Over the Equator

Introduction

Since my first “serious” dip into the written word (there was a trial run a couple of years before, really a glorified “Summer Diary”), a slim volume written in September 1995 for my Mum’s 70^th Birthday, entitled “Home for a Week” chronicling our family adventures on St Agnes, part of the Isles of Scilly archipelago, which also contained a number of poems and watercolour illustrations, I have “published” about 14 works, if you include the “It Happened One Thursday in February” missives and blogspot.  Only three of these have been properly published; “Moonlit Guruji Travels”, “To Provence and Beyond” and “Feeding Fifty”, the rest printed and spiral bound by my own fair hand.   Interestingly, the first blog post on this site “Memories” comes from the “trial run!”

Posts on this blog “Roger’s Creative Urge” will draw on some previously “published” works as well as new material and parts of what I call “works in progress.”  This post is from one of the latter about an adventure made to Brazil by myself, my wife and my daughter, to celebrate our 25^th Wedding Anniversary, my wife’s 50^th Birthday and daughter’s 21^st Birthday – quite an auspicious year, as well as the last big holiday before our French Adventure, chronicled at great length in my other blog mentioned above.  It will hopefully one day form part of a volume to be known as “Travels with a Mafia Boss, an Amazonian Indian and a KGB Officer”, but the chapter of that name will have to what for another time – first things first, and first we had to go .............    

Over the Equator

Not the elaborate affair that supposedly takes place on ships, where King Neptune is heralded, rather a sleeping aircraft, lights dimmed and no mention made of it!  I was gutted, as this was a first for me; the first time in the other hemisphere and therefore the first time over the equator!, and I had hoped for, nay expected, a fanfare over the tannoy, flashing lights, fireworks at least on the onboard screens (the real thing being a bit of a problem in the confined space!) and the Captain passing through the aeroplane draped in seaweed and carrying a “non-sharp, therefore non-dangerous” trident (the three-forked variety rather than the nuclear missile!), in these safety conscience days!   

But nothing, everyone including my travelling companions asleep so I couldn’t even share the moment with anyone ...... and then, Brazil was below us, eerie in the darkness with small hamlets, larger villages and towns glowing in the darkness with no sign, at this early hour or vast height, of any transport passing between the settlements, which from my eerie high in the night sky, looked pretty much the same as similar settlements in the northern hemisphere.  I would have to wait until on terra firma to see if there were more subtle differences such as the water gurgling down the plug hole in a different direction!  However, the towns took on an almost ghost-like appearance as the bright glare of the lights illuminated low, thin wispy clouds, high above which we cruised “slowly” at great speed towards our destination!

Arrival, led to the inevitable crush of passport control where we competed with aircrew, wheelchairs and an extended African athletics team in smart new tracksuits for the occasion – some sort of student games, despite most of the entourage being well matured students!  Then, there was an agonisingly long wait for baggage, as the carousels carouselled, fellow passengers retrieved their cases and disappeared out into the warm night air and destinations onward and it finally transpired that although we were in Rio our bags were in still in Lisbon, where having been delayed on the previous flight we had had to make a quick connection. We had literally run from one bus to another along a long downstairs corridor, before climbing the stairs to the next floor and rushing back along a similar corridor to where we had started, the bus finally taking us to our plane at the far side of the airport, where it had been put to get it out of the way during the delay!!  Although we managed to run fast enough unfortunately our bags didn’t and got left behind, waiting for the next scheduled flight ...... 24 hrs later, the same time the following day!!

But, undaunted as well as unwashed and unchanged, due to the non-arrival of the bags, we were whisked off to somewhere you are sure to have heard about, maybe even dreamed about – Cococabana Beach, and now we were nearly there, heading for a hotel overlooking the famous stretch of sand, which we were able to see from the hotel but couldn’t walk on until the safety of daylight the next morning.  But, first something of an ominous start, as the taxi driver, the strong silent type, who quickly informed us he spoke NO ENGLISH, got us into the car which was being watched over by a security man and immediately centrally locked all the doors, before starting a  strange drive through the still, warm, dark night along streets with no apparent highway code and numerous police cars cruising with their lights almost nonchalantly flashing, presumably simply notifying their presence to anyone who might need their assistance or people intent on activities that their presence might deter!

Rio, was like many other worldwide cities I have visited at night, but somehow darker with fewer street lights at this late hour, as our journey like that from any other major city airport to city centre, took us through the industrial suburbs and seedier parts town, with tunnels and flyovers with solid concrete walls tight up to the traffic.  There were however,  tantalising glimpses of Christ the Redeemer,  the bright floodlighting seeming to make it float high above the city, and The Sugarloaf; famous landmarks to convince us that the aircraft had landed in the right city!  Then, there were signs to Cococabana down a number of roads that were little more that anonymous and very dark side streets, before our eyeballs were well and truly assailed, as we turned onto the broad and brightly lit Avenida Atlantica, Atlantic Avenue.  One side a glitzy run of bright lights and flashing neon signs of hotels (including our own), bars and restaurants, with across the tree lined avenue “The Beach” washed by large Atlantic waves, but now deserted and looking somewhat menacing with the dark even more menacing sea beyond.  Rio had come alive, and we didn’t have our glad rags to change into to join in all the excitement!, but it was the early hours of the morning, despite Cococabana not seeming to be getting ready for bed, and after a long journey all we needed was a shower, clean pyjamas and “teeth” to be ready for the start of our adventures in the morning. So in the hotel at last, check in completed and painless and at 2.00.a.m. local time (6.00 a.m. back home in England) there was just time to raid the minibar for a cold beer and some nuts, before a quick shower to wash away the travel grime - unfortunately the pyjamas and “teeth” were still in Lisbon!, before falling gratefully into bed and realising as sleep came quickly, that we had been travelling for 24 hours, but were now quite literally on the other side of the world!!   

And the water down the plug hole ...... we were so busy taking in the sites and jetting between the different locations of our action packed holiday that I forgot to check!!