Llama for Lunch

by Lydia Laube

  On Saturday mornings Rio has a wonderful antique market. I took the subway to near where I estimated it to be. On one of the main city streets I passed a corner niche of a building where a street person had cosily established himself on a ground sheet covered by a big cuddly blanket. A trolley that contained his belongings was parked alongside him and five healthy-looking dogs curled around his body – a five-dog night for real! The market had been set up underneath the freeway fly-overs and bridges near the waterfront where the ferries docked, and the stalls extended for kilometres. It took me four hours at a hard trot to get around this market. The merchandise was mostly good, nineteenth-century, European decorative items, such as lamps and vases in porcelain, silver and glass, as well as heaps of old costume jewellery. Some of the goods on offer were very highly priced but others were bargains. I bought a couple of small Chinese figurines that I reckoned I could manage to squeeze into my bag. But I sorely regretted having to leave behind the marvellous, but extremely clunky and highly breakable, oriental pieces that I coveted.

  I continued walking on from the end of the market and came to the domestic airport, where I unearthed an accommodating cash machine and, at last, a phone that was willing to connect me to Australia. Halleluiah! But I couldn’t use it unless I was prepared to haul someone out of bed at three in the morning. I figured that was stretching the bonds of family and friendship too far.

  On reflection, I came to the conclusion that most of the people in South America were just as lost as I was most of the time. No matter where I went, at least one person would accost me and ask for directions. In Spanish or Portuguese. I took it as a compliment – obviously I didn’t look like a foreign tourist. Believe me, you wouldn’t want to look like most of the ones I saw. Although in the north I came across no western tourists except the three backpackers on the boat to Belem, they were thick on the ground in parts of Rio. I think tourists get mugged because they advertise the fact that they are just that. In Rio I found that I was dressed much the same as most other women of my age – slacks or jeans and a shirt. Rio is reputed to have the loveliest women in South America – but what about the men? A very unfair proportion of them are drop-dead gorgeous. On several occasions I was asked if I was Argentinian. I haven’t worked out if that was good or bad yet.

  On Sunday morning I headed for the weekly North East Fair at Cristobello, which was said to be a lively show. I nutted out how to get there by the subway but then found it shuts on Sunday. So I took a bus to Central, where I asked directions of a conductor who put me on the right bus. When I saw a police station labelled Cristobello, I asked the driver if I was there. He said, ‘No, you’ve come too far. Sit down and I’ll get you there.’ I thought he intended to drop me off on the way back but after we had continued on for a long time I discovered that he was looking for another bus that was going to Cristobello. Finally he stopped his bus in the middle of the street and, hailing a bus that was heading in the opposite direction, chatted to its driver. I was then told to get on this other bus, around the front so that I didn’t have to pay. The next driver took me right to where the fair was held, under overhead tarpaulins all the way around the outside walls of a massive stadium. The numerous stalls were interspersed, now and then, by bandstands and portable wooden dance floors that were surrounded by hundreds of tin tables and chairs and crowded with people who danced to the very loud samba music, sang, drank beer and had a ball. There was beer on all the tables. Wherever I went in Brazil, at any time of the day, I saw people drinking beer.

  I walked around kilometres of clothes and all kinds of goods, but discovered to my surprise that all the big stalls sold hectares of plumbing supplies. This should have been called the Plumber’s Picnic, not the North East Fair. There was food galore. You could eat barbecued corn on sticks, beef or chicken shasliks, grilled cubes of white buffalo cheese on skewers and many other goodies. One area was devoted to trash and treasure and mountains of it was laid out on the ground.

  I was standing in a crowd watching some dancers, when a fellow in front of me turned around, took a look at me, then looked again quickly. I was not deluded that he had been stunned by my ravishing beauty. I knew instantly that he was a bad lot who had decided that I was an easy mark. Like the poor dog, I have a sixth sense about people sometimes. Sure enough, when I moved off, he immediately followed me. I stopped and let him pass and made certain that he was not able to get behind me again until I lost him. I read once that a well-known thief declared, ‘You can’t rob someone who is on to you.’

  Back in the city I was making for a place where the Gloria bus stopped when I came to the entrance of a building that I guessed to be Rio’s cathedral, the Catedral Metropolitana, but only because there was something to indicate this printed on the front doormat. There was no sign. A couple of hulking stone statues stood guard outside looking faintly Egyptian. This building, the last gasp in ugliness, looked more like a museum than a church. I had noticed it before but had resisted a visit, but now curiosity got the better of me. The flattopped monstrosity looked nearer to Doctor Who’s daleks than anything that belonged on this planet. I believe its design was a copy of an ancient temple. Totally circular in shape, its rough concrete sides went up in steps and stages to a great height. Once inside I saw that the steps were actually slot-shaped windows and then I could also see the four huge stained-glass panels that quartered the walls from the floor thousands of metres up to the top. The stained glass was impressively patterned with random, abstract designs and the sliced-off top was inset with a clear-glass square cross. There was no conventional altar, but hanging in the centre of the building, suspended from somewhere way up in the gods, was a big wooden crucifix, underneath which crouched a circular dais and a set of steps to mount it. Several wooden statues stood about. The temple/church/darlek didn’t look any more Christian inside than it did out, but it sure was big. It could have seated the biblical five thousand on the backless, polished-wood benches that encircled the walls and came down to encroach on the dais. It was spectacular but it had no atmosphere. It was not the sort of place in which to commune or contemplate.

  In the evening I mounted a bus, fully believing that I was off to the domestic airport to make a phone call. I wasn’t and I didn’t. Instead I spent an hour and a half circumnavigating Rio. With all its bright lights, it is a very pretty town at night but I did not even sight the airport. However, I did learn how to get to the botanical gardens if I should want to go there. The next day I found the right bus and the airport and was very pleased with myself. Then I walked across the fly-over to the downtown area and again nagged the airline about an earlier ticket. Still no luck.

  The way that many people rode buses for free amazed me. All you had to do was enter via the front, thus avoiding the turnstile. Over sixty-fives, if they were game, could freeload, also small children, those in school uniforms or just carrying books, and women with babes in arms. No credentials were checked. Brazilians seemed very tolerant of each other. I suppose they had to be when there were so many poor people. I saw conductors look the other way when young lads got on the bus, limboed under the turnstile and didn’t pay. And drivers would allow vendors onto the bus to try to sell some small item to passengers. The vendors would recite their spiel up and down the aisle, offering you one lolly or a packet of gum, and then alight without paying. One day a well-built young bloke got on selling batteries. He’d had one leg amputated at the knee and he hopped along without a crutch. I had previously decided that buses were only for the fit and strong and not for the infirm or feeble but this lad made his way along the jolting bus with his box of batteries, sold some, and then hopped of.

  I went to the beach at Ipanema, which is further on from Copacabana, and walked along the foreshore for a long way. This was not exactly a deliberate venture; although the breeze was pleasant by the sea, this day was quite hot. I was looking for a map shop that I still have yet to uncover. Maybe next time.

  In a cafe near the beach I saw an exampl
e of the Ugly Tourist that I hadn’t seen for a long time. I had hoped that they all might have died out. This one was a late-middleaged, American female old enough to know better. She and her poor doddering husband were making a frightful scene about the kilo menu. She demanded loudly to know what was in each dish – and there were at least twenty dishes – what it cost and how the system worked. It was hard to believe anyone could be so thick. You load your plate and pay ten real per kilo. Simple. Not for her. Later when I went to pay the cashier, she was there making another scene about how much it cost it and how she should pay. Then she said to the cashier, ‘That’s all right. Now tell me what that is in my money.’ I imagined the cashier trying that trick in her country. Would she give him the price in reals?

  It was late afternoon when I got on a bus to return to my hotel. I had not previously taken one at peak hour, and now I realised why people said that most robberies occurred on buses. Standing squeezed in a solid mass of humanity in a lurching swaying vehicle, I thought, Now is the hour. Drivers of northern buses had been horrendous, but at least they had not been doing their stuff in heavy traffic. Imagine a four-lane highway with four buses across it, all flat-out performing like cars racing in a Grand Prix, passing each other, swerving all over the road, in the centre of town. I decided that drivers get their jollies from upsetting their passengers and if they can’t scream around corners and roar down narrow streets – I was in one that actually mounted the kerb and drove with half its wheels on the footpath – or if they get stuck in traffic where they have to slow down, they display their frustration by jerking the brakes so that the passengers fall about the bus anyway. But then, they were very good to me whenever I was lost.

  That night as I was passing through the hotel foyer, I was arrested by a gruesome sight on the television – a Rio city bus lying on its side while white-coated attendants rushed about taking passengers from it on stretchers. In the background were piles of black plastic bags that looked suspiciously like they contained bodies, while to one side the fire brigade blasted blood off the road with a massive hose. Until then I hadn’t imagined that a local bus could have a fatal crash. After watching this, I thought about it all the time as I rode about town.

  A couple of days later Murphy took the day off. When I rang the airline for my daily nag, a perfectly agreeable woman not only understood everything I said but also offered me a seat in two days time. That left me forty-eight hours to cram in everything that I wanted to do. I set off immediately and in downtown Carioca found Rio’s library, the Biblioteca Nacional. An imposing nineteenth-century, four-storey building, it has a superb foyer containing a wonderful marble staircase flanked by graceful columns. I had thought that I might be able to use the internet there but a sweet receptionist with good English told me that it was only for students – and no stretch of the imagination could inveigle me into that category, except perhaps as an extremely slow learner. The receptionist gave me the address of an internet cafe in the Rio Branco, the main street. She said it was most easy to find. And I did!

  Next on my list was the magnificent municipal theatre and opera house – the Teatro Municipal – an exact one-quarter scale copy of the one in Paris. Another impressive late-nineteenth-century creation, its exterior had everything possible in the way of domes and cupolas, as well as great bronze eagles on its roof. I went inside and mingled with its many statues as I listened to singers on stage practise for a coming opera. The voices followed me as I wandered through the fabulous and extensive restaurant, a fantasy reminiscent of a Cecil B. de Mille biblical extravaganza. Built on two levels, with seating downstairs and a bar and grand piano up top, the whole caboose was tiled in bluish turquoise. The walls were interspersed with wonderful French glass lights made by Henri Lalique that were supported by carved, wooden animal heads and separated by marble columns.

  The tram that runs across an aqueduct built in 1723 and ascends to the lovely residential area of Santa Teresa was another must. I had read that the station was somewhere near the cathedral and had seen the aqueduct, a big white procession of arches that stuck up high above the surroundings, on previous forays around the town. I found the aqueduct and followed it to its source. From a distance the aqueduct appeared far too skinny and fragile to carry such a boisterous object as a tram. It looked as though it was made of plaster, but now that I was about to trust myself to it, I sincerely hoped it was concrete.

  The tram cost seventy cents and was very comfortable. However, it had not occurred to me that it would not be fully enclosed. It sides were actually open and from your feet up there was nothing to stop you pitching out into the abyss. The tram driver arrived, put one foot on the running board, stopped and blessed himself, moving his lips in silent prayer. I thought, Well, that’s him taken care of, but what about us?

  The tram was metal with lots of shiny brass fittings and lovely old polished wooden seats, but I was wearing slippery silk trousers and I shot back and forth on my seat like a jackin-the-box each time the tram lurched. Trams seemed to do a good trade – every one I saw was full. The paying customers sat on the seats, but as soon as the tram started off, the nonpayers jumped on the outside and, hanging onto the side rails, swung precariously in the breeze. Much as I like a free ride, there was no way I’d have done that, for when the tram took off it circled a garden then clanged out onto the narrow aqueduct where it pitched from side to side alarmingly. The city beneath me seemed kilometres away. Good grief, I’d had apprehensions about the cable car and yet here I was, terrified, on a wobbly tram a long way from the ground, rocking about on a high, skinny edifice. As I slid back and forth on the seat I clutched the back of the seat in front of me for all I was worth.

  Our driver, Pedro, was a happy soul with a bright smiley face and he knew absolutely everybody on the route. As the tram wound around and up the very steep hill, all along the way he called greetings to people, or stopped the tram so that they could get on, giving extra help to women with babies or heavy middleaged ladies, who I’m sure wouldn’t have made it onto a bus. He always made certain that his passengers were safely on board before he started gently off again.

  Suddenly, halfway up the hill, there was a loud explosion and a great flash of flame, followed by sparks and smoke, shot from the controls. Pedro, unperturbed, stopped the tram and, reaching up into a wooden box above his head, fiddled with some knobs. We waited for the smoke to clear and after a while off we went again. By now our pace was down to a crawl, which gave Pedro time to chat to everyone we passed. He knew all the school kids, who rode free, by name. One curly-headed blond girl was obviously a favourite. He stopped the tram and waited until she had finished talking to him before taking off again. At one stage I pulled my camera from my bag and he stopped so that I could take a picture. The tram had a big brass bell which, to my delight, Pedro dinged loudly every now and then. This ride was so relaxed and sociable after the nightmare bus journeys that, once I survived the aqueduct, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

  I decided that it would be mainly the rich who lived on this hill. Some of the houses, which were built rather precariously either on the slope above or below the tram line, were extremely grand. Some were Mediterranean in style, others had turrets like castles and many looked ancient. It took forty minutes to reach Santa Teresa and return again and it was the nicest thing I did in Rio.

  Back safely on terra firma, I celebrated with a divine lunch in the kilo restaurant at the tram station. Fortified, I set off once more in tourist mode, this time to seek a ride across the harbour on a ferry and visit the market. Where the market was alleged to have been, I found a car park. Perhaps it had moved or become defunct or perhaps, perish the thought, the accursed book had got it wrong again. It couldn’t have been me.

  I boarded the ferry easily enough. Built like a landing barge, it romped up to the wharf and disgorged a mob of people from its maw like Jonah being spat up by the whale. I rode the ferry across the fantastic Rio harbour, the Guanabara Bay, and back again, passing a stupe
ndous bridge that crosses to an island a long way out. Rio has one of the finest natural harbours in the world and this, as well as Brazil’s other great ports, has greatly contributed to the wealth of the nation. A Portuguese navigator, Gaspar de Lemos, discovered Guanabara Bay in 1502 and, thinking it was a river, named it Rio de Janeiro. The French established a settlement here in 1555, but this was taken over by the Portuguese in 1560. In 1760 Rio replaced Salvador as Brazil’s capital and remained so until 1960, when Brasilia secured the title.

  I started my last day in Rio by waiting on the wrong bus stop for half an hour before I twigged and tootled down to Central and, finding the right bus, asked the driver to put me off at Sugar Loaf. I had finally mustered the courage to ride the cable car, but I suffered severe misgivings when I saw that my ticket was dated the thirteenth and my jitters didn’t improve when it came to the moment of truth and I had to step aboard. I really didn’t want to get into that wobbly thing. On a scale of nought to ten, the bus through the Andes took the ten for terror, but this horror was at least eight. Once in the cable car the ground was a dreadfully long way down and you were supported merely by an itty-bitty rope, which from the blessed dirt looked about as thick as a piece of cotton. The box-like car swayed alarmingly as I stepped on – and you don’t get a seat. I wanted to lie down and hide my head, but had to stand and look either out, or under my feet. Either way there was nothing. I had a vivid sensation of being suspended out in space with only a great emptiness around me.

  As you got out of this wavering capsule, you had to jump over a gap and, looking down, you saw the earth thousands of metres away. One slip and I’ll fall down there, was all I could think. I wasn’t the only coward either. Another woman was even worse than I was. Her friends dragged her protesting into the cable car, but she wasn’t going to look. She kept her eyes shut tight whimpering, ‘Is it over yet?’ I tried to console her, which took the edge off my terror, but, as if one ride wasn’t enough, when I got off the first time I discovered that, wait, there’s more. From the first peak you go on to another even higher. The view was spectacular, a vivid panorama of Rio and her natural beauties, but I wondered why in the name of heaven anyone, except a sadist, would have conceived the idea of building this device.