the long bus ride

Yesterday was a long day. I intended to visit the little town of Parati (Par-AH-chee) for a couple of days and hoped to catch the 12:15 bus out of Sao Paulo. Several people said it was the low tourist season and I should have no problem getting a bus ticket. However, after I took the metra about 12 stops and a transfer down the way, found the ticket office and found a man who spoke English, all the tickets for that bus were sold out. The next bus was at 1600h (4pm). It arrived at 2200h.

I bought the tickets and found a couple things to keep myself occupied for most of the time. First, I called the hostel in Parati to reserve a room. Since I arrived late, I wanted to be certain I had a bed.

I also bought a big bowl of Acai. This is a purple fruit original to Brazil and is dark purple. It is blended up into a gelato-like sweet substance and then usually served with bananas and granola. I had it for lunch with some pao du quiejo (cheese bread), and it filled me up. Besides filling me up, the bowl is packed with healthy stuff and tasted fantastic as well!

I like taking pictures of people, but hesistate to do so at times because some peopel are embarrassed, or it is impolite. However, this woman was a perfect subject with the light from a skylight at the bus station coming in just right!

Soon enough, we were loading the bus. There was a peculiar military-obsessed many who was waiting on a black tarp he had placed on the floor with a curious bag he cautiously held with him. He was brushing his teeth, and pacing around and such. I thought he was a bit odd, but he seemed nice enough.

He sat down in the bus, was obsessive about the reclining seats, cleaned the window, put up a plastic bag to block out the sun in his window, constantly adjusted his rings, and performed all sorts of hand and finger exercises.

Fifteen minutes, or so, into the ride, a British woman who I met shortly before came back to sit with me and told her this strange man in front of her had pulled a gun out of his bag. I hesistated to believe her, but he also pulled out some sort of sharp knife-like object and cleaned and sharpened it. He had all sorts of zip ties and thick tape that he ripped into pieces, and he was wearing an enormous climbing harness under his camoflauged jacket which, given the rest of his possession, could have been interpreted as quite explosive.

About this time, the woman in front of me started having a panic attack. She shook uncontrollably, and the British couple and I indicated to three Brazillians around us that the man was packing a gun of some sort. Two of them went to talk to the driver and the other woman consoled the panic stricken lady.

The driver phoned ahead to the police who met up with us in about 10 minutes. We used the woman's panic attack as a medical emergency to pull the bus over; two men had to carry her to the front because she was shaking so bad. Then the local police boarded the bus and talked to the strange man; eventually taking him off the bus. It turns out that the "gun" he was carrying was only an air pistol. While it could have done damage at short range (like in a bus), it was not illegal. The local police called in reinforcements and it wasn't long until we had a regional car, some federal personnel with a total of six squad cars parked by our bus; and one helicopter that flew over.

As it turns out the man was allowed to sit on the bus. Whereas in The States, passively threatening people in this manner would be grounds to arrest someone; particularly on public transportation, in Brazil, this man was not carrying anything illegal and therefore could not be charged for provoking people. He was required to sit in the front of the bus and ended up disembarking a couple hours early to everyone's relief. The situation could have been a whole lot more difficult and I hoped and prayed while we were waiting for things to unfold that we weren't the US and British folks on the international news!

This did create quite a comaraderie among the rest of us on the bus, and between Portuguese, Spanish, and English, we came away with most of the story. I have two new friends from London, Jo and Charlie, who are also staying at the lovely hostel I found on the beach in Parati. In all of it, we stayed quite calm and collected. We believe the man was looking for the attention. In addition to being obsessive-compulsive, there were likely some other issues of expressing power and seeking attention that he wanted to see. I don't often post video, but all these police were quite excessive and I had to take it all in on my camera! The event delayed us about 90 minutes, so we arrived in Paraty at 11:30pm.