Tales From The Stable - Part 2

"Amongst the mud portraits, scribbled maps and unfinished poems in my moleskin there are some scraps of what could pass as a diary. I have included them here for your viewing pleasure and to give you a little background on the early days of Casa Murilo, or Dr Chocolate and the Salvadors as they were back then. It’s been an interesting ride..."

December 2007.

We had arrived. At least we thought we had arrived. We were about to climb into what appeared to be a home-made pick-up truck. I think it once was a car. And a small car at that. Now, thanks to some rural jeitinho, she has a wooden platform on the back with some tin sides half nailed, half welded on. The driver laughed at the mention of a seatbelt and, with guitars braced between legs, fedoras pulled down firmly and knuckles white we bump off down the dusty track like contestants on some kind of TV game show version of Buckaroo.

It’s noisy, it’s dusty and everyone is squinting and shouting. As we crest a particularly militant bump I lurch to my right and as I strain to see what suddenly created this space I see the side of the truck dragging along the floor and my dear friend Jobbo dangling precariously by Dan’s guitar strap just above it. It´s like the closing scene of Bond movie. His feet are thrashing about like a man who has just been hung, and how nearly he was just drawn and quartered. He is pulled back into the truck and everyone exchanges those relieved looks and puffs a bit. Jobbo lights a trembling cigarette.

For dinner this evening we went to one of the two restaurants in the village. The first option was a lady’s front room, and, not having enough chairs for us all, we went to the pizza place instead. The menu is a single, laminated piece of A4 with main courses on one side and dessert on the other. For main course there is a pizza. Dessert is exactly the same pizza with banana on it. Not a great deal of choice but what they do, they do well. We are particularly fond of the local honey and Cachaça mixture that sits in plastic bottles on every table. Alcoholic sugar, mmmmmmmm.

Jobbo is sat on his bed, he has one eye closed and is peering into the top of a whiskey bottle. “Teacher’s, Teacher’s what will you teach me today?” It is 9am. It would be fair to say he has not dealt with near death too well so far. It is Christmas Day and we are going hiking. Not to take Jobbo´s mind off things but because that is what one does when in a National Park in the North East of Brazil. Especially when at the foot of the Misty Mountain Trail...