Thursday, January 08, 2009

Lençois, Brazil

Exploring the Chapada Diamantina

Injured flies and rock slides

Happy New Year from the small village of Lençois, Brazil. After spending a sultry Christmas in Salvador, we traveled inland seven hours via bus and have been hiding out for the past week in the mountain village of Lençois, which is on the edge of the national park called the Chapada Diamantina. In Portuguese, chapada means cliffs or highlands, and diamantine refers to the area’s hey-day when diamonds were mined from the hills and scooped out of the streams. This is really our kind of place—a sleepy old village surrounded by peaks, plateaus, and marvelous hiking trails, each with its own picturesque swimming hole, many of which were literally carved out of the bedrock by diamonds tumbling downstream. We have no internet access so we’re thankfully being forced to take the week off from work and homeschooling—finally, a real vacation.

We’re renting a little house from a newlywed local couple, Ana and Andrés, who have moved into their brother’s home for the week in order to earn a few extra bucks renting theirs to us. It’s a small, brightly painted, three-room cinderblock structure similar to all of the others in our colorful, no-frills neighborhood. It has a ceramic tile roof, cement floors, and wooden shutters that cover holes where glass windows might theoretically be placed if temperatures ever dropped to anywhere near cold. Or even cool, for that matter. My husband, who was reduced to a jellyfish during our first week in Salvador, has perked up a bit now that we’re back in the mountains, but it’s still plenty hot. Being part hippy and part Cherokee, I’m a big fan of wide-open windows that let the weather rush right through the house. But each morning at two, when the neighbor’s rooster (who seems to have a maladjusted time clock) begins his incessant crowing, I dream of shiny glass windows that close down tight.

Our miniscule kitchen is well-equipped by local standards—five plates, five forks, a pan, two pots and a coffee sock—all the necessities. I am in awe, by the way, of the Brazilian method of making coffee, which is immeasurably superior to ours, at least in terms of simplicity. Their coffee machine consists of a sock, the top of which is sewn to a small metal ring and fitted with a simple wooden handle. Fill the sock with coffee grounds, hold it by the handle and pour boiling water through the ring into your cup. Ingenious! Why haven’t we thought of this back home? No electricity, no ginormous plastic made-in-China contraption, no fragile glass pot constantly in need of replacement, and exceptionally transportable! I’ll undoubtedly be adding a coffee sock to the little kitchen kit we’ve created. Luckily, we had the foresight back in Santa Fe to assemble a tiny toolbox brimming with the requisite articles for upgrading a rental kitchen. It has proven to be indispensable—small enough to fit snuggly within our allotted five backpacks and five carry-ons and yet containing all the essential items that have thus far been missing from the houses we’ve rented—a garlic press, a corkscrew, a veggie peeler, a tiny vial of New Mexican red chile powder (not enough, admittedly, for a full meal, but when used like smelling salts it packs sufficient aroma to stave off severe cases of homesickness), a sharp paring knife, and (the newest addition to our stash) one Brazilian coffee sock.

In addition to introducing us to the coffee sock (which would, in and of itself, have been worth the money we’re paying them in rent), Ana and Andrés have taken our family under their wing. When they found out last week that little Cruz was turning four, they brought over a birthday cake and invited all of the neighborhood children to join the celebration. All the kids on the block have since been running in and out of our house at all hours of the day and night. (Brazilian children don’t seem to require sleep.) This has been great fun for our kids, since thus far meeting other youngsters has been one of the biggest challenges of this silly adventure.

In fact, until now Cyrus has been terribly homesick. Since the moment we left Santa Fe, actually. He’s eleven, and he misses his friends terribly. He constantly reminds us that he’d sooner return home any day than be on this ridiculous adventure. I have vivid memories of being his age, and it breaks my heart to be putting him through what, at the time, seemed to be the worst part of my childhood. Every couple of years my parents, pursuing job openings in beef packing plants, would tear us away from Perfectville, America and relocate our entire clan to a new town. Each time, I was sure I wouldn’t survive the misery. Within a year of each move, however, I couldn’t even imagine being forced to go back to the previous podunk town.

I keep telling myself that this harebrained adventure will be good for our kids in the long run. That it will teach them, like I choose to believe my upbringing taught me, to be versatile and adapt quickly to new situations. But only time will tell. Time, and whatever therapist they hire come adulthood, who will undoubtedly tell them what a terrible job their parents did. After all, as Pa says “we all screw up our children in our own special way.” In the meantime, though, I’m not sure what to do for Cyrus. He has a video chat every week or two with his cousins back home in Kansas or his best friend, Zacciah, back in Santa Fe. Playing chess, chatting about video games, or just making faces at old amigos always seems to put him in a good mood—at least for a few hours.

If the truth be told, I even felt my first twinge of homesickness quite accidentally one recent evening when Jason and I were in a movie theater back in Cajamarca, Peru. We saw our first film outside the US—some stupid American comedy about hippy drug dealers—can’t even remember the name. But all of the sudden I was transported back to New Mexico, hanging out with my cousins and bohemian friends. No subtitles, everyone was actually speaking English—in my accent even! Somehow, for those two hours I almost forgot that we weren’t home. Then, rather abruptly, the movie ended and my bubble burst. The lights went up, and all of the sudden we were back in Peru—in a smelly, rundown theater packed far too full with extremely short, pushy people in tall straw hats, all staring unabashedly at the two of us. All the sudden I realized that I was a tad bit homesick. Not to worry, though, the feeling passed quickly. Either that or I was astonishingly adept at burying the feeling quickly and deeply, with all the expertise of my ancestors.

Here in Lençois, there’s hardly been time for nostalgia. There’s always a crowd of kids in our front room, a game of tag going on in the street, and another of Uno at our table. We’ve decided, by the way, that Uno should be declared the patron game of global vagabonds. It’s simple—just colors and numbers—an unintimidating way to share fundamental vocabulary between cultures. Another indispensable addition to the tiny toolbox we’re building.

Bella and Cruz may be too young for homesickness; they love it here in Lençois. Cruz loves being the center of attention in the neighborhood. Now that his broken leg has healed and the cast is off, he’s always in the middle of the action. Except for when the kids go down to the center of town to jump on the rickety old trampoline, that is. Since his experience in Salvador he has been conspicuously avoiding such death-traps.

Bella is absolutely in her element here. She spends her weekly allowance on dog food, which she carries with her at all times to minister to emaciated dogs and cats (along with sloths and monkeys, whenever possible). She’s constantly cuddling the untouchable creatures—a real Mother Teresa in training. Believe me, Jason and I are big fans of teaching empathy and compassion for the little guys. In fact, I’m pretty sure we were the first to mourn when America learned of Mother Teresa’s passing (which was overshadowed only slightly in supermarket aisles by the paparazzi death of Princess Di.) Still, there are some nasty creepy-crawlies around here—super-sized millipedes, tarantulas, toads that Jason says look like they crawled straight out of the Carboniferous period.

This week, Bella is focusing on flies, of which there seems to be no shortage. She spends the better part of her days nursing injured flies back to health and quarreling with us about whether we should be swatting or coddling them. After all, vermin need love, too. Earlier this week on our way out of the village for a hike, we passed a heap of rotting fruit and other decaying unmentionables that was attracting a feisty swarm of insects. Cyrus and Cruz jumped back in disgust, but Bella dropped instinctively to bug-eye level and sympathetically cooed, Oh no, look! One of them is stuck! She spent the next few minutes releasing each of the poor fly’s legs from the sticky muck while Jason and I swatted impatiently at the hovering pests, torn between letting her express her passion for despicable creatures and keeping her safe from tropical maladies.

We’ve been delighted to find that, at least in this part of Brazil, hiking just for the hell of it is more common than in Peru. We’re taking full advantage of this cultural weakness and have managed to walk a new stretch of trail each day, often led by one of the kids from our neighborhood. Our most memorable hike, though, was led by a man named Roy Funch. Roy is an expat American whose contact information I found, quite fortuitously, a few weeks ago when recruiting for translators in this area. He is interested in taking on translation work, and I am in need of more Portuguese linguists, so we arranged to meet this week in Lençois. Before our rendezvous, I did a bit more research and found out that, in addition to being a translator, Roy wrote the book on the Chapada Diamantina. Literally. He wrote an English language visitors’ guide to the park and has an amazing knowledge of the history and geography of the entire area. In fact, I learned, he was at one time the director of the Chapada Diamantina National Park and is considered by many to partly responsible for achieving national park status for the area, which for decades Roy has called home. This information sealed the deal; Jason and I both had to meet him. After a brief and awkward business chat (translation this; translation that) over a strong cup of sock-coffee, Roy offered to take the whole family on a hike. Yes! Of course, we jumped at the chance! Earlier this week, he guided us on an amazing walk and has succeeded in infecting us with his contagious passion for the Chapada Diamantina.

The scenery is incredible—high stone mesas give way to sprawling green valleys formed over millennia by rivers that run so red with tannin they seem to be brimming with tea as they carve their way through stone walls. At every turn streams form pools, waterfalls, and subterranean caverns, each of which begs to be explored. Our favorites, though, have been the natural rock waterslides, which abound in the area and may even outshine the rides at Disneyland. (By even making this comparison, incidentally, I am hereby excused for never having taken my children to that godforsaken place.) Throughout the Chapada Diamantina, natural chutes have formed in the conglomerate rock and have been worn so smooth by centuries of flowing water that they seem to have been meticulously tiled with my mother’s treasured kitchen linoleum from the 1970s. We while away hours each day sliding down shimmering linoleum chutes, which stretch for hundreds of feet before plunging us into deep frothy pools of red tea. When we get hungry we grab a mango off a tree, then run up the hill for another go around.

Last night was our final evening in Lençois. To celebrate, Ana and Andrés invited us into their brother’s home and taught us how to cook one of our favorite new Brazilian dishes—manioc crepes, which are known locally as beiju. The scrumptious crepes can be stuffed with fillings either sweet or savory and are absosmurfly delicious! This morning we’re off to our favorite swimming hole for one last dip. And tonight we take a fifteen-hour bus ride back to the coast and into southern Bahía. With any luck, we should reemerge soon in the village of Arraial d’Ajuda where we’ll be renting a home and relishing two months back on the beach.