trying to stop the

illegal loggers in the Amazon is a dangerous business, and

an American nun was killed fairly recently by hired gunmen.

Brazil is fast becoming one of the largest soybean

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producers in the world, with millions of acres of land

being cleared to grow the crop. With the global market

forces of America and Europe hungry for Brazilian

mahogany, beef and soy, land has become the new gold.

Government agents have been trying to catch illegal loggers

using satellite imaging, but to enforce anything substantial

out here it is practically impossible. Corruption and violence

is rife. It will take a lot more than satellite cameras

and a few government environmental agents to save this

wilderness.

Stepping into another room we find ourselves surrounded

by Indian head-dresses made from the feathers of colourful

exotic birds. We study photographs of the Indian Chiefs

from all of the various tribes that existed in this region.

Some of them are women, and we’re fascinated to note

how similar they look to the Indians of North America.

Looking deep into their narrow eyes, we’re fascinated by

the physical similarities with the Buryat people we had

seen close to the border with Mongolia during our mammoth

road trip across Russia and Siberia. Recent scientific

evidence using genetic tracing has revealed this is in fact

true, and that the first inhabitants of this region of the

world made the long journey from Siberia across the

Bering Strait to Alaska between 12,000 and 50,000 years

ago. Studying clay pipes and bows and arrows in glass

cases on the walls, I feel in awe of the Indians’ natural

existence. Two worlds are colliding, and I begin to wonder

which one I would prefer to belong to. Despite there still

being over 170 indigenous Amazonian peoples living in

Brazil, in recent years many had been displaced from their

ancestral territory with the rapid destruction of the forest.

Studying their life size portraits, it makes me angry to

think that in such a short space of time our insatiable global

thirst has destroyed so much. In 20 years time it is predicted

over 40 percent of the Amazon will have been cut down

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and a further 20 percent degraded. The forest produces

half of its own rainfall and absorbs carbon dioxide, mitigating

global warming and cleansing the atmosphere – it

produces the oxygen that allows us to breathe. I begin to

feel suddenly claustrophobic in the small windowless

room of the museum and head outside.

Our taxi driver, who is also a frustrated Formula One racing

driver, transports us through the dark streets from our

hotel to the bus station in approximately thirty seconds

flat – a time even Ayrton Senna would’ve struggled to beat.

Si looks pale and falls out of the VW GOL with blue neon

lights under the car. We head over to the Eucatur bus office

and purchase two tickets bound for Cuiaba. They cost $50

each, which sounds a lot, but then Si reminds me it is a 36-

hour journey and will save us two night’s accommodation.

The bus doesn’t leave for an hour, so we haul our bags over

to a bench and chill out. I open the guidebook, and I’m just

about to read about Rio de Janeiro when a guy selling jewelry

approaches us. He’s Afro-Brazilian and has wicked

dreadlocks and colourful beads hanging around his neck.

He smiles and displays a board covered with handcrafted

necklaces, earrings and bracelets. I point to a colourful

wristband and ask how much. It’s two reals, about 50p,

which sounds cheap so I hand over the money and the guy

ties it around my wrist.

Si looks enviously at my new bracelet. ‘That’s actually

quite nice. A bit of a chick thing to wear, but then it’s fashionable

these days to show you’re in touch with your

feminine side.’

‘Piss off, there’s nothing wrong with wearing a wristband.’

‘Hey, I wonder if that dude likes a smoke. We should ask

him if he’s got any.’

‘Got any what?’

‘You know, weed.’

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‘You are joking?’

‘No.’

‘Si, you can’t ask him that, he might take offence.’

‘Take offence? He’s got dreadlocks. People with dreadlocks

don’t take offence. Anyway, this is Brazil my slow

learning dunce.’

‘Forget about it.’

We sit in silence and watch as he displays his jewelry to

a few more potential customers.

‘He certainly has a cool life,’ I smile, watching him hook

a beaded necklace around a woman’s neck.

‘You think so?’

‘Yeah, he’s free – he’s an artisan living from his art.’

‘So are we.’

I laugh. ‘We’re not artisans, Si! The only thing we’ve skillfully

made recently is two great big holes in our wallets.’

‘I wonder if he sells much.’

‘I’m sure he does quite well, he doesn’t look hungry.’

‘Maybe we should give it a go!’

‘We can’t sell jewelry at bus stations?’

Si narrows his eyes. ‘No, you numb-nuts, sell our books.’

‘That’s what we tried to do in Thailand, wasn’t it?’

‘Not really, we spent most of our time eating Pad Thai,

splashing around in the sea with pretty girls and drinking

buckets of Thai whiskey.’

‘Ah, yes, memories!’

‘Maybe we should sell them direct in the street like that

guy?’

‘No way, I’ve got some self respect!’ I cry, munching on a

chunk of pineapple.

‘What do you mean? If he can do it – why can’t we?’

‘You can’t sell a book you’ve written yourself. It’s cheesy!’

‘Well, that’s how Charles Dickens got started. He used to

sell his stories in chapters for a penny.’

‘He didn’t make much profit, then?’

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‘OK, how about at a market? We could set up a little car

boot stall.’

‘Shut the fuck up, Si, you’re really scaring me. I don’t

know whether to run away or put you in a mental home.

What’s the matter with you?’

‘I’m just trying to look at the situation from all angles.’

You can say that again. Look, let’s move the problem to

one side and put it in the ‘wait until we get back home to

reality’ box. Is that a deal?’

Si nods and jumps to his feet when he sees the bus pull

into the station. ‘Yeah, OK, it’s a deal!’

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