Llama for Lunch (30 page)
We teetered into a midget-sized, 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, home-made 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 groups 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.
There was much activity here. Groups of teenage boys rode about on bikes and other young men frolicked in the river. I watched some of these strong swimmers travel long distances. Others were bathing and washing their shirts. I saw few girls, but there were children everywhere. Fishing boats and other small craft chugged around and a wooden, twotiered boat, similar to the one I had come from Belem on, pushed a barge laden with cars and trucks to another landing across the river. I was approached by a small boy who should have been in school. He asked me if I wanted a drink. I looked over to see that he carried a beat-up esky full of water and a bottle half-filled with cordial; a tin cup swung on a string around his neck. I said, ‘No thanks,’ but he continued to stand in front of me, regarding me solemnly with great, soulful brown eyes. Sadly I said, ‘No thank you,’ again. I thought it would be utterly foolhardy, health-wise, to drink river water from his communal cup.
A few dogs wandered around, hopeful of something to eat, but they were not as many, or as tatty, as those I had seen in other places. There had been many street dogs in Belem. I had noticed two in particular that lived right on the main drag. One was an old dog who always lay on the spot that was the coolest at that time of the day, such as the marble step of a building. I don’t know whether the shop people fed it but it didn’t look in bad nick. It was still sleeping there at night, so I presumed that was its only home.
A blot on the peace of the Surre waterfront were the loud speakers that, attached to poles here and there, spewed forth a blaring radio station. Brazilians don’t seem to be able to tolerate a soundless vacuum, they have to fill it with noise of some description. Similarly, they were amazed to discover that I was alone. They couldn’t comprehend the pleasure of travelling by yourself and they didn’t think it was at all a good idea.
Unfettered livestock roamed Surre. As I walked around I saw six horses cropping the thick grass down the centre of the main street under the shade of the mango trees, and half-a-dozen buffalo grazed unattended on the street verges. Scraggy chooks of motley colours free-ranged everywhere. As I neared the hotel a man, bareback on a beautiful grey horse, rode expertly past me. With all these loose animals you had to be careful where you stepped, even on the footpaths, but I preferred that to human rubbish – at least animal droppings help the grass to grow. Vultures scratched among the mounds of rubbish in the streets. What a shame they don’t eat plastic.
Surre’s streets were rough and ready and only the two main ones were asphalt-paved, but all of them were wide and spacious and divided by large expanses of grass and trees down the middle into one-way traffic. The reason for this precaution eluded me as there was practically no traffic – just one bike, motorbike or horse cart passed me every ten minutes.
The market had a large meat, fish and veggie section in a covered building, while stalls outside sold mostly food, snacks and drinks. Further on was another large, white adobe building sporting a sign that said ‘Turisma’ and in which various handcrafts were for sale. I bought a postcard of Surre’s mounted police – they were on buffaloes. There were a few hole-in-the-wall cafes and bars, or that’s what they said they were. In the couple of general stores I found the merchandise to be dearer than on the mainland; bottled water, for example, was twice the price. Freight costs I guess.
Surre was not only much quieter than Belem, it was also, thanks to its beautiful sea breezes, much cooler, especially in the evenings and mornings. But walking about in the sun in the middle of the day became too hot, so then I would return to my room for siesta. One evening I decided to try a meal at the other hotel, the Marejo. It was more up-market than my hotel; it included a good-looking pool beside two thatched-roofed gazebos that overlooked the inlet. You could sit in the pool and watch the buffalo grazing along its rubbishstrewn sides. A pretty row of Madagascan periwinkle bushes smothered in white flowers matched the low, fenestrated white wall that surrounded the hotel’s perimeter.
I found horse meat on the menu and hoped that was not why there were horses grazing around the town. I can’t imagine killing an animal as beautiful as a horse just to eat it – not when there are really ugly sheep, cows and chooks that can serve the same purpose. I looked up the word for horse meat in my dictionary. I had guessed right. The only thing I could have mistaken it for was cavaleiro – horseman – and I was pretty sure that they didn’t still practice cannibalism here. It was hard to concentrate on my food because six black-and-white vultures hung over me from a convenient palm tree.