Interesting points of Brasilian Portuguese

By and by we are slowly picking up the local lengua. When some people speak to us, we understand almost everything, while the speach of others sounds totally foreign to us (like Luis the trucker). We suspect that the accents vary greatly from one state to another, the most clear sounding (to us) are the accents of the southern states. These are the few points we managed to figure out from chatting with drivers and reading road signs:
D is pronounced as G, as in `edad` (age), pronounced `edaJ` and `onde` (where), pronounced as `onJe`
L is pronounced as O, as in `Natal` (a city on the coast), pronounced `NataO`
T is pronounced as CH, as in `Internet`, pronounced as `InterneCH` - that´s why the girls at the gas station in Rio Preto were so confused when we asked for an InterneT place nearby.
M is pronounced as N, as in an article `com` (with), pronounced as `coN`

Our waiting time on the service center outside of Sao Jose do Rio Preto has significantly improved compared to the 3 day wait in Foz do Iguacu. Here, we spent only 2 full days. The scenario was very similar: we picked a strategic spot near the gas pumps, from where we could see both the trucks pulling up to pick up fuel and also those pulling up to the restaurant/washrooms. As soon as we spotted movement, one of us would get up and stroll over to the truck.
`Hi, would you be heading north by any chance?`
`What?`
`I said, North? Goiania? Anapolis? BELEM?` also pointing north with a finger
`Aaa, no.`
`Thank you, have a good trip, then`
`brrrrahmk.....`
The dialog has repeated itself for over 60 times , varying only slightly. Sometimes we would approach a friendlier-than-others truckers. They would ask where we were from, and when they found out we were Russian, they would offer us shower coupons, snacks and lots of bad advices on how to hitch hike. The winner in this category is: `If you have no luck here today, you should walk to the next truck stop, it is like 10 kms down the road... or may be 50.`
Inspired by Juan Villarino, we made a similiar sign in hopes of starting conversations with people: The message reads: `Two russian hitch-hiking around Latin America`. But, alas, it did not help much. Some truckers stopped and read the message, by syllables. They briefly scanned the map, obviously not connecting the image with anything they were familiar with. One trucker came up, looked at it and pointed to Brasil: `And this is the United States, right?` Hm.
By the end of the first day we met Aparecido, a super-friendly trucker. He was waiting for a load for the fifth day in a row! He asked us if we ate, and when we said no, he got excited and busy. He said:`I do not have much, but I would like to offer you a traditional Brasilian dish - arroefejao` (rice and beans). He pulled out the pots and the stove from his kitchen box on the side of the trailer and reheated his left over rice and beans for us. We were not particularly hungry but we could not turn down such an open-hearted offer. We ate and constantly complimented the cheff on the good taste of the meal, to an obvious satisfaction of the host. `This is the best dish in Brasil!` he said proudly, `Arroz e Feijao.`
After we washed the dishes and installed ourselves on our spot again, Aparecido (his name means `the one who appeared` by the way) appeared from around the corner. He pulled out his cell phone and put on some simple melody. It sounded like a hymn, and he was humming some words in tune with it. After we listened to some three compositions, Aparecido said: `this is holy music. It praises the Lord. We play this music in our church, the Congregation of Christ in Brasil.` Just so it happened that there was a service at the local chapter that evening and Aparecido invited us to come. We were so bored at the gas station that a visit to a `New Religion Church` sounded like an entertainment worth exploring. So we agreed.
At 6 pm Aparecido appeared again. He was dressed in a suit and looking sharp, eyes glowing with excitement. `Come, my friends, come, the service will start soon!`
We loaded into his truck and drove to the church. The interior of the church looked more like an office space rather than a place of worship: white walls and strong white light. No cross, no icons, no decoration. There was no altar, but instead of it, a white space with two white columns on the sides, supporting the golden letters: `IN THE NAME OF JESUS`. A woman sitting next to Anastasia, said: `Today you will meet the lord (senhor).` Anastasia thought that the woman was referring to the pastor, so she answered: `Oh, I already met him. In the corridor outside.` The woman looked at her, hesitated for a moment and then said: `No, the OTHER lord, JESUS`.
The service consisted of singing hymns (the males in the audience could yell out any number from 1 to 450, and the congregation would leaf through their singing books, find the right page and sing the appropriate 3 verse hymn) and praying (again, the males would come up to the front pedestal and pray very loudly to the Lord. The congregation was free to yell `Great God!`, `Thank God!` or `Halleluya!!!` whenever they thought appropriate). It all lasted two hours. When it was over, people started shaking hands and kissing each other on the cheek. Everybody wanted to meet the Russians, of course... We were quite tired of the strong illumination, loud singing and attention when we went out. Tears were running down Aparecido´s cheeks when we were driving back. `I am so happy, so happy for you. It was your first time today! It is the happiest day of my life, I will never forget it. I will pray that you will get a ride tomorrow`, he said.
The next day we spent just like the day before. It was not as boring as waiting for a ride near Bajo Caracoles back in Argentinian Patagonia but still, we were thoroughly bored.
In the morning of Day 3, we finally asked the right person - he agreed to take us to Goiania! Whoo-hooooo!
We were moving again! That was good. The driver said not a word during the 5 hour drive. That was not so good, but we could live with it, as long as we were moving! Silent Andres dropped us off at yet another truck stop in Goiania. 5 minutes of asking for rides there (Anastasia scores!)and we were underway to Anapolis with a brand new (2011 model) Scania. The music worked, the driver was interesting and talkative (only two years trucking...) and the landscape finally changed from never ending fields of soja, corn and sugar cane to rolling hills covered with forests and bamboo groves on the sides of the road. We fell asleep on the truck stop in Anapolis, 600 kms closer to Belem, 2000 more to go.

A new hitchhiking strategy in Brasil

It has been over a year since we had to learn a new language, but here we had to start over again. Portuguese is not very different from Spanish. The difference is something like between Ukranian and Russian. A lot of the words are similiar, but pronounced with a different accent. If both people talk slowly and listen, a dialogue can be maintained.
So, we entered Brasil. As soon as we crossed the border, we flagged down a pick up. The Argentinian couple (biologists running a private nature reserve)inside gave us a ride to the outskirts of Foz do Iguacu, a much bigger town than its couterpart on the Argentinian side. That was a good start. We walked to a suitable take off spot and let the thumb fly. 1 hour, nothing. 2, 3, 4 hours... People were going by not even turning their heads, looking straight. No smiles, no waves. We were invisible. It was getting depressing. When you get depressed while hitch-hiking, walking takes off your mind from the bad vibe and situation soon gets fixed. You arrive somewhere or you get picked up, which ever comes first. After 2 hours of walking in the hotest sun ever, we arrived at the biggest truck stop we have ever seen. There must have been over 150 trucks parked in the immense field around the gas station. There was a restaurant with good food (a plate with enough food for two - R7, around US 3.50) and free showers.
We have arrived late in the day, so all we did that night was ask the permission to camp, put up our tent where we were told, and went to sleep.
The next morning, we made a tour of the parking lot, asking truckers if they were heading our direction, Sao Paulo. No dice there. Men turned their eyes away and came up with all sorts of reasons for not taking us. Going the other way, not moving at all at the moment and no permission to take passengers were the most common. We had nothing else to do, but to sit on our bags in the shade of the huge roof, near the bathroom door. We had a sign propped up against our legs, `Sao Paulo`. We read our books (one by Lecompte de Nouy `Human Destiny` and the other `Viaje a Rio de la Plata` by Ulrico Shmitdl), played chess and observed the workings of a big truckstop.
By the end of day 1, we briefly chatted with three truckers. The last one gave us a very good advice: `You guys look Argentinian. Here nobody likes Argentinians because they are all worthless thiefs and robbers. You should write on your sign that you are Russian.`
We did so and wow! what a change! The truckers who the day before walked past us as if they did not see us, said hi and some of them even smiled! During day 2 we had about 4 conversations, all stemming from the little line on our sign: `two russians to... Sao Paulo`. On day 3, we began receiving offers. Luis, a black Brasilian from the state of Bahia, offered to take us to Sao Jose do Rio Preto. It was a very good offer because it would stear us clear from Sao Paulo, a big city that we would have to take a bus to get out of. Furthermore, Rio Preto was on our chosen route, BR 153, also known as Transbrasiliana. Luis was waiting for his partner to be loaded and than they would leave, any moment now... Another offer came from Allan, a co-worker of the fat Elder who gave us a lift in Argentina a few weeks before! Allan had a very concerned look on his face, he inquired if our papers were in order, if we carry any drugs on us, if we have enough money to eat... After some chatting, he warmed up to us and invited us to stay in house for three days until he had a load going to Sao Paulo. Unfortunately, we could not accept his kind invitation because we were already waiting for Luis, seldomly taking eyes off his white truck. `Is he moving yet?`
Luis´ partner, Fren, finally got his load ready and tied down in the afternoon of the next day, and we left our by-then-beloved spot near the bathroom door, after 4 days of sitting there.
Luis was not a talkative person. Moreover, he did not like to explain. He had a heavy accent from his state Bahia, making him ever harder to understand. He spoke no word of Spanish, of course. He spoke with us with frases whose translation in English would be something like that:
`Ain´t this babe hot, I`m tellin ya`
`Where youall headin`, anyway?`
`Get down, there are cops up ahead`
Most of our two-day ride with this stern but kind man was spent in silence, which was only interrupted by the static of his CB radio. Luis would mummble something into the mic, and listen to the reply, which sounded little diffrent from the static. After the reply was over, Luis would errupt in laughter, and chat excitingly into the mic again, hitting the driving wheel with his powerful hand. We were understanding nothing.
Luis´ partner Fren was more understanding, more curious and more talkative. Every few hours, the pair would stop, either to refill up some 50 liters of burnt diesel, to have a snack, to eat or just to rest. In these frequent periods of rest we were actually learning Portuguese from Fren.
At the end of the second day, Luis and Fren dropped us off at a spectacular truck stop a little outside of Rio Preto. They shook our hands and hugged us. Then they each popped a no-sleep pill and rolled off into the night. We camped on the cobbled (!!!) parking lot and walked into town in the morning in search of the long needed coonection with the WWW.

Buenos Aires - Iguazu Falls

It was raining hard when we left Buenos Aires. We decided to take a train out to the nearest town - Zarate, and hitch from there. The train was unlike the flashy, new, air-conditioned ones going between Villa Ballester and Retiro - this one had old, dirty cars, with seats ripped out and broken windows. There was a policeman patrolling the train. On the way out of the capital, we rolled slowly by the most poor slums we have seen yet. Houses built of plastic sheets and sticks, children going through garbage on the huge mountains of garbage, dirt roads and horse-drawn carts...
When we got to Zarate, it was already getting late. We walked to a super-modern YPF gas station on the highway. A friendly attendant showed us a lawn where, he said, ´we always let people camp`. So we did, too. We took a free shower and retired for the night. In the morning we walked to the near-by toll booth and were underway with a truck in about 10 minutes. That day we got 3 rides in total, all trucks. The last one was a Brasilian who spoke no Spanish, our first encounter of such kind. He was speaking slowly and listened hard, so we understood each other pretty well, although we spoke different languages. He dropped us off near Paso de Los Libres. There, we went over to a group of truckers. They were sitting in a circle around a gas burner with a teapot on it, passing mate around. We approached them without doubt, knowing perfectly what we should say and how will things go. After 5 minutes of talking, we have already joined the circle and were offered the mate. 5 minutes more, and we had our camping spot picked out - in an empty dump box of one of the trucks. It was perfect because we wanted to camp out of sight for obviuos reasons, and what better place could there be? Unfortunately, the truckers were not long howlers - they were working on the road construction project and their daily route was only 20 kms long.
In the morning we had to wait for some few hours before we got a ride. A local tree farm worker Luis gave us a ride to his home town La Cruz. We got stuck there. The sun was so hot that we had to take refuge in the shade for some hours, a siesta. When the sun went down a bit, we walked back to the spot. Half an hour later, we were riding with a fat and cheerful Brasilian trucker. He had an unusual name - Elder, but he liked to be called Gino. He dropped us off 40 kms outside of Posadas, at a truck stop with free showers, again!
Posadas in the capital of Misiones, and it is very difficult to hitch-hiker there, especially in the tourist season. We happened to be passing through precisely at the busiest part of the year. Cars were going by full with vacationing families, and the locals, it seemed, had no custom of picking up hitch-hikers. Although there was a heavy traffic and our position was ideal, we waited for over 8 hours before a truck stopped.
The trucker Daniel was the king of the road. He was happy on the road. He drove fast, took chances and bossed the small cars around. He had no load, and sometimes we were roaring at 120 km/h. It was 1 in the morning when we camped at a gas station (free showers, once again), 40 kms from the Falls of Iguazu. By this time we have been on the road for four days, and we were taking a shower every night! In Brasil, they say, ALL the truck stops have free showers, hmmm...
We were unable to hitch the last 40 kms to the town of Puerto Iguazu. We were on the road by 6am, and at 8, when the sun has gained strength, we gave up and flagged down a local bus.
Puerto Iguazu is a typical `tourist trap` type of town. Lots of hotels, souvenir shops, a busy bus station, and not much else. The park (the falls are surrounded by a National Park), is 17 kms out of town, and there are no campgrounds, in fact it is prohibited to camp within the limits of the park. Well, we were not deterrred, we knew that there MUST be a camping spot in the forest:) We stocked up on provision in town, took a bus to the border fo the park and started walking. The skies opened up and got us drenched in an intense tropical shower 20 minutes after we started out, but it was actually a pleasant refreshement. We did not mind getting wet when it was +35 C.
We walked for about 6 kms when a perfect camping spot revealed itself to us. A trail was leading off into the jungle, and to the side of it, there was a sign. `NO TRESPASSING`, in Spanish and English, and a rough image of a park ranger, with his palm of a hand streched towards us, prohibiting entry. 100 m behind the sign, there was an abandoned parking lot! The lush vegetation creeped up on the pavement from all sides, leaving only an area for our tent!!! A forest stream flooded some of the area, and we had a shower with the stagnant (but still very clean) water.We pitched our tent and watched yet another thunderstorm approach. It started to rain again and we slipped into our leaky tent. The twilight fell, and with it, the miriad of the forest creatured started their concert. Our camp was on the edge of a swamp, and all sorts of frogs and toads, aided by the giant cicadas, grasshoppers and we don´t know what else, emitted all sorts of sounds. We laid on our backs for half an hour, listening to the powerful cacaphony.
In the morning we folded up our camp, stashed our bags deep in the jungle and walked to the Fee Collection Booth.
`You haven´t camped somewhere in the forest, did you?` sternly asked us the park worker when he saw us appear on foot from around the bend, first visitors of the day.
`No sir, of course not, it is prohibited, you know.`
`So where did you sleep?`
`We... ehhh... we camped on the camping ground in town, and walked all night to see the falls!`
`Yeah, right...`
By the time the park opened, at 8, there were already 200 people in line for the tickets. The park stuff was sitting around, chatting and sipping on terere. Terere is the same as mate, only it is drunk cold. You can use ice-cold water or any fruit juice you like - it is very refreshing in the humid heat.
The guard looked at the clock, 7:48, and flung the gate open. We were second in line and followed the first couple, who looked like they knew where they were going. The park that we were going through looked more like a shopping center or may be a Disneyland. Lots of concreted plazoletas, sidewalks and lawn, lawn, lawn. There is even a little train that you have to take to get to the falls.

The falls were, of course, impressive, but the highlight of the day for us was the small secluded falls at the end of Macuco trail. After having viewed the main falls, alongside with the multinational tourist crowd, Macuco was a relief.It was actually a place straight from a fairytale, or even from heaven. A small cool stream weaved its way through the thick bush before it fell off of a 40 m cliff, hitting the black rocks below. The water broke into millions of streams in the air and filled the air with freshness. A small lagoon has formed at the base of the fall. May be a dozen people were there besides us. You could swim up to the falls (or walk to them, the lagoon was only waist-deep) , stand under the strong massaging shower, and swim back to your chilling place, letting the next person to enjoy the shower. We stayed there until the sun hid behind the trees and shadow fell. Rainbows and butterflies disappeared and we went back to our camp. We camped in the same place the second night and walked over into Brasil the next day.