These are my Momentos, short personal diary entries I write daily – since 2013 – and publish monthly. Some links are affiliate links.
1
Two weeks ago I called myself a pussy for not making faster moves on a girl. But I’m not going to do that anymore. I wouldn’t put up with someone else speaking to me that way, so why should I accept such abuse from myself? Instead, I should look to uncover my feelings and needs. Two weeks ago, I was feeling frustrated because I had a need to be assertive and dominant.
2
My sex drive is back in full swing, spontaneous erections, waking up in a tent… feeling more self-assured of late. What changed? My best guess is diet. When I went paleo last year I cut way down on carbs and that’s about when the little fella started having trouble. Eating more bread, rice and pasta seems to have righted the whip.
3
You take more risks when you’re about to leave a place, try to leave nothing unsaid or undone. Why not, right? You’ll be gone soon anyway. And so my last week in a town is usually the most fun, the most honest, the biggest rush. These final days are the deathbed of a vagabond, but a death made sweet because he’s certain to be reborn.
4
Back of a cab and we’re having a threesome: me, her and Google Translate. “I want you to make love to me all night,” she writes. Sorry, I reply. It’s my time of the month. She smiles that mischievous smile and taps back, “No problem. I can do you from behind.”
5
I’ve invited her over tonight. No, not her. A different girl. We’ve been exchanging flirty texts all week. But my conscience has me conflicted. Should I tell her she’s not the only one, that someone else shared my bed just a few hours before? If she asks I’ll be honest, of course. But if she doesn’t, should I be the one to bring it up? I’d feel sneaky keeping quiet.
6
I lie awake until the birds chirp watching weepy YouTube videos. My last night in Belo Horizonte, and I’m lonely. I want to feel. I want to cry. I’ve gotten close to some beautiful people in this town, and now I’m leaving them all behind, starting over, once again. It’s been three years of this. Hurts more than it used to.
7
Twenty minutes into a 24-hour bus ride, just typed a thousand words in my lap to try unjumble the mad mix of thoughts and emotions running through me. We’re out of the city already, moon in full bloom. Leg room is lacking and my tired mind is annoyed by everyone around. Put your seat up. Stop being fat. Change your goddam ringtone.
8
I’m a little envious of the gringa I met on the bus. She’s less self-conscious, quicker to engage with the locals, even though her Portuguese isn’t much better than mine. Plus, her time is all her own. Right now she’s out on the balcony chatting and making new friends while I try catch up online. That’s the downside of this lifestyle. I’m never fully traveling, never fully working.
9
Somewhere in Barra, over a shared dish of moqueca de camarão, she’s telling me about the Brazilian political situation and upcoming elections. I’m trying my best to pay attention, calling upon my training, resisting the urge to imagine what will happen when we leave here, blinking back that glimpse of a first kiss.
10
A self-confessed sex addict, father a pastor, mother a professor, still living at home. I ask how many guys she’s slept with and when she last got laid. She’s worried I’ll judge, but if anything I respect her more for living true to her desires. Though it’s easy for me to feel that way when we’re locked away in a hotel room all evening, fucking each other’s brains out.
11
Moving fast through traffic and crowds, the bus to Fortaleza leaves in ten. I’ll make it with a minute to spare, somehow quick but unhurried. “What will you do for the next 20 hours,” her text reads. Sleep, meditate, write a bit, listen to some podcasts… but most of all, I’ll think of her and smile.
12
Winging it can be fun, but it can also be risky. Don’t roll the dice when it comes to safety, especially if you’re a woman traveling alone. One woman I met recently was asking for trouble, arriving in a strange town after dark with nowhere to stay, no map, no plan and low funds. That’s not adventure. That’s danger. Be responsible, plan ahead.
13
All alone in Fortaleza, and I try fight it for a bit, but soon settle in and embrace the solitude. I lay in my bunk for hours, recharging batteries and reading the bones of two books. I take a walk at sunset and find myself eating street food by a stage on the beach, surrounded by a thousand yellow shirts all singing seu nome é Jesus.
14
Not in my pocket, not in my bag. Mind racing. I think back to the lady on the city bus earlier, how she cuidado’d me with my phone out and I yeah-yeah-yeah’d her back, finding her caution overblown. I think she was telling me she’d been robbed twice on that bus, but I didn’t want to hear it. And now… fuck. Those kids a minute ago, right alongside and me distracted.
15
A 26-hour bus journey ahead. I usually don’t read on the bus because of motion sickness. Twenty or thirty minutes and I start feeling woozy. But I’ve been thinking, surely that’s something that can be overcome, like seasickness or a shortness of breath at high altitude. The body can adapt. So today I’ll train my body.
16
Just arrived in Belém off a 28-hour bus, grabbing a bite to eat at the station. A middle-aged lady approaches, motions to my food, asks if she can have some. I order her a pastry, and she goes ahead and orders herself a juice to go with it. I raise an eyebrow. “Suco também? Eu compro?” She smiles and shrugs like the ten-year-old girl she used to be.
17
He excuses himself to go use the restroom. I never noticed him eyeing up the young dude who came through selling pastels, but a few minutes later he returns to his seat all giddy-like. “I give blow job,” he proudly informs me. As my mind mixes up a mash of shock, amusement and disgust, I reply that he’s got something on his chin.
18
I usually find safety warnings to be overblown. Stay sober, don’t get lost, avoid confrontation. That steers you clear of 95% of trouble right there. But I get the distinct impression here in Belém that people aren’t exaggerating when they offer words of caution. Not sure how anyone could live here long-term, always looking over your shoulder.
19
Holiday’s book is having an impact. An evening walk down by the river provides two opportunities to practice strong boundaries. First the homeless teen making a grab for the money I was using to buy him dinner, then the weird old dude who told me he loved the IRA, considered U2 synonymous with God, and wanted to exchange contact info.
20
The oldest market in Latin America, fruits and colors never before seen, stalls stocked with little black voodoo jars, shirtless men from fit to fat, old broken ladies, young gatinhas, stepping over deep gutters, the buzz of a thousand merchants, the taste of cupuaçu, smells unfamiliar, air like a wet dog, batuque music wafting through.
21
I wake up in a small dark room, her arm reaching for me. She cried in my arms last night, but I don’t know why; she doesn’t have words to explain, and I don’t have words to understand. She’s beautiful but has a sadness underneath that wants to be forgotten. I’d like to help her forget, but we’re not alone. Sleeping three feet away is a woman thirty years older with the same smile.
22
Somehow I end up paying the bulk of the bill, and it ain’t cheap. I’m not a foodie, hate splashing big bucks for a meal. But before I get all resentful with these people across the table, I remind myself that there’s what happens, and there’s how I choose to think about what happens. And so I decide not to choose resentment. I choose something else.
23
The sex feels fake and mechanical, wishing we’d said goodbye yesterday. I move to switch positions but she rolls to the side as if we’re done. “Duas vezes,” she smiles, then turns her attention to the TV. I stare at her, incredulous. “Eu não vezes,” I say. “Não estou feliz.” She smiles and shrugs, and I miss Salvador all the more.
24
Logan’s a good guy, has helped me out big-time the past week, giving me a quiet place to work at his school, introducing me to people, taking me out to the jungle. He’s here with his wife and baby, the business fueling his philanthropic work. Or at least, that was the plan. Today he tells me they’re out of funds, gotta shut it all down.
25
First day on the river and I spend most of it on deck, just looking. Women and kids row out to grab plastic-wrapped gifts thrown by passengers. Little shacks dot the banks, most with a satellite dish and laundry on the line. There’s the occasional church, flashes of pink dolphin, few men to be seen. We’re a thousand miles from Manaus.
26
We watch a red sun disappear above the horizon and beyond the river. The Amazon is so wide in places you can’t see the far bank. A slice of moon appears in the darkened sky, soon joined by ten-thousand stars and the ghostly smear of our galaxy. I think of the first men to sail these waters, navigating the unknown by these lights in the sky.
27
Santarém is a city of some quarter million people, located right where the Tapajós meets the Amazon, clear water refusing to mix with muddy for many miles downstream. It doesn’t feel like a jungle town, with GoPros in shop windows and speakers blasting political jingles all along the main thoroughfare.
28
We’ve fallen into an evening routine, grabbing dinner together before claiming spots near the bow to watch the sun sink and stars emerge. Beth is from England, Siobhán from Scotland, both traveling solo. We sit and talk about books read, places been, people met, and I usually come away thinking I spoke too much and listened too little.
29
She must be in her late fifties and built like a tree trunk. Standing there in my cabin, gesturing almost wildly, and I barely understand a word she’s saying. There’s money mentioned and I’m not sure what she wants it for. A tip? Can’t imagine how she earned it. But I want this to be over, and R$20 seems like a reasonable price to pay.
30
Reminiscent today. It’s been three trips around the nearest star since I left home. I’ve met a lot of people, been through snow and desert, over mountains, up rivers and across oceans. Now here I am in the middle of the jungle. But thinking back on these last three years, what makes me smile most is the memory of ringing that doorbell in Slieverue.