2/1 Temptations

Monday 2 January

The Argentine girls left this morning, leaving us with fantasies of having the dorm to ourselves. We went a-wandering across the river and found a short cut to the fort, which we bypassed, cutting over and around the back of the hill to have a look at the adjoining beach Praia da Jabaquara. It went on for a kilometre or more, white and flat with hardly any waves. The beachfront was lined with pousadas (hostels) and campgrounds. There were enough people on the beach and walking about to give it an inhabited feeling, without being crowded. And of course there was a smooth tarred road rather than the damned cobblestones smiling crookedly from their brown mire of slippery mud.

There was a Kumuka bus parked up one of the side roads (the bunch we toured the Middle East with last year). We were wondering where Oasis would bring us in 2 days? Two teenagers engaged in a judo/wrestling match that turned sour and became very willing – an apparently unrelated motorist spoke to them and they wandered off together. Nobody pulled a knife or smashed a glass.

We turned at the far end of the beach and headed back, touring the back street for a shop and to look at the houses, some of which had electric wires along the top of the walls. Veering back to the beach, we found a spot where a tree cast shade near the water and we settled down with a book each. On cue, a breeze blew up and freshened, the mist that had capped the surrounding hills crept downwards and thickened, and the offshore islands and cruise ship became blurred and then disappeared. We took refuge under the roof of one of the beachfront restaurants and even had a peep at their menu, contemplating a lunch treat. We didn’t get as far as identifying any of the dishes since they were all costing R50-70. The wind kept getting stronger and the squalls blowing in got heavier and it wasn’t going to get better in a hurry. Then we remembered that we had the $2 ponchos so we set off through what was by then quite hard rain.

Detouring via the local shops, we supplemented our leftovers lunch with some spicy sausage and settled down for a nap. Sometime during the next hour or so, another 3 guests moved in and we woke up to find ourselves surrounded by The Boys from Brazil. J was quite beside herself and was beaming and giggling like a child on Christmas morning. I must say they were all over 6’, 30ish, golden brown, lean but fullbodied and charming in a Latino sort of way. Other than that, they were pretty ordinary. Well . . . more pretty than ordinary. One of them had studied English in Brisbane and the other two hadn’t.

As they say, a picture is worth 1000 words and I’m sure you are aching for a photo. I had just that in mind and, having fallen into conversation with them in the kitchen, the stage was set for a pic I would simply have titled Janine in Heaven. But she went all shy and wouldn’t get the camera. So . . . sorry but you will just have to take my word for it. ((Unless you all beg and plead by email, in which case we might just drop in there later in the week and try our luck – what do you say???))

Continuing the theme of Temptation, we went down to the jetty to sample some of the Celestial Cake. It was soo good we sampled two – a delicious coconut and toffee mixture and then a peanutty one that wasn’t quite so good. We finished off all our fruit and salad for dinner with some more chicken fillets, leaving two for lunch tomorrow. We had the hostel to ourselves and took the opportunity to catch up on the cricket Test and skyp DFAT in Canberra, whose only advice was “discuss it with the nearest consulate in South America”.

Having spent 7 years taking phone calls for a Government agency whose philosophy was that we didn’t just tell callers that we couldn’t help them without suggesting somewhere else that they could go, I have to say that that agency doesn’t do that anymore and it has totally gone out of fashion elsewhere in Gubment as well. Now everyone has Mission Statements, Core Values, Key Performance Indicators, Codes of Ethics, Service Standards and Procedures. Oooh yes they have Procedures. But nobody actually does anything any more. And if you complain through the official watchdogs, you get stonewalled or deflected into a padded cell where you can rant while some mealymouthed apparatchik recites a mantra of “Our role is simply to ensure that process was followed”. It is a cynical illusion of Integrity and Accountability.

And so to Sleep. (Sorry did I wake you?)