Iris takes part in a barbecue in Brazil.<\/p>\n
We went to a little town called Ouro Preto, in Brazil,
\nwhich is in the centre of a mining area, which produced gem
\nstones. We visited the museum which shows all the different
\nmetals and minerals mined and they have an impressive
\ndisplay of what they produce, including polished stones,
\nalthough I am convinced the diamonds on display must be
\npaste because they are so big and there are only teenage
\nboys guarding them!!!<\/p>\n
After Ouro Preto we did a bit of travelling with a one
\nnight stand at a place called Jacaraipe, which was by the
\ncoast and was the first of many camp sites which, although
\nnot on the beach, were full of sand. (How I have got to
\nhate sand since I’ve been on this last stretch of the trip!
\nIt gets everywhere and one seems totally unable to get rid
\nof it entirely and it turns up afterwards in my day sack,
\nin my socks, in my shoes, in my hair, for days on end!)<\/p>\n
Then we headed for Itaunas where we spent a couple of
\nnights, arriving at about mid-afternoon and immediately
\narranging for a barbecue for the evening . We’d
\nbought some pork and beef, and lots of potatoes so that we
\ncould roast them in the oven. We had been assured by our
\nleaders that the Brazilians were a barbecue nation, they
\nknew all about barbecuing, so when the owner of the camp
\nsite told our revered leader, Heather, that it would be
\nbetter done on the beach as there weren’t the facilities at
\nthe camp site, she readily agreed and at the appointed
\nhour, we packed up the food and also the ingredients for
\nwhat was going to be a rather lethal vodka punch and headed
\nfor the beach.<\/p>\n
Itaunas is an unspoilt little village at the edge of the
\nsea, there is no real tourism there and it made me laugh to
\nsee those little village shops with their “Visa” and
\n“Mastercard” signs in the window as they weren’t selling
\nanything that would cost more than the odd pound or two! We
\ntrekked all the way down the main street, which is really a
\nmud track, over the bridge, and along the track for some
\n500 metres, and then we had to turn off and start climbing
\n– yes some really big sand dunes with sand that literally
\ncould come up to your neck if you trod in the wrong place!
\nThe path was marked by the odd rubbish bin and it was quite
\nfree of trees (this is important for later) but it was
\nstill at least another 300 metres from the beach and the
\nbar we were heading for, but eventually after a half hour
\nwalk we were there.<\/p>\n
The beach was very narrow and the sea was in. It was
\nalso getting dusk by the time we arrived and then Heather
\nhad the news – the owner had not yet located the barbecue!
\nStill, we lived in hope. I was part of the cook team for
\nthe evening, our actual cook being Alex, a really tall
\nwell-built Chinese gentleman who was born in Hong Kong but
\narrived in England in 1967 to take up a nursing career and
\nnow at the age of 55 has retired from nursing (he ended up
\nin an important administrative post in the hospital
\nequivalent to the old matrons) and he is an accomplished
\nchef who thoroughly enjoys cooking and turns out some
\nreally tasty meals. He has also a wicked sense of humour
\nand keeps us all amused with his wry remarks.<\/p>\n
Anyway, we got on with making the vodka punch (I didn’t
\nparticipate because I’m not a spirits drinker and so stuck
\nto beer and the odd soft drink) but just about everything
\nwas going into the punch. Then came the news, the barbecue
\nhad arrived. There were 22 hungry mouths waiting for that
\nfood and so you can imagine how many steaks, pork chops and
\nfish steaks we had to cook. The bad news was that our
\nbarbecuing host provide us with a little grill which would
\ntake 2 steaks at a time!<\/p>\n
Out the back of the bar there was a bonfire (burning
\nrubbish) and so it was decided to improvise (it was quite
\ndark by now) and see if the bonfire could be utilised, but
\nthe problem was we had no grills to put across it. So our
\nhost got his workers to dig a pit and transfer some of the
\nbonfire into it and plus our barbecue coals it seemed that
\nwas the way to go, except the only grill they could come up
\nwith was the grill which would normally go across the top
\nof a 4-ring gas cooker! Of course it was totally inadequate
\nas well as being totally unsuitable and in the end we had
\nto abandon the idea of a barbecue altogether.<\/p>\n
We just used the small barbecue to cook the fish steaks
\n(four) and then Alex set to in the kitchen and with the aid
\nof two big frying pans cooked the pork chops first (which
\nwere delicious and so tender – I’ve never tasted such
\nsucculent pork chops in my life before), but unfortunately
\nwhen the beef was cooked it turned out to have died of old
\nage and the cooking just made it tougher and no-one ate the
\nbeef!<\/p>\n
So what did most people do? They got drunk on the vodka
\npunch! Judith and I decided to leave quite early (around
\n2200) and so set out with three of the men who were also
\nfed up with the barbecue and just wanted to get back into
\ntown and do a bit of drinking there, so we headed off up
\nthe sand dunes – but it is surprising how different they
\nlooked at night in the pitch dark with no lights to guide
\nus except the odd torch!<\/p>\n
We were first of all walking, then scrambling almost on
\nhands and knees up and down steep sand dunes, and
\ncontinually ending up at dead ends because the other side
\nof the sand dunes there was scrubland and water, lots of
\nit! Judith and I were often left far behind by the men,
\nwould lose sight of them and start yelling and then see
\ntheir lights heading back our way because they’d had to do
\na U-turn! Eventually we found the right path, more by luck
\nthan judgement, and found we had walked a considerable way
\nin the wrong direction which put at least twenty minutes on
\nour journey back to town. On the way we encountered the odd
\ncar and van luckily displaying headlights, but then we
\nfound we were among a whole crowd of cyclists with no
\nlights at all! It was pretty hairy trying to see and avoid
\nthem! All those people in Itaunas must have cats’ eyes!<\/p>\n
When we arrived in town, we thanked our men friends for
\nlooking after us so well – it was sarcasm really as they
\nhad left us way behind once we were on the right path and
\nwe only saw them again when we got into town and found them
\nsitting at a bar and one of them, a Korean gentleman we
\ncall Young, and who speaks very little English, insisted we
\njoin them and have a beer before retiring.<\/p>\n
But although we thought we had had an adventure it was
\nnothing that happened to all our friends who had stayed
\nbehind to finish off the Vodka punch and other spirits and
\nbeer. They all got plastered and every single one of them
\ngot lost on the way back with varying effects. One of our
\nleaders, a chap called Martin, got himself steaming drunk,
\nconvinced Alex he knew the way home, and promptly led him a
\nmerry dance in the pitch dark without torches through
\nscrubland and bushes, so that Alex ended up losing his
\nshoes, his T-shirt and his truck keys, and getting his back
\nand arms and legs scratched by every conceivable thorn and
\ntwig. Next day, Heather asked what on earth made them head
\nthat way when they knew there were no trees on the path we
\nhad originally taken! There was no answer except to admit
\nthey were too drunk to know what they were doing! Another
\nof our number lost his trousers and his T-shirt and his
\ncamera, and another of us, a lady called Alison, got a
\nbadly grazed knee and bruised hip falling about in an
\nunladylike manner!<\/p>\n
So in one way it was good we’d had the barbecue on the
\nday of our arrival because we only planned to stay two
\nnights before moving on so everyone had a day to recover
\nfrom their excesses and attempt to find their lost
\npossessions, but all searches were fruitless as all those
\npossessions were gone the next day (although it is more
\nthan probable they were lost on the way home and therefore
\nextremely difficult to find) The most serious loss was of
\nAlex’s truck keys because they open all the padlocks on the
\ntruck and we each are issued with a set at the start of the
\ntrip and are told to guard them with our lives!
\nUnfortunately also, just prior to Itaunas we had all been
\nissued with new keys as the old padlocks were at the end of
\ntheir life and so all new padlocks had recently been
\nfitted! I dare say Alex had to pay a fine for losing his
\nand extra to get a new set!<\/p>\n
Iris takes part in a barbecue in Brazil. We went to a little town called Ouro Preto, in Brazil, which is in the centre of a mining area, which produced…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","css_class_manager_body_classes":"","css_class_manager_use_in_post_loop":false},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[64],"class_list":["post-1243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","category-main-article","tag-october-2003"],"yoast_head":"\n