January 2nd

There had been a niteglo bracelet hung on my handlebars some time in the last 48 hours. Damn New Year’s eve revellers. 2^nd nite in Boa Vista, and committed to turning things around mentally, starting with some stretches, and a walk through town. A planned city, it features a spoke and wheel design radiating out from the northern side of the Rio Branco. 700km north of the Rio Amazonas, all was quiet here in the new year, eerily quiet in this city of over 250,000. Hardly a soul walking through the streets, only a supermarket with some people shopping. Finally the restaurant of the hotel was open upon return with a nice egg & sausage buffet complete with tropical fruits, coffee, cereal and dessert.

I love to ride the motorcycle. 19000 km is a bit much on the body, but to just burn around town is paradise. I like a challenge, and even small ones are nice so I set out to find the Yamaha dealership I had seen earlier down one of the other spokes. I didn’t this time, but being the tourist i was slowly driving from spoke to spoke looking at the signs in another language, getting honked at only once.

A small black car stopped at the side of the road, and motioned me to come closer. A small guy with glasses and short black cropped hair with a tattoo on his right outer forearm starts talking to me in Portuguese, a language I have never spoken or heard much. Strangely I feel relaxed and put at ease with this guy as I explain to him in Spanish that I have indeed come all the way from Canada on moto. Within seconds I’m getting the idea that he’s inviting me to stay at his place. Turns out he’s got connections. Will be a free visit to the Yamaha store (his cousin owns it), friends with the Governor of the state, and he’s the director of a gymnasium, of where I’ll be staying as long as I like, for free.

After picking up his wife at the grocery store, and dropping her off at home (don’t stare down a big white Dogo Argentina, they’re grizzly bears) We visited that governor’s place (he was sleeping) to see his two huge Harleys. We then went back to the hotel to take all my stuff, where we met two Venezuelan women who had said they saw me out on the road a couple days before. They proceeded to tell me they were the ones who had left the niteglo bracelet on the bike. With their bright yellow Venezuela bandanas they could have been tour guides, extolling the virtues of the country and all its beauty without prodding.

The gymnasium is a large, eastern-european inspired structure with large circular rings stemming from the base to the top, and completely deserted, save for some weeds around the outside, and old security guard. Completely deserted and calm. It’s going to be home for a while. I can play basketball in the gym with a decent hardcourt service, covered but with open air venting half way up. Nalmir said he’s returning in 3 hours, somewhere in the mid-afternoon possibly with more family. This place opens up again 20^th of January. For now, the guard and I watch tv in Portuguese, with a crazy Priscilla of the Desert Brasil style cross dressing character as a host, a blond amazon touring Patagonia, and finally the chronicles of Narnia voiced over; Liam Neeson as Aslan speaking Brasilian Portuguese.