Didn't sleep the night before we left, as my car was coming to my office at 3:30 in the morning and we'd been on set for the last week straight. Needless to say I had a ton of things to do so I put on a few of my favorite albums and pulled an all nighter. Once I got to the airport, checked my 9 bags, and stopped sweating, I made my way to the departure gate, hoping starbucks would be open. Too early still. The flight ended up being delayed for three hours, so I passed out on the concrete carpet of JFK, a place I sleep in about 4-5 times a month these days. On the plane I decided against bourbon being that it was 9 am, but opted for the sleeping pill which I probably didn't need at that point. I literally slept for the entire 10 hour flight to Sao Paulo.
Once we landed in Sao Paulo, we found out that we had missed our connecting flight and would have to stay in a hotel for the evening. We took a very educational cab ride to the airline provided hotel and found that while we had three people, there were only two rooms. I bunked with the photographer and Rose got her own room. Unloading all our bags from the cabs, Rose sang to herself "Do the D-A-N-C-E...." and I followed up (joining her in her state of travel shock) "1-2-3-4-FIGHT." Both of us have been obsessed with this song for the last few weeks, and it was audible quite often throughout the trip.
We feasted on the meager remains of the "Airlines screwed me" buffet, bought a bottle of wine and sat out in the front of our hotel boozing, smoking cigs, and exchanging travel stories. This was my first travel job working with this photographer, and of course it had to be some crazy travel job and not an easy trip to LA or something. I was pretty nervous and still getting used to working with Rose and this photographer, so our little layover bonding session re-instilled a bit of confidence that everything was going well.
We woke up early again the next morning and headed back to the airport for our flight to Fortaleza. Ironically, Fortaleza is a three hour flight NORTH of Sao Paulo and we flew within 100 miles of it on the way down. Either way the flight was delayed again, so we had some deep fried cheese balls (which sounded entirely more appetizing in their Portuguese), and made obvious jokes about balls in mouths for the next hour or so.
Upon arrival in Fortaleza, we met our drivers and went on a two hour drive to this remote beach village named Canoa Quebrada and ran immediately to the beach. Winding downward through a red sand graveyard, each grave marked with simple wooden crosses and covered with tropical flowers in various states of decay, we tried our best to tread lightly in our excitement to dive in the water. My first view of the ocean was not the typical blue water, white sand beach you would think. Strong gusts of wind blew tiny waves on top of the already 5+ foot swells. The earth behind the beach of gritty silicate filled sand was so arid and red, it looked like we were on Mars. It was all very wild and rugged, not the tame paradise I had been expecting. However, the waves were great for body surfing, there is a pretty good chance that the water was the perfect temperature, and there is nothing like jumping in the ocean after a 28 hour journey to our beach front destination. Going back to the nice villa that production had put me up in, I went to my roof deck and reflected on my first swim in the southern hemisphere just moments ago. Time for some food and a Caprihini.
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