Hi all,
In case you haven’t heard, Brazil is handing out 10 million condoms during Carnaval. The word “condom” in Portuguese translates as “little raincoats”, and the advertisements on TV show a guy in a bar pulling a condom over a can of some purple-coloured pop, shaking it up like crazy, and then opening it up. Of course, not a drop leaks out, and everyone applauds like mad.
I can understand the reasoning of the government on this. Those mulenas move very suggestively, they don’t have much on their bodies (though their headdresses are 5 feet tall), and there is a lot of alcohol passing through people. The movement with the headdress is something that comes naturally to me, but sadly only for about 10 seconds. All that movement – it’s a great deal of work, and the mulenas do it for hours!
Anyway, I have just spent a week on a Portuguese immersion course. Not on purpose, but you all know about the best-laid plans, etc. The heat was really bothering me, and Don’s friend Pat who’s been helping me with travel plans, convinced me NOT to go to Buzios, but to go up near the mountains where a friend of hers has a pousada. Pat was going to come up later in the week, but I would spend a week there all together. It was supposed to be cooler, and quiet, with lots of waterfalls and … Finnish!
Penudo was settled in 1929 by a group of Finnish emigrants who hoped to form their own Utopia. Their crops did not do very well, so they turned to making preserves, cheese, honey and liquor. Every Saturday night, the Finlandia Club has a dance, at which the denizens still dance Finnish folk dances! Sounded okay to me, and Pat would be there after a day or two, and the woman who owned the pousada spoke English, so she could tell me about the sites to see.
Well, not quite. The woman was not there upon my arrival (as it turned out) and Daniel, who looked after the inn, had no English. I was the only person staying at the inn, and I think there were only eight other tourists visiting the town, all of whom were Brazilian. No one in the whole town spoke more than a few words of English. Pat never showed up at all, and when I finally phoned her house, her phone wasn’t working. So I called Jim, and he said he’d seen her yesterday and she hadn’t mentioned anything about coming up. So there I was, totally on my own with Helene’s English-Portuguese dictionary.
Let me backtrack a little. When boarding the bus you’re supposed to show your ID. But I didn’t understand this. So, they wouldn’t let me board the bus until I’d dug out my passport. To make matters even more complicated for me, the Portuguese writing on the bus ticket assigns a specific seat – a feature of the ticket of which I was blissfully unaware. Once I had gained entrance onto the bus, then, my travails were not at an end. I ended up having to move three times before a kind passenger intervened and pointed towards my assigned seat. My nature rails against being bothersome like that, especially when it affects a whole group of people. Oh well.
The bus ride was quite pleasant and the countryside gorgeous, once we got out of Rio. The steep verdant green hills seemed to be made of a red sand/clay mixture, which washes out fairly easily from the surrounding gullies. And the hills were particularly precipitous, not dissimilar to what you’d find in West Virginia or the Bristol Hills of New York. The road was all switchbacks and hairpin turns.
The bus was air-conditioned, but my fellow passengers opened the windows so it was hot as usual. About an hour into the journey, we made a stop at a way station that had various nosheries (and washrooms), and everyone got off to eat and rest. I understood that it was a rest stop, but I wasn’t sure if it was my final stop, or the place where I was to change buses, or … ? The instruction I received when I bought my ticket had been to look for a set of stairs at a stop along the way, proceed on down the stairs and look for a van to take me to Penudo.
Since I couldn’t find any stairs, I got back on the bus, expecting it to go into the REAL bus station, where I could find the van. But the man sitting next to me got quite excited, and insisted that I should disembark. Looking through my Portuguese-English dictionary I found the word for “stairs”, and the man found a bus employee to show me where the stairs to the van were. As it happens, the stairs were way out of sight, a long walk away from where I’d been looking. There was no sign posted indicating where the stairs were, and once I found them, to where they led. Once I arrived at the right spot, there were vans aplenty coming and going. Eventually one rickety old vehicle showed up that was apparently heading for my Penudo destination, so I got on.
Another day, another adventure. And the journey continued.
Early on I made contact with the van driver, and in halting Portuguese I informed him of the name of the pousada where I’d be staying; he was kind enough to let me off right at the entrance. Of course, there was no one there to greet me, nor any sign saying that this particular inn was the place where arrangements for me to stay had been made.
As I was hollering out the woman owner’s name, a man came up and warned me that there were vicious dogs nearby. Thank God he spoke a few words of English, because Daniel who was running the place had none, and was quite confused that I wasn’t two people. Daniel did understand that I was to stay at his inn, though, and showed me a quite pleasant room.
Twin beds, a little fridge, a little TV, and nice big shower with a good electric heater. Down the hall was a sauna, with wood piled up ready to go. I also spotted a smallish, empty swimming pool, with an adjacent shower and washroom, as well as a giant barbecue. With six rooms in all, the inn would be quite a nice place to stay. Beneath where the rooms were located, there was a giant communal room, littered with comfy sofas, with a big screen TV at one end, along with several tables, a few coffee table books in German, French and Portuguese, playing cards, and a chess and checker set.
That night it was so dark, that I didn’t need to wear my eye mask. And the town was so quiet that I could hear the brook across the road, splashing down through the rocks. Amazing. I never thought I would find a place like this in Brazil.
Breakfast the next morning was great! Café au lait, freshly-squeezed orange juice, cool spring water, two big rolls, a giant sweet roll, five slices each of ham and cheese, butter, jam, half a passion fruit, and my favourite, three slices of coconut pound cake. I took enough with me to make a sandwich for later, and stuffed myself for the present. All this, food and lodging, cost me only $15 a night!
There was no tourist info centre in Penudo. The only map I could find had no street names on it, just hotels and restaurants, and nobody spoke any English. So, I wandered around as best I could, looking into shops and using the dictionary to interpret menus, still expecting Pat to show up.
Trout is featured on the menu at the inn, so I had that twice. I even got to see my meal being prepared, watching as a chef employing a ‘fish knife’ particular to the task stripped the trout of its skin and bones, in seconds! Another night I chose the salmon, thick and juicy. And, on another night I decided on Steak Parmesan, which I was going to complement with fondues featured on the menu. The fondues, though, seem fit for two people with healthy appetites, so I passed on that indulgence.
The Saturday night dance at the Finlandia Club was more like a dance at the Annapolis Legion. The teenagers who did the folk dances wore teen-style clothing, not costumes, and then people from the tables got up and also danced. They knew the folk dances, too. One couple, especially, made me very jealous. Quite obviously, they had been together for years and loved to dance. They danced nearly every dance, whether folk dances, polkas, sambas, line dances, whatever, with great panache and enthusiasm.
At one point, a younger man brought a woman of about 80 onto the dance floor, and danced a tango with her; migawd, she could still cock a very attractive ankle! We gave them a round of applause. She was tickled pink to be out on the dance floor. A few moments later I saw a rain-straight, white blonde-haired girl with a round pale face girl who reminded me very much of Kaisa’s daughter. Everyone else in town is so very dark, and obviously Brazilian. I think that the Finns have mostly left this area, and they just use the Finnish connection as a tourist come-on.
The nearby outdoor shopping centre, the highly touted “Little Finland”, proved to be just like the Upper Clements Theme Park in the Annapolis Valley. Overpriced common tourist stuff, sold from tiny high rent shops by extremely bored teenagers. Since I had so little to do, I went in all of the shops several times, both on and off the grounds. Prices were mostly better and sometimes even the selection better, off the grounds. But it’s still a town not much bigger than Annapolis, about 1500 – 3000 inhabitants. I don’t know how they do it – there must be nearly 100 hotels and inns scattered through the hills, and 50 or so restaurants.
Penudo is supposed to be a resort for those who live and work in Rio de Janeiro. The bus ride takes only takes two hours – a comparable amount of time for the journey between Annapolis Royal and Halifax, but Penudo was certainly underpopulated during the course of the week I was resident in the town. Must be the off-season, or something (it’s late summer down this way). The waiters were all standing around peering at the empty streets. I got to thinking that their wages must be so much lower; the minimum wage is only $130 a month.
Since I’d seen everything I could find to see the first day, I spent the rest of the week repeating my rounds. Sometimes I would walk up the very steep hills into the woods, following the creek and looking at the waterfalls. Sometimes I would go into town and buy chocolates by the kilo and determine the best prices on various items.
At night, since I didn’t want to wander in the dark (the inn was about a mile outside town) I watched soap operas in Portuguese. Fortunately, soap operas are so over-acted, that I could pretty well follow everything that was happening, and I learned some more Portuguese in the process. Not the most intellectually stimulating way to spend my time, but I only had one English book to read, and seven days is a long time to use up.
Being alone for the week, having time to reflect, helped me to realize that upon my return to Nova Scotia, and the Annapolis Valley, I am going to have to determine a course of action for the remaining time of my life on this earth. If my mother’s age and state of health is any indication, I still have at least 30 good years in front of me.
So, that’s about it for now. This note was penned (if entering text into a computer can be said to be “penned”) in Rio de Janeiro, where I remain pensive, happy and well rested, and thinking much more in Portuguese than was the case only one week ago.
Rio de Janeiro is still hot, so very hot.
Love to you all.
Corinne
