Buenos Aires Querido IV

Buff how dramatic the previous post was, wasnt it? Maybe I should not write her if I am drinking, specially the day after a Sabina concert. Anyway, while I wait for the resolution of the III drama porteño, lets see if I can relax this a bit with a less complicated issue. Lets write one of these entries nobody comments (it seems that my personal issues sell much more than the supposedly useful information I intend to give in this blog). Lets talk about, for example… public transportation system in Buenos Aires. Wow! Fascinating isnt it? Well, I guess there will be someone who will find this info useful and that is the whole thing about it.
First one advice: get yourself a pocket “T” guide. You can get it everywhere. This small book has an index of all streets in Capital Federal including bus routes, a map of the subte and a map of the train. Basic for orientation in the huge Buenos Aires.

Subte

Buenos Aires has a subway system (they call it Subte, for “subterraneo”) a bit limited taking into account how huge the city is. There are currently five lines operating. D (green), B (red), A (light blue) and E (purple) go in different directions from microcentro to the end of capital federal, C (dark blue) goes pararel to Puerto Mader from North to South. You could say the infraestructure does its job but leaves a few areas uncovered. Actually the problem is that the subte is designed according to the very centralized way that Buenos Aires works. Most of the stuff happens in the microcentro, where the main commercial areas are, the public institutions and the big majority of the companies have their sites. If you have an office job you are very likely to be working in microcentro. Therefore, the main goal of the subte is to get all these people to work everyday and that is why more horizontal moves, from North to South, are less frequent and there are no subway lines for them.

You can imagine the result of this: first hour in the morning and around 6 pm, D, B, A and E lines become a nightmare. These wagons with no A/C absolutely crowded with people going or coming back from work… It is a very big deal to get into them and once you manage you wanna die in there. Honestly, this even becomes an important factor when it comes to choosing a job. I consider myself really luckly that I managed to avoid working in microcentro so far. Both Ekuar, my first job which was almost next door and IBM, whose site is outside the city, kept me away from the hardcode experience of using the subte in rush hour.

About the quality of the service, fair enough is the expression that applies. Is the Buenos Aires subway system as good as the one in european big cities such as Madrid, Paris or London? No, wagons are stations are more creepy, frequence is lower and delays and service interruptions are more often. However, is the Buenos Aires subway system a big an unsuable third world shit? Definitely not, it does its job perfectly and you have the feeling that it would not take too much effort to upgrade it to european standards, just by investing some money in its expansion and improvement.

One thing you realize when travelling by subte is how the effects of that big economic crisis Argentina suffered not so long ago are still present in the society. Almost everytime you use it you will have these people giving speeches in the wagons about how poor they are, how they lost their jobs and stuff like that and begging for money, or trying to sell you all sorts of stuff. Sadly as it is, most of the times they will be children leaving stamps on the pasengers and hoping to get some coins in exchange. Not that this does not happen in Europe but here is much more frequent and depressing…

A subte ticket is very cheap, 0.80 pesos (around 20 euro cents). It is adviceable to get this subway “monedero” card in which you can put money and use it to access the subte and also to pay for other stuff outside the subway system.

El colectivo

This is one of the key elements of Buenos Aires life.. the buses (called “colectivos” or “bondies” here). There are millions of them all over the city, almost 200 lines just in capital federal. They are the real owners of the roads, noisy, with very long routes covering the whole city and most of the time running really fast. There is no place you need to go you can not get there by linking two or more colectivos.

Been a colectivo driver (colectivero) has to be a very stressing job. It is not only about dealing with the terrible traffic of the city but they also need to pay attention to the travellers paying for their rides. I will talk more about this later but the thing is that when you board a bus here you need to tell the driver the price you are going to pay, he presses the right buttom and you put coins in the machine. Deppending on your destination you will pay a different ammount. Sometimes it will be 1.10, or 1.20 or 1.25 and so on. Actuallly there is a bit of trustness in the passenger here because you can tell not the destination but the ammount you will pay and very few times the driver will do more than pushing the bottom. This means that, if you are cheap enough, you can always pay 1.10 even if you are gonna stay in the bus for a very long ride.

So talking about the way bus trips are paid it is a very good moment to introduce a very relevant topic concerning life in Buenos Aires: coins! This city has to be one of the few places in the world were having change becomes critical. Because, appart from very few exceptions, colectivos only accept coins which means if you run out of them you might be really fucked up. And it is not easy at all to get them. Apparently the production of coins is not enough to cover the demand and everybody are always in need of them. All shops will avoid at all cost to give change back and will always ask for you to pay in a way they dont loose coins. Dont fall into that! Lie! Say you dont have coins or you may loose your only way to get home. You have to always keep a provision of coins. Buenos Aires is the only city in which you can walk around with quite a lot of money on your pocket but not have enough for getting home. Because maybe the subte is closed already (after 10) and maybe you live far away and a taxi is too expensive. So it might happen you end up buying shit you dont need just to get the coins you need for the bus. A trick which very often does not work because, as I said, shops dont give change away so easily. In fact, you will notice most of them have a big notice saying “NO COINS!”.

Going back to the colectiveros stress topic, I recently was told that they need to drive the route in a certain fixed time and they keep checking they dont get late. If that happens they loose money. It does not seem like a very fair thing to do, specially in a job with so many factors out of their control (traffic jams, accidents etc..). What this causes in the end is that these guys sometimes drive fucking crazy or, even worse, sometimes they wont stop where you have been waiting for a while cause they are on a race against the timetable.

From the outside, the relation colectivero - colectivo seems quite intense. Most of these buses are sort of personalized by the driver which put religious stuff, things their children did for them or, in general, any sort of stuff they like. It seems that a driver always drive the same bus so he makes himself at home. In some cases this will include purple interior lights, decorative stuff in the outside of the vehicle or coloured wheels, just for giving some examples.

Here every bus is different. Each line uses a different design and colours and then, as I mentioned before, each driver will customize their “work tool” to the point that there is even a technical word for that action: “el fileteado”, defined by Martiniano Arce, supposedly one of the main “fileteadores” as “art on wheels, making the city happy with colorful designs, sayings and legends, with humoristic, reflexive or philosophical meanings”. Wikipedia tells me this art had his best moment before 1975 when a law which forbidded this kind of stuff was set. However, in 2006 the “fileteado” was declarad cultural heritage of the city of Buenos Aires and nowadays is not strange to see colectives full of small flags, inscriptions and all sorts of stuff which will make your journey a bit less boring.

Well, I guess that was enough for this topic. Let me tell you that the drivers might be very stressed but most of the times they will be very helpful and, besides, they work during the night. It is difficult to think of Buenos Aires without all these bondies passing all the time (sometimes you can see buses from the first line driving one after the other). There are modern and old ones. With or without A/C. More sophisticated or really crappy ones. I never took so many buses in my life as I have taken this year in Argentina, as a consequence of having been downgraded to the pedestrian status after ten years using my car for everything. Well, it was not that terrible

Trains

This is a transportation mean not too developed in the country but quite important in the capital, where a few short distance lines can take you to “provincia” much faster than the Subte. I havent got too much to say about them, the only one I used more or less regularly was the “Mitre” one, to Tigre, in the North and known to be the safest and more efficient one. I head some lines in the South are not so adviceable but I have no experience about it. In any case, it is quite a good thing to live close to a train station which allow you to get to Retiro (main station, very close to the center) in just a few stops instead of spending ages on the subte. Trains are obviouslly not as frequent as subway but if you know the time table they normally are on time and I was never in one which broke down. Here you have a map of trains in Buenos Aires.

No es nada habitual utilizar el tren para largos recorridos, si acaso para irte desde Buenos Aires a Rosario, que está a tres horas. En general la red ferroviaria en Argentina está bastante abandonada y se utiliza más que nada para transporte de mercancías. La gente aquí se mueve más en bus en las largas distancias(ver siguiente apartado).It is not usual at all to use train for long distances, maybe just from Buenos Aires to Rosario, three hours away. In general the train network is not developed at all and they use it more for goods. People usually travel by bus (see next chapter).

Micros

That is the word the use for long distance buses here. By the way, Retiro is also the main bus station. By using these buses you can get almost everywhere in the country or even move to adjacent countries such as Brazil, Paraguay or Chile, as long as you are pacient enough to spend a couple of days on the road. It is written somewhere else in this blog but keep in mind buses here are really nice so this long rides are not so terrible in the end. Furthermore, if you are willing to spend some extra money you can travel really comfortable.

The cheapest ticket you can get is called “semi-cama”, that means a bus which seats bend over 45 degrees. Thats something in Europe we would already consider to be good. Next level is the once called “cama” (bed) which gets almost horizontal and, finally, the highest one is the “ejecutivo” which basically becomes a proper bed. If you go further and get the “suite” one you will get a bunch of extras which basically deppend on the company you are travelling with. In general most of them have people serving meals and drinks, cofee, water and things like that.

Have a look at the next table with distances from Buenos Aires to some important cities on the country and you will notice how huge Argentina is. For example the distance from Puerto Iguazu, in the very North, to Ushuaia, the most southern city, is aproximately a bit more than 4000 km. That is more or less what we have in Europe between Madrid and North of Sweden, just for you to get an idea…

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Tags: Buenos Aires

No es una fecha casual para escribir aquí, tampoco lo es el momento. El aniversario de mi llegada a América del Sur coincide con una crisis monumental que me tiene convertido en un fantasma. Si cuando cumplía un mes era todo alegría y ilusión hoy toca tristeza y pena. Es una larga historia y aún no tengo muy claro si largarla aquí a los cuatros vientos me ayuda o no. Si el deshaogo de escribir al mundo entero lo que no para de martillear mi cabeza sirve para algo. Tampoco quiero engañar a nadie, evidentemente la primera que quiero que lea esto es ella, causa, que no causante de todo esto. No es nada que no le haya dicho ya pero voy a ver si ahora que no me oye nadie me sale un poco mejor.

Así que aquí viene un post de los que no hablan de viajes aunque dice mucho más de ese estilo de vida que cualquier batallita mochilera que pueda contar. Aquí muchachos vamos a ver la cara dura, amarga y las consecuencias terribles que tiene vivir como yo vivo (o más bien de ser como soy, una cosa no se concibe sin la otra), tanto para mí como para cualquier que tenga la desgracia de cruzarse en mi camino.

Empecemos pues, llegué a Buenos Aires con las misma filosofìa de vida en cuanto a relaciones sentimentales que me ha acompañado desde hace unos cuantos años ya. Era muy simple, se trataba de estar con todas las que pudiera sin comprometerme con ninguna. A nadie que me conozca le sorprenderá si le digo que me encanta la noche, el alcohol y, como consecuencia de los dos primeros, las mujeres. Tampoco cuadra otro modo de vida cuando uno tiene tan claro que el fin de su vida es conocer el mayor número posible de lugares y personas, sin atarse a nada.

Sin embargo Buenos Aires no fue así. Salvo algún escarceo inicial hubo una y solo una aquí. Lo cual tiene una explicación muy simple: era la mejor. No hay nada que yo pueda necesitar en una mujer que ella no tuviera. No solo estaba muy buena sino que además era bastante más lista y culta que yo. Hasta sus defectos (este carácter a veces terrible) se convertían en virtudes a mis ojos. Si buscas mujer latina con todo lo que ello representa en el diccionario debería salir una foto de la morocha. Y el pelotazo me lo dió desde la primera noche, me dio vuelta cual panchuque de tal forma que no paré hasta tenerlo todo de ella, tarea no tan fácil porque inicialmente no estaba por la labor. Fueron aquellos días extraños para mí, por una vez jugando el papel del que quiere más de la otra persona, oyendo los discursos que yo acostumbraba a soltar cuando lo único que quería era revolcarme con alguien sin más complicaciones. Y no tenía que moverme mucho para “perseguirla”, ella vivía en mi casa.

Pero el caso es que lo conseguí, la enganché a mí tanto como yo estaba enganchado de ella y aquellos días fueron increíbles chavales. El terrible castigador de la noche se convirtió en un tipo que contaba las horas que faltaban para que ella volviera a casa del trabajo. De pronto el famoso viaje ya no era tan importante, de pronto las prioridades cambiaban, el suelo se movía bajo mis pies y los bares perdían completamente su atractivo. Fue todo increíblemente rápido e increíblemente intenso. Fue genial. Hasta que volví a Madrid…

Aquellas dos semanas de despedida de Orense2, regadas con Brugal a diario, mezcla de diversión y problemas varios me descolocaron totalmente. Por un lado me dì cuenta de lo mucho que significaba mi mundo anterior para mí. De lo mucho que me enganchaba aquel estilo de vida que llevaba en Madrid. De lo mucho que echaba de menos mi país, mis amigos de verdad, mi calidad de vida, sentí muy intensamente que tenía que volver allí, que vivir en otro continente me estaba haciendo perder muchas cosas. Hasta aquí todo bien pero es que el reencuentro con mis colegas, con mi mundo, provocó también el reencuentro con mi viejo yo, el mujeriego, el infiel, el egoísta, el que hace lo que sale de las pelotas en el momento sin valorar las consecuencias en los demás, el que tiene esa moral tan flexible al respecto de ciertas cosas. Volví a Buenos Aires a seguir con ella pero yo ya era otro. Sólo un tercio de mí estaba con ella, otro tercio se había quedado en Madrid y el tercio restante volvía a vivir por y para mi famoso viaje.

Aún así, los meses de convivencia pasaron y ella fue capaz de enamorarse y darlo todo sólo por ese tercio que obtenía de mí. Aún consciente de estar viviendo la crónica de una muerte anunciada, de saber que al final del camino no había un final feliz sino una mochila llena y un adiós. Aún siendo una persona con otras prioridades y otros valores más profundos y valiosos que mi “pasémoslo bien un rato y luego a otra cosa”. Se trago todo eso para estar conmigo y me dió lo que ahora que he perdido valoro como uno de los mejores periodos de mi vida.

En cuanto a mí, pues viví en un debate interno permanente entre mis tres tercios, peleándose entre ellos y, como siempre, en lugar de tomar una decisón opté por el camino fácil y cobarde de no decidir nada y hacerlo todo a la vez. Estar con ella aquí, con mis planes de vuelta a Madrid con todo lo que ello implicaban y con mis planes de viaje. Esos tres mundos coexistiendo a la vez de forma que no estaba realmente en ninguno de ellos. Y al mismo tiempo estaba muy bien con ella, mantenía historias paralelas por chat en Europa y no me soltaba del Google Earth ni de los blogs de viajes.

Todo acabo explotando de la peor forma, de la más amarga para ella. Se estrelló contra lo peor de mí y aún así estuvo dispuesta seguir, dispuesta a dejarlo todo para irse de viaje conmigo, dispuesta a hacer borrón y cuenta nueva de toda la mierda que había encontrado. Sólo había un obstáculo que superar, un nuevo viaje a Madrid. Pienso ahora a posteriori que jamás debería haber ido pero tampoco creo que eso hubiera sido la mejor solución. Tenía que ir a encarar aquello de nuevo, a cerrar de alguna manera lo que quedó abierto en verano. A comprobar que sí, es muy divertido todo eso pero es hora de superarlo y encarar otro tipo de vida. Lástima que en el camino perdiera de nuevo mi credibilidad y lástima que mientras tanto ella se rodeara de un montón de buenos amigos que la convencieron de lo obvio que sólo ella no veía: hay que darle boleto al puto gallego que no trae nada bueno.

Así que regresé a Buenos Aires donde me aguardaba la maldición del cajón sin su ropa. Donde antes estaba ese micro-mundo que habíamos construido los dos dentro de aquella casa enorme en Virrey Avilés ahora había un montón de cajas y una tensión que se cortaba con un cuchillo. A la vista de aquel panorama desolador de sábanas frías y alcobas vacías mandé a llamar a mi tercio viajero al que suponía entusiasmado por el nuevo giro que habían dado los acontecimientos. Pero no contestó…no estaba, había muerto. Tenía la plata, tenía la mochila y la ruta estaba ahí, diseñada hasta el más mínimo detalle durante meses pero de pronto todo el plan había perdido su valor. Salir corriendo hacia Bolivia cual delincuente desenmascarado parecía tan terriblemente cobarde… A día de hoy no he vuelto a abrir el Google Earth. Lo mismo aplicaba a una retirada hacia la comfortable y tanto tiempo añorada madre patria, con su suministro ilimitado de Brugal y amistades añejas. No, por una vez había que quedarse y afrontar las consecuencias de mis actos.

Y la consecuencias no eran fáciles de afrontar, vivir sin ella en aquella casa era estar doblemente sólo. Cada día de soledad después de seis meses con Soledad era una jodida travesía por el desierto. Totalmente merecida, por otra parte, después de años repartiendo hostias sentimentales a diestro y siniestro ya iba siendo hora que una de ellas me rebotara y me tumbara a mí también. Este celular antes asediado a mensajes ahora en silencio, estas paredes que se me caen encima, estas cenas desangeladas, este look de presidiario, estas ganas de nada menos de ella… Todo me empujaba hacia esas cinco botellas de ron que vinieron de Madrid y por extensión a todo ese mundo de perdición de los bares de copas. Qué fácil hubiera sido eso también, caer como un ciclón sobre la noche de Buenos Aires tras tanto tiempo anclado en el dique seco. Pero no, tampoco valía, lo único que valía era ver si había alguna forma de poner juntos de nuevo todos los pedazos de ese vaso que yo tan concienzudamente había reventado contra el suelo. Y es que de pronto el escenario había cambiado, lo que antes sentía temporal ahora lo sentía indefinido, donde antes no había lugar a sacrificio alguno, ni por mi parte ni por la suya, ahora sí lo había. De pronto las reglas habían cambiado para mí, se habían hecho idénticas a las suyas… pero ya no sirve… el vaso está tan roto que en cada intento de juntar pedazos te cortas.

Aún así yo trato de juntarlos y por momentos se vislumbran progresos, he conseguido que ya no me odie, he conseguido que acepte mi presencia… Pero aquella vida que teníamos en el micro-mundo de Virrey aún parece tan lejana, tan improbable, tan utópica… Me toca a mí ahora vivir la crónica de una muerte anunciada. Y mientras tanto voy agonizando. Tener sólo un poco de Sole cuando la tuviste entera es algo terriblemente agridulce. Es como si en ese bar en el que siempre te daban Brugal extra viejo de la mejor calidad de pronto empezaran a servirte Bacardi. Que por momentos te puede llegar a saber bien pero la mayor parte del tiempo sigue siendo un sucedáneo de lo que disfrutabas antes y además te deja resacas terribles el día siguiente.

Pero no importa, mientras te sigan sirviendo el Barcardi, ahí estarás cada noche, bebiendo mientras puedas, y confiando en que llegará el día en que te toque de nuevo lo bueno, confiando en que es posible recuperar la credibilidad que una vez tuviste en ese local, pensando que si te la dieron cuando ibas por allì mal vestido debería ser posible conseguirla de nuevo ahora que apareces de traje, aunque en su momento te saltaras completamente las normas de comportamiento. Puede que llegue el día en que ya no haya ni Bacardi, puede que llegue el día en que el Brugal añejo vuelva a ser la norma de la casa, el tiempo lo dirá. Tiempo que sin duda estoy dispuesto a invertir, nunca tuve algo tan claro. Es esta una guerra peculiar. Mi trabajo es convencerle de lo sumamente convencido que estoy yo del cambio, el de ella no dejarse convencer de nuevo. Ambos estamos poniendo todo el empeño en la parte que nos toca a cada uno.

Pero termine con Soledad o en soledad esta historia, la cura de humildad ya me ha sido recetada y eso al menos tendré que agradecerle a la morocha. Ojalá ella me dejara hacerlo como corresponde. Es complicado pedir cuando se ha demostrado tan poco, es complicado anular un pasado tan terrible, es complicado replicar a argumentos tan contundentes. Para decir “con Dios” a los dos nos sobran los motivos, pero para no hacerlo también. Ojalá pudiera ella ver eso.

Volviendo a la introducción de este post-brasa, y en vista de que se acaba mi Brugal (este real y no metafórico), es hora de terminar no sin una última reflexión: quién me iba a decir a mí cuando llegué a este continente un 21 de Enero del 2009, con idea de pegarme un viajecito de un par de meses, que un año después no sólo aún andaría por aquí, sino que además estaría contándole a todo el ciber-espacio algo así. Apuesto a que mi yo que inició aquel viaje se hubiera escandalizado de leer semajantes pastosidades. Paco in America ha resultado ser una experiencia mucho más profunda de lo planeado, no hay duda alguna, y gran parte de ello se debe a la tucumana, diez minutos hablando con ella me hacen sentir mucho más dentro de este continente que una semana deambulando por youth hostels de mochileros. Que pelotudo he sido de no haberlo valorado en su justa medida en su momento. Si lo que me espera dentro de unas cuantas semanas es la continuación de mi viaje más vale que sea tan increíble como para sacarme esta espina, tan grande como el Obelisco, que tengo clavada…

PD: la que da título a este post y yo estuvimos anoche en la Bombonera, en el concierto de Joaquín Sabina, grandísimo el Flaco!!!!

Tags: Personal

Our second day happened to be a bit complicated, including one of these stories that make this kind of posts funnier. In the end, everything was less serious than it could have been but still there was a few tense moments.

I was saying in the previous post that, due to a not extremely smart planification, we ended up in a more or less cheap hostel but appart from all signs of civilization in the middle of the Atlantic rainforest. When we asked what we could do around there, we were said about some waterfalls (cachoeiras), lost in the midle of the forest and reachable by a half an hour trekking. It sounded good and we decided to dedicate that morning to the extreme green before laying on the beach. Besides, we still had some parts of skine free of mosquito bites.

So we drove the shitty road all the way to the beginning of the trakking which was even more remote than the place we have spent the night in and we started to walk. It was a good one, not too difficult but not to plain either. Trees to jump, rivers to cross and that kind of natural stuff in the very deep of the forest. After a while you reach a first waterfal which is already good enough but worse than another one a bit more uphill. There we spent some nice time swimming in a small lake and sunbathing in the rocks, surrounded by a bunch of brazilians.

After that it was beach time, we headed to Cambury to take advantage of the great weather that, for the second consecutive day, we were having. And then the crisis occured. We are missing something really important to get out of there…the car keys. Luis can´t find them anywhere… Houston, we have a problem. We are in the middle of the brazilian nowhere in the end of a path in which beginning we dont know if our car is. There is a few theories to explain the situation, for the the most likely one saying that they drop out of his pocket when he took something fronm there to the more conspiratory one of thinking that the brazilians took them when they left before us.

We searched all over the place, clothes and pockets like a thousand times but we didnt find the fucking keys. We definitely have an issue here… The only option we have left is to find either the keys or a person who found them on the way back to the car. So while Luis run to his car (assuming is still there), Crystal and I carefully walk all the way back looking always to the floor. No keys.

So we are almost in the end when I see Luis coming back and ask him the million dollars question. Right answer, good news, the car is still there. Our situation improved a bit, we still have our mean of transportation. We cant get into nor to drive it but there he is. Surprisingly this never happened to me in my very extense dissaster career. What do you do when you have a car but no keys? We start to consider the different options. One is to try to speak with the insurance and get them to send someone. That is the best one, if it does not work, we will have to go all the way to Sao Paulo by bus (4 hours), get the backup keys, and get back to the car (another 4 hours). Luis has to work next morning so I would be the one doing this… I try to see the good side, at least I will have a car for the two days remaining in my trip.

But first we need to try the insurance thing. It looks easy but is not cause in the very remote place where we are, no phone gets signal and, even if it would, the insurrance number is…inside the car of course. So we leave Crystal asking to everybody coming back from the waterfall and Luis and I go looking for a phone.

After a while we reach the most remote supermarket of the world and try to talk the guy there into allowing us to call an information number os something that can point us to the inssurance company. We offered money but he is not too cooperative and says some shit about only been able to do local calls, having no signal and blabla. We are not making too much progress with tis fellow so when we see a car arriving we jump into the couple which gets out.

They happen to be the people living in the last house before the trekking and, besides, they have their car inssurance with the same company and a landline in the house that works. Great, this can be a solution. We just need to wait for them to do the shopping and come back to the house so we go back to the car to inform Crystal about the good news.

When we get to the car we witness quite a funny scene. There is a bunch of people around the car and some guy trying to force the door with a crowbar… The joke comes out easily: “Luis dude, they are stealing your car!” In fact, what is happeing is that Crystal asked help from a group of people going to the waterfal and one of them happened to be a locksmith.

It would have been better if he would have been a thief cause he fails to open the car (one point for Opel Corsa security!). Apparently the guy is missing the right tools but it does not matter, the couple from the supermarket arrives and take us home to make the call. I hear how Luis speaks with the inssurance while I consider the different options. If the car is taken by a lorry back to Sao Paulo, Luis and Crystal will go with it and also all my stuff on the trunk. At least I have my wallet so I can continue the trip but the idea of spending two days only with the clothes I am wearing like a homeless does not really appeal me.

However, everything might be much easier. The inssurance says they are going to send someone that can get into the car with some sort of master key. Afer that, the success of his rescue mission relies enterely on whether some codes can be found in the car manual or not, If they are there he can make a copy inmediately and we can drive out of there. Shit, that sounds good. The only thing is that we are very far away and today is Sunday, lets find out how long it takes him to come. An hour maximum they say.

Just to kill some time I go with Crystal to the supermarket to get some beers and on our way back the second drama explodes. Apparently the stonian girl has lost her wallet with plenty of money and all her ids. Umm, we seem to be very inspired today, arent we?. Looks like everyboy here is master of disaster…but me! I have contradictory feelings at this moment. I am definitely concerned about the unfortunate situation of my travel mates but, on the other side, I feel a very irrational and questionable interior joy seen that, for one time, I am the only one who did not fuck up. I try to get rid of such evil feelings because I am sure they will be punished, I bet I am the next one to loose something…

Anyway, Crystal´s wallet does not show up anywhere and the only tip we end up having is an unbeliable story some kids tell us about this non-local bike driver who found it and took it with him… All this time the insurance guy does not show up so I decide to walk till the closest road crossing to find out whether he got lost or something. Nice idea but I didnt count on the extreme heat and how thirsty I am becoming. As soon as I spot the first bar in that remote place I decide a very cold beer is a much better option. So I sit down in the table of that remote local bar with my beer watching the road crossing. The locals notice and start to speak with me, good vibrations in general appart from this old portuguese fellow who decides to hate me from the first moment. I finish my beer and order another one, and another one…

Fortunately, when I am about to order the fourth leter which surely will launch my friendship with this people to a new and interesting leve, I spot something, out of the corner of my eye: a white van with a logo driving through the road crossing. Looks like the insurance guy, I say my goodbyes to my new friends and quickly walk to the car hoping to be right.

When I get there there are good and bad news. The good ones is that the insurance guy managed to get into the car wo, in the worst case, I will get my stuff back. The bad ones is that the previous owner of the car had the great idea of taking the codes out of the car manual and never put it back when she sold the car. This means there is no way to get a copy of the key. The only option is to get it back to Sao Paulo by crane. At least that same crane will drop us in the closest bus station, a place called Busocanga. From there Luis and Crystal will leave and I will have to find out what I do with my life for the next two days.

Been on a car none of its ocupants drive is a bit surrealistic but funny. We arrive to Busocanga and there, after still another tense moment with the buses schedule, Luis an Crystal book a ticket for the 7 bus to Sao Paulo. I decide to stay in a hostel in Busocanga at least for that night. The place looks good, a small town with a nice beach and well connected with Cambury and Maresias, the two beaches we had considered to visit.

So we ended that weird day having a few caipirinhas on the beach while we wait for their bus to Sao Paulo. It was not such a big deal in the end and, appart from Crystal´s wallet, the consequences were not that serious. We have lost a beach evening but at least now we know brazilian insurance companies are serious. Luis and Crystal leave me alone in that beach with my caipirinha and my sunset…

Paco, master of disaster

The sun was just rising when we left Sao Paulo on the Opel Corsa Luis bought in Brazil. Good news, the sky is clear. Quite an important thing actually, since the success or failure of this trip is strongly determined by the weather. This area of Brazil is known by the very frequent rainfalls, they say it is almost impossible to spend more than a couple of nights there without rain and very often when it starts it does not stop for days. In a trip based only on the beach factor, is really critical that this does not happen. I was hoping the guy in charge of the weather up there was feeling in debt with me after how badly he fucked me up in Torres del Paine. For the time been, he seemed to be willing to help…

On the other hand, the couchsurfer who had decided to join us happened to be a very friendly blondie called Crystal. I guess at this point some things no longer suprise me, like meeting a estonian girl who speaks perfect portuguesse, studies in Texas and takes any opportunity she gets for spending periods of time in Brazil. She was our new travel partner for the beach trip and fitted in very nicely, making the experience more funny

In order to arrive in Ilhabela from Sao Paulo you have to drive to São Sebastião, in the coast, and there take a ferry for crossing the little distance between the island and the continent. This might be tricky cause the places is supposed to be a very popular destinations for “paulistas” on a weekend trip but, the truth is that we got into the first ferry without queues and didnt find the island too crowded.

Ilhabela is quite big, about 348 km². Only the West part is accessible for a standard car. Surrounding the islands there are plenty of beaches, diving points and, in the middle of it, the tupid Atlantic rainforest. This is possible what impressed me the most in this trip. The landscape of this part of Brazil is amazing, a very deep green everywhere, spread over thousands of small hills (morros) with white sand beaches in between them. Morro, beach, morro, beach, morro, beach and like this for hundreds of kms. And the islands areno different, they always have deep vegetation in the center and cliffs and beaches on the borders.

Therefore, the most easy thing to do in Ilhabela is to hang around in the West coast, where one can drive through the only decent road in the island. In order to get to the most remote and lonely beaches of the East (like the one named Castellanos), it is necessary to hire a boat or a jeep. No big deal, the accessible part is good enough. The ferry will take you to Villa Ilhabela, in the center of the East costlinea and, from there you can either go North or South. We were told the beaches in the South had more people but were nices so we headed there… And they were right, the coastline there was great and the only complain was about that ugly and big petrol ship which you could see next to the continent ruining the picture.

The two beaches we visited, Praia Grande and Praia Juliao, didnt dissapoint. The first one is next to the road and is more typical, with bars, chairs to lay down and all this touristic stuff. The second one is a bit more isolated, you have to walk down a sort way to get there and there are less people and infraestructure. They are both quite good, with white sand and clear water. In Juaio beach you also have a few rocks in different sizes. The ones closer to the shore form a sort of natural pools to have a quiet bath and the ones bigger more into the sea are a perfect opportunity to climb in order to get the stupid risky picture of the day.

Another thing you can do in Ilhabela is to get lost in the Atlantic rainforest I was describing earlier. There are a few paths to walk (trilhas in portuguesse) around the island, not so many and so good as in Ilha grande tho. We did the hike to Cachoeira dos Tres Tombas which is not really a hike since you can get almost there by car. It is worthy anyway, not that we are talking about the Iguazu falls but in those ones you can get right underneath and get a very refreshing natural shower.

And this was more or less all we did in our short visit to the island, appart from a nice lunch-dinner and some funny talking with a Spanish guy in charge of a boat renting shop who got so glad to see us that he spent a lot of time giving us advices about places to go and things to do. It would have probably been good to have more days there but for me it was fair enough as it was. Besides, there was the mosquito issue. I wil speak about this in the next posts but in this area of Brazil, the presence of these little motherfuckers is a very serious problem and Ilhabela is known to be the worst place for that. Thats why we never thought about spending the night there. Even though we were using the repelent all the time, as the evening was coming we were discovering more and more bites.

Cambury, on the coast, was our next destination. We had booked a hostel there which happened to be literally in the middle of nowhere. It was not close to the beach as we had tought when we made the reservation on the Internet but, in order to get there, you had to drive a few kms of non-paved road heading into the rainforest. The choice was probably not the best for a Saturday night. Luis and I were feeling like having a few caipirinhas at least but just the idea of having to drive all the shitty road back to Cambury made us give up this idea. Anyway, the day had started at 5am and, for one time, I had no bastards snoring in my hostel room. Everything was pusing us into a quiet resting night.

Ihla Grande vs Ilhabela

Two not very distant places in the brazilian coastline, one in the Rio De Janeiro state, the other one in Sao Paulo state. They are both similar: isolated paradisiac islands with nice beaches and plenty of vegetation. So I am going to pretend this is a tourist guide and set a little comparation between them so possible travelers may decide which one is good for them.
Advantages of Ihla Grande:

• From my point of view is more spectacular. The beaches are amazing and also the hikes, like the one to the Papagayo peak I did with Germán. Beaches in Ilhabela are more crowded and not so paradisiac.
• It lacks the serious mosquito issue that Illabela has.
• There are more things to do there appart from beaches and hikes. You have these boat trips to interesting spots such as the cave and the green lagoon or the blue one.

Advantages of Ilhabela:

• It is easier to get there than to get to Ilha Grande. There is a free ferry for pedestrians which takes only 30 min to get there and departs very frequently. In order to get to Ilha Grande you need a boat which takes quite a while and have a ridicolous timetable (unless when I was there).
• There is more infrastructure in the island, including a road (no roads in Ilha Grande), so it is easier to move from one beach to the next (in Ilha Grande the only way to do that is by long hikes that I guess not everybody fancy).
• It is a more brazilian destination and therefore cheaper than Ilha grande. You dont see gringos in Ilhabela while Ilha Grande is full of them, with backpackers style youth hostels and stuff like that for those who feel more comfortable hanging around with australians than with brazilians. This obviously has an influence on the prices.

Concluding, Ilhabela is probably a better destination for people with a car looking forward a couple of days scapade of Sao Paulo in which the plan is just to go to the beach, maybe also visiting some other place in the nearby coast. On the contrary, Ilha Grande well deserves to be the main goal of a trip in which the idea is not just to lay on the sand but also to do more active stuff

Tags: Beach