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Vice Blog

BRAZIL ISSUE EXTRA - MAGIC MICRO-COCONUTS

We took it easy on you over at VBS last week with the

Watermelon Woman

and

Fernanda

on Shot by Kern, nudging you into the

Brazil Issue

like a tender mama bird who is simply testing to see if her fledglings are ready to soar from the nest. But this week things are different. This week we're showing you what it's really like over there, opening with the bloody tales of a

Carandiru prison guard

(which has also been on

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VBS

the last couple days), and today's featured story highlights the actual horrors of this presumably happy thing called the biofuel industry. But lest you think we're being too harsh, here's a modern fable about munching exotic fruits a stranger offered our friend Pip in a jungle in Rio…

My friend Doug wakes me up one Saturday morning to invite me and my wife to go hiking in Tijuca National Forest, the mountain ridge that cuts through the center of Rio de Janeiro. "Since it's raining out it won't be too crowded," he says. Since it's a closed canopy forest anyway, I say yes, wake up my lady, and start organizing our contribution to the picnic, which invariably turns into a competition of who can bring the rarest sundry item. I am confident that this time I will win, with my dried Chinese duck in a bag.

After a brief cell phone exchange, we manage to get on the same bus with Doug and his wife, Tatiana, and ride up past Borel favela through Usina, switching back past small waterfalls where women in white leave bowls of porridge and cachaça and light candles for whichever candomble diety is being celebrated today. We arrive in Alto da Tijuca at the gates of the park and make our way into the forest. There are armed guards patrolling the trails and limited entrances, which is kind of helpful in a city of 11 million people. You have to expect a giant urban forest will attract weirdos, and even with the guards around, some of them will get through. At a clearing near the visitors' center we encounter our first one: a long-haired Brazilian guy in a medieval knight outfit holding two big foam swords.

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"Fair people," he says, "would you care to challenge me to a duel?" "Uh-oh, " I say, "Looks like one of those Yukio Mishima impaling fetish guys." They are actually pretty common in Rio because the city's patron saint, Sebastian, is the one that Mishima used to fag out over in

Diary of a Mask

, with his alabaster skin pierced by arrows. Naturally, our wives challenge the guy to a duel and he suffers at their hands. Afterwards, he hands us out a pamphlet explaining why he sword fights and it shows that yes, he is one of those Mishima guys. As we begin to move on, a friendly-looking chubby guy in black yells, "Sergio!" and runs up and gives the knight a big hug. "Well," Doug says, "at least he's not a loner."

For the next 45 minutes we walk up a narrow trail along a stream. After crossing a road we get to another clearing with picnic facilities and set up. There is Argentinean wine, inedible pâtés, sausages, chocolate, and the dried Chinese duck. We set up our hammocks under a gazebo listening to the drizzle of the rain forest, watching the mist roll in. We hear snippets of conversation and see a group of Brazilian hippies come into the clearing. They are carrying animal masks and one of them has a simple bow and arrow. As they begin to set up their picnic we decide to move on and head up the road towards the trails to the peaks, passing a middle-aged guy practicing karate under a large mango tree.

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Maybe this is like a

Power Rangers

episode, I thought. As we rise up to each new level there is a new adversary, first the sword fighter, the guys in the animal masks, this Karate guy here, and at the top we have to merge into the form of a giant robot and fight Shango the God of Thunder.

After another half hour we reach the end of the road. We are now at about 2,200 feet above sea level and the women are tired. The security guard is cool about them setting up their hammocks and Doug and I decide to let them rest and motor our way up to one of the smaller peaks. As we get to the trail entrance the guard yells, "Hey! You can't go up there!"

"Why not?"

"Can't you read the sign?"

The sign says, 'Trail closed due to Africanized Kiler Bees'."

"That's bullshit!" I mumble. "Africanized bees. That's racist. I'm not afraid of any bees."

Even though I think I am mumbling, the security guard hears me perfectly.

"You might think it's bullshit, but I have a friend who was attacked last week. Plus, it's late; the animals need the trail to themselves now. You wouldn't want to stumble upon a family of Prego monkeys, or Quatis."

Yes I would, I think to myself.

"You might think you would but you wouldn't," he answers.

We sit down with the women by the hammocks and the guard sits down with us. It must be lonely to be a forest guard. We chat about different kinds of animals and he offers us cocinho, which must be the world's smallest variety of coconut, barely the size of walnuts. We eat a few and decide to head down through the drizzle, our legs rubbery. We walk down through a cloud, and begin to hear flute music coming from the clearing where we left the hippies. I get a glimpse of a guy in a goat mask playing flute and people dancing around. Suddenly, my wife turns pale and begins to vomit red wine. Tatiana and I console her, then Tatiana begins to vomit. Doug turns green but struggles on for a few hundred meters, then lies on his back. "What's wrong?" I ask.

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"Just taking a rest."

I begin to feel nauseous.

"Get up man. We have to get out of here they are going to close the park." The temperature is dropping.

He gets up and we start slowly walking down the road. Twilight falls and I throw up too. After what seems like an eternity we are back at 600 feet above sea level at the park gate, waiting for our bus in the rain. I look at the bus stop on the other side of the road and see the forest guard in plain clothes.

"How's it going?" he asks.

"Great. How are you?"

"There was a problem with those mini coconuts you gave us," my wife says.

"What? I picked them myself. They were magic c--…" Our bus arrives, cutting him off mid-sentence and we ride home, all four of us spending a good chunk of the rest of the night on the toilet.

PIP