Llama for Lunch

by Lydia Laube

  In the evening I actually found a restaurant that my guide book had featured. A ruddy miracle – I didn’t usually find anything that the authors had written about. They would write that something was ‘near’ something else and leave you wondering where the something else was, or that it was ‘close to’ a square that was a hundred kilometres around. I was disgusted with them and vowed to sue them when I got back. What was truly infuriating was that they would give you the name of the best restaurant in the whole region and then make no mention of its whereabouts. What am I – psychic? They expected me, a new arrival in town, to find a place without directions. Sometimes they would say it was ‘around the corner’ from some other place. I would go far from this other place, getting madder and madder. Why not say it’s in a certain street? I’d be better off without these suggestions, thank you. Boo, hiss, guide book.

  But I did find this fantastic restaurant that served wonderful meat. Although the meal was a set price for as much as you could eat, you didn’t help yourself – waiters ran around with the meat on hot trays, or trolleys, or skewered on hot pokers, and they chopped off bits for you. I counted fifteen staff. There was every kind and cut of meat imaginable – roast, barbecued, fried or grilled steak, beef, lamb, liver, kidneys, chicken. As well as this, ten dishes of rice and other goodies were put on your table and all kinds of salads were offered to you on trays. A nice waiter, who tried to teach me some Portuguese, was assigned to me. Just when I was getting used to the peculiarities of Spanish, now I had Portuguese to contend with. They don’t say ‘h’ but ‘r’ so Rio is Hio and ‘d’ is pronounced ‘j’.

  In the shopping area near the river I found some incredible bargains, but walking about in the sweltering humidity was debilitating. Trying to return to the hotel by taking a short cut, yet again I got utterly lost. I ended up far from the city centre in a shanty town down by the river where there were no footpaths, just dirt and grass among shacks made from planks of wood sticking out of the mud on sticks. I thought they appeared to be about to fall down. Deciding that I didn’t like the look of this place, I hot-footed it out and walked more kilometres round in circles until I was back where I had started. This exertion was not advisable in the middle of a baking day and I returned to my hotel in a state of yuk. But a cold shower and the airconditioner soon restored me.

  The next day I took a short cut again and actually passed one place for the third time before I realised that I was going around in circles like you do when lost in the bush. The locals must have been wondering about me. Goodness, there she goes again, that woman with the pink umbrella – and again, and again. I’ll have to change my umbrella and get a disguise. Then I thought it seemed a good idea to take the bus back from the market now that I knew how to ring the bell. All went well until we came to the first major corner. Instead of going straight up the road to my hotel, the bus driver whizzed around the corner and zoomed off in the opposite direction. I said to the young conductress, ‘Will it come round again?’ ‘Oh yes,’ she said. Okay, I’d take a ride. I sure did. The bus did come around again – about an hour later.

  A girl student sat next to me and she and the conductress tried to talk to me. They asked if I was an Americana. I said, ‘No. Australiana.’ They found this entertaining and seemed to think it was a great deal more interesting.

  On my protracted ride, I had plenty of time to ponder why I like short cuts and why I persist in trying to use buses. I think it’s because I get such a kick out of it when I do get one right. Or is it because when you have enough time on your hands, getting lost really doesn’t matter? You meet a lot of people and see different places.

  But this day’s odyssey went on a little too long. I went round and round the town and outskirts even further than I had before. I went out into the country where there were goats and shacks on hillsides. I went everywhere. And just when I thought I was never going to get off this bus, it pulled into its terminal, a shanty out in the boonies.

  The young conductress spoke to an inspector-type man who looked grim. I grasped enough of the conversation to understand what she told him: ‘No, no, no. Not American. Australian.’ I don’t think he liked Americans. He wasn’t all that keen on me either. He probably thought I was stupid, whatever I was. But this was fair enough – sometimes I am.

  The pair of them shooed me off the bus and said, ‘Wait five minutes.’ The girl then took me by the arm and put me on another bus, handing me over like a parcel to an older lady conductress. Brazilian buses have a little turnstile at the rear end where you get on and when you have paid you are permitted to pass through it to a seat. You get off at the front. When I tried to pay and go through the turnstile the conductress wouldn’t let me. She signalled for me to sit behind the turnstile where there were a couple of seats. The driver possessed the obligatory lead foot and back there I had nothing to hold on to. He shot around the first corner on two wheels and my umbrella went flying – and I nearly did too. Then he screeched to a halt in a cloud of dust and the conductress indicated that I should get off. Standing in the middle of a dirt road in the back of nowhere I thought, Charming, now I have been abandoned here for the vultures. Then I realised that the driver was tooting and waving at me to get back on the bus through the front door. I did so and then the penny dropped. They had done this so that I wouldn’t have to pay and they hadn’t wanted the inspector to witness it. It was very sweet of them. I sat on this next bus for what seemed forever, but it eventually returned to the main street and dropped me right outside my hotel. Fantastic. Four hours for a quick visit to the shops.

  That night at a nearby cafe I had a delicious whole baked fish in scrumptious sauce and on the way back to the hotel I walked past the icecream parlour. Well, not quite all the way past. I had to go inside to inspect it. What a pig’s paradise. You buy icecream by weight, including trimmings. You choose a glass bowl, a dish made from edible stuff, a cone or a plastic cup and shovel into it as much of any of the dozens of flavoured icecream as you like – and then you add hundreds and thousands, chocolate sprinkles, flavoured topping, cream, wafer biscuits and jubes. Wonderful. I had a colossal pile of this stuff and it cost just two dollars. I deserved to be sick the next day.

  That night I noticed that the dome of the opera house was unlit and the next day, when I finally visited it, I was told that the lights were only on when there was a performance. They would be on tonight as an orchestra was performing there. The opera house, Teatro Amazonas, is stupendous. I hadn’t realised until I stood gaping before it just how huge it was. Set high up off the street and approached by wide sweeping steps, it was completely surrounded by an imposing stone wall. Nothing like I had imagined it would be, it was still fabulous. The building was Greco-Roman in style, coloured dusky-pink and white, and crowned by a large dome that was entirely covered in a bright, many-hued mosaic.

  If the exterior of the building was marvellous, its interior almost defied description. But I was not let loose in all this splendour alone. I had to be chaperoned by a young lady guide. White Carrara marble plinths and great beige-coloured Corinthian columns reached all the way to the ceiling. And that was just the entry hall, where I counted the lights in the three colossal metal chandeliers – forty in each and every one covered by a little glass shade. I entered the theatre by a flight of red-carpeted stairs and found seven hundred red-velvet upholstered chairs that flowed down a gradual slope to the stage and four tiers of ornate boxes with red-velvet and gilded metal fronts. The boxes got plusher the higher they went until the governor’s box, the last gasp in plush, was reached. This exquisite theatre, completed in 1910, was built for the private use of the one hundred local rubber barons – or did she say robber barons? – and their friends. This little lot, as you can imagine, were unbelievably wealthy. They imported mega stars like Jenny Lind to sing and the Ballet Russe to dance.

  The entire ceiling was painted to appear as though you were standing under the four legs of the Eiffel Tower and each of the four segments was pai
nted to represent a different form of art – ballet, music, drama and opera. All around the side walls there were lights in glass shades and immense paintings that had been created in Italy by a famous painter, who later came to Manaus to hang them. Everything except the wood for the beautiful floors, which were made from highly polished boards of brazil wood and jacaranda, had been brought from Europe.

  From the level of the top box it was just a short walk across to the ballroom, which was also absolutely fabulous. It had an upstairs orchestral gallery with a front that was decorated in the same way as the boxes in the theatre and Carrara marble featured around the walls and doorways. The lights were Venetian Murano glass, mammoth great specimens two-and-half metres across with masses of bulbs and shades in several colours. The ceiling paintings had also been executed in Italy and shipped out later. In the centre was an angel who, as you walked across the room, actually appeared to follow you. Weird. By the time you had reached the other end of the room she had turned around and was facing you. I don’t know how it was done but she actually moved. On one side of the painting a nude reclined with one arm outstretched and, as you crossed the room, she lifted herself onto her elbow. Amazing. These paintings were vividly colourful affairs but I wouldn’t want to live with them. I have enough trouble with the cat following me about.

  From the outside balcony you could look down on the town, but I was disappointed that I couldn’t go up into the dome. When I said I would have liked to look at what appeared to be its stained glass, I was told that it was not glass, but tiles, which completely cover the dome’s exterior. Although it was strikingly colourful and attractive I wondered, Why the dome? It looked strange sticking out of this classical building. It belonged on a mosque. But the dome certainly was a landmark – not only could I see it from my room, but it loomed large from many vantage points in the city.

  Afterward my guide told me that I could stay and listen to the Amazonian ‘sympathy’ orchestra, who were practising for their concert. What good luck. I placed myself in the plushest box and revelled in the wonderful opportunity I was given to absorb the ambience of this enchanting building, said to be one of the best opera houses in the world.

  I strolled downtown and bought a bath mat, fed up with not having one any longer. Then I went on to the post office. (No short cuts. No buses. I’d learned.) But the post office, which lurked in a dowdy modern building – I had been expecting something elegant, old and classical – shut at five. Surprisingly there was no siesta here. It was so hot during the day that shopping would have been much more agreeable at night. There were all manner of amazing goods to buy. Ever felt the need for a stuffed piranha? The number of staff employed by shops staggered me. I wondered if it was just to give more people work that three employees did one job.

  The intricate method of paying was amusing. When you bought something you were served by one person who gave you a piece of paper, but smacked your hand when you made the normal grab for the goods. No such unseemly haste here! This piece of paper merely stated the price of the goods. You had to take this to the cashier and no matter how small the shop was, they would have a cashier, usually encased in glass. You paid the cashier, were rewarded with a receipt and then you proceeded with the goods to yet another person who wrapped them for you. You should not be in a hurry when shopping in Brazil. Even in a small juice bar or buying buns from a baker, the ritual was the same. At restaurants you paid the cashier, then another person seated at a table by the exit collected your receipt as you left. For what reason? Even outside shops that had only a few feet of frontage six assistants might be stationed whose job it was to lure customers in. At the supermarket in the main street I counted eighteen assistants manning the checkouts, as well as a staff member who was posted at the entrance to them and whose mission was to direct customers to the next vacant counter. This supermarket was massive but unfortunately it was not airconditioned, and it was always packed solid with crowds of people. You stood sweating for ages in long queues just to pay or to get your veggies weighed.

  When I finally managed to broach the doors of the post office I found that downstairs, where no one but a platoon of security staff hung out, it was beautifully airconditioned. But airconditioning doesn’t climb steps and I nearly died of heat exhaustion upstairs where all the business was done. Ten tellers fenced in wire cages were stationed in a row behind a long, polished wooden counter, while in front of them stamp seekers stood dripping sweat in a line a kilometre long.

  The cathedral was more interesting than the post office but it was very grotty outside. The grounds were strewn with rubbish and people slept on the steps, or reclined in the shade of its walls. It was not an attractive building but it sure was huge. I probed all the way around it seeking a way in and eventually found a big rusty gate that squealed ominously as I wrestled it open. Inside the cathedral I was alone, except for a couple of young women who were restoring part of the murals. Then it was afternoon, so I did what all sensible people in South America do. I had a lie down.

  Early mornings in Manaus were cool, and redolent with the damp scent of the tropics. The woman in the high-rise apartment building across the way hung her washing out on her verandah. I hung mine on my tiny balcony and it waved companionably at hers. There’s nothing like hanging out the washing to make you feel you belong.

  I saw few beggars in the streets of Manaus and they were mostly cripples, but once a respectable-looking woman came up to me in the supermarket with a child on one arm and a can of milk in her hand. I only realised afterwards that she had been asking me for a contribution to the milk. In the streets I noticed that most people were quite darkskinned. Brazilians are a symphony of colours as a result of the intermingling of whites, black slaves and Indians. The women wore such sexy clothes that at first I had thought that there were an awful lot of prostitutes in this place. Their clothes suited the tropical climate but I never before saw so much skin exposed on the street. Even older women, on some of whom such garb was not entirely suitable, wore tight and revealing get-ups.

  At the port, looking for a boat onwards to Belem, the town fifteen hundred kilometres away that sits at the mouth of the Amazon, I asked a policeman the whereabouts of the ticket office. A young girl who spoke English was allocated to help me find a cabin. She sent me to view one with a jaunty fellow in a red knitted beanie cap who looked like a pirate. The boat was called the Santarem and appeared very new. My shiny clean cabin had its own bathroom and the entire boat was airconditioned. I was told that the boat sailed the day after this but I could live aboard as soon as I had a ticket. I paid for one and the young lady cashier who had helped me passed her hand under the glass shield to shake mine and wish me ‘bon voyage’.

  Next morning I woke to hear great claps of thunder and rain falling. It had looked like rain for days but had chosen to wait until I was about to move house to do so. I sloshed to the wharf and collected my cabin key. The first time I had gone to the boat to inspect the cabin the captain, who was Portuguese in looks, had appeared and shown me to it. This time he popped up like a cockroach out of the woodwork, stowed my bags, pointed out that my lifejacket was stored in a little slot at the end of the bunk, led me to his cabin and told me that I should just call him if I wanted anything. He didn’t say what.

  A couple of hammocks had already been slung in the open part of the deck, but so far I was the only occupant aboard. The boat’s airconditioning was not on yet and it was too hot to stay in my cabin, so I walked up-town and took refuge in the library. Another glorious building, the exterior was a classical design painted in two shades of pink and white. Inside it had either black and white mosaic tiled floors or wooden parquet ones. Silver wrought-iron banisters with brass-plated stairs curved from both sides of the foyer up to the second floor. At the base of the staircase were four beautiful metal lamps with multiple shades of fluted amber glass. The polished wooden counter stood between them and an epic painting hung at the top of the stairs. In the reading room three people w
ere asleep at desks. I thought this was fitting as, in contrast to the elegant foyer, this was a horribly functional room.

  Returning to the Santarem, I sat on the deck watching as men loaded it and other boats docked so closely together that they were almost touching. An enormous amount of shunting, shoving and shouting was taking place. Cases of beer shot down a plank to land in our boat. Bags of flour were loaded from the back of a truck – one man pulled the bag to the edge of the tray while another hoisted it onto his shoulders and then humped it down to someone else who took it into the hold. All the labourers were covered in flour. The one who was taking the bag onto his back wore a flour bag tied around his head like an Arab gutera.

  In the evening I walked to the town to make a phone call home. I had thought that it might be dangerous on the wharf in the dark of night, but the place was crowded with people out enjoying the cool air. I finally found a phone that worked and, after buying some more guarana drinks – maybe it was addictive – I came back without any problems. During the day you needed your ticket to check onto the wharf through a turnstile. Fortunately this wasn’t manned at night – I’d forgotten my ticket. The boat’s airconditioning was now on, and with a vengeance. Freezing, I stuck up the vents with sticking plaster from my first-aid kit, read a book and then had a very good night’s sleep despite the partying of the folk in hammocks on the boat next door.

  The Santarem appeared to be constructed mostly of metal. The sides and roof of my cabin were tin. I had two portholes that opened onto the deck, two bunks, one on top of the other, and enough room to walk beside them. There were plenty of hooks, a power point – and even a phone. The minute bathroom was spotless and everything worked. The toilet even accepted loo paper without throwing a tantrum. However, the water that flushed the toilet came directly from the river, and was almost black.