i'm starting to get really tangled up in the details. it's really frustrating because everyone i've met on the road or online who has done the area i want to visit has basically played it by ear and done really well for themselves. But the more i talk to my family, the more problems i seem to have....
Prob #1: the route
it's not just that there is alot to see on limited cash and time, it's that within the timeframe i've established (3 months) i have certain specific targets that limit the rest ofthe trip, namely salvador for new years and recife for carnaval. moreover, brazil is a third world country making places more distant than they look on the map: some roads are good and some are crap, making it sorta impossible to calculate travel times.
the current plan: fly to porto seguro (bought the ticket last night), do southern bahia for just under 2 weeks, salvador for new years. chapada diamantina after new years for maybe 2 weeks, then i have no idea how i'm going to kill time getting from chapada to recife for carnival. maybe kick it in salvador, maybe slowly work it up the coast. after recife it gets cloudier. i may book it to jericoacoara (may need to go by way of fortaleza), and from there go to são luis.
Prob #1a: CHAPADA vs S.BAHIA
the biggest issue with the route right now is where to start. apparently i've got my time priorities reversed. i thought i needed to give myself more time to get to know chapada, but apparently 2 weeks is way mroe than enough time, whereas southern bahia is totally worth seeing. moreover, the beaches are really hard to get to, so it's time consuming. also, it's a really relgiious area, so everything is basically going to come to a dead stop for christmas. i've been told by two different family members to do chapada first, then go south, then cut back north for recife. still, apparently going to chapada at all might be a bad idea. according to weather.com, december is actually the areas heaviest month in terms of rain volume, and the park is notorios for suddent floods that can be quite dangerous (especially if you're unlucky enough to be in a canyon at the time)
prob #2: money
read last post for more details on that one. today was my last day of classes and paulo basically offered to pay me R$500 for 4 days work; 6 classes. 4 with him, 2 with another client at his office. that's roughly 1/16th of my current budget, which by the calculations/assumptions i'm working with right now could keep me on the road another 6 days. sticking around is quite tempting, but it means losing a week to buy a week if that makes sense.
prob #3: the flight
Given the route problem, changing my ticket to salvador so i can get to the chapada seems like a good idea. but if i take paulo up on his offer, then my ~2 weeks becomes one (also subtract travel). if i stay a 'week', will I have sufficient time to really do chapada? of course, maybe i don't need to do EVERYTHING available there. maybe i'm being a greedy little eco-tourist.
still, i'm not even sure i feasibly CAN change my ticket. see, i got the ticket online, and didn't register for the site when i did it. i got on online promotion, so i'm not sure if i even can change my ticket, but the info they sent me looks optimistic. thing is, i think i can only change the ticket online. so i went back and registered, and now it shows my username with no reservations, and no way to add tickets bought before registration. and i've tried calling both phone numebrs they offer, and so far i've been sent back to the website by a voice message and put indefinitely on hold by another.
i'm going to try calling back tomorrow during business hours. hopefully i can work my way backwards through this list
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Logistics
So excluding airfare to and from the north, i've set aside roughly R$7000 for the trip (according to my most recent calculations); somewhere between US$3k-4k, toward the lower end of the spectrum.
given that i'm going to be travelling during the high season, new years in a party town, and carnival at a party, the question is of course: will dave's money last?
i might end up finding that i need to pick up a job on the road. if i'm lucky, maybe i'll run into some rich tourists going somwehre cool and i could offer up my services as a guide/translator. with my superior local guidebooks and language proficiency i could totally pull it off. i heard about a friend of a friend who lives in europe doing nothing but getting free rides to travel to the coolest area of brazil as a guide. so he also gets to travel europe.
hopefully it won't come to any of that. I think the money is going to last, according to calculations i've made and people i've talked to. i'm going to pad-crash as much as possible through my mom's and my own connections (including couchsurfing.com). the parties are certainly going to hurt a bit though.
still, tonight my uncle had a sit-down with me and told me he was worried about how i was handling myself with respect to the trip. it felt like an intervention. he was really addressing how i've been putting shit off lately more than anything, but he used that as a platform to tell me that he felt the trip would cost more than i'd thought. my most recent calculation turned out to be more than i'd estimated for him and airfare is looking like less than he'd predicted, so all's well so far. still, he did spook me a little.
i'm a versatile kid. i've traveled a ton in my life, solo too. everything always wokrs out. this trip isn't going to be any different.
i might have to fast for a week or two towards the end though.
given that i'm going to be travelling during the high season, new years in a party town, and carnival at a party, the question is of course: will dave's money last?
i might end up finding that i need to pick up a job on the road. if i'm lucky, maybe i'll run into some rich tourists going somwehre cool and i could offer up my services as a guide/translator. with my superior local guidebooks and language proficiency i could totally pull it off. i heard about a friend of a friend who lives in europe doing nothing but getting free rides to travel to the coolest area of brazil as a guide. so he also gets to travel europe.
hopefully it won't come to any of that. I think the money is going to last, according to calculations i've made and people i've talked to. i'm going to pad-crash as much as possible through my mom's and my own connections (including couchsurfing.com). the parties are certainly going to hurt a bit though.
still, tonight my uncle had a sit-down with me and told me he was worried about how i was handling myself with respect to the trip. it felt like an intervention. he was really addressing how i've been putting shit off lately more than anything, but he used that as a platform to tell me that he felt the trip would cost more than i'd thought. my most recent calculation turned out to be more than i'd estimated for him and airfare is looking like less than he'd predicted, so all's well so far. still, he did spook me a little.
i'm a versatile kid. i've traveled a ton in my life, solo too. everything always wokrs out. this trip isn't going to be any different.
i might have to fast for a week or two towards the end though.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
when travelers colide
When I was up in Recife I met this aussie traveler named Tom who was backpacking South America. He passed through são paulo this weekend, so i offered to show him around (sadly i couldn't give him a place to crash though). Last night i took him and his hostel crew (total party 9 people!) out to vila madalena to ó do borogodo for some traditional samba. we got tehre an horu before the usic started, and they all decided to get some food. well. we got back 2 hours later to find the place was crazy full plus a line, so we went next door to grazi a dio, the club georgiana itnroduced me to (did i mention she broke up with her bf? shame i'm skipping town).
we had a good time. sambasoul was playing and did that thing they do. music ended sorta early, but we kicked it until we were the last kids there. looking for an after party we got some drinks at a tiny bar set up in a parking lot, which was soorta wierd but cozy. the bartender was kinda unfriendly but it jsut added to the whole drinking in a parking lot atmosphere. some other guy there said he was trying to compile a book of drink mixes and that he felt it aws almost complete. i had the honor of giving him the white russian recipe. i'm pretty sure he doesn't actually know shit about cocktails if he didn't know that one and thoguht his book was complete.
today i met up with tom and his friend joel again in the center of the city to visit some museums. i only had a little under 2 hour to play cause i had stupidly arranged for a make up class with a student that day and had a chanukah dinner with the extended family to get to afterwards.
we never made it to the museums. we were all still sorta hungover and more interested in food. i took them to liberdade, SP's answer to china town, where we ate alot. really good food. eating with tom and joel was alot of fun cause they had been eating basically the same thing for months (i suppose i have too) and needed the diversity. their elation rubbed off.
wierd coincidence: on the way to meet them, i ran into some relatives on av. paulista. crazy crazy crazy. 4th biggest city in the world by population: you don't jsut "run into people" here. by the way, ehre's how complicated the relations get down here: the family i ran into are my mom's cousin's brother's daughter and two grand kids. so i think my 3rd and 4th cousins?
i hung out with that crew again later at channukah, which was well timed; as i'm leaving in a week, so it gave me a chance to see the family again. we had a goofy arts and crafts contest making little menorahs out of potatos we painted and decorated with stickers. we didn't ahve a dreidel, jsut a die. we enver got aroudn to playing , but i would've been DOWN to play some craps at chanukah. i always thought it was funny how we encourage litle kids to gamble, why not step it up and teach em a real fucking game, right?
we had a good time. sambasoul was playing and did that thing they do. music ended sorta early, but we kicked it until we were the last kids there. looking for an after party we got some drinks at a tiny bar set up in a parking lot, which was soorta wierd but cozy. the bartender was kinda unfriendly but it jsut added to the whole drinking in a parking lot atmosphere. some other guy there said he was trying to compile a book of drink mixes and that he felt it aws almost complete. i had the honor of giving him the white russian recipe. i'm pretty sure he doesn't actually know shit about cocktails if he didn't know that one and thoguht his book was complete.
today i met up with tom and his friend joel again in the center of the city to visit some museums. i only had a little under 2 hour to play cause i had stupidly arranged for a make up class with a student that day and had a chanukah dinner with the extended family to get to afterwards.
we never made it to the museums. we were all still sorta hungover and more interested in food. i took them to liberdade, SP's answer to china town, where we ate alot. really good food. eating with tom and joel was alot of fun cause they had been eating basically the same thing for months (i suppose i have too) and needed the diversity. their elation rubbed off.
wierd coincidence: on the way to meet them, i ran into some relatives on av. paulista. crazy crazy crazy. 4th biggest city in the world by population: you don't jsut "run into people" here. by the way, ehre's how complicated the relations get down here: the family i ran into are my mom's cousin's brother's daughter and two grand kids. so i think my 3rd and 4th cousins?
i hung out with that crew again later at channukah, which was well timed; as i'm leaving in a week, so it gave me a chance to see the family again. we had a goofy arts and crafts contest making little menorahs out of potatos we painted and decorated with stickers. we didn't ahve a dreidel, jsut a die. we enver got aroudn to playing , but i would've been DOWN to play some craps at chanukah. i always thought it was funny how we encourage litle kids to gamble, why not step it up and teach em a real fucking game, right?
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Ugly blog
so i'm playing with the format right now. the goal was to pick the widest template possible. i know i'm prone to writing a lot, so i figure if i have wide margins at least it doesn't look quite so long.
problem is the color. the template was all white and shit and well that a) hurts to look at for a while, and b) is an unnecessary waste of energy. not that billions of people look at my blog or naything but hey, i do what i can.
but see, i am shit for matching colors. if you thik you got a cool scheme for me, shoot. otherwise the color scheme of my blog will probably only get worse.
hell, the only reason my clothes match sometiems is cause i only have bland colors. blue, white, grey, black, green, brown. and a handful of bright colors i occasionally wear.
interesting post today, right? whatever, next week is my last week in town. once i hit the road they should get pretty cool.
problem is the color. the template was all white and shit and well that a) hurts to look at for a while, and b) is an unnecessary waste of energy. not that billions of people look at my blog or naything but hey, i do what i can.
but see, i am shit for matching colors. if you thik you got a cool scheme for me, shoot. otherwise the color scheme of my blog will probably only get worse.
hell, the only reason my clothes match sometiems is cause i only have bland colors. blue, white, grey, black, green, brown. and a handful of bright colors i occasionally wear.
interesting post today, right? whatever, next week is my last week in town. once i hit the road they should get pretty cool.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Getting mean
I'm pretty sure i've bitched about him before, but i really hate this one student i have, paulo. he's 54 and by pure coincidence related to a close friend of my mom's. He's a wealthy business man, and has no respect for our classes. today was the straw that broke the camel's back. I wrote the following while drinking a much needed caipirinha at a nearby bar immediately after the events described.
Paulo asked me to come to class early today. We normally have class at 5:30, and he'd asked for 4:30. No way, I said, but conceded to try for quarter to 5.
I got there 4:40-ish. And Waited. And waited. and continued to wait, filling out a news-stand logic puzzle. I listened to 2 full albums on my MP3 player. I checked with the receptionist: he knew I was there, he just wasn't ready for me yet.
After 6:05 rolled around I'd had enough. I went to this secretary and told her I was leaving. I was annoyed. frustrated. direspected. a little angry.
She said paulo had called me up to his office. was he for real? i decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and walked upstairs to find his office empty. He was still in his meeting. apparently he thought that changing the ambience of my waiting room might get me to stay longer.
I waited for 5-10 more minutes, after which he finally showed. I was pissed. I've taken alot of shit from him and now was time to unload.
"David, how are you!"
"I've been waiting for over an hour. imagine if i had come at 4:30."
my voice was cold and bitter in its grittingly polite, monotonous lack of emotion.
"I'll pay you for your time!"
"that's not the point paulo. I udnerstand you're a busy man but just because my hours are flexible doesn't mean my time is worthless. these are my last twoo weeks in town. there are many other things I could be doing with my time. would like to be doing with my time. This is my job, paulo. you show little respect for the class and disrespect me on a regular basis by regularly taking phone calls, leaving to do business, starting class late and ending class early."
"i totally agree. i understand---"
"No paulo, you don't. I have a flexible schedule and not that many students, so i usually put up with this sort of stuff. i'm a patient guy. but you're about to get a new teacher and he may not be. he may have a much tighter schedule and will not be able to wait around for you like this. also--"
"yes, i understand. I need--"
"No paulo. let me finish. also, it's very difficult to teach when you don't know how long the lesson is going to be....."
and so on. I was calm and composed the whole time, wearing the poker face of anger only people who smil and laugh all the time can pull off. Lecturing him i experssed most of my personal grief with him as a student throguh the lens of his tentaitve new teacher's needs and limits. it aws all stuff i'd bitched about to others before, including students, so it was a long time coming and bound to happen given that our time together was coming to a close.
He made excuses. "i was busy." "I thoguht you were teaching felipe" (another client in his office who wasn't scheduled for class today). Doesn't matter. not the point. i wasn't. you still show very little respect for me or my classes.
He said he was free until 7. i was really not in the mood to give him a class by this point, but i decided to play ball anyway.
and THAT's how i ended up doing the most passive aggressive thing i've ever done in my life.
he stared blankly at me, trying to beat his poker face with mine. it's a game he plays when he doesn't like an exercise. it's his time so i usually just give up and little him read out loud from Cigar Afficionado or Wine Spectator (yeah, he's that kinda guy. i really loathe our classes). But not this time.
"Can you come up with any other words for how you might feel, besides annoyed or frustrated?"
I waited for a response, face unchanged in cold crystallzied boredom since he called me up to his office.
"you know what, i've got this really bad headache. right here, on the back of my head. how about we have class tomorrow?"
"we've already scheduled for class tomorrow, paulo. so yeah"
"yeah I just really want to go home and rest. it's this headache."
"Ok Paulo. I'll see you tomorrow."
Damn right you've got a headache. ME. lecturing him, getting m gripes off my chest, then subtley telling him to go fuck himself with an english exercise had been cathartic enough. i already had the win. i didn't mind letting the control freak end the class on his own terms. i didn't have a class prepared anyway.
12/5/07
sipping a caipirinha from 6:20(?)-6:50. could've gone home/somewhere cool at 4 after my last class, but instead i've gotta deal with rush hour. really, paulo wasted 2.5 hours of my time, not just 1.
Paulo asked me to come to class early today. We normally have class at 5:30, and he'd asked for 4:30. No way, I said, but conceded to try for quarter to 5.
I got there 4:40-ish. And Waited. And waited. and continued to wait, filling out a news-stand logic puzzle. I listened to 2 full albums on my MP3 player. I checked with the receptionist: he knew I was there, he just wasn't ready for me yet.
After 6:05 rolled around I'd had enough. I went to this secretary and told her I was leaving. I was annoyed. frustrated. direspected. a little angry.
She said paulo had called me up to his office. was he for real? i decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and walked upstairs to find his office empty. He was still in his meeting. apparently he thought that changing the ambience of my waiting room might get me to stay longer.
I waited for 5-10 more minutes, after which he finally showed. I was pissed. I've taken alot of shit from him and now was time to unload.
"David, how are you!"
"I've been waiting for over an hour. imagine if i had come at 4:30."
my voice was cold and bitter in its grittingly polite, monotonous lack of emotion.
"I'll pay you for your time!"
"that's not the point paulo. I udnerstand you're a busy man but just because my hours are flexible doesn't mean my time is worthless. these are my last twoo weeks in town. there are many other things I could be doing with my time. would like to be doing with my time. This is my job, paulo. you show little respect for the class and disrespect me on a regular basis by regularly taking phone calls, leaving to do business, starting class late and ending class early."
"i totally agree. i understand---"
"No paulo, you don't. I have a flexible schedule and not that many students, so i usually put up with this sort of stuff. i'm a patient guy. but you're about to get a new teacher and he may not be. he may have a much tighter schedule and will not be able to wait around for you like this. also--"
"yes, i understand. I need--"
"No paulo. let me finish. also, it's very difficult to teach when you don't know how long the lesson is going to be....."
and so on. I was calm and composed the whole time, wearing the poker face of anger only people who smil and laugh all the time can pull off. Lecturing him i experssed most of my personal grief with him as a student throguh the lens of his tentaitve new teacher's needs and limits. it aws all stuff i'd bitched about to others before, including students, so it was a long time coming and bound to happen given that our time together was coming to a close.
He made excuses. "i was busy." "I thoguht you were teaching felipe" (another client in his office who wasn't scheduled for class today). Doesn't matter. not the point. i wasn't. you still show very little respect for me or my classes.
He said he was free until 7. i was really not in the mood to give him a class by this point, but i decided to play ball anyway.
and THAT's how i ended up doing the most passive aggressive thing i've ever done in my life.
"ok, we're going to play a little game. a vocab exercise. I want you to put yourself in my shoes. I want you to try to come up with as many words as you can to express what emotions you might be feeling. I've already given you two: 'annoyed' and 'frustrated.' can you thin of any others?"
he stared blankly at me, trying to beat his poker face with mine. it's a game he plays when he doesn't like an exercise. it's his time so i usually just give up and little him read out loud from Cigar Afficionado or Wine Spectator (yeah, he's that kinda guy. i really loathe our classes). But not this time.
"Can you come up with any other words for how you might feel, besides annoyed or frustrated?"
I waited for a response, face unchanged in cold crystallzied boredom since he called me up to his office.
"you know what, i've got this really bad headache. right here, on the back of my head. how about we have class tomorrow?"
"we've already scheduled for class tomorrow, paulo. so yeah"
"yeah I just really want to go home and rest. it's this headache."
"Ok Paulo. I'll see you tomorrow."
Damn right you've got a headache. ME. lecturing him, getting m gripes off my chest, then subtley telling him to go fuck himself with an english exercise had been cathartic enough. i already had the win. i didn't mind letting the control freak end the class on his own terms. i didn't have a class prepared anyway.
12/5/07
sipping a caipirinha from 6:20(?)-6:50. could've gone home/somewhere cool at 4 after my last class, but instead i've gotta deal with rush hour. really, paulo wasted 2.5 hours of my time, not just 1.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Follow up
No troubles at all. changed my flight for the very reasonable fee of $220 to March 17th, giving me what should be ample time to travel brazil, and more importantly piece of mind that I don't need to pack my bags as soon as i get my paycheck today (how wierd is that timing? mayb i'm supposed to leave or something).
Everything is going to be OK.
Everything is going to be OK.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
The best laid plans.....
...aren't as potent as bad habits.
I am a pathological procrastinator. it's gotten to the point where i wonder if i don't have some sort of subconscious self-defeating drive. in college i often put off major assignments to the last minute, completing them in high-octane coffee driven all-nighters that would leave me cracked out with the shakes the next day (an inconvenience during exam week, to say the least).
i never changed my flight.
i kept telling myself i would do it today, or tomorrow, or damnit i'm doing it by this weekend! December. i was going to have done it by december. Tonight. I was going to do it by tonight. around 1am i opened the eMail from orbitz i received for my original flight itinerary to find that my flight was not aroudn the 13th as i expected. my flight is on tuesday. this tuesday.
i'm supposed to be on this plane in 42 hours.
i had planned this whole backpacking trip. new years in salvador. carnival in olinda. natinoal parks. beaches. parties. girls. top it all off with a week in rio with my cousin then fly home.
the reservations office doesn't open until 8am tomorrow. if i can't change my ticket, a one way flight in march will cost me over $2000. that's almost the entire budget i had saved up for this backpacking trip. Hell, with the R$/US$ convertions, it might even be more than i had saved up.
Lately, i feel like i've been jsut been getting irresponsible.. i think it's cause i'm bored. the other day i accidentally left the stove on after making eggs (on low!) for like 4 hours. tonight i smoked a fat cuban cigar on my way home only to find my relatvies had arrived a day earier than i had thought they were going to (did i mention they dont know i smoke?). and the energy put into my lessons has gone way down too.
what is wrong with me????
I am a pathological procrastinator. it's gotten to the point where i wonder if i don't have some sort of subconscious self-defeating drive. in college i often put off major assignments to the last minute, completing them in high-octane coffee driven all-nighters that would leave me cracked out with the shakes the next day (an inconvenience during exam week, to say the least).
i never changed my flight.
i kept telling myself i would do it today, or tomorrow, or damnit i'm doing it by this weekend! December. i was going to have done it by december. Tonight. I was going to do it by tonight. around 1am i opened the eMail from orbitz i received for my original flight itinerary to find that my flight was not aroudn the 13th as i expected. my flight is on tuesday. this tuesday.
i'm supposed to be on this plane in 42 hours.
i had planned this whole backpacking trip. new years in salvador. carnival in olinda. natinoal parks. beaches. parties. girls. top it all off with a week in rio with my cousin then fly home.
the reservations office doesn't open until 8am tomorrow. if i can't change my ticket, a one way flight in march will cost me over $2000. that's almost the entire budget i had saved up for this backpacking trip. Hell, with the R$/US$ convertions, it might even be more than i had saved up.
Lately, i feel like i've been jsut been getting irresponsible.. i think it's cause i'm bored. the other day i accidentally left the stove on after making eggs (on low!) for like 4 hours. tonight i smoked a fat cuban cigar on my way home only to find my relatvies had arrived a day earier than i had thought they were going to (did i mention they dont know i smoke?). and the energy put into my lessons has gone way down too.
what is wrong with me????
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