Easter Rest

We didn’t do much on Sunday. I walked Rusty,

Layne cooked and we did some little jobs to fix up our home. The usual. 

It wasn’t very crowded for a Sunday. The showers were lovely and hot and we got wet midday as nights are cold around here, mid sixties, but days have been warm.

The campground has strong WiFi which saves us some electricity not having to use our Starlink and our 860 watt solar panels have an  easy time keeping up with our needs as we don’t need a/c here. Even under bright overcast we make 15-20 amps  

Rusty takes his guard duties seriously especially with three fun filled campground dogs running around playing. He doesn’t join in the old grump, besides they don’t speak English. 

Today we have decided to drive to the border with Uruguay and start getting Rusty’s vet papers together. 

Reflections

Our drive to the border with Paraguay would be described by most overlanders as boring I think, straight and flat on a levee across a wide barrier island  

I on the other hand found myself remembering many similar drives across central Florida, flatlands often waterlogged and dotted with scrub palms, clusters of cows and not much else. Had the road been smooth and not filled with ripples lumps and dips I’d have enjoyed the drive a lot more. If you’ve ever driven Highway 27 you’ll know what I mean.

It bears pointing out I suppose that in the southern hemisphere we are entering the Fall season and finally we are far enough south to feel a slight drop in temperature to the mid 80s and for a while I drove with the a/c off and the windows open. Humidity however remains high. 

Brazil Highway 427 looks smooth but we were tossed around like a small ship in short period steep waves, bouncing madly even though I was driving around 40 miles per hour. 

Layne was on the bed with her legs raised but only one of her two infected bites was healing. The other burst like an impatient bloody cyst so we had to figure out how to find a doctor when we arrived in Chui at the border. Failing to find one forced us back to the big city of Rio Grande up this same road. When we do go back to the border at Chui that will make our third pass at what might well become a boring road. 

I feel fortunate to have lived in the peak era of internal combustion as I’ve always loved driving and sitting up on the levee looking out at a new river of grass, with prairie and cattle ranges is as good for me as driving the more spectacular canyons of the Andes. I am always curious about places not seen. 

I think a little homesickness is creeping into our lives. We were talking about going home and seeing friends in summer while spending a winter in Mexico on a beach swimming. That was our retirement plan before all the chaos of the post election months swept the country. Hopefully things will settle down a bit moving forward.  This year we will revisit Patagonia, this time next year we’ll have another crack at the coast of Brazil and then the idea is to turn north in Peru and make our way to Colombia. 

This isn’t Krome Avenue north of Homestead though it could be. We’d both like to spend vacation time in Key West again and we have a place to park with friends. There are no plans to get rid of GANNET2 rather the contrary we want to keep refining our living space to make it as self sufficient as possible. Alaska is my goal after South America and we want to stay nomadic as long as we can. 

But all that aside South America which I came to late in life is an excellent place to tour by camper. The big shortcoming for us is the lack of public lands. You don’t find BLM or US Forest Service (or Crown land in Canada) for uncomplicated wilderness camping. I miss that, the ability to drive into the woods, park and camp without fuss. I read the Forest Service is being modified and the headquarters are being moved and employees are quitting and I fear for our access to public lands being sold for profit. BLM land access is being ramped up for mineral exploration not camping fishing and hunting. 

There are national parks in these countries but like in the US they are centered on activities, organized camping, hiking, located in  outstanding scenery and are tightly regulated. Usually dogs are banned even from entry so you won’t see us there. The concept of public land shared between commercial activity and simple public enjoyment is not known in Latin America. Patagonia, that vast wilderness is all owned and is thus lined with fencing. 

Aside from seeing family and friends those public spaces are what we miss. The van life rage, the notion that being a nomad is a threat to suburbia,  an offshoot of life exhaustion is not a phenomenon in South America and because we are tourists we don’t participate in the daily frustrations of low pay and societal shortcomings. The locals want us to enjoy their countries so their anger at stifling bureaucracy and needing three jobs to live is masked for the honored guests.

Fabio in Rio Grande interrupted his Good Friday walk to introduce himself and get a chance to speak English. Whatever we are doing is his dream. His enthusiasm for van life was overwhelming. It’s something we hear a lot, just taking off on an open ended drive is a fantasy come true for middle class South Americans. 

It makes you feel humbled yet privileged to be allowed to camp through these countries and to be welcomed. Stealth camping, hiding your identity is not necessary if you overnight on the streets. 

We slept on the street here in Rio Grande Thursday night after Layne’s discharge from the hospital. 

She wants to go back to the hospital for a check up to make sure the healing is taking place properly. We have no deadlines but we are ready to see a new country.

The lure of living on wheels is spurred in part for many people Stateside by the hope that the cost of living as a nomad is more bearable but to me the joy of being a nomad after years of sitting at a desk is the ability to move. I like the uncertainty of not knowing where we will sleep tonight but I also enjoy living in a well appointed home on wheels. 

A lot of people in the States think of camping as a butch outdoors activity, hewing wood, sleeping under canvas (or the contemporary equivalent) and none of this van living with all modern conveniences. For me camping is temporary living, a few nights and then I move on whether in a tent on a bicycle or in a van. But there are so many opinions about everything in a time of social aggravation people at home seem to have a hard time tolerating differences. I say potato and if you don’t I’ll scream at you until you do. That’s not for me. 

In South America rare is the campground where a dog has to be on a leash. Imagine that at your nearest Kampground of America. Dogs figure out their hierarchies here  and like so many other aspects of life things have a way of working themselves out. Dogs approach, I stay calm and Rusty bares his faces of not as he reads the situation. After a couple of encounters yet she establishes his territory around his home and they wander off.  It’s taken time but he’s figured it out. 

I have this nostalgia for home and the familiar but I am not unaware of the pitfalls awaiting a return from this freewheeling South American life. I will be interested to see how I cope. 

Driving down the highway I saw a movie scene enactment play out in front of me…the crop spraying scene from Hitchcock’s North by Northwest.

The folks waiting for the bus, with the crop sprayer barely visible on the horizon…

…the plane banks for another run…and buzzes the hapless Cary Grant (me) on the return. 

That America, in black and white is long since gone. I wonder what I shall find on my return. Perhaps 2028 will be too soon.

Cattle grid crossing. There were four of these nightmares. 

I only took one at speed accidentally but that was awful. 

No mercy for tires and wheels. 

Soon.

Uruguay, said to be the most expensive country in South America. It had better be worth it. 

Rio Grande

 Layne was discharged from the hospital around 11pm. This is how it looks on a sunny Good Friday. 

It looks from the outside like a ghastly Victorian prison but inside the staff are warm and friendly and take the time to figure out what’s happening. 

Layne got a blood draw ahdcthrynkrot her while they figured out how bad the infection was (not bad they said eventually. 

Meanwhile the Easter Bunny showed in a pink tutu with a chorus singing something. 

We got candy and a few laughs but whet the hell was going on was a mystery to me. 

Family members were crowded in on this holiday night and the good cheer, whatever it was, got everyone smiling for a while.

We were parked just up the street so I wandered back and forth checking on Rusty under the air conditioner which was running more for a swish of cool air on a humid night.

Things got a bit surreal after Layne was discharged. First they shook her hand and wished her a good night and said come back if it didn’t start healing. That was it. Is noticed there was no cashier or fierce guardian of the records. No charge, no fussing no nothing. That was it. Then I started driving and the plan was to park in a lot by the waterfront as approved by iOverlander. It was a bad night for that there was an Easter street fair underway and traffic was nuts.

I just followed the flow down bark streets at 11:30 at night with no idea where we were going. When the traffic thinned out I swung to the right, found a quiet street and parked. Good enough for the night. 

We spent a lovely quiet night on the street and in the morning we got up late. The air conditioner uses no power and is a wonderful addition, the Dometic  RTX2000 and takes the stuffiness out of our cabin on a humid 75 degree night. 

Good Friday is a holiday and Rio Grande was at the beach or in bed or at brunch. Wherever they were they weren’t on the  streets. All I saw was a handful of exercisers flitting here and there.

Don’t look too closely at the canal, it’s pretty dirty under the elegant balustrade. 

Shoot cannon; hit no one. 

I used to like working holidays as I got paid more, worked less as there are often fewer 911 calls on family holidays especially and my colleagues were grateful to have Christmas off.

Recent place and clean up the graffiti. 

The municipal theater: 

Nice door well protected against home invasions. 

Then we went food shopping. Thursday night I got sandwiches for our dinner in the hospital and the supermarket checkout was a zoo.

Good Friday morning it was empty. That was perfect for me to wander round enjoying the oddities. First of all the dog food. We didn’t know what to expect before we reached South America but Brazil has a thriving middle class and dogs are the beneficiaries. They tend to be status symbols too so rescuing street dogs is not always the goal as Brazilians are as obsessed as Americans with breeds. 

Below: these are refrigerated meat products, parts of animals you and I would prefer not to eat. I’m not sure if they are salted or smoked or cured in some peculiarly Brazilian way but they sure aren’t refrigerated. Go figure. 

This is my section, savory pastries with meats and cheeses. Next to the sweet pastries and cakes. Brazilians love their desserts called sobremesa (“above the table”) in Portuguese. 

And the hardware section. I focused on the suicide showers. Here you can buy and install your own at home. 

I have discovered hoses are totally weird in Brazil so I went to TVs hardware section to illustrate my belief. 

You buy a coil of hose and the end is simply cut. There is no welded on anything at the end. That’s because of all countries in the world only Brazil doesn’t use standard size fittings and it’s exasperating. 

You buy the hose and then  buy whatever fitting you want. 

To get my normal hose to screw in to a faucet u had to buy an adapter to scale it down to the narrow little screw size they use in this country. It’s not the end of the world but unlike electrical fittings which are completely different everywhere hoses are standardized in the rest of the world. 

Anyway I got over my frustration with my 75 cent hose as later and thought you might like to peruse the selection of suicide shower heads: 

The northern half of Brazil is 110 volts but down here it’s 220 volts d as ons across the country you have to check the voltage because you can never be sure. Even in states with 110 they sometimes off 220 to help out visitors from other parts of the country. Like the hoses it’s purely a Brazilian problem. 

The supermarkets are modern and well supplied and for us relatively inexpensive especially when you look at basic daily foodstuffs though for locals not on a dollar economy it can’t be easy. Cooked meat fish past and vegetable dishes all less that $2:50 and most much less. 

I used  to wonder if we’d ever see tortillas south of Mexico and we have seen commercial packages all the way. In Mexico of course you buy fresh handmade roadside but that would be expecting a lot. This is good enough: 

I read on a forum once a touridtbponderingvwhether or not to take an umbrella on vacation. If it starts raining you can easily buy one. 

Hawaiian flip flops, Brazils favorites. Layne found a pair of Crocs at Sam’s Club and snapped them up for me. I don’t like flip flops. 

And looked I found: a sword! Actually it’s a grilling spike thing which I will find a use for. It’s pretty cool. I made the teller laugh pretending to be a musketeer. Brazil sells such peculiar stuff. 

After the food shopping we got Layne’s meds, new antibiotics and powerful pain pills for less than $20 then we walked back to GANNET2 and took a break. 

We had lunch, we read, watched TV and then it was time to walk Rusty and do some laundry. 

We live Brazil’s do it yourself laundries. You load the washer and pay with your credit card. Set the time and you are done. The machine adds soap. Then you do the same for the dryer and you’re done. Easy. 

Especially easy when you live your home in front of the laundry. 

Then as the sun set we went into the center of town to our quiet street, not quite the same place, he’s settled for the night. 

And Laynes leg is showing slight but definite signs of improvement. Excellent.