In theory in one week from now we should be departing Brasilia bound somewhere else, most likely Paraguay.
I thought Layne was tempting fate rather badly the other day when she remarked à propos of nothing that she’d miss Brasilia, a remark dropped as an Uber discus down a broad avenue through the middle of the city.
An overlander I have been communicating with occasionally sent me a message describing the trouble with choosing a place to settle down describing the exhaustion of constant change. I wasn’t much use replying that after barely two months I am climbing the walls of our apartment.
I can’t be sure but I get the feeling Rusty is pretty bored too, as he’s always looking to get out of the apartment and spend time outside. When we live in the van he can be outside all day and night if he feels like it but the small patio that comes with the apartment doesn’t do for him. He likes the grass and being outside watching the world go by.
And so we walk in small circles inside the vast complex with occasional forays outside the gates. We all three miss our home and I feel like I am starting to get depressed.
I don’t much like the news from home, because even though I am a nomad by inclination I’m not an anarchist and I like rules to live by. It’s so odd to be in South America where I haven’t been asked for my identity papers anywhere outside of a border crossing yet were I to go home I’d be required to justify my nationality. This is a world turned upside down, in a country where I have heard the arguing that the right to bear arms is the right to oppose government oppression. Yet now government officials warn citizens to carry proof of nationality under pain of suffering arrest. I of course would carry my passport card because I live by the rules but it seems an odd way to have to behave in the land of the free.
Here by contrast I have to give the grocery store clerk my CPF, the Brazilian social security number. In other countries I explain I’m a foreigner and the clerk accepts my passport number but in Brazil that move most often flummoxes the clerk and they call for a supervisor. So we found a website that generates a CPF and we use that. Problem solved and I marvel at the collective weirdness of human communities. I cannot fathom why it is necessary for Brazilians to provide their identity number to go grocery shopping any more than I can understand why proof of citizenship is required at home were input walking Rusty.
On the subject we had an enormous hassle doing laundry in the apartment complex. We have a washer in the apartment but with the possibility of our home being returned to us we (Layne) decided to wash our bedding before we get GANNET2 back so we took a pile of the stuff to the do it yourself laundry on the premises. Their system didn’t accept our home made CPF and the employee had no interest in helping two tongue tied foreigners so we went to the drop off laundry to see if we could that instead.
The second laundry had a wall covered in cheerful aphorisms about life which I could more or less translate but the clerk was helpless. She called someone on the phone who was no help and I was starting to despair. Two people show up with plastic bags of dirty bedding in a laundry. What would you suppose they want to do? They just could not figure it out. The third employee equally baffled and I was ready to give up but Layne was made of sterner stuff. The fourth monolingual employee got the idea and actually read our Google Translate request to wash our bedding.
After we explained there was absolutely no hurry smiles broke out, we paid ($19) and they said it would be ready for pick up on the third useful day of the week (Tuesday). Oh my god what an effort.
I have to confess this experience of being tongue tied in Brazil has made me a great deal more empathetic when I think of travelers who speak no Spanish and my hat is off to overlanders who plunge into this network of countries where English is rarely spoken. Add that into the mix and you can see why a drive to Paraguay is so appealing in addition to the boredom of being stationary.
We are in the middle of a week of predicted downpours, nothing I know like the monster storm snowing in half the States but irritating nonetheless to sightseers like us old retirees. I do look out the window at the water flooding down out of the skies and intend myself in the words of a Canadian traveler we camped with frequently “rain is the kryptonite of overlanders.” And yet at this point even a rainy day aboard GANNET2 would fill me with delight.
In a grocery run to Layne’s favorite fruit market, a chain called Oba she spotted a household goods store and we wandered around plotting ways to make our new storage drawers more useful. They had everything including plush rug we think Rusty will enjoy riding on. Brasilia lacks for nothing.
Oba has cooked goods, the best selection of yogurts and tons of fruits and vegetables.
We’ve been in town so long, in a city not used to tourists that some of the clerks recognize us. And I recognize the best papayas I’ve ever encountered including ones I’ve picked off the tree in the Keys.
Oh and the bakeries.
We picked up a couple of chocolate brownies for a weekend treat. I’m not sure what they were actually because inside the package we got some chocolate mousse thing that was so rich it was too much. Most confections in Brazil are not too sweet at all so this so called brownie took us by surprise.
Just when you think you have Brazil figured out this vast country finds a way to surprise you. We will definitely have to come back later this year if we ever manage to escape from
Brasilia.
