Bailamos Esta Noche? En Jueves?! Si! Let's Go Dancing On A Thursday!

All Mike wanted was a chance to see Alex again. All I wanted was a reason to burn off calories since I regained my appetite on Tuesday. You see, when I'm feeling blue, I lose my appetite and I barely eat. I broke up with the ex-boyfriend on Sunday. I was eating normally by Tuesday. ;)

Thank goodness for cell phones because we didn't get into the club until an hour after our appointed time. Before we went there, I spent about an hour in Mike's house finding airfares online.

I have this ticket to Rio De Janeiro from Los Angeles. One way. I haven't formulated a way to come back yet and my flight leaves this Monday, March 31.

Paula's Impromptu Itinerary -- Scheduled To Truly Change On A Whim
Rio De Janeiro April 3 (fly to) Manaus, BR April 3 (bus to) Caracas, Venezuela April 4? OR (fly to) Medellin, Colombia April 4? (depending on how screwed up Caracas is with the riots and all) (fly to) Miami, FL or West Palm Beach April 7 (fly to) LAX.

I'm thinking this whole thing will cost less than $1000.

So we went into the club and this time, I didn't order a watered-down Fuzzy Navel. Maximum powah, baby!

I called Alex.

A few minutes later, my cell phone vibrated. She'd been in the club an hour already with her friends.

She's 28 and she's just having a lot of fun. The club didn't start hopping until 12:00 AM. It was yet again (I swear, I don't plan this.) a half-gay/half-straight club. Well, the club was doing a CD release party for Cher's new CD... However, I so love the vibe of a gay club! Where in the world can you go into the ladies room, see guys and girls in there and sometimes even two guys coming out of the same stall at the same time?! (*ahem*)

We met more of her friends. Lilli is this young college student who goes to Stanford. I told her of the book reading I plan to do at the end of April in the Bay Area. We exchanged email addresses. She said she wanted to go very excitedly. She too had never met a writer before.

(Note to self: Try the writer thing on guys instead, cute guys, cute guys closer to my age. See if it works just as well on guys instead of girls...)

This time, Mike didn't stare too much at the girls.

So I spent a goodly amount of time dancing. On a Thursday. Sweat dripped down my back. The alcohol I drank warmed my body. I didn't care how I danced. I just loved the way the music and the lights and the feeling of living a blessed life course through my veins.

I invited Alex to go to another party this Friday night at a club. One of my buddies is having a birthday. I should see her tonight again with all my friends.

While I was driving, I popped out the Chicago (the musical, not the band) CD I had playing and inserted my Latin Mix. It's a mix of a bunch of songs I was hearing all over Central and South America. I became thoroughly happy again hearing Bacilos - Cara Luna. Despite what I feel about the ex-boyfriend, since I heard this song playing in his apartment the last night I slept there, I was able to listen to Shakira without feeling blue again.

Ownership. It's a good feeling.

How is it that now that I'm 30 is when I'm feeling the most youthful? Why didn't I do this before? Oh yeah, I was too busy being married and growing a career that I hated...

I got home at 2:00 AM. I would've stayed until closing but Mike had to work the next day...

Unbalanced

Yesterday, I got a call from Walt asking me what I was going to be doing from April 24 to May 3.

"I don't know," I replied.

"Well, you wanna dog/house-sit up here in Northern California for 10 days while I go on my cruise?"

Walt and his buddy share a quaint little 3-bedroom house by the marina in Vallejo. I've gone there many, many times before. I think they're going to the Bahamas.

That bastard! Doesn't he know that after years of friendship, I never say no to a...

Road trip?

"Well, I can only stay up there for the weekend." I answered truthfully.

"Weekend? Two days? That's not even worth the drive up!"

"Excuse me! My weekends last five days, buddy!" I couldn't hide my intentions. I would be stupid not to go.

"Good! I know you're going to have book readings and events so you can go ahead and have some of those bohemian parties afterward but make sure you clean up the condoms, okay?" He said, laughing.

"You betcha! But I really have to go and plan a few readings here in Los Angeles. I mean it when I said five days only."

"Okay, I'll give you more details the closer we get to leaving." He finally said and hung up.

...

Yesterday, I went to another employment agency to register myself. When I parked into the parking lot next to a restaurant where Chris, Rob, and I ate one time, I had to fight the urge to be sentimental. I lost.

At least I felt productive when I registered there. Ryan's mom works for that agency so I figured I had an IN there.

I really need to work. I need to balance my life. Too much play... Too much play...

I must work. Let me work on these last edits. I have a story to get out and get published.

Requiem For A Lost Editor

Well, I'm still sad over this. It doesn't help any that I am here at home all alone with the dog and nothing else. I don't want to look at the edits Chris gave me yesterday. It hurts too much knowing that after I put in these edits, these may be the last edits I will receive from him with his indecipherable penmanship and highligted lines of text he liked (or as he called "home runs").

God, this hurts.

One of my poet friends Ryan heard about this last night and he understood how painful it was to lose an editor. The editor/writer relationship is very intimate. The editor must be objective enough to pick out the strenghts and weaknesses of the writer and make constructive comments to change it without leaving too much of his mark and be aware of the writer's voice. Editors get a view of the writer's spirit, heart, mind, history, and self through the writings. They must be sensitive and mindful of that. Editors and writers must also intellectually connect. They work as a team to fulfull the same goals for the good of the story or novel. Working with an editor is like having mom and dad raise a child in the womb. Mom and dad have to go to Lamaze classes, have to play Mozart in the background, talk, and caress, and feed the child well while it is developing.

Ryan knows that very well. It seems like I just took away the child Chris and I were about to go ahead and conceive. I knew it was hurting him as it was hurting me that I was going to lose a fine editor.

... *sigh* ...

I knew I did the right thing. Deep down in my heart, I knew I did the right thing.

I wished him well in his endeavors. I'm sure he could see that I have nothing but hope and faith for my own fate/fame/infamy when it comes to this business of being a writer and an artist.

I have work cut out for me. The publisher just asked me if I can organize all the book readings for the LA-area. I said yes.

I think my destiny is being molded as we speak.

Paula Dumps Her Boyfriend... Finally

Well, it's happened. Paula dumped her boyfriend. She went and told him what the deal was and decided to check out of his life forever. Besides, with the way things were going, the relationship didn't stand a chance at all.

So, she's single. But not looking.

She'd rather focus on her novel instead.

100% of her friends support her decision considering all the crap she had to put up with. It was good while it lasted and no, she didn't throw a tantrum. She was very adult about it. In fact, she will be the first to admit how amicable the break-up was. Maybe someday they'll be friends again. Maybe. Someday.

Yes, she's feeling better. In fact, very hopeful. She feels liberated. :)

Focus

For those who have known me a long time, they know that my reaction to any kind of heartache or disappointment is to put on the "I'll show you!" attitude. Because when someone brings you down, like... like..., I just don't get mad, I make them jealous!

I'm past feeling sorry for myself and I am now in the angry phase. In light of recent events, here's my audio commentary:

Cell Block Tango - Chicago Soundtrack
In anger, I reviewed my list of Things To Do Before I Die to move Carnaval and the Amazon into the "Completed" list. In order to show a certain someone that I'm a bigger person that what I am perceived as, I will add some more things in the "Completed" list by the end of the year.

Just you wait! I'll show you!

Completed:

Watch Carnaval in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. - March 2-3, 2003

Go into the Amazon jungle. - February 11, 2003

Drive across the US. - August 13-17, 2001

Drop E (ecstacy) at a rave. - April 2001

Kiss a total stranger while rolling on E. - April 2001

Make love on a beach. - Summer 1990

Watch a Broadway show in New York City that's sold out with much-coveted front-row seats. - Spring 1999

Go parasailing at Cabo San Lucas, Mexico or anywhere with a breathtaking view. - August 13-17, 2001

Get a tattoo. - April 2001

Have a textbook classic teenage summer fling in California. - Summer 1990

Learn how to drive a manual transmission car. - August 13-17, 2001 (BUT needs practice stopping, reversing, switching from full stop to first, ah.. pretty much everything.)

Working On:

Eat food that came from every country in the globe.

Travel to all seven continents. (3 down--Europe, North and South America, 4 more to go)

Bungee jump at Victoria Falls in Africa.

Drive a race car.

Hike the Rocky Mountains (around Colorado).

Sleep on a rooftop in Paris (or anywhere in Europe).

Learn how to fly an airplane.

Climb up to Base Camp in Mt.Everest.

Learn how to swim!!!

Sail around the world.

Go to a topless beach and actually go topless.

Scuba dive off the coast of Australia.

Go skydiving.

Have a family.

Have a regular house, a summer house, and a yacht.

Be self-employed by being the landlord of two apartment complexes, a laundromat, and a coffeehouse.

See all the seven wonders of the world (natural, man-made, modern, etc...).

Make a movie.

Write a novel and have it published.

Make a demo CD (singing).

Host a cooking show.

Meditate at a Buddhist temple in Tibet.

Teach English in Japan.

Live in a foreign country for a year.

Be fluent in five languages. (2.5 down, 2.5 to go)

Learn how to snowboard.

Live in San Francisco.

Learn how to ride a motorcycle.

Go to Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

Take My Prince Charming on a romantic road trip up the California Coast using Route 1 on a red convertible.

Earn a Doctorate degree in Asian-American Studies and an MFA (Masters in Fine Arts).

Become a creative writing college professor and teach Asian-American Studies.

Wish me luck and yeah... He had it coming.

Vamos A... Self-Medicate By Taking A Hike

Taking yourself out of a country sure teaches you a lot of lessons about life and yourself. For a while there, I even got myself some nice bravado going on. Over the years, I had learned to take in the "out of sight, out of mind" attitude about family, lovers, and situations that piss me off. My shrink would most likely tell me I'm practicing some form of escapism.

She's probably right.

I guess another thing about me is that writers and artists in general are open books. They're a sensitive bunch that can also be capable of being cold and distant if the need arises but deep down inside, their emotions are in a tizzy. They're not shy about letting it all out too. Pick any night in a seedy bar and I can bet you you'll see some painter or some poet in there nursing his third vodka tonic because of some emotional turmoil. Unfortunately for me, I can't drink. How can God make a writer-girl, who acts more like a writer-guy, that's allergic to fucking alcohol? I can't even self-medicate myself in the easiest, most legal way?

Hello God! Fate! Creator! Great Spirit of the Universe! The Big Writer In The Sky! That's not a fucking funny joke, buddy!

Let it all hang out, girl.

I've gotten a few advice from people:
My Mother: Sex breeds intimacy. Intimacy will hurt you.
My Friend Susan: Men and women pretty much have the same emotions over the same things. If you're hurting about something he's done, he's mostly hurting too for what you've done. Do something emotionally involving, like that novel you're going to write to self-medicate.
Walt: Stay away from people who give off negative energy. (He was telling me this during the whole trip.)
Myself: ... At this moment, at 9:37 AM and 18 seconds, it might be hurting now but tomorrow, it won't be as bad. Change the situation so you will not find yourself hurting later on over the same fucking thing.

Today, I will have breakfast. I will shower. I will fill my car up with gas. I will pass by the grocery store to pick up some fruits to go along with the protein bar and few pieces of candy I already have in my bag. I will take two small bottles of water from my trunk. I promise to bring along my journal and the Bukowski book I'm reading. I will drive down the 405 because there is no fucking way in God's green fucking earth that I'm going to be hanging around in the fucking Valley twiddling my thumbs. I will go to the Santa Monica Mountains and take a hike. That's right. I'm gonna go out to take a hike. Three hours. The hard trails. Nice ocean vista. I want to be reminded that there is more to life than the shit I'm feeling inside and that there is natural grandeur where I live.

I'm going to self-medicate and perhaps in my solitude, cry.

God, such drama.

Yeah, stream of consciousness. Let it all hang out, girl. I'm probably going to regret the shit I typed but no matter. I'm still going to post it. After all, despite what you see in the pictures of me being the happy tourist and all, there are times when I'm not always happy at where I am.

Like. Now.

Letter To The Editor and A Note To My Lover

As you all know, I have returned to the US with a slew of responsibilities to contend with. I have a story submission deadline (I hope they accept it.) and a book pre-launch party with Cecilia Brainard on the 29th. On the 31st of March, I will be returning to Rio for shits and giggles and returning a week later via Venezuela (maybe). The story deadline is March 31.

To Editor:
Enclosed in this email is the latest draft of "A Million Ways To Die." Please make edits accordingly and in a timely manner. The deadline for this story is at the end of March. I know that you will be traveling before that deadline and will be away for a month so... Please! Please! Just do this one favor! You were begging me for edits just before I left for my own trip so you know how I feel like now for requesting edits from you. At that time, the deadline wasn't until March. March is upon us and now you're the one doing the taking off! I hope you understand, Chris.
-- Paula

A Note To My Lover
For a while there I thought that perhaps his feelings for me have changed in the 50 days I was away. But apparently, it hasn't. In fact, there is something about getting back together after a long absence that makes for... more intense sparks. ;) He took note of the changes on my body, my makeover, as he would say. I had a little style thing going on and I mentioned I didn't want to be outstyled by the Buenos Aires Argentinians. Any Angelina can outstyle a Porteña anytime. He noticed I was slimmer too and darker and he was just happy to see me again.

It was very nice to get my blood boiling again as he took note of the details he had to recall to give me pleasure.

Now if only my editor can be that diligent. My editor is distracted because of his upcoming trip. Lord! I can tell he's happy but can he just sit for a minute to edit and finish this unfinished business before we start talking about St.Peter's Square?

My lover was focused upon me.

I am glad to be back too.

Kiss Me. I'm (Going To Ireland Someday To Have A Guiness At A Pub With The Local) Irish

A night out with like-minded people always makes for a good night. I keep remembering that phrase Scooby said in San Blas, Panama about traveling and I guess it applies to traveling in your own city:

"Mad things happen when you travel."

Indeed.

Everyone knows I'm allergic to alcohol and drinking makes me break out in hives but during the trip, I had learned how to pretty much drink since drinking was standard in the clubs we went to. But last night was St.Patrick's Day and to hell with dancing! It's all about drinking and just because I get a little rash ever so often doesn't mean I should stay away from alcohol all-together.

I ordered two mostly-juice Fuzzy Navels last night and nursed both in four hours. I got carded too.

Ryan, our resident Beat poet, suggested one of his local hang-outs in Glendale. I was excited to see everyone from the Monster Ball crew and had been slowly but surely meeting up with people to tell tales of torrid adventures.

I told Ryan the juiciest, most Bukowski-type moments in the whole trip. In fact, Ryan met his hero in a bar in San Pedro back in 1994 trying to pick up a 25-year-old groupie while smashed drunk. There were four Bukowski-type tales. He nodded his head during the most outrageous parts and agreed that those adventures were examples of life in distilled format. He's a traveler too and had found himself in many outrageous adventures and he knows what it takes to make them come to fruition. I talked more about Managua, Panama City, Cordoba, and the Lapa area of Rio.

I asked him if people would actually publish such tales. He said people would but my friends wouldn't believe me. Those events don't sound like events that would happen to me. Most people expect that I would talk about museums and natural landscapes. Rest assured, I have those in my journals but Paula ain't so angelic all the time, my friends.

While talking about Bukowski, since I checked out two of his books that afternoon and started reading them, the girl sitting next to us asked:

"Are you two talking about books in a bar?"

Ryan and I both turned to her and replied a very confident yes.

Sara wore a red sweater and khaki pants and kept a pack of cigarettes in her purse. She asked us what we did for a living (or for love) and I told her I was a short fiction writer and Ryan was a poet. She instantly told us how she wanted to get into publishing as an editor. I told her that I was looking for more editors to work with and asked her if she was interested. She sounded very excited over the prospect.

We talked about everything under the sun from movies to travel to, of course, books. We laughed when a topic came up about how we all become frightened when we don't see any books in the homes of people we date. As writers and ones who appreciate literature, we cringe at the thought of being with someone who doesn't read a lick of poetry or fiction. No, magazines and newspapers don't count.

She was there waiting for a guy she met just this past weekend. He came knocking on her door looking for an apartment to share when later on they found themselves talking for hours on end. Later in the weekend, he went back to her place because he wanted to see her again. They watched a bit of Sex In The City, a sure sign right there that the guy was either gay or wanted to get into her pants. They started making out, confirming theory number two. She knew she wasn't going to take him in as a roommate because he was a firefighter with a body to match. He was much too hot-looking and that itself would cause trouble.

Very logical indeed, Ryan and I agreed.

The firefighter didn't show up.

But the night was young so she flitted in and out of other groups of people while Ryan and I told more tales and ran into one of his buddies who was out with his girlfriend. But not before Ryan got himself a little cathartic moment...

A very slim Asian woman with a nose-ring and long dyed-brown hair sidled up to the barstool next to him and instantly hooked her arm with him. He looked at her, totally surprised while the girl replied that she knew him from somewhere. Ryan, with 4.5 pints of Guinesses already in his system, insisted that he didn't know her. He wished he knew her. She shyly unhooked her arm around him and retreated to regain her three feet of personal space. Ryan then cursed the Truth Serum he had in his hand, cold, dark, and weighing like a milkshake in his stomach yet making his mind light as a feather.

We talked with his buddy Kevin and we all decided to do a rave night sometime before April.

Soon, we flitted back to the back of the bar where we saw Sara talking with a morose-looking guy in search of what he wanted in life. The guy with the green soccer shirt, light hair, and light eyes asked me how old I was. I told her I was old and Sara piped up that we will be happy with taking 25 as my age. The guy made a guess that I was 23.

There's another 23 guess! Dear Lord up above! I'm racking these killer guesses in! In Brazil and throughout my travels, most people thought I was 23-25 and not the spinster-like age of 30 that I actually am! They gasp when I tell them my real age, disbelieving.

I told the guy my real age and I didn't mind at all. But no, no digits were exchanged since they guy had to leave. We had to leave too and we were just there to give Sara our contact information. God help me in my entire trip I carried three pens in my messenger bag. Last night, I had none. Thankfully, Ryan had cards with him. He gave one to Sara. We promised to email each other.

When we stepped out of the bar, Ryan looked around. He told me he was looking for the swastika lamp-post around the corner. He told me a little history about Glendale and how there was an active Nazi party there in the 20s and 30s and some of the lampposts bore the swastika. Many of them had been taken down 10 years ago but some remain. He always makes a point to pee on the swastika lamppost everytime he came out of a bar. How fitting! But no lamppost was to be found so I just drove him home. I drove home in amazement because the last time I was at a drinking bar was when I was with Walt, Harry, and his friends in Arequipa, Peru watching a French butch lesbian sing French songs at a jazz bar.

I took the 5 North back home. It was 12:15 AM.

Afterglow

When word got out that I was back in town, my cell phone rang off the hook. Most of the calls were gigantic sighs of relief that I came back to the States in one piece. Ironically, I felt safer during the trip than I ever did here in Los Angeles where I am neighbors with gang members. My eyes rolled skyward in disgust when I came back to find gas prices at ridiculous levels and that we were going to war any minute now thanks to that moron in the White House I didn't vote for.

After spending most of the weekday catching up to two months of ignored mail/bills, I began to miss going vamos a bailar so my buddy Mike took me out to one of the clubs on Sunset. He said it was S*and*M night.

But we got there and found out that it wasn't S*and*M night. It was Transgendered Women Working As Strippers Night! Grown up Barbie dolls pranced around in sequined tank tops and short skirts showing off their breast implants. It was Rio and the mulheres all over again! ;) I told Mike that I wasn't even mildly surprised at the insanity I was seeing while he gawked at the work done on these men who are now very tall women. I saw all this and more in Rio and that my mulher-dar was in perfect working order, flawless, in fact. He was disappointed when I told him that all of the women in the club were mulheres and there were perhaps only five real women in the whole place including me. He was also disappointed that he failed to shock me. He certainly wasn't going to get a pick-up tonight from the chicks at the club!

The strip show was like any other strip show I had seen in my life: a series of mulheres would come up to the stage to dance, collect money by shoving thong-covered crotches and breasts upon the faces of the men and women in the audience, and conclude by taking off their top to show surgeon-created breasts complete with nipples. I have to admit, the man-made breasts I saw were better than the ones I had seen in Rio. You go, American plastic surgeons!

One of the mulheres there was indeed a perfect specimen of a life-sized Barbie doll. She had blond hair in wavy locks, full red-lined lips, large rubbery hips, large fake breasts, and a dental floss thong bikini on. She was getting the most money tucked between elastic. She was even bold enough to pull up her red panties to show perfectly sculpted nether-lips complete with moisture and folds a few shades darker than her skin tone. (You go, American plastic surgeons!) People gasped at her performance while I watched on, not surprised or shocked at all.

After the show was over and collective heartbeats returned to normal, the club opened the dance floor for dancing. There, I met one of the few real women in the place along with her other male friends who happened to have just wandered into the place when they saw a bunch of "women" coming in. They only wanted to find a place to dance. That was my intention too.

The real woman, Alex, was a wavy-haired brunette with brown eyes. She had a passing resemblance to Norah Jones. I don't know what sheen I came home with but I discovered that men and women wanted to talk with me when I told them that I had just come back from Rio, backpacking for a couple of months actually, and Carnaval and saw this kind of insanity there. I easily got into conversations with complete strangers! In fact, while I was ordering bottled water at the bar, a so-so looking guy started talking with me and when he began to talk about right-wing politics, I quickly made some excuse to get out of the bar area. I quickly became friends with Alex, who came from Germany, even getting her cell phone number. I offered to check on my network for her about video editing job leads. (k-fiasco)

After a few minutes, I heard the hostess call for last call. I sadly realized that I was back in puritanical America and that my tiempo para bailar, time for dancing, was coming to a halt soon. I complained to Alex, while my buddy Mike embarrasingly stared at her rubbery dancing, that we had come from places where clubs closed at sun-up or never. We lamented the unfairness of it all.

Soon, the club closed and we were herded out. The Barbie doll blond was behind me and I heard her speak to another mulher. Her voice still had a tinge of manly baritone to it.

As Mike and I walked back to my car and getting crap from the guy minding the parking lot that we weren't supposed to park there after two (Ocedero! Ocedero! This country is filled with ocederos!), I told him that exactly a week ago to the day, we were still out in Rio De Janeiro having dinner at 11:00 PM and getting ready to go out (we didn't. We passed out instead.). I shook my head, saddened.

I got home at the heartbreakingly early time of 3:00 AM.

Welcome back to the States, traveling girl!

The next day, I met up with Mike and the rest of the group because Leo turned 30. We had a quiet dinner at a restaurant in the South Bay while rain poured outside. Everyone was looking awesome! It was as if all of a sudden, everyone was being really good about keeping their New Year's Resolutions! We then went to see a movie.

Quite a few of my friends told me that I had changed quite a bit from being away. The hair color was one. My tan was another. The weight I lost was another one. I really didn't lose any weight. I just got leaner. The scale still pointed to the same numbers now and before I left for the trip. I guess lugging around a 150-lb backpack through nine countries will do wonders to one's body. And there was a certain something too...

I just shrugged. Je ne sais quoi...

I came home at the heartbreakingly and lamentably early time of 12:30 AM.

God help me! I am not coping very well!

Sunday, I met up with my friend Joel T (See Monster Ball - January 19, 2003) to drop off the present I got him for his birthday that I missed. I was still in Rio when I got the invitation. I told him stories of my adventures. He said my club fiascos at least gave me a glimpse of how it feels like to be a gay man. ;) Wow! It must be fun to be a gay man then!

Today is St.Patrick's Day and I made a date to meet up with my buddy Ryan for real drinks for him and watered-down cocktails for me. Ryan is one of my poet friends (his book of poetry, In A Blink of an I is available at Amazon.com) and while I was in Argentina, he invited me to go to The Burning Man celebration at the end of North American summer (Jan-Mar is South American summer ;).). I agreed. Besides, I have Bukowski-type tales to tell him.

So that's been my weekend. Drive carefully tonight, todos! (everyone!)

Post-Vacation Depression

I've been here in the States for two days and I'm itching to get the heck out of here again. While the Van Nuys Flyaway breezed up the 405 late Monday morning, the buildings that used to look familiar to me looked alien and I felt totally displaced. Already, I was feeling as if the 50 days prior happened to someone else or it was a dream.

Needless to say, I hated being back.

Even before I left Brazil, I made the decision to possibly live 6 months in Arequipa and 6 months in Rio next year. That would mean I would have to be a tax-paying working schmuck for the rest of the year while I work on the first draft of my travel novel. I would also need to learn how to speak better Spanish and basic Portuguese between now and December.

*sigh*

Balance of work and play. Balance of making a living and living life.

So let me talk about what I did during Carnaval week:

Sabado, 1 Março 2003
Foz Do Iguaçu was oppressively hot. It was the hottest place we had been so far during the trip. Hotter than Nicaragua. Hotter than Buenos Aires. Hotter than Panama. During high noon, it was 42°C (107.6°F), 100% humidity. I was sweating in sheets and wishing for the tiniest breeze. But we were lucky if we had that because Foz was a few hundred miles inland and the next big body of water was the river from which the Cataratas came from.

It was beautiful and breathtaking. I had never before seen so many waterfalls in hundred feet steps in one spot before in my life. If anything, such a sight made me see the true grandeur of nature. I had seen many examples of grandeur but this one, these waterfalls, left Walt and I awestruck. (Go to the internet and do a search on Foz Do Iguaçu.)

Besides, walking along the catwalks at Foz completely drenched us with falls-spray, not doing much to keep my white tank top, sans bra, dry. (Wait for pictures in the next few weeks.)

After we had our fill of the Cataratas, we got on a bus back to town and met up with a woman in the back of the bus who admitted to us that she was learning how to speak English. Walt and I talked with her, him mostly in Portuguese and I mostly in very slowly enunciated English. We learned from her that there was a Carnaval going on in the streets later that afternoon: there was going to be a drag queen contest. The drag queens were straight men all dolled up in women's clothes and makeup and who ever looked the best won.

We got there and were met by a couple of hundred cross-dressed men, 90% of them obviously straight.

I sat back and enjoyed the insanity. I told Walt that I wished more men in the US would do this type of thing for the sheer fun of it. But American culture is mostly homophobic and such a thing would never fly in the States, San Francisco perhaps, but not in back-country towns such as Foz. We also saw a little bit of what to expect in Rio with the je ne sais quoi, carefree, no-stress attitude of the Fozleiros. There was a point when a drunken man wearing a black and red-rose printed rayon dress and large-brimmed black hat carrying silk roses and a bag of confetti came up to another man wearing a short white wedding dress complete with white pantyhose, silk panties, white gloves, veil, and bouquet of flowers and threw a fistfull of confetti into his open mouth! The guy in the wedding dress just grimaced, spat the confetti out, and rinsed his mouth out with a piece of bread to chew. He never gave the guy with the black dress a nasty look or angry yell. In the States, the guy who threw the confetti would've been mad-dogged, if not punched already.

How refreshing! How come Americans are not like Brazilians?

We watched the pagentry and picked up some language basics like how to say "Excuse me" (licença) and honed our mulher-dar (a variation of gay-dar) to spot the transgendered women from the straight guys or the gay men in the crowd. For the first few hours, our mulher-dar was so wacked, even Walt was having problems. (That's saying A LOT about the transgendered women.) As it got dark and halfway through the mulher parade, we left to get ready to catch our bus to Curitiba.

The next morning, we got to Curitiba and found a beauty salon in the bus station that rented showers. But when we got there, it wasn't open yet so we had breakfast in the meantime. During the beginning of the trip, I invented a little saying that pretty much embodied the sanitary habits of Filipinos such as I when it comes to dealing with heat and humidity: "Una Paula limpia es una Paula feliz." ("A clean/showered Paula is a happy Paula.") Since we had gone south of Guatemala, Walt knew that I would be showering as often as three times a day, depending on how humid it was and how much I sweated that day. That breakfast seemed the longest in history while I waited to shower.

After that, we explored the town. Our flight from Curitiba to Rio wasn't going to be until later in the afternoon anyway.

Rio At Last!
After an hour or so in the plane, we got to Rio in the thick of the first official night of Carnaval/Sambadromo. At first we didn't realize it was the first day of the Sambadromo, where the samba escolas paraded down the street downtown. This is the Carnaval that Americans know most. But as expected, we didn't have any lodging and we spent the next couple of hours in the airport securing lodging by calling. We finally found an available room right in Copacobana. A miracle!

But things couldn't be too good to be true. The room was very expensive and we had to take it for four days and pay in cash. Needless to say, we had to concoct some story to prevent us from paying $585 USD they extorted from us. We did. ;)

After dumping our stuff into our room, took a shower, got dressed in the skimpiest pieces of clean clothing we had left, we stepped out into the insanity of the street parties outside. We saw many Brazilians and foreigners dancing drunkenly on the wide mosaic-tiled sidewalks of Copacobana and Ipanema.

Sadly enough, I wasn't feeling like partying that night. I opted to return to the hotel and sleep while Walt decided to visit a gay bar in Copacobana. Obviously, Rio was the most "out" city we had been to during the whole trip.

Segunda-feira (Monday), 3 Março 2003
I woke up the next day aghast at myself for doing perhaps the dumbest thing I had ever done in life: spending a night sleeping during Carnaval in Rio De Janeiro. Walt verbally bitch-slapped me by asking me to remember where I am, Rio, and what time of the year it was, Carnaval week, and what one of my life-goals was, to witness Carnaval. Sleeping wouldn't fulfill anything, that's for sure. So we determinately went out to find out the 411 on how to see the Sambadromo. Well, but not before breakfast.

Breakfast for us was 11:00 AM due to our oversleeping. We walked to a nearby sidewalk cafe on Avenida N.S Copacobana and ordered. Next to us sat locals (who we would later befriend) who ate simpler than us. Walt leaned over and asked the man next to us for the time and info on how to get to the Sambadromo. Sergio told us some local insight about going to where the carros (floats) got ready before parading. He also volunteered his services to be our local guide. We were surprised! We had been wishing for a local Brazilian palanca (guide) since we got to Foz and here we were getting one! Halleluja!

We were told that we were going to meet our palanca at our hotel at 4:00 PM. We exchanged information.

Later that day, we waited and didn't find our palanca. We were heartsick and thought that perhaps our palanca ditched us. We still went to Praça Onze to watch the floats.

While walking around Praça Onze, we were approached by the scalpers. The prices ranged from outrageously expensive for the bad seats (Setor 1, 13, and 6) to cheap. We decided to purchase cheap seats on Setor 6 for Reais$30 a piece. We got back to the hotel, showered once again and were bummed when after coming out of our room, we saw angry fingers of lightning outside and rain fell in torrents.

Since January, we had been carrying around American-grade trash bags that served us very well in Argentina to carry the shoes we had purchased in Imelda Marcos fashion. We whipped them out and with a bit of hesitation, made them into makeshift ponchos. Feeling rather foolish, we went outside to meet the warm summer rain.

We didn't get drenched. On the contrary, as people stood under awnings in shorts and tanktops without umbrellas gawking at us, we happily skipped over puddles, opened our mouths to the sky to taste fresh rainwater, and enjoyed the feel of rain falling over our plastic-wrapped bodies on our way to the Metro. It was liberating. We didn't care one bit about looking utterly ridiculous wearing trashbags and playing in the rain.

We got out of the subway and by that time, the rain had stopped. We only missed 45 minutes of the Sambadromo. :)

Ah! The Sambadromo! Such insane floats, insane costumes, and even more insanely body-painted or pastie-clad women. Such pageantry! (I have pics of the floats from afar with the women barely discernable.) We decided that either next year or the year after, Walt and I will definitely have to samba as a parader. :)

We ended the night tired and not seeing all the escolas. The parade was going to continue until 6:00 AM. We stayed only until 4:00 AM.

Terça-feira (Tuesday), 4 Março 2003
Before we left the hotel the night before, we had called our palanca and left a message in an answering machine. When we called back, we were bummed when we found that it wasn't Sergio that came to be our palanca but his younger son Bruno who sat next to us the day before. We didn't recognize him when he waited at the hotel for us. We were expecting his dad. We apologized profusely and made another date for Tuesday afternoon.

With that settled, we walked around Copacobana, found a place that sold food by the kilo (grams) and ate there. We had good, cheap, local food and drank local guarana soda. We did a little bit of shopping before returning back to the hotel to shower and get ready for our day with our palanca.

Bruno is a typical Brazilian, good-looking, olive-skinned, curly-haired and very good natured. After pleasantries, he took us to Santa Teresa for the Carmelitas carnaval, to Lapa to samba some more on the darker side of the town where I (due to the adult nature, even if it wasn't X-rated, of this event, you will just have to buy the book to read it) learned a little bit about Brazilian culture and the concept of "sharing".

Afterwards, we went to see where the mulheres worked as prostitutes. The wide, tree-lined streets near the arches of Lapa felt safe enough with our local as we saw people along the side of the road rolling marijuana cigarettes.

We had made ourselves a friend by the end of the night. :)

Quarta-feira (Wednesday), 5 Março 2003
We took the day to run errands as if we were residents of Rio. We went to do laundry, ate at the restaurants, walked around Copacobana and Ipanema to take photos, and shopped for souvenirs to send back home. (G-shop) Besides, we needed to do all this because tomorrow Walt's friend Kent was flying in from San Francisco to join us and that was when we were going to do all the touristy stuff we had planned like Pão de Açucar and Corcovado. I took a nap for a bit before Walt walked back into the hotel asking to go out for dinner. It was 11:30 PM.

Throughout the trip, Walt and I had occassionally become vampires. We were already used to getting up late at night to go out or to eat. There had been many a time when we would run straight from a club, with the smell of cigarette smoke and alcohol clinging to our clothes or reeking from our breaths, to catch a bus or a flight at dawn. Getting no sleep in some nights didn't bother us at all unlike when we first started off. We even noticed that the further south on the hemisphere we went, the later the clubs opened. We didn't have a choice but to adapt to this new schedule.

Walt wanted to speak with the locals and improve his Portuguese so we decided to eat a little something on one of the beach-shacks. We chose one where a few gay men sat on plastic chairs sipping drinks. There were a few women around too. We ordered pizza and asked to have it cooked in the toaster oven instead of the microwave.

Paolo and his one friend sat with two puppies, Pingo, a miniature Rottweiler, and Toby, a huge mutt. Dogs have universally been a big conversation piece and it was true in Rio too.

Paolo was a Bahian shaman who taught us about orixias, the Christianized gods of the African slaves brought to Brazil during the colonial days. After a while of conversation, he got information from us and he even invited us to go to his house for some rice and beans.

From Backpackers to Vacationers
March 6th. Today was the day we ceased to be backpackers to become vacationers. In fact, we had a feeling that the actual date we stopped shoestringing it was when we got on the plane from Panama City to Lima, Peru. That was the flight where, with enough bitching and asking for an upgrade, we ended up flying business class with our economy class tickets. We should've seen that as foreshadowing.

Kent works as a doctor in San Francisco and he said that since he was now part of the travel group, there was no need to shoestring. Besides, we wasn't very keen on living like a backpacker--living in hovels for hotels and bussing. Not that there was any bussing left to be done. Rio was the end of our line.

We got onto a Real bus to the Aeropuerto Internacional (GIG) for a mere Reais$5.00 person to pick up Kent. Walt had not seen Kent for a total of 46 days.

After having lunch and moving out of our Copacobana hotel to a posh Leblon one facing the ocean, we took Paolo up for on his offer. We went to his little apartment where we found out about our own personal orixias. We met his little monkey (a miko) chained to the window and living in a box. We saw the dogs again and pretty much had interesting conversation in his hot little apartment.

Later on in the night, we went to eat at a churrascaria. Finally! After being in Brazil for 5 days, I finally had a chance to check off something from my "must eat/try" list.

Corcovado and Christo Redentor
Strangely enough, I stopped doing my vampire thing and woke up at the decent hour of 9:00 AM. I showered, went downstairs to take advantage of the free breakfast buffet that Walt finagled from our current hotel. It was good! I had maracujá (passion fruit), cherimoya (Philippine Atis, no American equivalent), abacaxi (pineapple), mangoes, and papaya slivers. I then skeedaddled to the correio (post office) and bought some selos (stamps) to paste onto my Rio postcards to home.

By the time I came back to the hotel, Walt and Kent were awake.

We took the Metro and when we got to our stop, we took another bus that took us to the entrance of the Trem Do Corcovado, the trolley that took us to the top of Corcovado to see the Christo Redentor (Christ Redeemer). The gigantic statue of Jesus with his arms extended was the most recognizable attaction in all of Rio next to the distinctive tiles on the famous beach of Copacobana. Yes indeed, Brazil was certainly a Catholic Latin American country. It wasn't missing a statue of Jesus in a very public place. On the top of Christo Redentor, one could see a breathtaking view of Rio and how stunning this city was. In fact, I hope this picture does justice to what we've seen atop this monument.


Atop this monument, we were typical bad tourists: we hogged the best spaces to take photos and we even went the extra mile to take photos. We even went as far as actually lying on our backs to take the perfect photo of Jesus with us in the frame. We even saw a string bikini topped mulher with Daisy Duke shorts who needed surgery to make her face more womanly with a foreign man with mascara in his eyes. She posed with the policemen of Christo Redentor.

After our tour, making comments about the construction workers atop the mountain that way too many of them don't know that they were good looking enough and tall enough to be supermodels in the United States, we went back to Copacobana to hit the comida a kilo place I found days before. I had my standard feijão y arroz (rice and beans) with meat and veggies.

By the time we were done eating, it was time to go back to the hotel and nap before going out. Kent didn't want to go out and after we got done showering, Walt asked me to pick a club to go to, any club. I tried to and found myself with the guide book smashed against my face, wearing clothes to go out a few hours later. I had fallen asleep and woke up too late to go out. So did Walt.

Pão de Açucar
Every day we ended up waking up earlier and earlier to a point when I started worrying about my ability to cope with the jet lag I was going to encounter in a few days. Rio is a whopping five hours ahead of Los Angeles and I wasn't looking forward to being totally sleepy at 9:00 PM Pacific time. Also, I had gotten used to partying every weekend that I was going to miss going vamos a bailar (go out to dance/clubbing) either on Fridays or Saturdays.

Because we passed out the night before, we had ample time to go downstairs for breakfast at an amazing 8:00 AM.

After breakfast, we decided to do the second part of our trip up the highest parts of Rio: Pão de Açucar.

We took another Metro ride, got off at Zona Sul (a Rio shopping center), and took a taxi to where the bondinho (cable-lift) was that would take us to the top of Pão de Açucar. We did all the touristy things like we did the day before: taking photos, talking with locals, exploring the trails, seeing wild animals, and sweating ourselves thin.

Since it was a Saturday and I only had two days left before I had to leave, we decided to do a little shopping, eat, and this time, go out dancing. I told Walt that I would be damned if I didn't go out dancing on my last weekend in Rio. After having dinner and getting stuck in the rain, we returned to the hotel.

Since we were amply rested, we finally got a chance to go out. We went to a club in Copacobana where we paid a rather large cover charge only to be disappointed at the strange mix of American music they were playing. I told Walt that the DJ was on drugs for mixing club/rave music with 80s music. Needless to say, I gagged at every other song. But the place was packed with mostly straight people, a handful of gay people, and the obligatory mulher. The mulher in the club was with a witless American man (he was wearing tennis shoes, that's why we knew) who was dancing terribly while she ground and gyrated above a platform at him. She took turns drinking from some cockail while he made out with her. Walt and I were morbidly staring thinking that the man was a fool for not knowing that he was kissing another man albeit in a dress and with breast implants!

I had developed a liking for the Brazilian alcoholic drink called Caipirinha made out of cane liquor, limes, ice, and sugar. Knowing that it was my last Saturday in South America, Walt and I ordered one each and cheered for a journey well done and for all the mulheres of the world for entertaining us! But that ordering allowed me to watch the bartender as he fixed us our drink. In the 10 seconds it took to make the drink, I had learned how to make it by watching him intently.

I didn't let the fact that the music sucked kill my last dancing day. During the times when the DJ played decent dance music, I broke out in rave dance moves, dancing circles around people, all arms and legs and being blissfully happy.

After a tiring night, we went home, I feeling a little nauseous from drinking too much.

Ripped
Sunday was the day that Walt and Kent decided to take a ferry to Paquete Island. I opted to stay behind because I was not fulfilling one task on my list of things to do in Rio: to get a bikinin/Brazilian wax in Brazil. Both guys shuddered at the fact that I was willingly going to do such a thing. I had to so I could wear the scandalous string bikini I bought the night before.

So while they were out biking on the island, I was getting hair ripped out of me, not a small feat since I had to go back to the Leblon salon I found a couple of days prior to get the procedure done and request for it in extremely limited Portuguese.

I then hit the beach and was totally bummed that the sun was not cooperating. After sunning in vain both at the beach and at the 27-th floor pool of our hotel, I went back to our room and began to sadly pack.

Later on, the guys came back and told me of a wonderful day at Paquete Island. I didn't feel jealous at all because I had something up my sleeve. I wasn't going to miss that island next time and next time might be sooner than what everyone thinks.

We had dinner and went to another place to have a drink. I had coffee and afterwards, a caipirinha. During our travels, we had found out that I react differently to different kinds of liquor. When I had a caipivodka, I got ill quicker. The Pisco Sour I nursed in Arequipa and all the caipirinhas I drank slowly made me feel pleasantly warm and happy. During our last night in Rio, I was happy with my watered-down caipirinha.

Even before we got to Guadalajara, Walt and I have developed a vocabulary that we have been using based on events that have occured during the trip. Our words include our verb Ocedear, "do a Panama" (get run over), "pull a Nicaragua" (get kicked out of a bar or... *ahem*), "it's nah-nah-nah time" (to go out clubbing with the intention of getting wasted or laid), "go Imelda Marcos on me" (shop uncontrollably, mainly for shoes), and our latest one mulher-food, meaning to order or get food with something inside it that we didn't expect. Walt ordered a little blob of chocolate ice cream and he was surprised to see a core of vanilla ice cream in it.

The open-air restaurant we went to in Copacobana had always been hopping since we got there that Sunday. The thing is, Walt found out that right above the restaurant was a strip club hence, it was frequented by hapless foreign men with money to spend. Kent was aghast when he realized that the bar we were in was a "ho-bar" as he called it. Aggressive transgendered men and female prostitutes would sit with men drinking alone or in groups to make them think they're getting lucky. Walt and I were tickled watching the absurdity before us, hapless men being drunk and horny with prostitutes.

With morbid curiosity and biological need, I went to the ladies room and found the motherlode of mulheres. They were all there getting primped for their customers. When I got back to our table, Walt and Kent said that some mulheres were looking their way, thinking that they were fair game to be approached and picked up. I was aghast and the guys shivered at the possibility.

After a few drinks, Walt bought a laser pointer and started making trouble with it by intermittently pointing the pointer at the cleavage of a blond prostitute sitting 20 feet away from us. He was doing that for 30 minutes while he and I laughed uncontrollably. I guess someone told her what the deal was because after 30 minutes, she walked to Walt, all attitude and started prying the pointer from his hand. He didn't let go. They had a verbal arguement about the pointer. Walt later translated that she told him that if he didn't stop he was "going to find out what she would do." That by itself was enough to make Kent shake his head at our immaturity. Thankfully, our bill was paid before the blond prostitute got a chance to scratch Walt's face off or have her pimp punch his lights out. We quickly left.

At the hotel, I tried to finish off the last of my packing. I was totally bummed. I then set my alarm to wake up at 9:00 AM. Ah! An alarm clock! I was feeling sadly American already. :(

Day 50 - March 10, 2003: Already Feeling American and Hating It
During the trip, I had forgotten how to write dates in the MM/DD/YY format because in Latin America, it's the DD/MM/YY format. So for me to purposely write dates the American way made my stomach churn. If it wasn't for my money issue, I wouldn't come back at all. I didn't have a boyfriend. I don't have any children. I have a college degree in English Education. I had every means to stay in Latin America save for money and a few responsibilities like upcoming bookreadings, upcoming story deadlines, credit card and car payments. Heck, I even have a place to stay in Arequipa, Peru.

So with a heavy heart, I did the last of my shopping: caipirinha liquor, soap, and nabbed sand from Copacobana and Ipanema beach. I sadly got into the last of the combis I had learned how to take over the past few days, getting cozy with the locals as they commuted down Avenida Atlantica.

Walt and Kent came with me to the airport to make sure that I was okay with my baggage. I started off with my backpack and a messenger bag and I now had an extra roller-duffle bag for my own Imelda Marcos-like purchases. During the day, I sadly recalled the last of the Brazilian type foods I enjoyed: mate (tea), stuffed churros, maracujá mousse, and vowed that next time I come to Brazil, I will eat them again. The next time after I come to Brazil or anywhere in South or Central America, I will be living there for a few months or even an entire year.

In the plane doing the Rio > São Paolo > Houston route, a long 10-hour overnight flight, I began to hear English all over the cabin and speakers. I saw an American mom, overweight and fussy, with her calmer Brazilian husband ocede-ing over her children who grimaced at her and asked her what was wrong with her for being a spaz. I felt sicker by the minute. I was going to go back to a country full of these spazball moms and people needing fucking therapy or a diet or a good roll in the hay. I. Did. Not. Want. To. Come. Back. DAMN IT! GRRRRR!

Balance of work and play. Balance of making a living and living life.

I have my work cut out for 2003 so for 2004...

I had fallen in love with a continent and rediscovered a more renewed sense of wonder.

I'll be back. Promise.

What I Did This Summer

Today is now day 49 of my trip and I am very sad that I have to return to the States. In the 50 days that I have been away, my view of Americans and my home has changed drastically. In the beginning, I was actually proud of being an American but now I hang my head in shame. First off, I discovered some weirdness in the psyche of Americans in general. Compared to the very warm and open people of Central and South America, Americans have this "distance" about them. When people greet you with a "cheek-kiss" (cheeks touching with a kissing sound), you discover that the American handshake with the three feet of space is so cold and distant.

There are way too many poor children in the world who have to work for a living shining shoes despite the fact that they don´t even have flip flops to cover their feet.

There are way too many elderly selling cigarettes and candy in smoggy urban cities when they should be just sitting at home watching novelas but no, they are destitute and must work.

Americans in general are cold, distant, over-fed, greedy, self-absorbed, prudish, hateful, narrow-minded, and a judgemental lot. We as a people certainly can learn a lot from the very friendly Brazilians and the rest of Central and South America. Needless to say, I made friends and I made friends during this trip. ;)

I´d like to talk more about what happened during Carnaval but I think I´ll save it for another day. For now, I have a few bottles of Caipirina mix to buy.

Either that or just buy the book when it´s published. I´m tentatively titleing it 50 Days in Latin America or maybe my editor might change that title, that is, if it´s not a home run title...

So until I come back! I promise to write about Carnaval week. But here´s a few teasers:

- We got scalped tickets to see the Sambadromo
- We got ourselves a Brazilian palanca who showed us what the locals do for Carnaval!
- Paula shares something with a local... hmmm, I wonder what? ;)
- There are way too many "mulheres" in Copacobana. Mulheres with commas? What does that mean?
- Partying on the weekend in Rio
- Paula´s scandalous bikini!

So until next time! Bom noite em muito obrigado! (Goodnight! and thank you very much!)

Finally Rio De Janeiro for Carnaval 2003!

As you all know, I have a List of Things To Do Before I Die. One of them contains this:

Go to Rio De Janeiro and attend CARNAVAL!

Checked! Done it! Crossed off the list!

I will now go outside and lounge at the beach here in Avenida Atlantica in Copacobana! Until next time!