+1024.JPG)
Oi amigos e familia!
If you ever want to hear what it's like to get up at midnight to go to the bathroom and find a tarantula happy-as-you-please in the folds of your robe as you take it off the hook to wear, you can ask Rii when you see her next. It happened the same night she'd seen her first scorpion inside the house and her scream reversed the direction of all the rivers in a 500 mile radius and sank in excess of 700 boats. Reports that it also changed the magnetic polarity of the planet Venus are unconfirmed at the time of writing.
Apart from the big crawling biting and stinging things on the island, Rii's other great Amazonian fear is the bus drivers of Belém, or in particular the one who brought us back from another visit to São Domingos Do Capim (where they told me April's new moon gave three days of pororocas in excess of 3 metres). We were in a 20-odd seater mini-bus but the driver seemed to be fond of the kind of maneuvers last seen in the Hollywood blockbuster Speed, starring heart-throb Keanu Reeves and silver-screen sweetheart Sandra Bullock, weaving us between near misses in a seemingly desperate effort to make it home without dropping below 50km/h.
Luckily we weren't actually in the Hollywood blockbuster Speed because our driver did (grudgingly) stop at some lights, which would have spelled the end for us unfortunate innocents. Unluckily we both have had pustastic bouts of conjunctivitis (hence some of these photos of us with the sunglasses on), but romantically we gave eyedrops to each other.
Also luckily I was invited by Naldo to play a game of futebol in a town near São Domingos Do Capim called Botofogo. It was to be the most organized game I've been involved in so far, 90 minutes each way, full size field and goals, 11 a side, with a ref, each team with their own actual football shirts, but in barefoot. Our pre-match preparation consisted of drinking vodka with sprite and watching some of the younger guys play against some of the younger Botofogo guys in the early afternoon Amazon heat. Our match involved playing football in the mid afternoon Amazon heat.
I played on the wing (where I could stay out of too much trouble) and lasted until about 10 minutes before the end when cramps started in my calves and hamstrings and I subbed off. My team (Oliveira Clube Esporte) lost 3-2 but history will show that just before half-time one of our goals was scored by Oliveira Clube Esporte's right winger, a tallish dude with a strange accent, whiter than all the other players, in the number 13 shirt, from a strike just outside the penalty area that dipped inside the near post to give us a 2-1 lead. After that they marked the gringo a bit tighter and our keeper made two minties-moment-like blunders to gift Botofogo the win, but I'd made my mark and boy howdy it was quite a buzz.
But enough of the sports reports, I only have five more days til my sweetcheeks flies out again so I'm mercifully cutting this letter off here to go and get hot and sweaty with her. Catch yiz all again soon enough.
Love and sloppy kisses,
Benjamin, #13 superstar de Oliveira Clube Esporte.
