Blackberry. Blackberry. Blackberry.

Out of bed on the first triplet of horror. Slightly smug because the packing had come together so well the night before. Slightly queasy from having my insides pinched like a garden hose. There’s no telling what was trying to get out on each end. Slightly anxious about a new location and the logistical clusterfuck that usually results.

We weren’t terribly rushed, since our plane was at 10:30.

What the HELL am I talking about? We were going on TAM!!

We had a delicious last breakfast. Patricia had gotten up already, but Daniel was still delightfully comatose in the lair of cool. Here’s a great picture of Patricia and Robo. The subtext is startling and Nabokovian. It’s so odd that Robo insisted on using this particular coffee mug every day we were there. I saw him trying to put it in his suitcase, but the birds had condensed everything to an 18″x24″x6″ package, hermetically sealed it, and done the saran wrap treatment for free. He couldn’t get it in.

It was time to go. Daniel had appeared mysteriously, with manioc flour all over his mouth and a real desire to get out of there. Both guest families gratuitized Suely and Carmen for all their wonderful help during our trip. It was the perfect amount–more than a local would give, but not enough to convey the fact that American-sized tips are de rigueur.

We packed into the SUV, with D&P in the backback, Jean, Robo & Pettus in the middle seat, and Carol and me up front. My feet were already shoeless and on the dash by the time we had gotten our final (sob!) thumbs-up from the gate man and headed down the serpentine course to the airport for the last time. THIS time.

We got there about 8:30. Plenty o’ time. Uh. Yeah.

At first, we stood in an interminable line at TAM with only one agent. But not for near as long as usual. Pretty soon, the requisite 3 extra agents appeared magically, one even sorting the lines out into Rio and São Palo. Our line was shorter, and the agents, all cute Brazilian girls, zoomed us through the luggage check in and boarding pass retrieval. Jean of course tried to see if they were in the mood to bump us up to first class, but the agent looked at her like she didn’t understand.
By now we had decided that I needed potassium to help my depleted little system. I had eaten a banana for breakfast, wanting not much else but some bread. Carol recommended that I try coconut water. All the Brazilians drink it for electrolyte and potassium replenishment. It’s the water in a green coconut that has had the top removed. In Salvador, Rio, and all the beach cities, they serve coconut water fresh out of the coconut as much as they serve just about anything. We drank some in the Amazon. You’ll see!

But since there were no green coconuts and machete handy, Carol got it for me in a little plastic bottle at one of the myriad cool eateries in the airport. She and Robo got an espresso, Jean and Pettus got juice and Diet Coke, and I got plain coffee (along with my coconut water). I could tell it was healthful when I drank it, because it “tasted” healthful. Like, kind of, uh, like the stuff you drink before you have a colonoscopy. I couldn’t wait to have it STRAIGHT from the coconut.

After we choked down, I mean, enjoyed our drinks, I insisted on having Carol take me to the CD place in the airport to get some local music while they waited for TAM to open up our flight for boarding. It would surely take long enough to allow me to peruse the entire store. We had plenty of time. Really. According to TAM we did. So Carol and I cruised down there, went through a bunch of stuff aided by a helpful store guy who was merchandising but not pushy. I ended up with several CDs: a live Ivete Sangalo, a Carnaval sampler from 2007, Gilberto Gil retrospective, and Margareth Menzes’ Afropopbrasileiro.

The store had a (qweeka), one of my favorite Brazilian percussion instruments. I know I’ve misspelled it. Yes, I did. It’s “cuica”. The sound is like somebody kind of sobbing. Whenever I would imitate it (which was perfect in my head), I would get lousy reviews from any audience that heard it. I wanted to buy one, but thought it might be trouble to travel with. But I was beginning to waffle.

Oh well. I had no time to decide to get it after all, because we were frantically summoned by Patricia (or Daniel) (or both) to get out there! TAM was ready for us. We hugged goodbye, knowing that D&P would be joining us in a day. Leaving Carol was the real bummer. And leaving the whole air of friendly, energetic calm that permeates Bahian life was killing me. I didn’t know what Rio would be like, but had a feeling it was gonna be more “big city-like.”

But we weren’t out of there yet.

Once we made it in the ante-chamber of inspection, it was another case of power-mad airport people with nothing better to do than piss a bunch of people off. Oh it was wonderful. This time at least we had Robo and Pettus to bitch with. There were also several other people (who spoke English this time, though not Americans) waiting to get on this flight to Rio. The security people were letting people in at a rate of 1 every three minutes. Seriously. There was some kind of group there behind us and our miserable compatriots, trying to get on the plane with us. But this group was a bunch of greenies as far as OUR line was concerned.

Suddenly here comes this guy “in charge” of stuff, asking where we all were going. “Rio!” we all shouted, including the people in the group. This dipshit guy suddenly grabs the papers from this group guy and pulls the whole bunch in front of us, counting them as they marched smugly past us, their backpacks swaying, through security and into the inner sanctum.

Hooooo Boooy! Did this make a bunch of us mad. PARTICULARLY a pair of 60-ish women from a Balkan-area country who began to bitch LOUDLY in ENGLISH. Unfortunately, Balkan-English from two
old Balkan women has a concentrated amount of “bitch” in it, enough to make everybody cringe. Of course, this made the “guy” mad, and he began to not only ignore these two women, but began to take random people from behind us in the line, all the while punishing US because we were standing next to these women.

Everybody was hot, hot hot! It was the consummate Brazilian airport experience, though there would be so many others to follow. We finally got through at the eleventh hour. By then we were practically yanked through the line, then slung down the hall at a running gallop to some mysterious gate.

And yes, it was the classic “hurry up and wait” scenario again. We had the impression that our plane was taking off as we plummeted down the hallway to the gate. I didn’t want to have to chase the plane down the runway!

No. It was a few minutes before takeoff by whatever clock they were using. The line of people wasn’t too bad, but they were just standing there. We had time to go across the hall to a gift shop and buy several Salvador Tshirts, me buying a couple of Ivete Sangalo shirts in delicious double XL and 100% cotton to boot! I told the salesgirls about my suado-ness and how I had a crush on the beleza Ivete, then followed it with the Roy Orbison growl. They were giggling by then. No stopping me at that point. I began to gush over Salvador and the Bahians in my virgin Portuguese with all the sincerity that was deserved. They were the last Salvadorans we would see on the trip. Snif.

We went into the anteroom and got in line. There was a woman sitting on a mat against the wall meditating as we came in. How she did it there, I’ll never know. I’m sure it was to ease her fear of flying. I was sorry she had to do that, because I would have just had a few drinks. Maybe she had never thought of that. Hold it! We were going on TAM, the liquorless airline! I tapped her on the shoulder and asked her to scoot over. I was going to join her.

Eventually the line began to move, and we headed down the tube to the plane, stockyard fashion. It was as if there were going to be a man around the corner that was going to do a jackhammer on our heads as we passed by.

That’s about half right.