“Time is an Illusion…” - Day 427
As Serbian Artist Marina Abramovic once said “Time is an illusion. Time only exists when we think about the past and the future. Time doesn't exist in the present here and now”. Oh dear, another of #GrownUpTraveller's boo-boos!
Up early and all packed up. Just as we were about to leave, our host’s girlfriend, Valentina came out of her bedroom. We hadn’t met her before as she’s been in Brussels, seeing her sister and a new niece and arrived back late last night. She seemed surprised to see us and asked me the time. “7:10” I replied. “Oh, isn’t it 6:10?” I thought she hadn’t adjusted her watch from European time. She looked concerned as Pedro, her boyfriend should be up by now for work.
Oh dear. The intrepid travellers have done it again. Honestly, if we can manage to travel, anyone can. Yes – we forgot that Brazil has different time zones and we didn’t change our time from Rio to Salvador! Another school child error! How had we spent the last two days without realising that our watches were one hour ahead? And then it dawned on us.
Yesterday we thought that our guide Andre arrived a bit late. In fact, he came 45 minutes early for us. Tim does remember now that Gilberto seemed surprised to see us and commented on how early we were. And of course the Olodum concert was not running late, we were running early! Even my client emailed me that our session was 12 noon UK time and 11am my time, and I commented that it will be 10am here! What a couple of plonkers we are!
As we were all ready to go, and Tim had already booked the Uber, we arrived at the Bus Station for our next epic bus journey rather early. Well, two hours before the bus departed. Plenty of time to pick up our tickets and for me to buy a Sudoku book to while the time away. Just as we were going to catch the bus, Tim decided to go and buy some ham for his rolls. He’d only had 100 minutes to do this. I looked after the bags as he popped into the supermarket, and waited…and waited. Time was now ticking by. Eventually, Tim came running out “the queue was very slow!” he moaned. We got the bus ok.
At each stop, we like to get out to stretch our legs. One of the stops was just for 15 minutes, but after 5 minutes I saw the bus start to reverse out. Seeing the look of panic on my face, the driver grinned and did a sign as to say he was turning the bus around. But then the bus drove off. I ran over to Tim, and in his usual calm self, he said that the driver was probably going to get some diesel.
For the next 15 minutes, I was pacing up and down, whereas Tim was as relaxed as someone puffing dope. (He wasn’t – I was just trying to think of a good simile). 15 minutes had gone by…At least we had the essentials; Tim’s phone, wallet, our passports and the clothes on our back. What if I misunderstood the driver’s signal? Despite the pacing, it was something to do, I knew that whatever the outcome, we’d be ok. I think that state of mind is beneficial to have when travelling, or for life in general for that matter.
Suddenly I caught sight of a large blue object coming into the car park. Yes, it was the bus. Thank goodness for that.
The rest of the journey was peaceful, no smashed windows or broken air con. The views were spectacular, so diverse; rolling green hills to a landscape flat and dry with not much more than cacti and the odd-clapped out car springing from the terracotta soil. Another change with stunningly huge rock formations like natures high-rise blocks towering above the green plains. The sunset was magnificent as if the sky was on fire.
Plus I sussed out a new way of completing Sudoku inspired by a memory of my late father-in-law. Funny the things that spring from our mind in the 25 hours of travel. Time well spent? Or is that an illusion?
