Cuiaba: A Pass Through Is Never A Pass Through

Post date: Jan 16, 2011 4:47:17 PM

I’d almost forgotten the narcotic effect of bruising a clean, open highway all day with your motorcycle. After downing some hot Quaker Oats with cinnamon I’d prepared with my handy little stove, I went downstairs to pack the bike and was greeted by a more appealing (doubly so because it was free) breakfast offered by the hotel. Why do they never tell me this when I check in? Ah well, I drank half their coffee and then sped away.

‘Twas hot and muggy, but I wore my jackets, pants, and riding boots for the first time in over a month. Rumbling along at 73 mph for a solid 2 hours straight, enough time for my butt to numb and burn right beneath my over-protrusive femur-pelvis sockets. Wow. I’d almost forgotten how I’d chosen to travel. It’s hard to describe the joy of riding free through a foreign land. It’s joy. Let’s leave it at that.

One thing that concerns me even now, 5 days after I left Porto Velho, is the rate of oil consumption of my bike. It’s swallowing a quart ever 150 miles. This is more than before. I already changed the spark plug, and I’ll be changing the filter and oil tomorrow, so I’m hoping that solves it. I doubt there’s a leaking gasket because there isn’t oil residue spattering the exhaust pipe. More on the bike condition in a minute.

I chomped 450 miles of road last Thursday, the most I’ve covered half a year. Hard to believe it’s been that long. Being back on the road put some things into perspective. I’m travelling. I’m not exactly a resident of South America. It’s begun to feel that way though. This IS my life. I have no home. I have no job. I live off savings and what little profits my investments bring me.

I planned to camp and perhaps fish on a tributary feeding the Madeira River. My map showed a distinct blue line crossing BR-364, my road to Cuiaba, halfway to Cuiaba, or 450 miles in. I covered a good 30-40 miles of land where this river should have been, but all I found were some swampy areas to the sides of the highway. Night fell before I’d found a river or a campsite, so I turned back, planning to ask to camp behind a restaurant along the highway 8 miles back. It was just one man sitting on the porch. Not a customer and dead quiet everywhere except for the out of place noise of the television.

It was the middle of country farmland, and this guy’s eyes would have told me where we were anyways. He has that steady, unassuming look that is well accustomed to the “this is how it is” perspective on life. I bust out my fancy schmancy Portuguese-english dictionary and attempted with my most humble and non-threatening voice that I could use a place to rest for the night and would like to camp behind the restaurant. He listened. His wrinkle-cuddled eyes looked through me a few seconds, and then he spoke. He said, “There’s an unused house right there you can stay in. There’s a bed and a bathroom.” He mentioned the word “cheap,” I think, but that was out of my budget, so I said, “It’s no problem for me to just camp.” He led me to the little house on the same muddy lot as the restaurant. It had some busted windows, but the lights worked. Dog poop littered the concrete floor. It smelled clean. There were what appeared to be marijuana joint butts strewn about the empty room in the 3 room + 1 bathroom house. I was thrilled. Not about the joint butts, but the roof and the clean bed. He said I could stay there for free.

What could I say? I said looked him in the eye, took his hand in a firm handshake, smiled, and gave him a sincere “Muinto Obrigado” (Thank You Very Much). I slept alright night. The mosquitoes were annoying, and the sound of semis roaring by at all hours wasn’t friendly either, but I was delighted nonetheless. This was my first ever request at asking to sleep on a stranger’s property, and it was so casually offered without question. I plan to do this as much as I can for the rest of South America.

The next day started without much news, but a couple hours into the ride a somber mood swept over me. For the first time on my trip I started to truly fear the end. I was feeling nostalgic to the point of feeling sick to the stomach. This will end? Me, go back to the United States? And do what? See the same American streets, exist in a culture I’ve already learned and dissected, earn an hourly wage, and watch tv? So went my thinking. How can I not explore a new land? Truly knotted, my stomach screamed at me as I imagined myself remembering what I was doing at the very moment- cruising the highway in the heart of Brazil on my way to visit friends on the coast.

I decided to blame it on the lack of caffeine, so I grabbed some food and an energy drink from an all-you-can-eat churrascaria buffet. I called my Couchsurfer contact in Cuiaba to agree to meet later that evening. Outside the restaurant I chatted with some English speakers about my travels. I was feeling better and back on the road after a short bit. Got some gas at a cheap-o non brand name gas station about 10 miles before my tank was scheduled to run dry, and 80 miles later, 200 miles into the day, my bike started to misfire with a vengeance, so I slowed down, and turned back a couple hundred meters to a gravel path on the side of the highway. No problem, I thought. Just a spark plug change.

I changed the spark plug. But the problem turned out to be bigger. Much bigger. I had zero power. Checked the main fuse. That was the problem in the U.S. when I lost power due to a electrical short. Nope, that was fine. In Mexico, I had the same symptoms- no power for no apparent reason. They replaced the battery that time, but I’d suspected at that time that that was not the source of the problem. I figured the battery died that time due to an open wire somewhere and the battery being connected all night and left to drain. So, this time I disconnected the battery and set to work checking every wire, wiggling them and disconnecting and reconnecting every connector. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

I surprised myself with my attitude. It was positive. I laughed, actually. I’ve seen this scenario so many times, it’s beginning to not phase me. Here I was, stranded on a highway out of cell phone reception range, in a foreign land with a language I do not understand, unable to fix my motorcycle. I decided to attempt to get a tow to Cuiaba, 65 miles away, so that I could get an early start on finding a repair shop the next day, but my only luck was finding someone to call my couchsurfer friend to notify her that I would not be making it town, and to notify the police station 20km down the road of my situation. The police never appeared, and I later learned that they had come and looked but never found me.

I pulled all my gear behind some bushes. That’s why I was safe. I chose the spot well, it seems. I wasn’t in the mood to have to use my machete, but I slept with it in my tent, unsheathed beside me, all night. I was more than lucky with my spot. As I considered the viability of camping the night through right there, I quickly spotted a small pond across the highway. After hanging up the motorcycle repair attempts, I marched across through the tall grass and hopped a wire fence to reach the lily pad lined water. It was a black night, so I used my headlamp to guide me, and scanning the water, I was startled by bright, big, red glowing eyes staring back at me. Better yet, they slowly drifted across the water. Fish? Or crocodiles? I’m still naïve enough to such lands as this, the Pantanal, that even recognizing the possibility of crocodiles in the area, I didn’t think about big one laying invisible beneath the surface of the water into which I dipped my lexan water bottle. Instead, I stooped there happy as a boy as I stared at these tiny little frogs on little pads croaking. The air bubble filled their body, then transferred to the neck before vibrating with a sound far too rigid and loud to come from such a miniscule creature. But there it was, happening right before my eyes. I was almost happy my motorcycle broke where it did. I was also quite pleased that I’d bought a water filter in Manaus. With it sucked down a liter of the sweetest fresh water I’ve tasted. That was some good pond water!

It was viciously muggy, and I passed the night on my small inflatable mat without any sheet or blanket to cover me. I slept miserably. Halfway through the night my laziness got the better of me because I had to rush out of my tent to throw the tarp over it due to a sudden downpour. I finally gave in to the sunlight’s demands in the morning, and I arose stiff and grouchy. Broke camp and tried a couple more times to start the bike. No luck, so I spent a couple hours flashing my emergency triangle and waving my shirt at every pickup truck that passed my way. My mood turned sour in correlation to the angle of the rising sun; I had only one person stop, I understood virtually nothing they said, but it sounded like they were going to notify the police.

The police came. He was a friendly young guy who spoke some English, actually. He said he could call a mechanic who might be willing to come out and fix the bike where it stood, which would be cheaper than towing to Cuiaba. I agreed, but he returned from the station with news that the mechanic was too busy, so I could only get a tow. We loaded my stuff into his police suv and went to the station.

I was treated like a guest. I was offered a shower, we watched tv, and we joked around. They even asked me if I wanted to take over for one of them that day, driving around in the squad car. I was vividly reminded of the movie Supertroopers. It was a 1.5 hour wait for the tow truck to arrive from Cuiaba, so one of the cops and I went to lunch at a very homey, small restaurant down the highway. It was excellent food. The man related to me how he’d love to do a trip like mine but his wife won’t let him buy a motorcycle to begin with. He’d like to transfer back to the coast, near his home and family, but he lacks the seniority necessary at this time. Most clear in my memory is his statement, “This is YOUR home, not mine.” He was referring to the overwhelming influx of American culture to a place even as geographically remote as the interior region of Brazil, the Amazon and Pantanal. The television shows are often from the United States. So is the music. In the cop car, the siren control panel was made in the United States and the labels are written in English. Remote controls have English button labels also. It is like this throughout Latin America.

If all Brazilian cops are as kind as these guys, I won’t have the least bit of trouble from them. I gave one the link to my blog, per his request, and snapped a photo of us together. Good guys.

The truck came and took me to a motorcycle repair shop that was still open this late Saturday afternoon. The shirtless owner was out front sipping beer and smoking a cigarette. I didn’t realize he was the owner until much later. He’s a small framed, hairy, quiet, friendly man around 30 years of age, and his most distinguishing feature is his crossed eyes. I never knew if he was talking to me unless I was right in front of him, facing each other. I jokingly imagined the cause being self-induced by all his gasoline drinking. My battery was replaced because the misfiring has apparently overloaded and killed my battery, but then a fuel flow problem presented itself, and I have never seen a man suck and blow on an engine so persistently, as if making love. All the while my mechanic is spitting gas to the floor then raising his lit cigarette to his lips. I loved it. I didn’t love that there was now a fuel issue because there hadn’t been one when I came to the shop, I didn’t think. So for a few hours he pinched and pulled and blew on this hose and that inlet and so forth. He cleaned and adjusted the carb. He told me my fuel-air separator was bad maybe, but I said it was 2 months old and had only 2500 miles. He thought the carb was dirty, but that too had been cleaned and adjusted almost 2000 miles ago. He could only get the bike started by forcing gas into the carb. By the end of the day, he said he thought the timing was off.

Couchsurfing came to my rescue. Cassia, a college student currently working on 5 novels, took me in despite the fact that their family was having a big birthday party that night for her brother. I was immediately stunned by the home. Her family has the nicest homes I’ve visited since the United States. Better than my torture chamber hotel rooms too. She had begun to apologize in traditional fashion for the messiness of her home and blah blah blah, but I cut her off with, “Cassia, I slept on the side of the road last night. ANYTHING is going to be better than what I’ve had the last few weeks.”

Brazilians love BBQ. Brazilians KNOW BBQ. They grilled sausages, fish, and steaks all night, and there were probably 3 dozen guests present to celebrate two birthdays. You don’t see that in the U.S. I met her uncle, a video production and photography company owner who has produced widely recognized documentaries, magazine photography, and more. He has the largest collection of antique cameras I’ve ever seen. It’s hard to imagine any of them producing a photo, but he says they still work. His next big project, set to begin in a year, is a monumental project I only half-jokingly asked to work on. It’s about rivers. It’s about the condition and perception and everything about rivers in southern Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and one other country. So, each country is compiling its university researchers, television stations, newspapers, and documentary producers. The results of these studies/productions will have a wide impact on the South American culture’s ecological awareness, the governments’ environmental management policies, and even the world’s recognition of this region. The Amazon River Basin contains at least one third of the world’s freshwater. It is speculated that the next world war will be about water, and Brazil has it. Better understanding its most precious resource could affect global peace. It’s an interesting topic.

We drove up that night to the home of her uncle in Chapada dos National Park. It’s a gorgeous home with an astounding view over the low mountains and plain beyond the mountains. In the morning we were treated to a full breakfast and I met two of their other visitors, a couple from Colombia travelling South America by motorcycle. ! This was my 4^th encounter with international motorcycle travelers, but I didn’t realize Colombia had that spirit as well. These two impressed me. The guy is a rock climbing instructor and the lady is a dentist. They had just pulled out of the jungle and into Porto Velho after traversing the road I refused to take, the dirt road connecting Manaus and Porto Velho. It took them 5 days. They fell countless times. They saw a panther and an anaconda crossing the road. They slept in little communities along the way. They are my idols! In retrospect, if they did it, I could have done it as well. They said there was no gas the whole way though, so they completely loaded up with spare tanks in order to make the trip.

The family, Colombians, and I made a trip to a spectacular, hidden, unvisited waterfall for a dip and some photos. The Colombians made a few descents rappelling through the waterfall, and it looked fun so the guy offered and I accepted. As I tipped backwards over the edge of the waterfall, supported by only a rope, I was grinning like a boy, and then I slipped and was hanging upside down, choking on water and laughing. I released some line and slid down a bit. I started swinging, which I guess you’re not supposed to do, and I pushed off the wall of the waterfall to bounce in and out of the water. ‘Twas a hoot.

Later that day we went to the most incredible view I’ve seen in a long, long time. I was surprised how impressed I was after all I’ve seen. It was a cliff that overlooked the forested mountain valley rolling into the plains from which the capital city of Cuiaba arose in little spires of white and gray. I think the park is an old volcano. It is a single mound that shoots up from a flat sea of forest. It was cloudy and it started to rain then, so we missed the sunset we had gone there to see.

The next day Cassia, her uncle and I set to work getting the motorcycle fixed. Turns out the cross-eyed owner had removed the clog in the fuel tap diaphragm cover and the fuel was now flowing. We later found an even better battery, the original for my motorcycle, which is a 14 amp, not a 12 amp like I’d had in there. A 14 amp should resist an overload better. I attributed the clog in the fuel tap to the bad fuel I likely received at the non-brand name gas station 60 miles prior to the bike’s outburst. Apparently those stations are renowned for dirty, oddly mixed gas.

So, I had a functioning bike (yeah!), but my right front fairing, the plastic panel that guards the engine, deflects the wind, and just plain looks nice (even with the glued cracks), was MIA. Poor Cassia. I deplore dependency, and I was completely dependent at that moment, as has so often happened on this trip apparently designed to teach me humility and patience. She ended up calling the police station that picked me up numerous times. She called the tow company more than numerous times. The final verdict? “We don’t have it!” and “We don’t even have record of towing you!” Well then. I had joked about reaching Ushuaia as pieces of my bike fell off, and it appears that I spoke to soon.

Whatever. Who needs a pretty piece of plastic anyways? The bike worked. But then the next problem arose: insufficient funds. I have a nasty habit of not preparing for emergencies, so I lacked the money in my account to pay for it all, and precious few companies south of the U.S. carry credit card machines, so I ended up borrowing money from Cassia. I met the girl three days prior, and now she was loaning me about $100 on faith that I’ll return it later. Little does she know… ha.

I took my bike and I was on the road again by noon, aiming for Sao Paolo.