Just arrived in Sao Paulo on the overnight bus. It’s a straightforward process, getting around this enormous landmass. You could rightly feel it rivals the USA in the dominance of the automobile. Small stands of locals selling their goods flash past you on the bus; with a car you could truly participate here. The fresh papaya would be right there in your hand! Imagine that!
We are drinking coffee, our third already to counteract the effects of sleeping half-upright on a bus that feels it is throwing itself around the corners with a daredevil attitude, come what may, the thrill is worth it! Even Sarah is tentatively speaking some Portuguese, and certainly understanding more than I do. She drinks more coffee than me though, perhaps the caffeine is helping.
You do a lot of thinking on a bus, your eyes loosely focused on the outside, barely seeing what is close up but instead soaking up the cloud covered mountains in the distance. I thought back to 2000 when Michael and I went to Dublin to see Radiohead three times, on consecutive nights. It feels like an awfully long time ago. I wonder if I would do something like that now. I wonder if the world has things like that worth doing now.
It will soon be three weeks since we left Belfast on that frenetic morning, hearts pounding, booking a last minute flight so we could actually get on the plane, and I am starting to feel like that may have been the defining moment of the ‘planning’ stage of this trip. I think we know better now. If I could offer one piece of advice to anyone thinking of doing this, leaving their lives and coming to Latin America for several months, a year, then it would be this : the planning stage is pointless. It was a total waste of my time, albeit that my interest in the continent was fostered. Endless research on buses here, buses there, equipment, clothes, bags, shoes, visas, whatever. We were so Western in our approach to this, and the paradigm of that approach was the needlessness of booking that flight on the final day. No one in Brazil has given the slightest damn whether or not we were going to leave the country. No one.
Instead of experiencing out-and-out chaos every moment of every day, it has been damnably easy. You arrive in a town on a bus, you find your accommodation, you walk, you shower, you eat, you shop (or not), you watch foreign tv whilst drinking a beer in a bar, you sleep, you log onto the Wi-Fi and check your emails, you are in the 21st Century and have not left.
There is a strange phenomenon whereby you become accustomed to a certain thing in your daily routine. For example, say you wanted to take a bus from Carrickfergus to Ballyclare. No direct route exists. Instead, you must travel to Belfast and then back out again (maybe Newtownabbey, though I doubt it). Fine, so you just drive instead, if thats what you need to do. Yet as soon as you arrive in another country, a similar situation is intolerable! Why in god’s name can’t I travel between these two totally reasonable locations! I am Here and want to be There! And, of course, you can’t.
What, then, should be done before embarking on such a trip? Your first consideration in money, because it is this that rules all your plans. Dispense with any idea that Latin America is cheap. It is merely cheaper, and even that is not always the case. Bus journeys eat into your daily budget, not every town with something to see has a hostel, and it is more-or-less true that big cities offer more to occupy you whilst also harbouring the cheaper eateries. Small towns don’t have the competition and therefore don’t need to be as cheap. Provided, of course, that you are on that tight a budget.
Secondly, you are moving from hostel to hostel, sometimes a hotel room where they are cheap enough. Everywhere now provides sheets and pillow cases, a blanket where necessary, you don’t need to bring those or a sleeping bag if you aren’t going to be outdoors. Travel as light as possible, be able to put all your belongings into one bag for carrying, even if you bring a smaller backpack for daytime.
If you know when you are leaving a town, buy your bus ticket in advance at the station, just to be safe. This leads to my most important point: learn a little of the language. This is, besides money, the most essential thing you will bring with you. Particularly in Portuguese, where pronunciation is not as obvious, being able to ask for what you want, from someone who speaks not one word of English, will take the only potentially frustrating aspect out of the trip.
If and when we come here again, or should anyone ever ask, I will give them the same advice; that no one has an excuse to not come here. From Western Europe, Latin America is another world, a daunting sprawl of jungle or prairie, where a different set of rules exist and you, alien gringo, will be lost in the juxtaposing culture. The guide books are intentionally scattershot about this, designed to appeal to the morass of travellers and therefore never really much more use that when on the ground, wondering if a small town is worth the five hour trip. More often than not, its not.
Instead, on arrival what you already perceive as unfathomable is actually familiar, you are surrounded by the same human behaviour you find in Europe, swathed in the bright colours of difference, and you quickly come to terms with your new environment, dipping into local cuisine and culture, and not failing to notice that most people wear football shirts or tshirts with slogans on them, and shorts, and Havianas, much like they do at home in the sunshine.
Fears about personal safety are no greater or lesser than any other big city; who would go stalking around certain parts of London at 2am? A little wit will keep you safe. Tourist attractions are safe anyway, everyone down here understands the value of visitors.
It is not Latin America that makes coming here difficult for the intrepid traveller. It is The West that makes it difficult for us to leave.
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