Posted by Rok at November 23rd, 2007

Yesterday night, my vacation officially ended with me starting to make way towards Spain. As per usual, I am doing it in ’style’. In other words, I took a bumpy night bus yesterday evening after numbing the fairwell with many caipirinhas, now spending the whole day in Fortaleza, killing time before catching a 22h bus ride to Salvador, hopping on a plane to Madrid, stopping by Monika’s place to pick up my stuff, back to the airport, fly to Barcelona, have a 6h sleep in the hotel, fly to Budapest for two days, get drunk with Richard and get the Indian visa, fly back to Barcelona, fly to India for a week of business, fly back to Barcelona, fly to Pamplona and back and then fly to Slovenia where planning stops for the time being. You still following? :)

anyway, i arrived to fortaleza at 4:30 this morning, took a little nap at the bus station and then dragged my hungover ass to town. Half way there, I tore my flip flops so I was walking around Fortaleza at 6:30am looking for a bank to exchange money (probably looking like the richest orphan with no shoes and Oakley sunglasses). since banks open at 10 I had to revert to plan B: finding an ATM that would be willing to take my card. ATM’s open at 8am so that was slightly better (yes, they are actually closed at night). For some reason, a debit card tied to my slovenian account but to Dejan’s name, still works. As I mentioned, this turned out to be the most expensive vacation I’ve ever taken but thanks to this miracle and my dad (thanks dad, this one’s on you! i know you’d be proud.) I manage to have an amazing vacation. Long story short, I am now a proud owner of a new pair of Havaianas (brasilian flip flops) since the last ones I bought in 2003 were forgotten somewhere in French Polynesia focusing on how to tie a knot at the dock…

the other day, driving back from kitesurfing, we witnessed an accident between a buggy and a motorbike that ended up underneath. it was a miracle that the girl on the motorbike actually survived, she had an open fracture of her ankle, part of the bone sticking out, not a pretty sight. Anyways, we stopped, the wife of another guy in our car was a doctor so she rushed to help. Of course, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the girl needed to go to the hospital and have surgery. However, this place was remote so the nearest proper hospital is hours away and if the girl doctor wasn’t there they wouldn’t even have taken her. With all the commotion, it came down to the fact that nobody wanted to take her because of the gas. Gas is too expensive. Certainly a different way of looking at things within the community… But luckily the two foreign doctors managed to convince them that it’s of utmost importance that she gets there ASAP. anyways, off I go, I’m gonna binge on some more delicious brazilian cuisine before I hop on my 22h rollercoaster ride.

over and out Rok