A back route through Brazil

26.11.19 Alegrete

I was very happy to arrive here in this little town. I cannot say it is so beautiful, bounded by the curves of the Rio Ibirapuita, the upper tributaries of which I have been crossing on my way here across country from Livramento where I crossed the border from Uruguay. I walked down to it today, not seeking to be out of the city, but there I was in a little bit of countryside with a horse grazing by some trees. The water was high up its banks, for it had been raining all morning – heavy storms bringing down much water, (and even drips from the ceiling of the hotel room where I am staying). I am very pleased to find that this stormy day coincides with my day of rest.

I am comfortable in this town, partly I am feeling because I do not pay much more than $10 for a room in a hotel. There is freedom in this, because, if I liked I could stay several more days, if I liked, if the forecast were not for sunshine tomorrow.

Not far from the river I chanced upon a bicycle shop, having an idea – just an idea, though no serious intention – that I really would like a leather saddle on my bicycle. This was a small shop; outside chained up was an old style Brazilian bicycle, as I had noticed here, with a circle incorporated into the frame, a quite unusual design. It was interesting to see, and as I am looking a dark man comes out of the shop, wondering I suppose why this lady should be interested in bicycles. No, I did not want to buy one – I managed to explain that I had my own bicycle here in a hotel, and that I had cycled on it from Montevideo in Uruguay.

He shows me inside his shop, proudly pointing out a mountain style bicycle he had there. All were different, and I gathered he was something of a designer of bicycles – then I was pleased to think that such skills lay in small workshops in this country (even if hopefully I will never need their services. ) I really wanted to ask him which African country were his origins, for sure his ancestors must have come from there originally. But probably so far back in generations, it might not have been pertinent to ask. Then I went outside and took a photo of the old Brazilian bicycle, and another with the man beside it.

Then I walked on further and found a church which I went inside, looking all around, then sat outside in the park and wrote a letter sitting on a bench under the damp greenness of trees. For the rain has not finished yet.

Uruguay

10.11.19 by the river at San José

Here I am at the junction of the rivers (Rio Santa Lucia and the Rio Pilatos), looking out to a sandbank, seated on the bole of a giant eucalyptus tree which stands overlooking the Pilatos side. There are also similar, smaller such trees on the promontory above the junction in which I see several large dark masses of nests. There are so many birds – Uruguay, maybe it is a place for birds, for wild nature lurks here, not magnificently as in mountainous scenery, but yet remains in neglected corners, such as around ruins of former homesteads, left with broken thatched rooves – I camped beside one last night, (lucky to find a wild neglected place amongst the otherwise fully-owned landscape) where I was surrounded by beautifully perfumed, freshly green trees. It is very evidently spring here now – all is a lush emerald green and the birds are busy and highly active. What a chorus there was this morning in the vicinity of my tent – some time before six as the light was increasing, a grand symphony of a thousand different tunes, with near at hand a bell-like song which sometimes fluted ‘take care’, as people like to say. So I call this the Take-Care bird.

There is one like a lark with a bright red head I sometimes see by the road, others like fieldfare with striking orange-brown tails, and some small bright emerald yellow parrots, and many others I’ve seen more than once

One can appreciate wildness in the flowers of the verges, which are lush and variant dotted amongst the brilliant green grass.

One may appreciate touches of wildness in the rivers, all of which have water flowing in them; this one I sit beside I walked alongside earlier, finding many small paths I supposed made by people going down to fish on the bank. There are many people by the river today, near the bridge – it is Sunday. As I passed I saw a great many barbecues, and people swimming in the river off the small sandy beaches.

Further along I found an old man living alone in a raised hut beside the bridge of the old railway, with two very gruff looking dogs which seemed from their expressions to only know of a hard life.

You could see where the river had gouged out channels in the banks when it had flooded, and it seems that not so long before the river had been quite a lot higher than it is now.

But I cannot romance of distant places sitting here where I am, as I see from my map that this is solely a local river, arising from the undulating farmland (which I have passed through cycling the last two days), one of its tributaries forming the boundary of this region, running into the sea back near where I set out from, to the west of Montevideo.

So I haven’t come far yet

/

Wider views and special hills

20.11.19 In a wood beyond a small stream, by the Ruta 28, just past a small stream.

It is hot – the saddle is hot, the handlebars are hot, the road is hot, my water is like tea, hence I am appreciating some partial shade from some eucalyptus trees at the edge of a wood, feeling that a minor siesta is appropriate just now. It has become more rural since I turned off the Ruta 5, yesterday morning – a wide road shared mostly with empty two trailer logging trucks (going back I suppose to collect more logs). There was much forest here, which I could appreciate to an extent through a window of noise and forward urging as I was carried along in the rallying of vehicles passing by at speed.

But here on ruta 28 I have been able to return to just moseying, along through a pleasant more rural landscape – I am now accustomed to seeing cows, clustered around neat waterholes, which I find taking an interest in me as I approach, all looking in most photogenic manner; only by the time I have stopped and turned on my phone (which is rather slow to boot) the cows have lost interest and their heads are directed to the ground, or they have slunk off in different directions – a photograph of cows looking the other way has little appeal. It’s the same with birds – I am quite sure I must have seen all the ornithological highlights of Uruguay on my journey, some wonderful sights have have passed right in front of me. But too fleeting to photograph.

This small stream I just crossed I see from my map runs into the Cunapiri, a wood flanged meandering river which I camped beside yesterday, under the shade of some immense eucalyptus, with towering, smooth, creamy boles – no one seeing me there apart from some horses, which I heard scrunching past this morning over the thick bed of pinkish crescents of leaves. (I had chickened out at the last minute of camping in the official campsite – for fear of all-night music at the tables. ) Even though I had had a pleasant chat with the caretaker earlier who had showed me where to go, explaining that two Australian cyclists, a man and a woman, had also camped there some time ago, whilst he himself was awed at the idea of cycling through these countries, rightly it seemed.

Anyway I did not yet explain about yesterday, when the landscape changed completely in atmosphere with the appearance of several distinct flat topped hills, the upper parts encircled with bands of rock so it was not clear how easy they would be to scale. I was rather sad I had not attempted it, even though I had good views from the road, to now a wider landscape around. Just to have been standing on the summit, having made my way through the rough vegetation – the hills even had some patches of native vegetation clambering about the slopes. I stopped, took out pencil and paper and made some sketches, as I worked I felt as if I was back in the real world again, (after being for the past 11 days I’m not quite sure where), a world in which reward might come without exertion, a world in which what I was doing had some purpose .Yet there would have been nothing special about these minor cerros (hills), had they been set in Spain or some other country where mountains abounded. But here these small geological protuberances stood upright as sentinels, their presence totally changing the nature of the landscape, from, (as I had been in up to now,) a place of low lying nature, where rivers and ponds were the principal features. Now we had not undulations but real hills, with rocky crests, overlooking wider areas of foot slopes and valleys, not on any great scale, but in contrast to what had been. Maybe that was why I suddenly felt at home again.

Today moseying along on the rural Ruta 28, it is feeling more intimate, at the same time there are wider views sometimes to lend a sense of vastness beyond, dotted with miniature clusters of cattle (as I image one might find in Argentina) which much as I might desire to, I aware it could not be captured on the scale of a photograph. Yet at the same time, it is still Uruguay, still the same place I set off into twelve days ago, with its springtime greenery, greensward and flowers, birds, clusters of cattle and isolated farms. Only now with a familiarity which it did not have when I set off, having lived a little piece of my life here.