4/1 The great ttrek begins

Wednesday 4 January The Great Trek begins

Up at 7 to pack and be ready to go at 8. Somewhat peeved that the hotel could not be prevailed upon to make brekky available a few minutes early for 20 guests who have paid for it, or that the trip could not be delayed 15 minutes. Scored rolls from the supermarket and fed ourselves on the truck. Note to self: do not call it a bus – penalties apply.

We were very interested/apprehensive to see what will be our home for at least the next 7 weeks. First impressions very favourable. We had been haunted with visions of being told that there was no room for our oversized bag on wheels, full of our cherished Cunard crap. In fact, each couple gets a shared vault under the seats with a cavernous space. The bag was a tight fit at the entrance but, once through, left plenty of room for all our belongings. There are also overhead racks for smallish and lightish items.

The other potential point of contention was the sound system. The back of the truck has 5 speakers, each of which has its own volume control. So in the most dire scenario, any geriatric misanthropes  can place themselves under a silent speaker.

The seating is interesting. There is a large flat area at the front covered in mattresses. This is potentially useful in case of widespread mishealth – the Kumuka truck had nowhere for casualties to lie while they contemplated suicide. All up, there are 24 seats and at the moment we number only 18 or so.

One poor lady booked through an agency who apparently did not tell her that the departure hotel had changed. She flew in this morning and had not arrived by 8am so we went without her. I was thinking we should have offered to stay behind to make sure she found her way onto a bus down to Paraty tonight but I forgot. Jumping ahead, she turned up mid afternoon, quite relieved to finally catch up with us.

The rest of the seats are clustered round in hollow horseshoes- 8 at the front and 12 at the rear, with 4 in between facing each other, next to the library. The truck is quite bumpy and seats at the back have a good view forward and to the sides, but get bounced quite badly over the bumps. Side (inward) facing seats are not very comfortable and give poor viewing. There are seat belts, which is a first, but moving about the bus in motion is a bit difficult because there are no railings or seat backs to hang onto. The big, bright, boxy yellow truck rejoices in the name SpongeBob Squarepants or the Portuguese equivalent.

The trip down to Paraty was quite familiar to us and in no time we were pulling into the shopping centre. We had volunteered for cook groups 1 and 2 so we had shopping duties. Thence off to the campsite, which we were pleased to find was one on the beachfront at Jabaquara. The tents were the South African design, with external frame, which makes for lots of room inside.

We had a lazy afternoon on the beach and in the shade under trees at the camp. J’s group made hamburgers, with veggie patties for the gay boys, who are vegetarian. I helped chop onions and then fried the veggie burgers. We almost finished off the vodka during the course of the evening, while some of the “youngsters” (30-ish) did serious damage to all sorts of spirits.

We are very happy with the group. There is another couple of fully matured Aussies and Stewart who works in London setting the odds for the online bookmakers. We had a good chat! We finally met Peter, with whom we have been sharing blogs for the past 4 months or so. He brought his own little tent, with a most interesting internal frame structure, engineered to provide optimum headroom.

Sam the tour leader is a lively English blonde who fascinates J because she sounds like Leigh from the library. They were both brought up in Kenya, which may explain it. This completes our trio of female tour leaders. Sam is a bit “English Public School” and after her enthusiastic explanation of how to remember which way to open a gas tap, I can’t help thinking of her as “Righty Tighty” (as opposed to Lefty Lucy).  Colin the driver seems a very happy easygoing Brit.

We were a bit isolated during the drive down but Tim came round for a chat. An atypical accountant who seems to have been around a bit and done different things. Very bright and interesting. I can feel a few laughs coming there? He was a ringleader in the “Grenade” game later on, typified by ritual activities, penalty drinks and frequent diving onto the floor when anyone yelled Grenade. Some of our local campmates might have found this a bit noisy and it ran on pretty late but I don’t think anybody complained. I think the Brazilians in general like to have a good time and are not averse to being boisterous.

We booked the cruise tomorrow, which will be a repeat of our previous one. We also have to think about optional activities later in the trip. For no particular reason, we are feeling less anxious about the Visa Issue.