CouchSurfing the World

In the darkness of the night it was almost impossible to feel like I had arrived to Cuba except when the occasional pre 1960 American brand Ford, Chevrolet or rusty Cadillac rattled passed us coughing a cloud of unattended engine dust our way. Often a beautifully restored convertible would join us at the lights, a pack of smokes rolled up in the drivers sleeve, hat tilted to the opposite side of his Cuban honey leaving him just enough eye candy. This is cool.

A roadside billboard of George Bush and Obama’s faces catches my attention, especially the huge letters stamped across spelling ‘Terrorists’. That’s even cooler! Further down the road another billboard with Fidel and Che turns my head, ‘50 years of Revolution’, ‘Victory’. I was here to find out exactly what Che had gave his life for and hopefully make sense of Fidel’s motives after all this time. I had questions, lots and lots of questions!

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I knew nothing of Recife upon arrival, only that it’s the fourth largest Metropolitan area in Brazil and is situated beside the sea. I was expecting a tropical paradise yet walking to the supermarket almost destroyed my sense of smell. The city is located where the Beberibe River meets the Capibaribe River to flow into the Atlantic Ocean. A maze of river’s run parallel to all major roads with small bridges connecting walkways which gives Recife the moniker of the ‘Brazilian Venice’ whereas I’d prefer to call it the ‘Devil’s Arsehole’. I have never smelt something so vile. The first time is impossible to forget. I felt abused, empathetic to what the Jews must have endured in the prison camps of world war two. In the midst of relating my travel stories to my new surfer friends in my typical giddy, animated and outré manner, my nescience left my big mouth open and prone to digest a horrendous and tetchy taste forcing my consternation to boil into a frightful cry like an ululating jackal with his balls stuck on a barbed wire fence.  Imagine a fishmonger who returns home from work and suffers a heart attack before having a chance to change his clothes. Try to picture the smell of the house after the CSI crew discover his body a few weeks later. My shit has never smelt so good!

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