Llama for Lunch
Page 26
Not satisfied with this mental torture, I then took the cog railway up to the summit of Corcovado – the Hunchback – mountain on which mountain stands the enormous statue of Cristo Redentor, Christ the Redeemer. This necessitated going back into Central and again asking a bus driver to put me off at the right place. This time he said, ‘No, no, no.’ Then he said more. I actually don’t know what he said. I just let drivers rattle on and waited for developments, hoping that they would push me off at the appropriate time. I would never have found my way anywhere without someone to help me. But this time it turned out that the driver was chasing another bus for me. When he caught up to it, he said, ‘Quick, get on this one.’ Then I was braving a third extremely high and terrifying ride in the space of twenty-four hours.
To be honest, looking down from this one was the least frightening of them all. I don’t know how a cog railway works, but I sat in a double train carriage that was pulled up a mountain on a wire. We ascended steeply. At first there were a few houses and then we were going through a national park that was very beautiful. On both sides of the railway line the park’s lush green vegetation crowded closely, one side going up the mountain and the other down. You either looked down into many glorious greens or up to the green-covered hillside. Plants and ferns – ones that at home are pampered, petted darlings cosseted in the house – scrambled wildly over walls and clambered madly up trees. There were all manner of many coloured flowers – big red blooms like hibiscus and strelitzia; salmon pink, pale pink or mauve busy lizzies that romped over the ground in pretty profusion; lilac and purple flag iris; and bushes that had blue and white flowers like plumbago. The top half of the train’s windows had no glass and through them I could breathe in the smell of the forest, that luscious, damp, green scent of fresh foliage, a wonderful earthy smell that I adore.
The train made several stops on its long climb to the top of the mountain and now and then picture-postcard vistas down into the blue bay appeared through gaps in the foliage. I had read that you could reach the summit by road, but it was not recommended – in fact, it was said to guarantee that you would get robbed. I could imagine that bandits hung about in the forest. It was very dense and would have been scary to venture into alone. The railway disgorged me at the end of the line, from where I had to walk up about a million steps to reach the top. At intervals on the way I encountered a snack bar or someone selling souvenirs. Then, there it was, Corcovado, the enormous statue of Christ with arms outstretched. Built in 1931, it stands forty metres high and weighs seven hundred tonnes – thirty tonnes in the head and eight for a hand. Once again I wondered why this had been built. Why not go down into Rio and spend that money housing the homeless or erect some ruddy public toilets so that the stench of urine is not the strongest memory tourists take away from the city?
My day of departure arrived. The airport bus proved difficult to find so I engaged a friendly taxi driver. He told me I should not be standing in the street with my bags in this area as it was too dangerous. When I asked why, he said that there were not enough police and too many robbers. Then we flashed at the speed of light to the Aeroporto International. At the plane check-in a sympathetic girl said she couldn’t put me in the exit seat I requested (they have more leg room) but, even though the plane was full, she managed to leave the seat next to me empty. I had told her that I had a bad leg. This is true. I have two bad legs if you go by looks.
The plane was ninety minutes late. Finally, at eight-thirty I was allowed on board, only to sit and sit until an announcement was made: ‘We will be twenty minutes delayed.’ Half an hour later we taxied to the runway where we again sat until another announcement: ‘We will be one hour delayed due to a technical problem.’ That could mean anything.
I debated getting off. I wonder if anyone ever has. A technical problem could mean that there was an engine on fire or all the wheels had fallen off. By the time they decided to move the plane I was almost ready to quit. I was very nervous. They did not say the problem was fixed and no one asked me if I still wanted to go on their faulty air-machine. I didn’t, I wanted out. Here I was, flying with a South American airline I didn’t trust anyway, and now they had confessed to a defective plane. Once you are up there, there is no way out.
Dinner distracted me for a while, but it was soon interrupted by the seat-belt light coming on, followed by turbulence, rain and lightning. Oh boy, now this. I imbibed quantities of the red wine on offer as a general anaesthetic.
To my great surprise we landed safely in Buenos Aires. It was cold in the airport where an announcement informed me that there was an hour’s delay. What’s new? I really didn’t want to spend twelve hours flying over the Andes and the Pacific Ocean with this mob in this suss plane but I got back on it anyway. The flight was rough at first but I was served another dinner and more red wine.
The female flight attendants wore a cross between a football jersey and a waitress’s pinny with butcher’s stripes, but despite this lack of sartorial elegance, the service was superior. With two seats to lie across and the therapeutic effect of the wine, I managed some sleep, but it was still an interminable night as I woke often and thought of all that ocean underneath me. At intervals I would get up for a drink and a sandwich; breakfast, consisting of lots of sweet rolls and cake, was served before we arrived in Auckland. From the air New Zealand looked green and pleasant, but as long as it was solid earth I didn’t care if it was desert. Back on the plane I had another breakfast, with less cake now that we were onto Australian tucker.
In Sydney I breezed through customs only to be bailed up by a sniffer dog, a dear little spaniel, who thought my bag was suspicious. I managed to convince the authorities that he could smell the bananas that I’d previously had in it, and then I was free to go home.
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Table of Contents
COVER PAGE
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT PAGE
DEDICATION
CONTENTS
1 FRIGHT WIGS IN CHICAGO
2 SOUTH OF THE BORDER
3 ILLEGAL!
4 TEQUILA SUNRISE
5 PIRATES AND PANAMA
6 LLAMA FOR LUNCH
7 GAOL BIRD
8 ROAD TO RUIN
9 JUNGLE JUICE
10 ACROSS THE RIVER TO BRAZIL
11 AFLOAT AGAIN
12 AMAZONS AND ANACONDAS
13 WHERE THE AMAZON MEETS THE ATLANTIC
14 ROLLING DOWN TO RIO