BRAZIL - Porto Allegro15 Jan 2007
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| Monday 15th January Got into the bus station at 8.30am feeling a little worse for wear. Breakfast consisted of dulche con leche which I can only describe as a cup of treacle made with condensed milk accompanied by a biscuit filled with, wait for it.....milk butter! Talk about sugar overload. Helped to get me going out of the bus station in confident I don't need a taxi style. Very different atmosphere here in Brazil that you notice immediately. People are more hassled and walk quicker and everything's so much noisier. There are a lot of street traders and a large african community. I found the hotel quickly which was a bargain at 3 pounds for my own room, well 12 x 4 cell, but then found my first example of a 'suicide shower' that I had read about. Seeing as I have no rubber flip flops I guess I'll pass on the wash then - not an easy decision to make when you have been on a bus for 12 hours but I could actually see the wires hanging out of the wall just above the shower head! Promptly fell asleep until early afternoon - jet lag still not sorted then - then went out into the town in the afternoon. Now seeing it's a pretty big place and I have a visa card - how hard can it be to get some money? Well two hours, 9 banks, 12 attempts, one security breach locking me in a swing door, and a bank employee practising his english whilst waving my card around for all to see in the street, and I have to say near tears (I after all checked into a hotel without any money to pay for it!) I found an HSBC and I actually started laughing when it dished out some notes. People kept telling me I needed to use 24 hour signed banks which I did but I don't know if the computers were offline but they just wouldn't recognise my card and all the messages were in portugues. And the banks have these glass cages with a guard inside and one outside and a metal detector. I set off an alarm going in and jammed the door but said "inglesa" so he laughed and let me in regardless, then I went out the other swing door but found the same problem and jammed someone else in the swing door with me, then had to unload my bag into a slot before getting through to find it wasn't the way out - just a more secure part of the bank! Suffice to say I had never wanted to get out of anywhere so much in my life! Anyway cash in hand I went off in search of a plane ticket to Manaus. Two hours later it seemed there were no travel agents in this city. Found an English speaker at the Tourist desk who told me I need to get out to the shopping mall to find a travel agent and he pointed me in the direction of the bus. Very serious ticket man with no sense of humour wasn't falling for the giggle and basically I felt like a martian when he resorted to hand signals to tell the price of a ticket. Got off the bus with the "well I never have to see him again" approach, but after spending two hours trying to buy the plane ticket I had seen online but was unable to buy with my card (what is it with Brazil and foreign cards?) I went outside to the bus stop and was greeted by the same bus conductor guy on his return trip - still not amused but at least I knew how much the ticket was now. So here I am, back to being laughed at on pretty much an hourly basis. Resorted to McDonalds for tea - surely I can't get that wrong....well I said 'Obrigado' (which is the only word I know) and got a very curt 'Obrigada' back - seems we are now on masculine and feminine thank yous on top of everything! Tuesday 16th January Wondered the town all day waiting for my night bus. Attempted to shop as the clothes are really cheap and I could do with some cooler tops but that proved amusing as they are very into their customer service and jump on you as soon as you enter the store. Managed to buy my anti-malarials without too much bother though. Lesson learned, research and when you know it's not going to be easy - write it down! |
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