It’s been a while since my last entry! Over 2 months in fact. How’s that for dilly-dallying with my blog updates?! We’ve now been in Brazil for over three months – I can’t believe how fast time is flying by. I had to renew my tourist visa last week for another three months at the Policia Federal, which entailed a lot of waiting around but was nice and easy to apply for. My visa is now extended until the end of June.
Anyway, time for an update. After my last entry, where I mentioned we had succeeded in getting a car, it then took another 2 weeks (!) to actually be able to use it. We picked up the car on the day the sale went through, drove it for one day, and realised there was a problem with it. After taking it to several mechanics, we discovered there was a serious problem with the motor. I don’t know much about car technology, but something like the entire lower part of the motor had to be changed. Luckily, the car was still under (verbal) guarantee from the garage we bought it from, otherwise it would have cost us about R$3000 (£1000) to repair it. It just meant we had to wait another couple of weeks or so before the car was ready to use.
Onezio was very keen to return to Vila Rica, since he’d originally planned on returning with Marildes several weeks before, and David and I had decided we’d go with him. We’d had enough of staying in a city and were keen to see the countryside and get to know the town where Marildes and Onezio live. However, because of the delay in getting the car, we had some time on our hands before travelling to Vila Rica. We found out that Denes and his girlfriend, Cinthya, were planning a trip to Caldas Novas, a city about 2 hours south of Goiânia famous for its natural hot springs, over Carnaval weekend (12-14 February), so we decided to go with them. Another of David’s cousins, Robson, and his girlfriend Luana came along too. We were also joined by another couple, friends of Cinthya’s. We left Goiania on Friday 12th Feb, arriving in Caldas Novas that evening, and David and I stayed till Monday morning, since we had arranged with Onezio to travel to Vila Rica on the Tuesday. The others stayed on till Wednesday. After arriving quite late on the Friday, we all cleaned Cinthya’s chalet (where we spent the weekend), had dinner and went to bed. The following day, we went to the Clube Nautico, a water park/resort with several pools and grassy areas, set beside a lake. Caldas Novas is famous for its natural hot springs, and has become a tourist hot spot (mainly amongst Brazilians) who travel there during their ‘feriados’ (holidays). The hot springs are said to be curative and the city is made up of numerous hotels and water parks that use the hot springs to attract clients to their resorts. Apparently there’s a lake in Caldas Novas where the water is so hot you’re able to cook an egg in it! It’s obviously not available to swim in. Once the hot springs reach the various resorts, the water is only luke warm so a perfect temperature to enjoy and relax in. Clube Nautico is in fact the only resort in Caldas Novas that doesn’t use water from the natural hot springs, so the swimming pools are normal pool temperature. 
On the Sunday, we went to Hot Park (the most well-known/expensive resort in Caldas Novas – we’d all managed to win free entries, otherwise we couldn’t have afforded it!), which is a huge resort made up of numerous swimming pools, a water park, and a fake beach (known as the only ‘Praia do Cerrado’ – ‘praia’ being beach and ‘cerrado’ being the ecosystem found in the centre of Brazil, with vast areas of grassland and patches of forest, sometimes referred to as the ‘Brazilian Savanna’). I initially thought it’d be odd to swim in luke-warm water on a hot day under the blazing sun, when I’d usually prefer to cool off in cold water, but it was surprisingly enjoyable. Both resorts had live bands and groups of dancers to entertain the crowds – I don’t think I’ve ever seen a swimming pool as packed as the one in Hot Park that day! Check out photos of our trip to Caldas Novas here.
After 2 days of relaxing, sunbathing and having fun with Denes and co., David and I got a lift back to Goiânia early Monday morning with Cinthya (who had to return to work that day). Onezio picked us up in our new car (I refer to it as ‘ours’ although it really belongs to Marildes and Onezio!). Although the motor had been changed, another couple of pieces had to be fixed, so David and Onezio spent the day sorting that out whilst I packed our bags and got everything ready to leave the following day. At about 4am the next day, Onezio, David and I set off on the long road trip to Vila Rica – a journey of around 1200 km, cutting northwards through the state of Goiás (where Goiânia is the capital), northwestwards through Tocantins, across the Araguaia river, and southwards through a corner of the state of Pará and finally into Mato Grosso (which translates as ‘thick forest’), where Vila Rica is located right at the top righthand corner of the state. Most of the journey is along a BR (motorway) that cuts right through the middle of Brazil, starting in the south of the country, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul next to the border with Uruguay, and traversing the whole of Brazil, ending in the north of the state of Tocantins. Driving along the motorway, with vast stretches of flat grasslands and fields of soya plantations, with hardly any mountains in view, it felt like the road would never end. However, the longest part of the journey was towards the end, once we’d crossed through Tocantins, crossed the Araguaia river by ferry, and arrived in Pará. The tarmacked road ends here, and the rest of the journey was along a dirt track. It looked like such a short distance on the map but it seemed to take forever to arrive in Vila Rica. It didn’t help that by then it was nighttime and had started to rain, which made the last chunk of the journey seem neverending. We finally arrived in Vila Rica at 10.30pm. The journey took about 18 hours long and 2 tankfulls of petrol. We stopped a number of times along the way, to eat, use the bathroom and rest our legs a bit. Onezio and David took turns to drive, although Onezio drove most of the way. Marildes was waiting for us in their cute little wooden house with freshly baked ‘pão de queijo’ (cheese rolls) and herbal tea. It was lovely to see Marildes again – we hadn’t seen her in over a month.
We spent the following day in Vila Rica, resting after our long trip. Vila Rica is a tiny town, with only one high street as the ‘centre’, with a few small supermarkets, some shops, internet cafes, banks and a post office. It’s much smaller than Felanitx in terms of inhabitants, although it’s spread out over larger area. On the Thursday, David and I took Marildes to her school (she teaches in 2 schools – a private school in the morning and a state school in the afternoon), so the students in one of her classes could meet us. They’d prepared an interview with me, whereby they each took turns to ask me a question about myself, and I had to answer first in English, and then in Portuguese. Their age group was about 12/13 and they were all very sweet and very friendly. I was probably the first English person they’d ever met! School timetables in Brazil work quite different to Europe. You have morning sessions, afternoon sessions, and evening sessions. Some students have school in the morning, starting at 7.30am and ending at midday, others have school in the afternoon, from 1pm till 5.30pm, and others have school in the evening, from 7pm till 11.30pm. Each year, students are allowed to choose which session they’d like to attend, although you have to be over 15 years old to study during the evening. So each student only goes to school for 4 1/2 hours a day, allowing them the rest of the day off. It seems much more easygoing than in Europe, but their school holidays aren’t as long. For instance, they don’t have 6 weeks off in the summer (or 3 months off, as in Spain) – they only have the month of July off. Over Christmas, they have another month off, but they don’t have half term, and only have 1-2 days off over Easter. There do seem to be more national holidays in Brazil than anywhere else I’ve heard of, so they have lots of bank holidays and ‘puentes’. So whilst their school holidays are shorter/fewer than in Europe, they have shorter days at school, and more bank holidays/puentes to look forward to. I guess the total hours of school per year works out the same as in Europe, it’s just spread out differently.
After visiting Marildes’s school, we returned home, got our belongings ready, and set off for Onezio’s farm that afternoon. It’s a 3 1/2 hour trip southwards from Vila Rica. It’s only about 80km away, but takes that long because it’s along dirt tracks, and towards the end the road gets very rocky, uneven and full of holes and huge puddles – especially in the rainy season – so you have to drive very slowly. It felt like the car would fall apart before even getting there! However, the government is planning on tarmacking the main road (BR) southwards out of Vila Rica this year, which will make the journey to the farm much quicker and easier. But we made it there in one piece. David and I have just bought a piece of land right next to Onezio’s, so we were very keen to see finally see it. Our piece of land leads on to Onezio’s land (so he has to drive through our land to get to his) but then his is a ‘dead end’ (so to call it) so it’s feels very remote – like we’re in the middle of the wildest wilderness! On our land there’s a little stone house with 4 small rooms, and right next to it a wooden shack (where the previous owners had an open fire for cooking). There’s another little wooden shack where they kept pigs, and behind some bushes another wooden shack where apparently the owner’s son used to live. At the bottom of the bushes there’s a little stream, and the entire area is full of fruit trees – goiaba, mango, orange, avocado, sugar cane, banana, etc etc. The outside area is a bit messy since the previous owner left a lot of litter lying around, so it could do with a good clean. But it’s very sweet, in a lovely setting, and I personally prefer it to Onezio’s land! There’s no running water on our land – apparently the previous owner drank and used water from the stream, and Marildes told me his children often used to get sick so it’s probably not very safe to drink the stream water. But Onezio has dug a well on his land and has put a very powerful pump there so he had fresh water and a lovely powerful outdoors shower, and he uses a ceramic water filter so the water is safe to drink. At some point in the future when we have time and money we’d like to dig a well in our land and put in a pump and a sink and hopefully even a bathroom with a proper toilet. Luckily there’s electricity there (thanks to Lula apparently!) so it does make things a lot easier. If our house had running water and a bathroom, it’d be lovely. Then we’d just need to touch up the house, add a few pieces of furniture and a proper cooking area, and give the garden/outside area a good tidy up and maybe plant a few more trees and plants and it’d be perfect! Especially once the BR is tarmacked, making access from Vila Rica much easier.
Onezio’s land is just up the hill from ours, so very close by (about a 5 minute’s walk). He lives in a tiny wooden shack – it’s about the size of our kitchen and dining room in Mallorca (just so you get an idea of how small it is)! It’s made from old wood that looks like it’s starting to rot, and when it rains water drips in in places, and it doesn’t have a floor so it’s on top of earth… but it’s ever so sweet! It’s messy, with tools and ropes and a horse saddle and pots and pans hanging from nails in the walls. It’s split into 3 sections – the entrance area, which has a chair and a fridge/freezer, the kitchen, which has a cooker which he doesn’t use, and an open fire where he cooks, and a shelf with plates and food (rice, coffee, sugar…), and then the bedroom, with two single beds, a hammock, a tiny telly, a washing machine (that doesn’t spin so you have to rinse and drain the clothes by hand) and a washing line – so very squishy, you hardly have room to move! Outside, he has a lovely powerful shower which is great for showering (not really a shower, rather a very powerful hose hooked up on a pole), a sink area for washing clothes too, and a table which he uses as a surface for washing dishes. Then on the other side of the house there’s a huge satellite dish (almost as big as the house itself!) – Marildes started to get worried that Onezio was getting lonely by himself so she moved the telly there from Vila Rica and installed a satellite dish – he does love it! The house is on top of a hill, and to one side there’s a little forested area, where the dad keeps a trough that he fills with salt for the cows (apparently that’s what they eat: salt and grass!), and a small garden area, with banana trees, mandioca (cassava), and several other fruit trees. Then there’s a ditch that’s full of ‘mato’ (wild plants/weeds) and if you walk down the other side of the hill and then up another slope it leads to a small pond (about 5 mins walk away) with tiny fish.
Our 40 cows (actually, 38 cows and 2 bulls) live on his land at the moment, and they’re very cute. Most of them are very scared and get startled if we get too close – and as soon as one gets startled and starts to run away they all get scared and run together (remind me of deer). But there are a couple who are tame, and one of them especially (Marildes’s cow) who allows you to stroke her – she’s very sweet. We fed them salt one evening and got very close up. Onezio also has chickens, and Seu Henrique (Mr Henry!), the previous owner of our land, left some chickens and partridges for Marildes, so we have chickens on our land too. Seu Henrique also left a dog and two cats behind, who have now moved up to Onezio’s house. Although they were very shy at first, we fed them for a few days and they’ve now become tame and allow you to stroke them too, so I think Onezio’s going to adopt them!
Life’s very easygoing on the farm. On our first night there we were so tired from our 3 1/2 hour trip there that we went to bed at 8.30pm! Thing is, by the time it gets dark (6.30/7ish) there’s not much else to do except watch telly or read – except the light’s quite bad so it’s not that easy to read either. And we were so tired that we went to sleep early. Then we’d get up early cos it’s light from about 6am, and get the wood stove going, and water boiling, and then we’d potter around in the morning – feed salt to the cows, dig up mandioca for lunch, go fishing in the pond, check out our land… then at about 10 am we’d start to make lunch (yes, 10am!), so we could eat at about 11/12ish – if you’re cooking rice and beans on an open fire it takes longer to cook. Then after lunch we’d get quite sleepy, especially since midday/early afternoon is the hottest time of the day (and it’s sooooo hot there – I thought it was hot in Goiânia, and was just starting to get used to it, but it’s even hotter in Vila Rica). If you don’t have the fan on you’re constantly dripping with sweat and I felt even more tired there than in Goiânia! So after lunch we’d have a little nap or watch telly/a movie. Then later on in the afternoon whilst there was still daylight we’d potter around a bit more (on Saturday afternoon we went fishing in a neighbour’s bigger pond, about 1/2 hour’s walk over the hill and through a forest), and then we’d make dinner, and by the time it’s dark we were ready to settle down and go to sleep again! So the days seemed to go by very quickly, and they all seemed to blur into one. On the Friday morning Onezio showed us our land and our house/shacks, and in the evening Marildes arrived. Onezio went to pick her up from a tiny group of houses about 1/2 hour’s drive away (called Pé de Galinha – chicken’s foot, because there’s a fork in the road shaped like a chicken’s foot) – it was pouring that evening so David and I got quite worried they wouldn’t make it back, especially since it was dark by then, but luckily they did. Then Saturday morning David and Onezio went back to the Pé de Galinha for a meeting with the nearby farmers. Marildes and I stayed at home, preparing lunch. That afternoon, we all went fishing in the neighbour’s pond, and then on the Sunday we took it easy in the morning and left after lunch for the 3 1/2 hour drive back. Marildes had to get back to work the following day, and we returned with her, whilst Onezio stayed at the farm. On our way back we stopped off at 3 of the rivers/lakes along the way and I had a dip in one of them whilst David tried to fish (but didn’t manage to catch anything – the rivers are very ‘full’ at the moment due to it being rainy season, making it hard to fish), so the journey back took about 5 hours instead of 3. Check out photos of our trip to the farm here.
Although I loved spending a few days at the farm, it was nice to be back in Vila Rica. Despite being able to have showers, you constantly feel dirty cos of the sweat and cos you’re always walking on earth, and you’re always dirty and muddy, so now I know not to take any nice clothes with me there, only old ones that I don’t mind getting dirty. And we were bitten by so many insects – mosquitoes, ants (yes, ants bite here!!), and David was bitten by this nasty little insect called Miquin that lives in the grass, and he came out with a nasty infection of red bites and rashes on his ankles. It was nice to spend four days there and then return to a clean house and a comfy bed! Marildes allowed us to sleep in her double bed whilst Onezio wasn’t there, which was lovely – I was starting to get back pains and aches from sharing a single bed at the farm with David that dips in the middle! After the four initial days at the farm, we spent just under a month in Vila Rica with Marildes. I can’t actually believe we spent almost a month there, since we didn’t do much during that time except for relaxing at home and keeping Marildes company! Marildes loved having us to stay – I think she usually gets quite lonely. Onezio only returns to Vila Rica at the weekend, and sometimes doesn’t return for over a fortnight. Onezio’s sister, Maria Jose, lives next door to Marildes, along with her husband Dorvalino and their daughter (David’s cousin) Keila, so Marildes has them to keep her company. But it’s not the same as having someone to live with. Aurelio used to live with her before going to England, so she must have really enjoyed having company again. We were always home when she returned for lunch at midday and after her afternoon shift in the evening, and we’d always have dinner together. We’d sometimes go out in the evenings for an ‘espetinho’ (bbq’d meat on skewers, served at small bars), and we went fishing one evening when Onezio was back from the farm.
During our final week in Vila Rica, we returned to the farm with Onezio for another four days there. This time we went by moped, since it had rained heavily and the roads were too flooded to cross by car. It was lovely to go back again – although it’s hot at the farm, it feels much cooler there than in Vila Rica, somewhat fresher. One morning we helped Onezio fix the fencing surrounding our land, to stop the cows from escaping, so he can release our cows into our land where the ‘capim’ (grass) is very green since it hasn’t been touched in months. We got to know our land better, and went for a walk in the woods behind our house, which was beautiful! I also got to ride one of Onezio’s mares one afternoon – I took her out across Onezio’s land, and got really close up to our cows (they don’t seem to get at all startled when you’re on a horse). I rode past our grown bull, who was lying under a tree about a meter away from me! I really wish I’d had my camera on me to take a photo of him – he’s so handsome! But unfortunately I’d forgotten it in my bag. After four lovely days at the farm again, we returned to Vila Rica on the Thursday afternoon and the following Friday we left for Goiânia again. We had to return for several reasons, to sort out some of David’s documents, but mainly because my three-month visa was about to expire at the end of March and I had to renew it at the Policia Federal, whose offices are only located in capital cities. Onezio drove back with us, so David didn’t have to drive the entire way alone. He stayed in Goiânia for 3 days (in order to attend a ceremony at the dojo) before returning to Vila Rica. Marildes was very sad to see us go – and we were sad to leave, and to have to face the hectic life in Goiânia again! But hopefully we’ll be able to return to Vila Rica in a few months’ time. I have more photos of Vila Rica and the farm which I’ll upload shortly.
We’ve now been back in Goiânia for three weeks. We’re staying with Vo Cida this time, who lives slightly further out than Vo Landa does, but she lives alone so loves having us to stay, and we get to sleep on a proper bed as opposed to the inflatable bed at Vo Landa’s! And because Vo Cida lives alone, we don’t really feel like we’re in the way, like we did at Vo Landa’s, whose house is always full. Whilst it was easier to live at Vo Landa’s before when we didn’t have a car – in terms of being able to get lifts to places – now we have a car it doesn’t really matter that Vo Cida’s house is slightly further away. Speaking of the car, we’ve had to take it to the mechanic’s again since it makes a really odd noise when the motor’s turned on. It was like this from the moment we picked it up from the mechanic’s before leaving for Vila Rica, but because Onezio was eager to get back home, we didn’t have a chance to check the problem before leaving. So we couldn’t do much in terms of finding out what was wrong with the car in Vila Rica, and had to wait till we arrived back in Goiânia to take it to the mechanic’s and get it checked. We spent most of our first week here trying to make an appointment with the mechanic to get the car looked at, and the car then spent about a week at the mechanic’s! We picked it up again last Thursday, but the noise is still there, so we’re probably going to have to hand it in again. It seems that although the motor was changed, there’s still something wrong with the motor, but it’s taking the mechanic a while to find out what the problem is. We’ve taken it to several other mechanics to try to find out what the problem is, who all say the motor’s a dud, and say that what probably happened was that although the motor was changed, some of the pieces that were used were probably second-hand (in order to save the garage guy money), and so of bad quality, which is causing the problem. Still, the garage guy has to provide guarantee on the car, so although it’s a pain in the bum, hopefully we won’t have to pay to get the problem fixed. We’re probably handing in the car again today, and might have to spend another week or so without it. One piece of advice: NEVER buy a second-hand car in Brazil! It’s not worth the hassle!
We spent all of Easter weekend at home, since everything was closed. On Easter Monday (which isn’t a national holiday here – they just have Good Friday and Easter Sunday), I spent the day out and about with Vo Cida, since she needed to run some errands in the centre and wanted someone to keep her company. We only managed to get two things done – pick up a DVD from her cousin and reserve a bus ticked for her to visit her aunt on Thursday, who lives about 3 hours away – but it took us almost all day to get these things done, and most of the time was spent on the bus! Just so you get an idea how long it takes to use the bus here, we had to catch one bus, close to where Vo Cida lives, to a terminal close to where Vo Landa lives. We then had to change buses to take us to where her cousin lives. We had lunch at her cousin’s, picked up the DVD, popped by Tio Hosano’s bakery (David’s uncle, Vo Cida’s second-eldest son, after Onezio), then, after waiting about 1/2 hour at the terminal, caught another bus to the ‘rodoviaria’ (main bus terminal in the centre of Goiânia). After reserving her bus ticket, we walked back to the bus stop, caught the same bus back to the terminal, caught another bus to the terminal close to where Vo Landa lives, and then another bus back home. A total of 6 buses to get us around town, and we only got two things done! (She had to do a couple of other things but left them for another day). Not only is travelling by bus here long-winded, exhausting and relatively expensive (they don’t have day/week passes here, so you have to pay each time you get on a bus), but the buses are old, dirty, PACKED, and sweaty… Not a very nice experience! They ought to introduce a cheap, reliable, comfortable bus, tram or even underground system to make people enjoy using public transport and stop relying on cars so much to get around.
Anyway, that’s pretty much the update for now. Now we’ve installed internet at Vo Cida’s, it won’t matter so much if we don’t have use of the car for another week or so! We’re going to a football match this afternoon (the semi-finals of the ‘copa do estado de Goiás’ – the state of Goiás cup), which should be fun! Lots of love to everyone.
