Day 5 or The Cachaca Express

Notes on Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Last night, after a lovely dinner with M&M and Rob and Naimon, R&N invited us all to drink cachaca with them. They had been collecting bottles and claimed they had some of "the good stuff," although none of us were really qualified to judge the good stuff from the rotgut. We had to rely on what we were told. So on the way home Mike and Rob haggled for limes and ice from a couple of bars (all the mercados were closed), and we scrounged for glasses and knives and sugar back at the pousada. Naimon and Melie mixed the caiparinhas, which were expertly done, and we all kicked back in the coziness of the antique pousada, the glow of the illuminated church across the street flooding in through the balcony windows.

It didn't take long for us to start telling bidnez. Rob is gay (well, we knew that bidnez already). Poor guy got fired from a job five years ago for it too. OMG. What is wrong with people? Melie and I actually thought Rob and Naimon were a couple, but Naimon is married to an actress in Norfolk. I guess we called that one pretty wrong. "No, we're not together, I just haven't found the right guy yet," was Rob's explanation. "Honey, neither have I," I sympathized. I got all girlie and showed Rob my bling bling from the mines that day, and we decided to drink some cachaca straight up. (If Rob lived in Atlanta, I would sooo make him my gay husband). Then two very nice, but very dignified Germans staying in the pousada joined us, and prevented the whole thing from degenerating any further, so Rob and Melie and I went to bed.

This morning at breakfast, Melie mused, "We should kidnap the gay guy and hees friend and take zem to the park wiz us today." The three of us were leaving Ouro Preto today for the old monastery at the Parque Natural do Caraca. A state park about two hours east of OP. It was time for some nature up in here. But the minute she said it out loud we decided it would be too fun not to, and we began scheming. When Rob came down, we told him we were plotting to take him and Naimon to the park with us, and they didn't really have a say in the matter. Rob was so flattered, gay boy flattered. It was completely cute. Naimon was a little more hesitant, but as we said, they didn't really have a choice.

There were a few logistical concerns. One: how were Naimon and Rob going to get back to OP the next day (M&M and I were heading east). And two: how were we going to fit 5 people, all M&M's luggage, my embarrassing luggage, and Rob and Naimon's overnight bags into the little clunker? Rob and I took off for the tourist info office to inquire about buses back to OP. Once that was figured out, we had to tackle the luggage. But Mike and I decided to head out for one last gander around town while everyone finished packing, and by the time we returned, the car had been stuffed with our stuff. Talk about expert shirker timing! It really was a miracle of spacial arrangement that we got all that junk in that tiny trunk. But they did it, and I took a picture of the trunk for proof.

Question: How many gringos can you pack into a baby car? Poor Naimon squeezed in the middle of the back seat and we set out, the left over cachaca packed safely in a plastic water bottle in the trunk. We had to stop at a garage to get an extra bolt for a rear hub cap. It was a little curious when the mechanic didn't go into the shop to get it, but took off down the street. "Is he getting it off another car?" Mike wondered. Where ever the guy got it, he didn't charge us anything. I just hope some poor other schmoe didn't lose his hub cap hitting a quebra mola. But we were finally on our way. We all exclaimed when we hit a quebra mola, and we teased Melie who was mortified when she asked for directions and the Brazilian woman thought she was speaking French instead of Portuguese, we puzzeled over Brazilian waxes and someone wondered aloud if we should all get matching landing strips, and we told stories about lost fingernails to ook each other out. Naimon told of ripping off a fingernail entirely, Mike told of his father's grotesque parting with a nail, Melie told of losing acrylics at a really bad time, and I grossed everyone out with my lost toenail story from the camino. When it came time for Rob to tell his nail story, he just said, "I get pedicures," with a sheepish shrug.

We had to drive through Mariana again on the way to the monastery and Melie suggested we eat lunch at the same place as yesterday. She had an alterior motive. She wanted to lay in the sun for 20 minutes in front of the igreja again. "Look at us, Mike," she said referring to the both of us. "Wee are soooo pasty, sooo transparent!" And then someone, I don't remember who, broached going back to the mine. Mike wanted to see the garim peiros actually mining, and after seeing my gems last night, Rob wanted to score some for his mom and sisters and nieces, and me? Well I just wanted more bling, period.

We pulled up to the mine again, got out of the car, and descended into it like we'd done this a thousand times, not just once the day before. It didn't take long for the predicted throng to arrive, but several of the garim peiros were hard at work in the mines below, chiseling chunks of mud into wheelbarrows. We looked for our favorite garim peiro from yesterday, a short guy with rain golashes and ball cap that looked like it might have been yellow at one time. Mike told Melie to ask for the "baixanho negro," the "litte black guy," explaining that it would not be seen as offensive here. "I am not going to say dat!" was Melie's reply.

But it didn't take long to find him down in a pit, systematically working the dirt. He waved at us and smiled and we spent a little while with the miners, just observing them work, Mike asking them more questions about the process. Apparently they can't pan the dirt for gold dust in the dry season because they can't pipe in water, so they just have to mine for the chunks and wait for the rainy season to collect enough water to pan.

And then the gems started coming out, but this time I was ready for them. Auga marinho, ametista, topazio, citrino, ametista verde, they were all waved in front of my eyes as they were yesterday. When they began quoting prices, I haggled, I frowned, I furrowed my brow, I put my fingers to my chin, I pursed my lips when I wanted them to lower their prices. I have to say, I have done a kick ass job of mastering numbers in Portuguese, at least up to eighty, so I was a deal making queen. And these guys, dirt poor as they are, are savvy too. They know what their gems are worth in a jewelry store in Minas, and if I went too low they haggled me back up. I mean, if you talk about tourism dollars going to benefit the local economy, you can't get any more direct than this, and I have to say, I am glad my money was going to buy good cachaca for these characters, and not lining the pockets of some Rio based commercial gem broker. In all I bought just three more gems today, gifts for people back home. And Rob got his too: four deep colored, emerald cut amethysts for his ladies. Score!

I have to say it was an even more gratifying experience today. I was advising Rob and Naimon on negotiations, giving them all the expert advice Mike had given me yesterday when I was about to pee my pants. Oh yeah, I was a big time show off now and swollen, perhaps a little too much so, with new found confidence. Naimon documented all of it with his new DSLR. He was the photojournalist on this adventure, and he flitted around us haggling with the miners, taking shots of me with my haggle face on, and of Mike examining raw rocks, and Rob brooding over a gems, and of us marching down the lonely dirt road to the mine to the ghostly, impoverished town beyond.

What amazes me so much is the proximity of the first world to the third world here in Brazil. The two coexist side by side, sometimes a swift thirty minute drive from each other, sometimes in the same town! Take Ouro Preto, a teeming town swelling with mostly Brazilian tourists, expensive restaurants and jewelry stores I can't aford, and not 40 minutes away is this place, a place where miners exist on less money and more cachaca in a year than we can possibly imagine. Mike yearned to spend an evening with these guys drinking cachaca and shooting the shit, finding out more of what their lives were like, and I would have loved to join them too, but alas we had to move on. We had a monastery and a mountain range and a four hour hike to a legendary waterfall waiting for us that afternoon.

Back on the road, Melie offered me this, "Hey Kreesteen, you know our garim perio is single, I asked heem for you." "Melie, I fired you, remember?"

Afternoon crept up on us sooner than we expected though, and we didn't arrive at the monastery until 4:30. The first glimpse of the gothic revival church nestled in a trough with stunning mountains cresting all around elicited a simultaneous "oooowwww" from everyone. But with sunset coming on it was too late to begin a hike to the waterfall. We contented ourselves with wandering around the exquisite formal gardens and watching the sun go down behind a foreground of rolling mountains. Naimon got attacked by a bat hiding in a small grotto in a hillside, Rob screamed like a girl, Mike and Melie hung out in their room, then Rob and Naimon and I raided the pousada kitchen for caiparinha making materials. The kitchen lady looked at us like we were crazy when we asked for the necessary random objects: a faca (knife), prato (plate), cinqo copos (five glasses), and acucar (sugar). But we couldn't explain ourselves in Portuguese, and even if we could have I am not sure how smart it would have been to tell the lady we were trying to get drunk in a monastery.

But drink we did, and toast, and toast, and toast. We toasted Brazil, we toasted cachaca, and we toasted the wolves: "Those mother fuckers better show up."

I guess now I have to explain about the wolves. See, a few years ago one of the padres at the monastery decided it would be super fun to see if he could feed the maned wolves by hand a la St. Francis of Assisi. The maned wolf is one of only three wild dog species in Brazil, and one is a fox and the other a small dog. The maned wolf is large, rare, and extremely endangered. But this priest managed to train the wild wolves in the park to eat from his hand, and every night they place food out on the terrace for the wolves. So about six shots of cachaca in, we took a picture of ourselves holding a statue of St. Francis, just because it seemed like a good idea at the time, and I prayed silently that the wolves would show tonight.

On our way to dinner, drunk and giggling down the dormitory corridor toward the dining room, we heard Melie up ahead on the terrace, "shhhhhh!!!! You guys, der ees a wolf!!!! Be quiet! der ees a wolf!!!!!!" Rob and I looked at each other, eyes bulging, and we all crouched low and crept as stealthily as we could for drunks, emerging from the corridor on to the terrace. Low and behold, there was an aluminum tray full of chicken wings (cause that's what I'd want if I were a wild wolf), and standing at the tray was a tall, long, lanky, copper colored wolf. He looked like a enormous fox with gangly legs and huge ears. I held my breath as he snatched bits of chicken and retreated swiftly to a safe distance at the edge of the terrace to crunch bones and swallow before cautiously attempting more. It was magic, sheer enchantment. Naimon, Mike and I, our cameras clicking away (luckily flash doesn't scare them off), got some amazing shots of this brave wolf, alone on the terrace with only the five of us.

After we sat, crouched, and stood frozen for minutes watching the wolf make several passes at the chicken, Mike finally said, "All right, enough of this, I am going to go save the rest of our dinner." To a bunch of drunks, this was the funniest thing he could have said, and I sputtered through laughter, "you son of a bitch!" But finally, the wolf had had enough chicken (wing sauce not hot enough?), and enough of the camera flashes, and enough of us, and he disappeared back into the black of the forest while the rest of us, awed and breathless, thanked St. Francis.

Side bar: I have found the problem with being a photo hobbyist. You are so focused on getting the shot, on preserving the moment for posterity, you don't live fully in the actual moment as it is happening. One eye is on the wolf, aware that you are now one of a small group of people on the planet who has seen this rare creature, or ever will again. It is a moment you want to be fully present for, completely engaged, just watching, imbibing, honoring. But then the other eye is focused on the camera, the settings, the focus, the zoom, hoping for that amazing shot to share with friends so they believe that you experienced this rare thing. It is a dilemma, to be sure, and sometimes I wish I could just put the camera down and experience life instead of trying to preserve it. Some moments in life are meant to be moments only, and then memories.

Later that night, after dinner and everyone had retired to their rooms, I went out on the terrace alone for one last hopeful glimpse of a wolf. No one showed up, but the tray of chicken, which was still full when our wolf was snacking, was now completely decimated. I sat on the terrace and looked up at the star littered sky, realizing for the first time that I was looking at a whole new hemisphere of stars that I had never seen before. It was a good thing I didn't have my camera.