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| Parque Roberto Burle Marx |
So, after being in Sao Jose dos Campos for a nearly a week, it was time to start seeing some sights on my own.
The park above itself dates to the 1950's, when a business man planned the house and the park for himself and his future wife, however, the romance did not last and for a time the house remained unfinished. The park was landscaped by Roberto Burle Marx, a world renowned landscape artist.
The park is approximately 27 acres and consists of lakes, historic buildings and parts of Atlantic Rain Forest, with a wealth a of fauna and flora to be seen during a walk, many of which I had not seen before, so apologies for not identifying them below. ;-)
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| Stunning lakeside walks |
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| Flora |
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| Fauna |
Anyway, I digress, the park was indeed very beautiful as I found out on my second visit there. On my first trip to the park, I had travelled by a pre-booked taxi, upon arriving at the park, I checked with the driver the number to call the taxi for the return trip. The number was confirmed and I set off for walk in the park.
While in the park, I had chatted to both my girlfriend and brother using Whats app. During the conversation with my girlfriend, she informed me that the park was due to close in around an hour. I could have easily spent a lot more time at the park, however, I started to head for the exit.
During my time at the park, I had seen plenty of other visitors walking around with DSLR cameras around their necks, (and a good many of them looked better than my own), so I did not feel uncomfortable in anyway with my camera on show.
As I walked in the rough direction of the exit, along a path running down the side of a large open green, two men approached me and a brief conversation in Portuguese was attempted; to which I replied, "eu não falo português", they then spoke in broken English, shook my hand and attempted to explain that they worked for the park. Immediately, I was suspicious of their claim, they did not appear to be wearing any type of uniform, they were smartly, but casually dressed, but still nonetheless alarm bells were starting to sound. Why would park staff ask me to follow them away from the exit? Was I about to be mugged? If they wanted my camera, then why didn't they just snatch it and run, or were they trying to lure me into a part of the park near the forest to mug me? I asked why I should follow them, to which they were wholly unable to answer in English, their demeanour was not hostile but slightly bewildered. As luck would have it, a Police car was passing along a track near by, at this point I took the opportunity to hold my hand up showing 5 fingers and said that in 5 minutes I would be meeting friends at the park exit and a pointed in that direction before walking towards the Police car and the exit.
Thankfully, this seemed to do the trick and they did not follow me, I walked a good 100 metres or so before even looking over my shoulder, by which time, they had disappeared into the park somewhere or another.
Arriving at the gate house of the park, it transpired that the park would actually be open another 90 minutes or so according to the printed signs in poly pockets on display. So, I had the option to returning to the park, but the thought of going back in now was less than appealing as I had no idea as to the intentions of the two people I had encountered or if they would be waiting again if re-entered the park. So, time to go home I thought, taking my cellphone from my pocket, I was a little perplexed to discover that while I apparently had a good signal, the phone screen was scrolling "Emergency Calls Only" and the data signal was non-existent! Oh dear, what now?
Taking stock of the situation; I am around 10km from home, (but not certain of the route, but knew the rough direction, but of course unable to use Google navigate to find my way at this stage), my cellphone is currently out of order (and judging by the low battery, the signal had bombed out some time ago while in the park and the phone constantly searching for a signal and data signal had hammered the battery), unable to make calls, or contact people via whats app, I thought it best to jot the number of the taxi down and that of a friend in the city who had offered to assist me if ever I could not get hold of my girlfriend. I walked up and down the road a few hundred metres to try and get a signal, but to no avail, restarted the device several times, removed and cleaned the sim card etc, but still nothing. Concluding that using my cellphone was not an option, plan B; a payphone located outside the park entrance seemed a good contingency. But no, I had a load of coins, but seemed that the phone required a phone card (and no idea as to how to use call collect here). So still no way of contacting the taxi or indeed anyone else at this point.
Finally, I went to the gate house and managed to explain the situation to the park attendant my predicament sufficiently to persuade him to call me a taxi.
During the journey home, I kept checking for a cellular and/or data signal, but still nothing. It was only when I got home and connected via wifi, did I receive a bunch of messages from my girlfriend asking if I was ok, had been mugged, battery died etc, etc. Also that she had called the taxi driver who having confirmed that I had not called him was then dispatched to the park to look for me and he kindly abandoned his car, telling the police/staff that he was looking for a lost foreigner, he walked around the park for 15 minutes but did not find me, as at this time I was already on my way home in another taxi - a big thank you to Joel here for going above and beyond the duties of a taxi driver!
Shortly after arriving home, cellular and data service was available again!
So, in short, a little adventure, reminding me that one should not rely exclusively on cellphones and also that I am still new the country, culture will have many, many more interesting experiences to come. (The next visit to the same park was without incident, however, the journey home was interesting, more on this to come in the near future).
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