15 November, 2005

The Carnguejo Express

São Luis, Brazil – Go almost anywhere in the world you choose. In my experience in around 40 countries on five continents (but who’s counting?), if there are two adjacent and populated cities – city A and city B in this example – folks will inevitably want to journey from A to B. Folks without cars. Thus, there is nearly always public transportation from A to B. Whether it be a rickety chicken bus on a Guatemalan volcano, an excruciatingly slow ferry between islands in the Indonesian archipelago or a bullet train in Japan, if you want to go from A to B there is nearly always a public method. And thanks to the market economy, unless you find yourself perched on the roof of an overcrowded train in India during a Hindu holiday, the supply of transport usually roughly equals demand. That is, there are usually about enough buses, boats and trains for the amount of potential passengers. But there are times and places when and where it just isn’t possible to get from point A to point B via public transportation. It’s these times when The Caranguejo Express – a special kind of emergency transport I caught a ride on last week during a desperate situation – comes in handy.

I knew – when looking at my large and detailed and expensive map of Brazil, purchased specifically to prepare me for the special situations which would inevitably arise while traveling in Brazil – that there was going to be trouble on this leg of my travels. On the map, the steadily worsening roads of Northeast Brazil actually come to an end in a tiny town I arrived in last week on a hot morning. The ‘roads’ I had traveled on for two days just to get to this village were dirt, sand and ruts, requiring four-wheel drive vehicles and dune buggies to maneuver. But at least they were officially known as roads and were shown on the most detailed of maps. But here in this city was where the road ended. Between point A and point B stood 40 km of tall white dunes, mangrove-lined rocky beaches and rough, scrubby flatlands. Point B, another small city, was near the entrance to a highly acclaimed Brazilian National Park known for its enormous dunes and crystal clear pools of rain water which collect between them. The way I figured it there had to be some transport between point A (population 3,000) and point B (population 13,000. If not, I had made a many-day mistake which would require me to retrace my steps and return to a larger city to the East.

Reassuringly, I was not alone on this road to adventure. I encountered Carlos, a Southern Brazilian, seated in the main plaza in this dusty town on this scorching and quiet morning scratching his head and studying a thick packet of regional tourist brochures, blown-up and laminated GPS maps and satellite images. Every piece of paper in his folder contained the same unsettling piece of information: There were no roads to point B. But after asking around the small town we learned that, yes, there was one truck per day plying the ruts and open land between A and B. Of course there was! And this 4-wheel drive truck would leave at 1 pm with us in its bed. After talking to the owner of this truck, Carlos and I piled our things onboard and bullshitted carelessly about travel for a few hours. The truck eventually drove off to pick up passengers on the other side of the river which ran through town.

Above: Point A

When it returned it was full. Damn full. So full of people and suitcases and chickens that we were lucky they hadn’t already jettisoned our belongings on the way back, which the truck owner now hastily did. Dropping our bags in the dirt he said, “Sorry, these people all had reservations yesterday.” Not bloody likely, methinks. We were getting the gringo treatment big time. Moreover, we had forgotten that this day was a Brazilian holiday. And on holidays all over the world, the supply of public transportation struggles to meet demand. So we were shit out of luck. Carlos cursed the driver of the top-heavy truck – the only one of the day – as it lurched out of town, predicting that bad luck would befall him sooner than later for making empty transportation promises to us. He was right. A day and a half later, when we finally arrived at point B (40 kilometers from point A), we saw the driver, who told us that his overloaded truck burnt out its alternator in between A and B and that the passengers were stranded in the wilderness for hours. And now all the passengers were looking for Carlos to make even on the curse. But that’s another story.

Two seasoned travelers, Carlos and I were used to setbacks. But we had one common Goal: Not to spend a night in this extremely boring and dusty town.

Above: Hold on to your hats, this town is live!

We discussed our few dismal options: We could wait 24 hours for the next truck, only to probably be bumped again by the locals the next day. Or we could hire a private ride across the sand tracks for 50 dollars. Never! We could backtrack for several days and travel around this underdeveloped region to a larger town which may have buses to point B for access to the park. None of these options sounded palatable, however. But apparently, according to the locals, we could ask around for someone with a dune buggy to take us by dune and beach to the mouth of a river, and then catch a boat upriver to point B. Now that sounded like an adventure. We asked around town about buggies. No owners were interested – their excuses ranging from ‘It’s too late in the day’ to ‘The tide is rising so we wouldn’t make it’. Then one fellow on a motorbike saw our distress, rode over and said, “Well, you could always take O Caranguejo (The Crab).” The Crab? ‘What was that?’ and ‘Who cares?’ simultaneously issued from both of our mouths, for as long as it had a motor and driver who was willing to take us, we would ride in a hearse with the Grim Reaper to get to the next town. “Okay,” said the motorcyclist, “I will go and call for The Caranguejo.”

Carlos and I waited anxiously for The Crab for the next few minutes, thinking we were likely in for an entire day of kicking rocks in this slow, sandy village of boredom. But just then we heard the sound of a sputtering engine – which roared as if on its last ride – crossing the bridge then power sliding around the corner of a building and into our view, dust flying behind. Rad. As the dust cleared, came into sight a monstrosity of a vehicle. A rickety, seemingly stripped-down dune buggy piloted by shirtless, bearded long-hair in his late 20´s who looked like he had just escaped from a Mexican prison. This is The Caranguejo! It skidded up to us and died in another cloud of dust. “I heard you guys need a ride,” spoke the renegade behind the wheel. “We sure do, but how will we fit?”

Above: Carlos in the Caranguejo with Bodinho

The Caranguejo was a jury-rigged miracle of a machine – the miracle being that it ran. It turned out that the owner, Bodinho, a mechanic, had built The Crab entirely from scraps. The reason it resembled a stripped-down buggy was because Bodinho had built it, over the years, from old dune buggy parts: a wheel here, a piece of frame here, two broken chairs from the local school for seats. But because he built this crustacean entirely by hand there were several questionable engineering modifications. Instead of installing a back seat, Bodinho laid an unnecessarily large speaker on its side behind the two front seats. Also, the engine sat mounted and uncovered behind the speaker. In front of the two seats where a windshield and a hood should have been were visible the steering column, suspension and a 2-liter plastic bottle with a hose (fuel line) exiting out of the cap. This beverage container served as the gas tank. Perhaps to neutralize the danger created by the makeshift and highly flammable gas tank, a fire extinguisher was mounted between the two front seats, although I felt no relief from its presence. The key for the ignition was bent metal pipe.

Above: The Caranguejo, Its complicated transmission, and the key to the ride

So, seriously, how would we fit? “Hurry,” yelled Bodinho. “Get in. We’ve got to move fast to beat the rising tide! Let’s vamos!” He threw our bags on the front of The Caranguejo. Carlos jumped in the front seat and I hopped onto the speaker in back. Sitting without any handhold we zoomed off. On our way through town I began to feel a bit more secure, like I might not fall under The Crab and be crushed. But just then Bodinho stopped at the local bar by the river and whistled to two young guys playing pool and drinking beer. “C’mon guys, let’s go!” The guys came running, unsure of where we were off to but hurrying nonetheless. “We don’t have space for them,” protested Carlos. “But we need them for safety on the beach,” answered Bodinho. I actually felt much less safe as Andre and Roginho climbed onto the enormous speaker and sat to my left, pushing me to its edge. Not only was my butt hanging halfway off but I lacked a handhold and now my feet were resting precariously on the hot battery. One slip and my feet (and then me) would be under the large rear buggy tire. Andre and Roginho were in a similar predicament, their fingers digging into the mesh of the speaker. But they didn’t look quite as frightened as I did. “They are mechanics too,” said Bodinho, “so we have nothing to worry about.” I wasn’t any more reassured by this comment. On our way out of town we grabbed four two-liter bottles of gasoline for refills. All at once The Caranguejo Crew of five hit the open road (or vast, shrub-filled plain, as it were).

Five minutes in, The Caranguejo was already having trouble with our weight, as the engine roared on the hills and internal engine parts ground. Bodinho gritted his teeth upon hearing his baby cry, as he guided us past shrubs, holes and dunes toward the ocean. Just a few minutes on we came to some large dunes which The Caranguejo could not ascend with our weight. So we jumped out and watched The Crab climb the dune slowly. Then Bodinho cut the engine. We were out of gas. The crew replaced the two-liter bottle quickly and added oil to the engine. But starting the machine again wasn’t as easy, due to the simple fact that there was no starter. We would have to push-start it. Bodinho inserted the pipe key and the rest of us laboriously pushed The Caranguejo through the sand until it fired, throwing up black smoke from the tail pipe. We were off.

Above: Stopped for a refill

Above: Deserted in the desert dunes

After a long stretch of dunes we could finally make out the beach in the distance. The rest of the ride should be simple. If we could beat the rising tide we would only have to navigate the beaches with their rocks and fallen trees. We soon arrived at the beach, sand lashing our faces due to the lack of a windshield. Bodinho’s skilled driving took us up and down the sloped beach, as he avoided the incoming waves. “You know why I call it The Caranguejo?” he yelled, taking his eyes off the beach to watch our expressions change from discomfort to fright. “Because it moves up and down the beach with the tides, like a crab!” he exclaimed, without allowing us time to answer – veering left and then quickly right to avoid a huge tide pool and almost throwing us off the speaker. Across the wide, mostly empty beach, backed by large white dunes, The Caranguejo Express continued screaming along until on the horizon appeared a strip of green palms reaching to the sky. This stark contrast of foliage must signify a river! As we approached the line of green we first arrived in a tiny fishing village at the mouth of the river, where it entered into the Atlantic. Most of the few structures were made from sticks and palm fronds, built as semi-permanent residences for fishermen but now largely reclaimed and engulfed by the encroaching and ever blowing sand dunes moving in from the East.

Above: Downtown

The skeleton of a town boasted one pousada with an electric generator, a restaurant and some hammocks to rest in. This sleepy village sat on a sandy river beach which was perfect for swimming. This was our final stop. The crew took a dip.

Above: The crew is ready for a swim

They knew they had time to kill. They would have to wait eight hours, till 11 pm, for the tide to recede before they could drive home in the dark. In the mean time they had our 30 dollars burning a hole in their pockets. So, logically, cheap cachasa was ordered to burn a hole in their stomachs. We all sat at sunset and feasted on fresh caught crab and fish and cachasa, getting to know each other a little better. I pictured the three of them – now well on their way to drunk – driving The Caranguejo back to point A in the darkness, wasted, three mechanics arguing over what to fix when the Crab breaks down.

Carlos and I were happy we had made it partway to point B, but I went easy on the Cachasa and celebrating because, as it turned out, we still were a good 16 hours travel away from point B and the National Park. As the sun dropped behind the river and we became stranded without electricity or transportation in a tiny fishing village on a small river in Northeastern Brazil I didn’t worry. Because I knew we would arrive someday. Without a doubt, public transportation would come eventually, pick us up and drop us off another step closer to point B. But if not, The Caranguejo Express and its faithful crew can always be summoned and return for us in our times of greatest need.

Above: The Caranguejo Crew (Roginho, Bodinho and Andre) and their cachasa

Above: Another day in the life of a traveler: After being transferred to the riverfront of another small fishing village until 3:30 am we were picked up by a local cargo ship(first picture) which took us upriver to point B (city of Barrerinhas – second picture) where we jumped on a truck headed for the national park entrance (third picture)

 

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