Friday, March 26, 2010

Proud Mary

While travelling in Brazil, Venezuela and Colombia I have encountered some delicious characters. Some were friendly, others would probably like to eat your spleen. Here is my interpretation of some of these folk. Forgive the terrible quality of the photos, but this is South America afterall...





Proud Mary. She was indeed proud and clad in fluroscent aqua, reminiscent of Mo'Nique in 'Precious'. Traipsing around the Caracus bus station with her weasely mustache toting manbag, she was a vision in blue.



This charismatic adolescent had the unique approach of pointing a gun in your face while telling you how pretty you looked. Oh,and passport please. We encountered over ten of these lads on the bus in Venezuela, particularly fun when you wake up to a steel handshake.



Probably the only phrase in English this charming gentleman knows, all he wants to do in lurk in the shadows and express his love....



This is one of the wonderful characters that we encountered on a daily basis in Brazil, or in anywhere in South America for that matter. He has watery eyes, an air of desperation, and his voice resembles that of a husky Cheech Maron.



This man was sinister, spotty, greasy and worked at a hostel in Salvador. He has no name...



My favourite straggler of all time, the Lapa sex tourist. A man of about fifty give or take a few years, was lurking the streets of a bloc party in Lapa at about five am when we encountered him. His skin was almost transluscent with a subtle hint of grey. Not unlike the character of Gollum. But with man breasts and an emaciated frame bar the beer gut. He resembled a sex tourist that you would imagine in South East Asia, sans the Haiwaiian shirt. His friends included a hyped up slum dweller who supposedly threw his material life away for love, and a Geneva based lawyer tripping on LSD.



After thirty six hours on a bus from Brazil through Venezuela, I was rather pleased to encounter many lovely people at the Caracus bus station,where we had to wait with all our worldy possesions for eight hours. Former murder capital of the world,no big deal... We met some tattoo artists during the day,who I would have to say are the first hipsters I have encountered in South America, Wellington styles. The achingly hip Jhonathan and I did a live portait swap while the entire bus station seemed to watch. Which helped as they spoke no English and I minimal Spanish so it was a nice activity once the broken small talk had petered out and we could no longer talk about how great ABBA Gold is. Which it really is.



The beach straggler in Salvador. He had a maddened gleam in his tiny little eyes, like he was suffering from an overdose of crystal meth. He did make a delicious cocktail and he lived on the beach. Pure sinew.



This fine speciman of a man was encountered at a bloc party in Lapa, a neighbourhood in Rio. At first we were rather taken with his outrageous enthusiasm for afros,but soon recolied with horror when he would leave his tounge partially draping from his lips, an invitation to romance as he would inch towards the face of any unsuspecting female in the vicinity, particularly Bex. The tagline reads,I am not an animal! RIP John Merrick.



This here is the crown jewel of Ipamena, deaf gay guy. The lovely Micheal and Sam encountered him one fateful afternoon on a bus going to the beach and their lives were transformed. Our hearing impaired friend had a certain tone that would deliciously permeate the eardrums, emparting such pearls as `Shorry, could you shay that again?'. I have never seen him in the flesh, so this is an impression based on the data gathered by Mike and Sam. Apparently he has the physique of Moby.



This little lady is just a generic Colombian beauty, mixed with my favourite Brazilian former playboy playmate and current children television personality, Xuxa.

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