The two weeks since my return from Salvador turned out to be the busiest and craziest so far. When I arrived in Campo Formoso we had half an hour before the shops closed, and Aline offered to take me to the phone shop to try and get a mobile internet modem to take to the farm. After a short chat with the shop assistant, it transpired that, contrary to her previous advice, it might not be possible to get one without a CPF number, the Brazilian ID card system. She recommended that I go to a nearby town, Senhora de Bomfim, the following day and speak to someone there. So the next morning I dragged myself out of bed bright and early to catch the 7:30am bus. When I arrived I met Natalia, one of the students who has been helping me, and we proceeded to spend over 2 hours in the phone shop, mostly waiting, to get a modem. Natalia was kind enough to use her ID to get the modem, and eventually we were successful. I was extremely relieved to know that I would not be completely isolated in the farm house for the next two months.

The rest of that day was earmarked for final preparations and then moving to the farm. So we spent several hours, intermittently getting soaked in the rain, and sweating in the sun, wandering around Campo Formoso buying food, motorcycle batteries, plastic boxes and all sorts of other things. Finally, we returned to the house to pack up the remains of my stuff before taking a taxi to the farm.

Just to make matters more complicated, the equipment I was waiting to arrive from the UK, which had been scheduled to arrive on Monday, was still not here, days later. So whilst trying to pack, we were also trying to track down the missing package. Eventually it became clear that the package was stuck in Salvador – for some reason Campo Formoso was not able to receive international packages. I thought that the best option was to arrange to have it sent to Aracaju were one of my friends could post it to Campo Formoso. Satisfied that this had all been organised, Natalia and I called a pick-up truck taxi, loaded up all our stuff and headed to the farm. When we arrived, she went to open the door and as she tried to turn the key in the lock, it snapped in her hands. What more could go wrong, I wondered! Luckily we were able to remove the broken key from the lock with a pair of pliers and miraculously Natalia had a second key so we were able to get into the house fairly quickly. Natalia immediately got to the job of setting up her television set to see if she could get signal, and likewise I immediately set up my computer to see if the internet worked. Almost predictably at this point, neither worked. The farm house is a complete blackhole of telephone signal, internet signal and television signal. A little later we discovered we could find phone / internet signal by walking 5 minuted up the hill and sitting in the middle of a field. Not exactly ideal but better than nothing!

The next day I was excited to finally get started on my work, and we headed out early to look for colonies. We found one new colony and collected some additional data on the 8 we already had before we reached a part of the track through the woods which was impassable. So we walked back up to the farm house to borrow a machete before heading back again. Having got past the short section of thick vegetation, we began finding more colonies with ease. It was so easy to find them, in fact, that we found more than the 9 I had hoped to find that day within just a few hours, and reaching a second, but much thicker patch of impassable track, we gave up and headed back, satisfied that we had plenty of colonies to work with anyway. That afternoon I headed up to my internet field to check my emails etc, and discovered a number of urgent emails from my supervisors saying that the Brazilian postal system was not reliable enough to risk doing having my equipment sent this was and that I needed to contact the post service immediately, cancel the request to send the package to Aracaju, and make plans to head to Salvador to collect it.

I would not be able to go to Salvador until the following Monday, so on Friday (my birthday) Natalia and I went out to find more colonies in the immediate vicinity of the house, a task which was easily finished by lunchtime. At this point, Natalia left, as she had plans elsewhere for the weekend, and I spent the rest of my birthday sun bathing, reading and talking to friends in my internet field. It actually a rather nice turn of fortune that I ended up with no work to do for half of my birthday, as I had a lovely relaxing day. The weekend alone in the farm house was not great, however. Although I initially relished the solitude, I got bored and lonely quite quickly, and at night being alone there felt a little bit too much like the beginning of a slasher movie for my liking. But, I survived, trying to find work to do; typing up data, revising my work plans, collecting dead ants from around the farm house, and busied myself in the evening cooking, reading and watching films.

Finally, it was Sunday night and I went to be very early, knowing that the following morning I had to catch a bus at 7:30am. That afternoon I had gone to speak to Tivi, my contact at the farm, to check what time the regular taxi went past in the mornings. I pre-prepared in Portuguese what I wanted to ask, but despite clearly (I thought) asking him a question, he just nodded. I tried to point out to him that this was not an appropriate response to the questions “What time” but he just nodded again. Frustrated, I persisted and eventually he uttered the words “seis horas” (6am). This was what I had thought, but I was less than convinced that he even really understood what I was saying. So when I dragged myself out of bed at 4:45am on Monday morning, and walked the 20 minutes up hill to the farm entrance where the taxi came past, I was a little anxious about whether it would turn up. But, right on time (there’s a first for everything, right!) the taxi arrived, crammed full of Brazilians, and I got in. Within 30 minutes I was at the bus station (over an hour early). In standard Brazilian style, despite advertising opening hours of 4.30am – 10pm, there was nobody in the ticket office. So I sat and waited. Finally, about 40 minutes later, and with only 20 minutes until my bus left, a woman strolled up and opened the ticket office, so I bought my ticket, had one final cigarette and boarded my bus.

7 hours later I arrived in Salvador, exhausted. I took a taxi to my hostel, checked in and got the details together to head out to collect my parcel. The hostel owner called a taxi for me, but I had to wait over an hour for it to turn up (this option was still preferable though because it was safer to take a taxi we knew to be legitimate, and who was willing to wait for me while I collected the parcel). When the taxi finally arrived, we headed out to try and find the address I had been given for the post depo. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been given the name of the company, we only had a street name and a building number and once we found what we thought was the correct street, the buildings turned out not to be even vaguely in consecutive order. Confused, we drove around for a while, asked a few people and I was beginning to reach the point of complete exasperation when the taxi broke down. The driver got out, opened the bonnet and started fiddling around with the engine, simultaneously chatting to a man who was standing nearby, asking him if he knew where this address was. It quickly transpired that we had, without realising it, broken down on the very street we were looking for, so the driver suggested that I walked up the street and looked for the building while he tried to fix the car. Slightly nervously, I headed out alone in search of the post depo. I felt sure I was going to end up being mugged, and was particularly nervous since I had needed to bring most of my valuables with me as means of ID / contact in case of problems. Luckily, a few minutes later I heard a car horn beep and the driver pulled up beside me. A few minutes later we found the depo and began the saga of trying to explain to the gun carrying security guard what I wanted and who I was. After about 10 minutes he let us through, and we headed to reception and gave a man the tracking number. He then disappeared into the back for what seemed like forever, while I anxiously waited. When he returned, he brought the news I had been dreading. The package wasn’t here. It has been sent to Aracaju, because apparently my supervisor had never called to cancel this request (?!). Deflated, we headed back to the hostel and I paid the extortionate taxi fare. I didn’t begrudge him the money though, as he had been completely invaluable in communicating with the people at the post depo, and had gone way above the call of duty to help me.

I spent the entire next day trying to contact people; my supervisor, Aline, Fernanda in Aracaju, the FedEx liaison officer… By the evening I had got, not very far. I had been told again by FedEx that the package was in Aracaju, and managed to get an address where it could be collected from. I had failed to speak to Fernanda, however, and I was anxious not to get on a bus until she had the package in her hands. I spent another night in the hostel, and hoped desperately that tomorrow I would get the news that Fernanda had collected the package, and I could get on a bus to Aracaju safe in the knowledge that my equipment would actually be there when I arrived.

The following morning, I got up early and headed down to the internet cafe to check my emails. Of course, it was closed. So I sat and waited for half an hour or so until finally it opened. When I got online, I was met by a barrage of emails – including one rather anxious one from Aline telling me that the package might be sent to the UK if I did not collect it soon. I hurried back to the hostel, bumping into my taxi-driver friend who had helped me at the post office on Monday, and arranged for a lift to the bus station. Within an hour I was showered, packed and heading to the bus station in the pouring rain, hoping to catch the next bus to Aracaju. I succeeded and boarded the, rather expensive, gold class bus to Aracaju (the only one available at this time of day). About half an hour or so down the road (passing signs for Praia de Forte which only made me sadder) the bus ground to a half by the side of the road. A few minutes later the hostess came up stairs to tell us that the bus had broken down, and they were trying to fix it. I couldn’t believe it! How was it possible to have this much bad luck? I was relieved when, 10 minutes later, the engine started up again, and we continued on our journey. However, it wasn’t long before we pulled over again, the driver complaining of the same problem. This happened a further 3 or 4 times before they finally managed to fix the problem permanently, and miraculously we arrived into Aracaju only half an hour late.

Here I was met by the best news I had heard in ages – Fernanda had collected my parcel! That evening we went out for a couple of beers with her friends and celebrated. It was actually nice to be be back in Aracaju with my friends and I felt sad that I would have to leave again tomorrow. I was also rather concerned that getting on another bus might push me over the edge…. I felt somewhat concerned for the well-being of the other passengers. Nevertheless, the following afternoon I boarded a bus to Salvador, to get a connection to Campo Formoso on an overnight bus.

My ordeal seemed as though it might finally be over, when I was awoken rather abruptly by the bus driver at 6am to say that we had arrived in Campo Formoso, a full hour early. A little peeved (because I would still have to wait for Cleia to meet me at 7am), but relieved to be free of public transport, I got off the bus. An hour passed and Cleia didn’t arrive. I tried to call Aline but to no avail. Another hour passed. Still no sign of my friends. Still no answer. Finally, I decided I couldn’t wait any longer, and I gathered my things and headed out to walk to Aline’s house. It was raining, however. Not heavily but a consistent mist which had drenched me after a few minutes. I continued to trudge, uphill, in the rain for half an hour or so before I finally made it to the house, and rang the bell.

No answer. “That is it” I thought. “There is nothing else I can think to try except wait for Aline to come home”. Deflated, I sat down on her step. Finally, a few minutes later, the garage doors opened and I was met by a rather confused Aline, who let me into the car and helped me to find Cleia – who apparently had been delayed by 2 hours because there wasn’t a bus that went to the bus station here. For reasons completely unknown to me, it hadn’t occurred to her that she could simply get on another bus to Campo Formoso and walk to the bus station. No. Instead she had decided to sit and wait, leaving me to do the same, for 2 hours. Needless to say I was a little frustrated with this explanation, but too tired to try and argue about it in Portuguese. Finally, a little good luck came my way when the taxi driver got all the way to the farm (up worryingly muddy hills) without problem. With my equipment in hand, I went back into the house and collapsed into one of the best naps I’ve had in a long time. It was over. Finally.