Day 6 or Little Grasshopper Says Chao to Her Senseis

Notes on June 24, 2009

A frosty wet cold settled over the monastery in the night and this morning it was not easy getting out of bed. We all agreed to meet at 8:30 to head to breakfast, where we fried our own eggs and grilled bread on a brick oven. We drank our coffee slowly and lingered over the table, enjoying one last subdued coversation before we would have to part ways.

I decided it would be a good time to interrogate Mike on all the times he'd been thrown in prison during his travels around the world. Indeed, Mike's encounters with foreign police have provided some running jokes this week during our road trip. Just yesterday Mike and Naimon tried to convince Rob and Melie and I that the cops confiscated our rental car when they went to park it for lunch and we couldn't get it back because Mike wouldn't pay a bribe. This yarn, by the way, was completely credible. Mike had alluded to his refusal to pay bribes landing his butt in jail before, so I immediately started to tense up. Was I going to do my first hard time in a Brazilian prison? Would I have a bucket for a toilet? Have to sleep on a rat infested floor? It was a half terrifying, half exhilarating prospect (exciting only because I was with Mike and Melie though; otherwise I would have been peeing myself). But Naimon can't lie, like, at all, and he tried to cover his smile with his hand and the jig was up almost as soon as it began. Of course Melie's reaction was fascinating. I think many women would respond to "Honey, we have no car" with "great! Just great! Now what are we going to do?" and a great deal of arm flapping. Not Melie. Melie just shrugged and sighed like this whole thing was no more than a temporary irritation, like waiting in line at the DMV or something. Completely unflappable, and no arm flapping either.

Mike always introduced his prison stories with, "Yeah, that time was pretty funny, actually." The rest of us would look at him and repeat faintly, "funny?". But, some of them really are funny, like the time in Uraguay when a "cop" pulled him over on his motorcycle saying that Mike had hit him. Mike didn't recall hitting anything and asked for his badge. Mike thought his "police" papers looked suspicious and denied he hit the guy. The guy wanted a bribe and pointed to the police station and threatened to take Mike there if he didn't pay, and Mike was all, "fine, let's go to the police station." So as they approach the police station, the "cop" starts dragging his leg and limping, and inside he rolls up his pant leg to show the real cop a week old bruise (black and blue and clearly healing). The cop looks at Mike and goes, "this guys says you hit him, pay a bribe and you can go." And Mike's all, "I'm not paying a bribe." So the cop puts him in jail, and all night long the cop keeps asking him if he is going to pay and all night long Mike keeps refusing to pay unless he gets to call his embassy. "Gimmie the phone first." Finally he offered to pay with a credit card so he could get a receipt. The cops had no idea what to do with that one, so the next morning they let him out cause they figured there was nothing they could really do to him.

In Argentina he ran into a "radar trap" where a cop jumped out of the bushes saying he was speeding. Mike asks to see the radar gun to see how fast he was going. The "cop" says, "I don't have the radar gun, a guy up on that ridge has the gun and he told me you were speeding." So Mike asks the guy if he can talk to the guy on the ridge and see what the radar gun says, but the "cop" has no radio. Hmmmmm, so how did the cop on the street know to stop Mike???? So Mike landed in jail for a few hours on that one, mostly for poking holes in the cop's lame ass story.

In Venezuala he did an overnighter for driving with a burned out headlight on his motorcycle. In Angola he did a short stint with a photo journalist from Belgium, In Peru (oh wait, this one is funny), Mike and a friend came across a street party and decided to join in the fun before they realized it was actually a rally for the Sendero Luminoso, the Shining Path communist rebel group in Peru. So when the riot police show up, Mike & Co. get thrown in the paddy wagon and hauled off to prison for processing. But at the station, there is such a throng of people who were caught up in the sweep that it was totally disorganized and completely lax. So Mike suggests to his friend that they just keep edging toward the door and once outside they, "run like fuck." Hence, Naimon and I exclaim, "Oh my god you escaped from a South American prison?!?!?!?" "It wasn't really and escape, more like AWOL," came the reply.

"OMG! I would be sooo panicking!" I said. "No," says Mike. "You panic the first time it happens," after that you just realize, "hey, I've got a roof over my head, a place to sleep and they'll feed me, this isn't too bad."

After breakfast and Mike's Tour of South American Prisons, we said goodbye to Rob and Naimon. Mike made completely sure their arrangements for getting back to Ouro Preto were all made, and we hugged and said our goodbyes.

Mike and Melie and I piled in the car and headed east. Today is the day I was to up with my friends Rachel and Rodrigo. It has been tricky figuring out the logistics of the drop. Mike and Melie are headed south to Rio, and the southbound highway turns off before I get to Ibatiba, where my friends were to pick me up. But in the end, Mike and Melie decided they could take me all the way to Ibatiba and they would turn south further east. Didn't I say I couldn't have imagined a better stroke of luck than meeting up with these two? In the car we continued with the gratifying conversations we had been having all week. We talked about travel more. Mike was concerned that telling his tales of mild travel frustrations like being thrown in prisons or getting pistol whipped at bordor crossings or sleeping in road side ditches will discourage people from travel, when in reality the wonderful, the awe inspiring, the intense and rewarding experiences so far outweigh any negative experiences as to render them mild frustrations, truly.

For lunch we stopped at a roadside restaurant where the food was home cooked, cast iron pots bubbling with meat stews, vegetables, rice and beans, sitting on a woodburning stove. In fact, this is standard fare at roadside joints. It ain't your ordinary truck stop. The food tastes like grandma cooked it, because grandma probably did.

At the bus station in Ibatiba they dropped me off. We hugged and kissed goodbye. I told them I would travel with them any way, anytime, anywhere. I called Mike my sensei and told him that this little grasshopper had learned well. They invited me to Quebec and then drove off, Melie hanging out the window shouting, "Next time, Mali!" in farewell. And honest to god, I felt the telltale lump in my throat and a pricking burn behind my eyes. My encounter with M&M was so serendipitous, I almost feel like they were my travel guardian angels, and Virginia too, back in Sao Joao. I needed to meet these people, and there they all were.