Making It Up As I Go Along (13 page)

Well, off we went on Valentine’s Day to
Brazil and, oh my God, Rio, it’s EXACTLY like it looks in the pictures. Copacabana was a
MASSIVE expanse of beach, jam-packed with millions of people all almost in their pelt, playing
music and drinking out of coconuts with the top lopped off and beautiful children running
everywhere and women not at all bothered if they didn’t have perfect bodies (fair play!)
and boys playing volleyball and football and the sun beating down and men selling ice cream and
all that.

Round the next headland was Ipanema beach and
that was exactly the same. Granted, it was carnival (or
carnaval
, actually) and it
mightn’t be like that the whole time but I’d like to think it is.

Being Irish, repressed, full of loathing for my
body and having received the message from the moment I was born that my naked self was a
disgusting, shameful thing and the best garment I could wear would be an all-over body-coverer
knitted in itchy wool, Rio came as a bit of a challenge to me. (Actually, now that I think about
it, it’s strange that the burka didn’t originate in Ireland. Not only would it fit
in with the message given by priests that all women are shameless hussies who are only gagging
for an opportunity to lure good men from the path of righteousness by flashing a square inch of
shin or elbow joint, but it would come in very handy with our wet weather. I love a hood. I
practically
insist
upon it when I buy a jacket.)

We arrived at the bright,
shiny hotel and even in the hotel lobby, people were wearing almost nothing. Lounging by the
concierge desk was a standard-issue Eurotrash international playboy with shoulder-length hair,
bright orange Speedo togs (the really, really small, tight, clingy ones –
budgie-smugglers, I believe they’re called), a matching (yes,
matching
) orange
T-shirt and – of course, you could have guessed this – a man-bag (sadly not orange)
tucked under his oxter. Himself and myself nudged each other and attempted a snigger, but it was
a little half-hearted because even then we intuited we were in over our heads.

After we washed away the grime of our journey,
timidly, tentatively, Himself and myself, in our roomy T-shirts and lightweight but nevertheless
ankle-length trousers, left our hotel, stepped outside into the Copacabana mayhem and were
instantly flattened against the pavement by the heat.

But I was reminded of what my friend Nadine had
told me about Miami. She said when she first arrived there she was intimidated to pieces by all
the tanned gorgeous bodies in dayglo-pink batty riders, driving around in convertibles and
playing Shakira, but a couple of days in, she had successfully infiltrated and was managing to
pass herself off as a native. And so it proved with me, my amigos! (Well, almost!)

As the days went on, I wore less and less until
the Damascene moment when I bared – totally! – my upper arms. In fact, I actually
had a bubble of time when I was able to say, God, I’m really happy. It was when I was on
my way back from an AA meeting (it was
unbelievable
, there was an English-speaking
meeting just four minutes’ walk from my hotel) and the sun was setting and everyone was
leaving the beach in droves and heading for the Metrô and here I was, walking along, with
the lumpy shame of my upper arms on view for all the world to see, and I was feeling
great. Alone but not lonely. A person among people. Lumpy arms or no, just
the same as everyone else.

I find it difficult to ever be truly at peace,
there’s always something that feels like a shark relentlessly on the prowl, somewhere deep
in my psyche. Even though I am the luckiest person on earth and have been given an amazing life,
it’s difficult to get the shark to stop moving, but it stopped while I was in Rio.

Now, I’m not suggesting that a permanent
cure for the shark would be to move to Rio, as shark-subduing is a lifelong journey of trying to
do the right thing, but it was so nice to get temporary relief, you know?

Our friends Eileen and her sister Deirdre were
with us in Rio and we did all the touristy yokes (Cripes the Redeemer and the Sugarloaf and all
that), but the best by a million miles was the night at the Sambadrome. I haven’t got the
words to do it justice. I found it very emotional. I actually cried (not something I do often,
except in the presence of Russian orphans) because I was so moved by all the work each school
had put into their parade.

The thought of people in the favelas, where
I’m sure life is not easy (I don’t intend to be patronizing, I really mean it),
working so hard and doing it with such pride and producing such a jaw-dropping spectacle (6,000
people dancing along in amazing costumes and on massive floats as big as a four-storey house)
overwhelmed me. Human beings are incredible, they really are.

Another thing about Rio, I hadn’t expected
the people to be so warm. I don’t know why. Maybe it was because we’d been warned
the place was so dangerous. (We were warned many times to be on the lookout for
‘mugglers’. It’s my new favourite word.) Or maybe it’s because the
natives are so good-looking. But they were astonishingly kind and likeable. Even the
journalists!

After six nights in Rio we said goodbye to
Deirdre, then
Himself, Eileen and myself headed for Manaus, gateway to the
Amazon. (That’s not their slogan, that’s just mine.) Manaus used to be a thriving
rubber port (not actually
made
of rubber), with its own
opera house
(I know!),
but it all went to hell when the arse fell out of the rubber market around 1910. It was an
atmospheric place, reeking of decayed grandeur. Himself said he felt like he was in a Gabriel
García Márquez novel.

After one night there, we went up the Amazon.
Ontra noo, Eileen and I were dreading the whole Amazon thing. We were staying
‘upriver’ in a lodge with no electricity or hot water, where we expected to be
overrun with mosquitoes, anacondas and tarantulas and – worst of all – where meals
were communal. God, there’s nothing worse, is there? Having to make small talk with
strangers over breakfast. Having to ask where they’re from and what they do and where
they’ve been and where they’re going next (then – aaarrrgggghhh –
discovering that you’re going to the exact same spot, that you’re not in fact an
intrepid traveller at all, merely the pawn of a travel agent).

Things got off to a bad start when, just before
we got on the boat, I discovered that I’d lost my sunglasses, so I had to very quickly buy
a pair in Manaus, and on account of having an abnormally small head my choice was limited. On
the boat, watching the banks of the river whizzing past, despair began to creep over me. I was
quite surprised as – after a lifetime of depression – I’ve perked up a bit
recently. Yes, everything began to appear malign and tinted with desperation, then I took off my
sunglasses – and everything cheered up! Put the sunglasses back on – and I spiralled
back down into gloom. Took the glasses off again – and once more all became cheery!

Then I realized that the problem wasn’t me
at all, it was the fecking sunglasses! There was a yellowish tinge to the glass. Not
on the actual
outside
of the glass – I wouldn’t run the
risk of wearing the same kind of sunglasses as Bono, as the chances of me being mistaken for him
are already quite high: we are both short, stout, stocky-thighed, have dark hair, an Irish
accent and always wear high heels. Also, I am quite a good singer. (This is a lie.) Also, I have
met the Pope and called him ‘dude’. (This is another lie.) Also, I have met George
Bush and said to him, ‘Hey, man, why can’t we all jus’ get along?’ (This
is yet another lie, but I am on a roll now and appear to be unable to stop.) Also, we both drive
Maseratis. (Would you believe it? This is actually true. There are – apparently –
only six Maseratis in the ROI (Republic of Ireland) and Bono owns one, and I (well, Himself
really) own another, and often, yes, often when I am out ‘motoring’, you see people
nudging each other, going, ‘Doesn’t Bono drive one of them yokes? It couldn’t
be Bono, could it?’ And then when I get closer and they see me behind the wheel, short,
stout, stocky-thighed, dark-haired, Irish-accented and singing, ‘In the
NAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMEHHHH of LOVVVVVVVE! WAAAHHHLURGHHHH ijeh name of LOVVVVVVE,’ they go,
‘Christ! It is! It is Bono!!!

Yes, so, anyway, the sunglasses. From the inside,
looking out, the sunglasses made everything look sort of jaundiced and appalling. How does Bono
do it? No wonder he goes around doing good works and badgering the oppressed and the needy if he
is looking at the world through jaundice-tinted spectacles. You’d
have
to try to
improve things, or else commit suicide.

So once that little problem was sorted out, all
was top notch and my time in the Amazon proved to be the greatest surprise of my life.

From the moment we arrived, we went all
floppy-limbed and soft-shouldered with humidity and relaxation and spent many
hours thrun in a hammock, reading. From time to time we roused ourselves to go alligator
spotting or get up close and personal with anacondas, sloths, toucans, piranhas and tarantulas
the size of dinner plates.

The best bit of all was going in a canoe into a
tributary of the Amazon, then a smaller tributary, then a smaller one, then a tiny one where the
boat moved almost silently through a drowned forest where the branches of the trees met overhead
and turned the light green and thin lines of blinding sunlight would appear through the cover of
branches and I felt like I was in a place where no other human being had ever been before.
Eileen said it was like being in
Apocalypse Now
. Even the shared meals weren’t a
problem. It was wonderful, really wonderful, and even if you’re afraid of everything, as I
am, I would urge you to go if you ever get the chance.

After four days we left for Patagonia. The thing
is, when we’d been planning the trip I hadn’t appreciated that Brazil is the fifth
biggest country in the world and Argentina is the eighth. I had just thought, ‘Well,
they’re next door to each other, and if we’re going to Brazil we might as well pop
into Argentina while we’re there.’

Big mistake, mucho grande mistake. It took two
full days to get from the Amazon to El Calafate in Patagonia (including an overnighter in Buenos
Aires. We arrived at 2 a.m. and left again at the break of day). Also, we crossed back and forth
so many fecking time zones in those two days that we didn’t know our arse from our elbow.

By the time we arrived in Eolo (twenty kilometres
outside El Calafate) on a Sunday evening, we were all in FOULERS. Knackered, tired and starving
hungry and sorry we had ever left the comfort of our own homes and embarked on so foolhardy an
adventure. We made a pact in the car from the airport that as soon as we
got to the hotel we were going to demand our dinner. ‘We’re not even going to check
in,’ I instructed Himself and Eileen. ‘Do you hear me?’

So I had to apologize to all the lovely staff at
Eolo who obliged us when I insisted that NO, we did NOT want to see our rooms, and NO, we did
NOT want a pre-dinner drink, and YES, we WERE going to go into the kitchen and COOK our dinner
OURSELVES if they refused to feed us IMMEDIATELY. Yes, I was very sorry indeed. The three of us
were very tired and hungry, but I have to admit that I was the ringleader. It was my fault. I
led the other two astray. I egged them on. (Hunger-based pun there.)

In the fifteen minutes before the food was put in
front of me I stared sightlessly out the window at the frankly astonishing view and bemoaned the
fact that we had ever come away and how I wished I was back home in lovely Ireland. I almost
sang a sad song about it, as is the way of Irish people when they are twenty minutes outside of
Ireland, except that I was too hungry to sing. (Which just shows how difficult it must be to
sing for your supper.)

In fairness to me, I did get my period the next
day, so not all of my bad behaviour can be blamed on my personality but on that wretched pest
progesterone (or is it oestrogen?).

Very, very early the following morning –
6.30 or something ungodly – the other two left to go trekking on a glacier. Himself tried
to get me out of bed but, still in the fiendish grip of excessive progesterone, I shrieked that
I was ‘going fucking nowhere’ and eventually, after I bit him for the second time,
he said, ‘Well, fuck you then,’ and stomped out in his crampons.

I slept until eleven, then emerged to roam the
halls, demanding (yet more) food, and as I shovelled complex carbohydrates
into me in front of a floor-to-ceiling window, I was restored to calm. This place was
INCREDIBLE. Over our days there we decided it would be a great place to come if you’d had
a nervous breakdown.

Have you been to Patagonia? If you haven’t
I’ll try to describe it. It’s all wild and windy and beautiful in a barren, bleak,
empty way, and if you stand in Eolo’s hallway and look one way you see the milky turquoise
of a glacier lake, and if you look the other you see the limitless expanse of a
mustardy-coloured plain, and if you look over your shoulder you’ll see mountains, with
another row of mountains behind them, and behind them the snow-capped beginnings of the Andes.

The staff in Eolo were incredibly kind and
obliging, and if you go on a walk they might give you a small bag of almonds and raisins, and
the place itself is full of cosy gorgeous couches and corners in which to read your book and
recover from your nervous breakdown. (Also, there were four puppies, which I think any
‘sanctuary’ should have.)

After a couple of days I emerged from my slump
and went glacier-visiting and hill-climbing and Eileen went horse-riding and all in all we had
an excellent wind-blown, outdoorsy, thousand-mile-stare time. (Also, apropos of nothing, the
local men were
excessively
good-looking.)