I still remember the first morning after my arrival, that feeling I had when I walked out the doors of the hotel and entered a place as surprising as unimaginable to me.
What shocked me the most, what impacted me the most was that they hardly noticed me, not that they didn’t notice or look at me, no, but I didn’t know how to interpret that I passed by their side and only a… Bon día… without further ado.
I guess that little by little, my confidence and my fears were moving away, and even more when I entered the first bar, one of the typical ones here and I dared to ask for a beer.
Sidelong glances, conversations in which I understood one word out of ten… and little by little I began to see things differently.
There I was, I had made it, I had dared to go out, so, perhaps because of the effect of the beer, they are half liter, leaving the bar and stop one of these countless motorcycle cabs that take you everywhere, ask me if I wanted to go somewhere, I came up to name the market square.
Welloooo, what else, I remember how he laughed and told me, in the most expressive way you can imagine and even when I did not understand anything, because of how fast he spoke …. that I was already in the market square.
I had no idea where I was.
So I put a face of circumstances and asked him for the Malecón, another of the places I wanted to see and there I was right, at least he put a more serious face and we began to negotiate the price, the negotiation is relative, because it is not that bargaining is not very popular, at least I have not used it, anyway, you see me there, riding a motorcycle, with the phrase that later would be repeated very often and every time I use this particular service…e muito grande…I do not think I have to translate it, right?
I have come to take more than one of these services, as well as cabs, these already seem more like what its name indicates, as I said, I have come to take some cabs that have taken me to the most special places on this island, yes, until the cab is not full … does not leave, something you have to get used to, as well as I was surprised by the motto or mantra that they name, the slight – slight, or something like …tranquilooooo, no hurry.
My second day was a whole series of discoveries that saturated my reason, I even remember writing or sending you a voice message, because I was…full of sensations, it was and is, even now and knowing that I am more prepared, a whole whirlwind of new aspects, not so much personal, which have been and a lot, but also to recognize the point of life that I possess today, those things that one does not give importance, and that here, well, here one would be the king of Sao Tome.
I remember that my cab driver, who by the way we were driving without helmets, overtaking with whistles and shouting and waving everywhere we passed, asked me, in that Portuguese that, now that I am a few days away from leaving, I begin to understand, but that day, nothing at all, well that, he asked me where I came from and when I said Spain, he only thought of naming Madrid or Barcelona?
First time in Sao Tome, that I understood at first, and I told him yes, he just smiled, charged me the barely two euros in exchange for about twenty minutes of running, and told me that he would repeat, that he would come back to this country.
He left, just two meters ahead, one of the typical matrons here gave him a sign, and came to carry his purchase and take it to its destination.
I dared to eat in a kind of barbecue made with half a can of gasoline and some irons, something that I would later repeat ad nauseam, banana bread and a skewer of meat…don’t even ask.
Maybe it was the hunger, maybe it was the spices, maybe it was the nerves, but damn, it was good.
My first day in Sao Tome…it was the beginning of a real adventure for me and, why not to say it, I’m glad I dared.
*** Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) ***
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