Llama for Lunch

by Lydia Laube

  Never daunted, lunch and a siesta later, I set off again on a bus, this time with the museum in my sights. Belem’s botanical gardens, museum and zoo are combined in a wonderful park. I felt as though I was in the real jungle again. Beautiful, big trees and overhanging creepers completely shaded the paths I walked along in this magical green world that was dotted with picturesque old buildings and quaint stone edifices. The botanical gardens are built around a couple of huge trees that must be hundreds, maybe thousands, of years old. Bigger than any I saw out in the jungle, they were so enormous I found it hard to grasp their size. There were also many flowering trees and a blue creeper, like wisteria, that I had seen growing elsewhere. Quite a few bushes and trees had blue flowers and another had great pink blossoms. And there were many specimens of the tree that I saw everywhere in the streets and parks and was just now coming into beautiful blossom. I call it the ‘golden shower tree’ because all its yellow blooms hang down in a cascade like rain.

  The live exhibits were housed among the trees and garden in natural surroundings. My favourites were a couple of massive anacondas, one beautiful spotted jaguar and another sleekly sinuous and as black as the night, who padded sinisterly about his enclosure. Gorgeous black monkeys swung languidly from branch to branch in their tree-filled enclosure and the biggest bird I’ve ever seen perched on a log. Much bigger than a wedge-tailed eagle, it looked like a huge, black-and-white owl. There were also ravishing pink flamingoes and gigantic, rainbow-hued macaws. I was taken aback by the intensity of their glorious colours – screaming blues, aquas and reds. There was a good aquarium with many flowing fish in well-lit glass cases. The museum looked interesting too, but there were no English subtitles so I couldn’t work out what most of it was all about. I could have spent much more time in this enjoyable place but, although there were plenty of seats along the shaded paths, the afternoon became hot and steamy and my feet wore out.

  As soon as I made it back to the hotel I had a cold shower. I never thought I’d see the time when a cold shower would be the delight of my day but it was great to wash off the grime.

  Later I forayed out to the Belem opera house, the Teatro la Paz. It was nowhere near the treasure that Manaus’s was – the paintings and decoration were not as spectacular – but it was still lovely and it was bigger. One sweeping, curved staircase was made entirely of white Carrara marble and another was wood and brass. The ballroom, entrance hall and upstairs foyer each featured three chandeliers, the central chandelier in each room being a mass of thousands of crystal drops and prisms. If it had fallen on you, you would never have got up again or lived to complain about it, but you surely would have gone out with a jangle. In this theatre I was allowed to stand on the stage and, looking out over the seating, I could appreciate that it must be something else to perform here. The rows of plush seats, the gilded decorations and the grand, three-tiered boxes made quite an impression.

  Leaving the opera house I continued walking and, miracles do happen, actually found something I had been looking for. But I don’t know why the locals were so proud of their shopping centre. It was as dreary as any of these monstrosities anywhere.

  Later, sitting in the airline office watching the crowds walk past, I realised that apart from the hotel waiter, I hadn’t seen many old people in Brazil. Statistics tell you about the massive number of youngsters in this country, but where do they keep their oldies? I did see a couple in the park on Sunday – maybe they only bring them out then. Was something sinister going on, or was it simply that people wore out fast in the heat?

  One day I saw a sign on a shop advertising ‘tartlets’, and pondered whether they trained young tarts inside. If you judged purely by the manner of female dress, you’d say every second woman was a tart. The clothing here was even more risque than it had been in Manaus. You’d be arrested by the vice squad if you went out dressed like that in some places.

  My trip to the island of Marejo started out innocuously. I taxied to the gate of the terminal, from where it was only a short walk into the departure shed and a doddle from there to the boat that was tied up at the wharf outside. The shed contained rows of long, wooden seats and in one corner a tiny cafe. The boat was scheduled to leave at twelve, but at that time passengers were still nonchalantly strolling down to it, so it was obviously not expected to depart punctually. The boat was a smaller version of the wooden riverboats fitted with rows of benches that could accommodate six passengers. The first row of seats were grabbed immediately, and I realised that this was because they were smack in front of the television set – not that you could hear it once the engine started. The day was overcast and the brown-grey water of the river was flat calm as we took off from the wharf. In the bow of the boat the crew’s lunch table was gracefully arranged between the two toilets. I sat near the back and can vouch for the fact that they get smelly after a while. Nothing new there.

  Once we were under way, the security guard slung his hammock across the bow and went to sleep. A couple of passengers did the same. What a good idea.

  For a while the trip was uneventful. At first we ran alongside the riverbank, then, skirting a couple of small islands in the middle of the river, came to what looked like the open sea but was really still the wide river mouth. The colour of the water changed to an impressive yellowish-green and after a short while a few white caps appeared. As the weather grew rougher the white caps metamorphosed into thumping great waves and the sea became very disorderly, lurching the boat about. The passengers shrieked and held on tightly to the sides of the benches. Water came pouring in over the sides of the boat while the crew rushed to pull down tarpaulins to stop it. Waves splashed over my bags so I moved them to a drier spot. Attempting to get out of range of the spraying water, I inched along the bench from my spot on its end, encroaching on a fellow who was siesta-ing on the rest of it. It was about this time that I realised that this boat had no lifeboats or jackets.

  Despite the tarpaulins, water poured in the boat with each wave and soon the decks were awash. Later a Brazilian man asked me, ‘Were you worried?’ I said, ‘No,’ but I think he had been. Still, I was glad not to be further out at the pororoca, the spot where the Atlantic’s incoming tide crashes against the out-flowing river waters. Here the waves are five metres high and the noise they make sounds like a jet plane. Eight trillion gallons of fresh water a day pour into the Atlantic Ocean, many times the water needs of the entire United States. In discharge and drainage the Amazon easily surpasses all other rivers and equals the total of the world’s next eight largest.

  After three-and-a-half hours we came in to port on the island and, once we were in sight of the shore, the water calmed. Everyone stampeded off the boat – so I did too. It had been raining and there were muddy puddles underfoot, but the ascent to the top of the high bank was facilitated by a duckwalk of planks. At the top I was surprised to find just a patch of uninviting mud. I thought I’d been supposed to arrive at the town of Surre.

  A couple of young Brazilian men I had seen on the boat asked me if I wanted a car. No wonder I’d noticed them. They were both gorgeous blokes, and one was exceptionally beautiful. I said that I wanted to go to the hotel in Surre, so they took me in tow and shunted me into one of the beat-up old vans that were lurking about waiting for customers. Another woman joined us and we drove for a long time until it began to dawn on me that I hadn’t got off the boat anywhere near Surre. And finally it clicked that I had actually alighted on the other side of the island. I discovered later that the boat only went all the way to Surre on certain days. And this, naturally enough for a persistent victim of Murphy, was not one of those days.

  On this day I had to go overland, making the total journey longer than five hours. Jolting along on a shocking dirt track we crossed the entire island, passing through dull country dotted with a few small primitive settlements, at one of which we cast off the other woman passenger. Then our progress was halted by a wide river. The luscious Brazilian boys, who had by now decided to
adopt me, paid the van driver and refused to allow me to contribute.

  We teetered into a midgetsized, wobbly dinghy and were ferried across to the elusive Surre on the opposite bank. I discovered that my friends worked for the Brazilian phone company, Embratel, and had come to Surre to perform mysterious deeds with satellites and phones. They had a lot of equipment and baggage, which they paid porters to carry. Then they carried my luggage up and down steep inclines. They found a car, one of the few in Surre, whose driver was willing to use it as a taxi. He took me to the Surre Hotel, led me inside and negotiated a room for me before warmly shaking my hand, bowing and departing.

  On first sight of Surre I thought, What a drab hole. It looked like a place that time forgot. It didn’t even run to a phone to the outside world. But the people were sociable, if slightly bemused by me. When I first arrived it was almost dark and I couldn’t work out whether the hotel was dreadfully old, or just dreadful. In the cold light of day, I saw that it was in fact very old, so its decrepitude was forgivable. Built of white-painted adobe in the Mexican-fort style, it had flimsy, homemade wooden doors with cracks in them through which you could see daylight. The wide front, with its huge expanse of tiled floor, opened directly onto the street. There was no way to close it against marauders, burglars and the like – I hoped that someone sat up and guarded the place at night. In one corner of the foyer was a small desk, on which lay a school exercise book in which the person in charge wrote your name. Nothing else seemed to interest her.

  Various doors opened off the foyer, as well as a tiled verandah that led to the rooms that were ranged around a U-shaped, litter-filled, dirt courtyard out the back. My room was basic but had everything I needed. The rough walls were painted a brilliant cheery blue. The narrow bush-carpentered door had a lock that only worked if you heaved the door up a foot. Fortunately a piece of wire was provided to perform this manoeuvre – there was no handle. Above the door was a square of fly wire that served as a window. It had no glass. A coconut palm in the courtyard waved its fronds at me through the wire. I had a comfy bed and a dressing table with a fly-specked mirror that would have been nice if only it had possessed more than one drawer knob. Anyway, putting your belongings in drawers in hotels is a no no, a fatal mistake, as I have learned to my great cost.

  I even had a bathroom. I handled the plastic tap with care as it was more than a little insecure and I was afraid that I might pull it off and start a major flood.

  My room, one of a long row in the back part of the U, was fronted by a tiled verandah that was a high step up from the courtyard. As in Mexico, steps had been made this height on footpaths or verandahs so that folk could alight from their carriages or carts straight onto them. To my delight, there were three beautiful, young horses grazing in the courtyard. I thought that they must belong to the hotel but later I saw these and other horses free-ranging around the town. They go home unbidden to where they belong at night.

  The only meal available at the hotel was breakfast and, as I arrived ravenously hungry just before six in the evening, I had to forage elsewhere for dinner. I was directed to a cafe down the street and near the river, where I sat in the breeze off the water at a small metal table on the footpath. I managed to convince the proprietor that I wanted food and in time I received a huge plate of the most delicious fish cooked in coconut milk. It was accompanied by rice, salad and fresh fijoa juice, cost just six real fifty centavos, and was really satisfying.

  Although the church clock had read five when I passed it on the way to the cafe, as I sat down the church bells started tolling for the six o’clock angelus. An old man drinking beer at a nearby table on the sidewalk crossed himself repeatedly and said his prayers. Then I witnessed the home delivery service of this ‘pub’ in operation. The proprietor, who was also the cook and very likely the washer-up as well, issued an order to the old man, who took a wheelbarrow that was handy in the gutter, heaved a box of beer into it and wheeled it off. Returning later he pushed the wheelbarrow back into its regular parking spot in the gutter. Meanwhile a buffalo cart piled high with bags of produce plodded slowly by. Then I heard clip clop clip, and out of the dark came two untended horses. They wandered up the street, then meandered past again. They were like the three I had seen outside my door at the hotel – not ponies, but small, fine-boned horses in very good condition.

  After I had eaten I walked around the town. A crowd of young men hung around one shop front. I thought that it must be a disco or a game shop, but it turned out to be the butcher’s. Apparently the butcher shop was the place to be. There were only a few shops but they were all open, in every sense, as they had no walls on three sides in order to allow air through. They had shutters that could be pulled down when the shop closed. All the buildings were constructed of mudbrick and looked antiquated, the way structures can do in the tropics even when they are not. Down the centre of the town’s two main streets, and all around the waterfront, grew the most massive and beautiful mango trees that I have ever seen. I had previously thought that northern Australian mango trees were pretty big, but these rainforest giants in their natural environment made Aussie trees look like dwarfs. From their trunks, which were four-and-a-half metres around the girth, they climbed heavenwards to a great height, culminating in an extensive spread of foliage. The bottom part of the trees had been painted white and I wondered if this was to stop insects attacking them or motorbikes running into them. Coconut palms and other big trees also grew along the waterfront. I thought it was sensible to grow trees that provided food as well as shade. Lets hope they don’t have animals that pinch the fruit like the possums do in Darwin.

  Walking back to the hotel up a dark street, I felt no danger. But in one particularly sinister spot I heard a footfall behind me and thought, Muggers! The footsteps were followed by a soft whinny and I decided that, unless the mugger was doing animal imitations, I was about to be coshed by a horse. I was in far more danger from the deep drains that ran alongside the broken dirt tracks masquerading as footpaths.

  Passing the front of a Protestant meeting hall that was wide open to the street, I saw a group of worshippers seated in a circle on hard chairs. They were making a lot of noise. It seemed to me that they were doing this to show off. Despite Brazil’s predominantly Catholic population, I saw many of these Halleluiah Hall meetings being conducted at all hours of the day and night. Almost next door to the Protestant hall was the big Catholic church with its unobtrusive side entrance and screened front door. I went in, mainly in defiance of the other lot – I object to having opinions thrust upon me. Far from lavish, the old church had peeling, painted walls, but was brightened by gaily decorated statues, flowers and the odd splash of gold paint. A novena was in progress in Portuguese, and even I could follow it. Then the congregation sang. Swaying to and fro to the up-beat music, the worshippers held out their arms and clapped, a bloke in the back row bopping from one hip to the other. It was almost Latin salsa! But it was nice – a real church, in contrast to the bare place next door.

  The night was deliciously cool. I slept under a sheet with the fan on full-bore and in the morning woke to the sound of a rooster crowing. It seemed a long time since I had heard that sound – it took me back to the happy year I had spent working in an Indonesian village. I emerged from my room at eight o’clock to find a girl mopping the large expanse of tiled walkways and floors. When I returned at twelve, she was still at it. Breakfast, which was included in my room price, was served in the back portion of the open-fronted foyer under a ceiling that must have been at least six metres high. To my great excitement, I was presented with the first egg I’d had for ages. Unfortunately it had been fried in coconut oil with a barrel of salt and smacked until it was dead flat, but nevertheless it was an egg and I enjoyed it. I also delighted in the sugarless coffee. How easily I was pleased these days. The tiny breakfast table was covered by a bread box, a big jug of hot milk, a large tub of butter and an enormous, battered, aluminium sugar-basin.

  Large gr
oups of local lads congregated opposite my hotel in a large netted enclosure that was used for basketball games. A video machine lived in the office at the side of the court and from here some hideous, but hilarious, singing emanated, executed – in the full sense of the word – on that machine from hell, the karaoke.

  After breakfast I explored Surre. The waterfront where I had been ferried across the river on my arrival was not far from the hotel. Sitting on a stone seat I watched the ferry as it chugged back and forth. A cool morning breeze blew off the water and rustled through the stands of trees that shaded the lawns between them. Unfortunately, this beautiful spot was hideously marred by a thick layer of papers, plastic cups and food wrappings.

  Moving on, I followed the path that wandered pleasantly along the riverfront, stopping now and then to lean on the wooden railing and look at life on the river. Presently I came to a big landing, the sign on top of which said ‘Surre’, and in the building on the riverbank above it was the ticket office for the boat that I now knew was the only one that came all the way to Surre. It arrived on Friday and left on Sunday evening. I decided to take it back to Belem on Sunday.

  The office was an old adobe-and-stone affair and in its wall was a half-round, wooden-edged hole, fronted by a tiny crescent-shaped, wooden counter where you bought your ticket. Outside the office were stone benches that were shaded by a tiled roof and supported by stone pillars, and from there a long, tile-roofed walkway went down in steps and stages to the water.