Shakedown

The bus is stopping. Now what? I was just dozing off, finally. It must be around 1 in the morning…couldn’t be a food stop. Maybe refueling. Now the lights are coming on and people are starting to bustle, waking up, sitting up.
Through the door in the front comes a woman and a big guy that doesn’t look Brazilian, more like a big Austrian. The woman is wearing black pleather pants and a dark vest with some emblems on it. Serious faces, Uniforms. Now they’re rummaging through people’s bags…..

Oh, a Shakedown.

I remember a shakedown on my way out of the jungle in Peru. Before the bus took off, a man had made a speech about taking animals out of their habitat. Then he’d done the sneaky, hand-you-a-piece-of-candy-like-a-gift-now and charge-you-for-it-in-a-minute trick. That night, as we crossed the state line, I’d seen a woman get hauled off in handcuffs for illegally transporting a little jungle monkey. Big risk to take, just to hear your friends say “cool monkey”.

But these guys are thorough. They’re not just rummaging now, they’re searching. Like a 1 a.m. adult Easter egg hunt on a deserted inland Brazilian highway. The first two pass me without noticing the shoulder bag I have stashed under my feet. Of course there’s nothing illegal or even scandalous in my bag. Books, journals, my camera bag. All very benign. Yet I feel nervous. I don’t want them to notice it and think I’ve been hiding it, so I’m acting as touristically oblivious as possible.

Now a third guy is getting on the bus. He looks like the guy you’d expect to be waiting for you on the other side of the interrogation table when you get “taken downtown”. He’s gruff, brusque and prickly. He is here to find what the other two tenderfoots didn’t. And he does. On his second sweep he makes me pull out my bag. Shit. But why am I nervous? I’ve got nothing to hide, my papers are in order, I’m legit; however, past experience has taught me that being legit isn’t really any guarantee. A corrupt official can sometimes see a foreigner just like a thief sees them, as a target. Their tactics are different, but the results are usually the same, loss of property.

He´s pulling out the camera from my bag.

Seu Nota?? “Your receipt?”

Oh man, here it goes. I’m on a 2 day bus across Brazil, and at 1 a.m. in the middle of nowhere this guys is eyeballing my Mom’s 35 mm camera and asking me if I have a receipt. He’s found his plastic egg with the special prize inside. My digital camera was stolen a week earlier by a conniving, sneaky Argentine, and now my back-up film camera was about to be “confiscated” by this Brazilian cop.

Earlier, I read about a man's experience visiting silverback mountain gorillas in their natural habitat. Now it occurs to me that dealing with authority figures in Latin America is unsettlingly similar. When they charge, you have to hold your ground without challenging their position. Keep your eyes and head down, don’t question too much, remain docile, try not to stick out of the group. Hope for mercy; it’s usually a bluff to let you know who’s in charge.

In my worst possible Portuguese;

nota? -stammer- eh..nao…nao sei.

My mouth says “Reciept, I….I don’t know”. But my face is saying “Please officer, my Mom will kill me if I don’t bring her camera home. I’m just a nice, innocent tourist trying to enjoy your friendly, famously fun-loving country. Please, I have no idea what’s going on here, I won’t be any trouble. Just act like I’m not here.” And gratefully that’s what he does. He plops my camera down as if to say “stupid American, doesn’t have his receipt.” Apparently, he’s got bigger fish to fry.

During my camera scare, some other guys had been popping their heads onto the bus and calling out numbers for the unlucky lottery. If your seat number is called, you get to get off the bus and unpack your baggage from the storage departments underneath, then they send you on a cruise with a giant cardboard check…but only after they unpack your bags to look for pastel painted chicken ovum.

Now it seems the officials feel that one of our unlucky winners was being less than cooperative, so, peeved, they force all the passengers off the bus and inform us that thanks to her everyone gets searched!! The Silverback Male delivers a hard blow. By now, I’ve realized that these apes aren’t looking for eggs…it’s contraband they’re after. We step off into the Brazilian night and I realize we’re not alone in this situation. Several other buses are being searched, and a camera crew is shining a blinding light all around while filming, giving the scene a hectic, rather unnerving feeling. Our bus pulls around next to a truck full of boxes. Boxes full of other boxes. Other boxes that have electronics inside. Plastic Egg, Foil Wrapping, Hershey’s Chocolate. These guys had been busy, and are still busy packing and loading confiscated equipment.

They begin to pull out my bus-mates bags. Mostly they are brightly colored, plaid tarpaulin bags. Bags you’d want to pack a picnic in, only your picnic would easily last an entire summer pulling sandwiches from these bags. They are gigantic. I’d seen them loading these bags between two and three people at the station, and now I’m amazed that I hadn’t even wondered what was in those huge bags. Clearly, my co bus-riders hadn’t gone across the border into Paraguay to visit long lost cousins. Electronics are 1 quarter the Brazilian price in Paraguay, and they had stocked up to ship some back for sale. In my broken Portuguese I find out that things such as CD players, car stereos and any computer related electronics are considered contraband. (Side Note: I like that word contraband…would be a good name for a rock band, Contra – band…get it?? “Contraband rocks a million stadiums!!”)

In a short time, one of the officials takes a razorblade to the side of a big picnic bag and we all find out why the girl on our bus hadn’t been cooperative. She has 2 giant bags full of the new Contraband CD. Now I’m having a flashback…This girl was seated right behind me. Before the bus had taken off from Foz do Iguazu, she and her brother had taken great trouble to stuff a hard box underneath my seat, making it a little uncomfortable. I’d thought for a while about what words to say to ask them to move it. I’d thought “why don’t they just put it in an open seat? There’s plenty of space.” I never once thought it might be something illegal they didn’t want found. Then my butt went numb and I’d forgotten about it. Until now.

Do I say something? I know they’re hiding something illegal under MY seat…and that makes me uncomfortable in more than one way. Could I get busted for something here???...

Chief Gorilla: “What in the world is an American backpacker doing smuggling a car stereo under his seat?”

Young Male “I don’t know chief, but we’ll sure as hell beat the confession out of him!”

Dubious. A much more likely scenario is that if I say something, I make a few vehement enemies on a bus ride that still has 40 hours to go. Sleep with one eye open, if you dare sleep at all. So I decide to keep my mouth shut. After all, these people were just trying to make a buck, not necessarily an honest buck, but a buck nonetheless. What’s more is that they’re going to need that stereo under my seat to help recoup a miniscule portion of the approximately $5,000 worth of Easter eggs confiscated by the Customs goons.

Now it seems that the drama is close to over for our bus, and we’re going to go. My backpack was ignored and not searched…because what insane backpacker would carry around a bunch of hard drives? No eggs in there.

I’d have to say that through all this I’ve learned something. The moral of this Brazilian shakedown story is this: If, in the night, some big Brazilian gorillas come looking through your picnic bag for Easter eggs, make sure you have the receipt for your Mom’s camera and you hide your Contraband CDs well.

Ok, there’s no moral to the story really, but that’s my shakedown story anyways.

Money Changes Everything

"Where you from Mister?"

Why should this matter? I thought.

"I`m United-Statesian". Because that`s how you say it in Spanish.

"Look, it`s 2 Dollars. That`s nothing to you. The difference you`re talking about is 20 cents."...long pause...

Dammit, he was right. I`d been on the phone with this guy trying to get him to lower a $2.10 hotel room to $1.90. All at once I came to the realization, This is ridiculous. What was more ridiculous was that I had been walking around LaPaz for the past 4 hours checking EVERY hostal, trying to find the cheapest possible lodging for me and my 2 Swiss travel buddies. It was exhausting and absolutely not worth the 20 or 30 cents per night we were trying to save. Irony`s swinging doors gave us a good thump on the ass; we ended up staying in the very first hostal we had checked and passed on as too expensive, 4 greuling hours earlier.

I think few would admit it, but one of the reasons people travel is to feel superior. And nothing does the trick like watching your dollar (euro, pound or yen) stretch like a romanian contortionist. What was once a 6 inch bill magically seems to be a mile long. And it`s a great feeling...but like most things that feel good, it can do tricks on your head. It messes with your perspective on things and their value.

At a 3 a.m. stopover en route to Machupichu, I met a large group of Israelis (more in another blog) that had let a bus leave them behind because it was charging 1 sol-30 cents- more than they wanted to pay. They opted to sit in the middle of nowhere, in a cold, dark night and wait to see if they could save those 30 cents. That`s crazy, I know, but those saved cents will buy a meal later, or a souvenier. It adds up, and being in a country for a while changes your point of view. It`s all about context. You get used to haggling everything... whether you`re israeli or not.

Thus, for someone with any kind of conscience, budget traveling in underdeveloped countries can be a constant battle of economic emotion. Yes, economic emotion. Am I appalled at the social injustice and cyclical poverty? Of course. Am I also elated that I can buy a 3 course meal for a dollar. Of course. I empathize with your inability to find work and put food on the table, but if I had to choose a direction for your currency, I`d choose devaluation. Sorry. It`s an internal struggle in which your social conscience battles with your traveler`s pragmatism. After all, if this country wasn`t so poor (also known as cheap) I wouldn`t have the chance to come here at all...Then you hit Chile.

Damn the Chileans and their smart fiscal policy, their judicious administration, their devotion to open markets and free trade, damn their strong peso. Their currency is strong, but to make matters worse everything is in thousands. An empanada could cost you $1,200 pesos. What?? To add to the confusion, they use the dollar sign $, to denote pesos in thousands. Come on guys, be practical, lop off a couple zeros will ya? After the initial shock of the new currency, I began to become indignant. I had crossed into Chile from poverty stricken and landlocked (thanks to the Chileans) Bolivia. In Bolivia, hostals were 2 dollars. In Chile, 9. I began to secretly hope for an Argentine-esque crisis to hit Chile. Hyperinflation -- Economic Meltdown -- Great Tourism. There was so much I wanted to see in Chile, but the buses...oh the prices of the buses!

You`re thinking. Wow, this doesn`t sound like the Joey I know. How Selfish, how insensitive. Well, don`t worry...it`s mostly tounge in cheek. Mostly. I`m happy that Chileans are paying 70 bucks for their jeans...and I`m crushed when I see Bolivian fathers eeking a living by selling menthol on a bus. But, I have to be honest, I do occassionally wish for some countries to stumble on hard times, just so I can travel there on a small budget. Maybe it stems from a subconscious desire to feel currency superiority. Yes, currency superiority. Or maybe I`m just cheap and want to travel a lot for a little. Who knows.

I heard in Thailand you can get a nice hut on the beach for a dollar a day....poor Thailand...I gotta get there sometime soon, before things get better for the Bot.

Long Overdue Travel Update

I`ve been a slacker, I know. This travel update is long past due. My many readers(3 or 4 at my last estimate) must be chomping at the bit. The simple explanation for my latent blogging is that I`ve been adjusting to the new surroundings of the southern cone of South America. It`s been slightly challanging to find blogworthy events in the more developed and...lets call them "less adventurous" countries of Chile and Argentina...but let`s be honest, it`s mostly because I`ve been lazy. There`s plenty to write about.

On the third day of my jeep tour of the Salar de Uyuni, I hopped off the tour (which headed back to Uyuni) and headed across the border of Chile. Going from Bolivia to Chile was traumatic. Sure, Chile was nice, but 8 dollars for a hotel room?? If South America were one big boxing ring (what, you never saw a boxing match with 11 competitors?), Chile would be winning in a dirty way. Hitting below the belt...hitting the pockets. Luckily, I have a cousin that lives in the middle of the destert in Chile, not far from where I crossed the border. He makes furniture out of rough cut chilean lumber and on the weekend he moonlights in an Elvis cover-band... Just let those last two sentences sink in a bit. What??? His name is Sterling (or papa-bear)...but more on him in another blog. I stayed with Ster for a little over a week and basically did what I like to call "recharging the batteries" (which involves many activities, and inactivities; one of which is literally recharging my batteries).

We went up to his father in law`s extra house in Calama where Sterling has his improv woodshop, to work on his furniture. I planed his future headboard, and he fixed it. From Calama I took an luxurious and expensive bus to Salta Argentina, Sterling went back to his bizarre life in Antofogasta.

Wow. Argentina at last. Salta was a very beautiful, clean, medium sized city. Immediately I noted the Argentine wanna-be-euro feeling (I think I just "smithed" that word, and just verbed the word smith). Actually, I`ve never been to Europe, but Argentina is what I imagine a country would be like if it were a wanna-be-euro country. They have great italian food, with sidewalk cafès and they give you little glasses of soda water to wash your food down with. That`s nice. Thanks Argentines. In Salta I hung out with the Roma-blooded German and The Falconer (more in another blog). They were a most pleasant couple to third wheel it with.

From Salta I went to Córdoba, where I stayed in my first dorm style hostal. I let a group of Israelis convince me to go out dancing with them. We were sitting around chatting and learning hebrew. When 1 a.m. roled around I asked if they were still going out. Yes. Really?? Apparantly people in Argentina don`t even show up at the disco until 3 a.m. That explains the fact that everything shuts down from 1 until 5 every day...recuperation afternoon naps. The Argentine schedule is another euro (Spanish) carryover...siesta in the afternoon and open until late. Dancing was fun until I almost got my ass kicked by a drunk argentine a-hole at the coat check. Then, recognized as a week link, I was elbowed and shoved and yelled (argentines are great at yelling) out of line by another group of a-holes. It was shameful. An Israeli girl ended up getting my coat for me. My friends laughed.."come to Israel, we`ll teach you how to push". Well, come to the US and we`ll subsidize your pushing classes. In Cordoba I roomed with the Traveling Acrobatic-Dance Team...two colombians. Again, more in a future blog.

From Cordoba I rode to Rosario because someone said it was nice. It was nice.

From Rosario I came on an overnighter to Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires is mammoth. It reminds me - and once again, I`m making comparisons based on knowledge I just don`t have...but bear with me - it reminds me of a mixture of New York, Rome, London and Paris. It`s got a few parts with big lights and whatnot that are Time Square-ish, but not quite. It has several walking streets, with street cafès and pizzerias that remind me of what Rome is like in my imagination. Some of the big avenues are reminiscent of Paris`s...in the movies. And Bs. As. is full of old, tall buildings with that euro-feel that must come from London.

I`m staying in a hostal right next to the world-famous Milhouse...we get the rejects. The Milhouse is famous amongst backpackers for it`s "ambiance". Which means that it`s a nonstop party, and the receptionist makes jokes about threesomes to you and your friends. Buenos Aires is supposedly THE place in South America for nightlife...easy access to all the goodies. Cocaine, weed, E, booze, sex, etc, etc. My roomates, Casper and Jasper, the Decadent Dutch Duo (more in another blog) would definitely seem to corroborate these rumors. There timetable seems to be the inverse of mine. I usually wake up when they come in from their nightly debauchery, and I generally wind down when they`re gearing up to head out in search of coke and an easy score.

I`m anxious to get on the road again. I`m waiting for my visa application to wade through the cesspool of red tape at the Brazilian Consulate. Supposedly I get my passport and visa back on Monday. It cost me 100 bucks...tit for tat...very cute Brazil, very cute.