Friday, August 29

Location: Alter do Chão, Pará, Brazil

Today's weather: 28°C.

Got up at 7:30am. Typed up some notes on my computer before having a shower and breakfast. Watched Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on the television in the hotel lobby. This was the first time that I'd ever seen the programme. The programme is American, and is produced in English – but the Brazilian version is dubbed in Portuguese. I think that the Brazilian version is probably a lot more fun because the voices sound really cool, even though I can't understand what they're saying.

Afterwards, I repacked my backpack – leaving out a few things which I figured I no longer needed (a desperate attempt to cut down the size and weight of my backpack). The victims of this purge were some language books and a big woollen jersey. I then staggered out to the reception area, paid my account, then waddled out down the stairs and into the centre of town where I thought the bus for Alter do Chão would be stopping (since this is where it stopped when I visited back in January). However, I checked with a policeman, who told me that the stop was now located quite some distance away. I only understood a little of what he was saying, but he pointed in the direction that I should walk. So I waddled along further – quickly building up a heavy sweat in the hot sun. I checked with passers-by every few minutes to check that I was heading in the right direction. My Portuguese was good enough to ask the question – but half the time I was unable to understand the answer! I finally got to the right place after a long walk, and then hitching a ride on a city bus.

While waiting at the bus stop, I spent some time talking with a local man who seemed very keen on telling me about the history of the place. I'm sure that what he said was very interesting, but I unfortunately didn't understand very much of it. Not wanting to be rude, I just nodded and smiled, and commented on the small bits that I did understand. Brazilian people are generally quite nice and very talkative.

On the bus I met a Brazilin woman who'd just returned from Indonesia where she'd worked as a nanny. I've personally never travelled to Indonesia, but I've got many friends who've spent time there and I've also been involved in some of the protests against the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. So I was very interested to hear her impressions. She said that she enjoyed Indonesia very much, but that it had even more problems than Brazil – there was lots of poverty and a great deal of corruption within the government. She had been to East Timor. East Timor was a Portuguese colony up until 1975 when it was invaded by Indonesia. The Indonesian had done many terrible things there, and the government had introduced policies to destroy the old culture and force the integration of East Timor into Indonesia. One of these policies was to declare the Portuguese language (as previously spoken in East Timor) illegal – forcing people to learn and adopt the Indonesian language. I felt it that it was very strange and very unfair that a person could be arrested for simply speaking the "wrong" language. It must have been especially strange for the Brazilians visiting there who spoke Portuguese at their own first language.

The busride to Alter do Chão took forty minutes. The landscape along the way included lots of small farms and scraggly remains of forest (the biggest trees have long since been chopped down).

On my arrival in Alter do Chão, I made my way to the Pousada Alter do Chão