Until mid-way through our second week, life at Eco Trancoso was pretty good. Frustrating organisation and bugs aside, we were enjoying ourselves. The house we were staying in turned out to belong to Petra; a German woman who turned out to be Stefan’s ex-wife (or partner) and lived in the attached house next door. Word got around that she was returning; like most other things news seemed to travel via gossip, even though there were only seven of us!
Dayton had heard negative things about Petra from a past volunteer, but when we met her it was a little like mum coming home – she made sure we had clean cloths and tea-towels, put an end to Tristan and I paying for toilet paper and even made porridge for us. Petra also showed me the citronella, clove and alcohol bug tonic. She played guitar and we had a nice evening sitting around the kitchen with Tristan playing Bob Dylan songs.
Moving house.
The day after Petra arrived, Stefan advised us that our house needed to be exterminated for termites. We had to move out. Hiring a tent wasn’t an option as he’d promised it to a new volunteer (who never arrived), so we reluctantly accepted his offer to stay in the half-finished adobe house. After asking if we could pay slightly less, he agreed. Our only other option was finding a room in town, but we liked the farm and didn’t want to hike to work everyday.
Thankfully, and maybe after talking to Petra, Stefan let us move into his place beside the kitchen. He moved into the half-finished adobe house, and we felt a little guilty. After cleaning the house and retrieving some items Petra had taken from our fridge, we moved into our new room.
Stefan’s place was fine, but we missed the outdoor shower and balcony and had little privacy. You could look into the kitchen area from the bed, and closing the door created a stifling heat inside, so we mostly just kept the fly screen shut. I’m sure someone saw me near naked at least once. It was hot! We were also 99% sure someone had gone in when we were out, although we thought we had the only key…
The small gossip train I was embarrassed to be part of told us that we’d had to leave Petra’s house not because of termites, but because she’d rented it on AirBnB (guests never arrived). Out of curiousity, I’ve looked up Petra on AirBnB and found a few properties, including unrealistic listings of the rooms at Eco Trancoso. Unsurprisingly, I also found some bad reviews and crazy sounding responses.
Tides change…
Petra and Stefan fought often, and loudly! We could hear them across the farm and I swear the ducks and chickens would run away. I felt sorry for Stefan. Petra seemed to own some of the land and while Stefan made it clear that she wasn’t involved in Eco Trancoso, she ate our food and seemed very micro-managy. While Gilbert also shared our food, it was explained to us that this was part of his deal in selling (or loaning?) Stefan his land. Afterall, he was old and had no one to cook or shop for him (we wondered what he did on weekends). Keep in mind that we paid for the food in the kitchen and were the only ones who cooked (other than one or two meals).
To her credit, Petra actually did something to restore internet access, but after the first afternoon the modem disappeared and there was talk of us paying for internet. She also yelled that Gilbert was not to use it; I’d only seen him use it once to Skype with his daughter.
As volunteers weren’t on duty on weekends, it wasn’t until about 1pm one Saturday or Sunday that we realised that the chickens hadn’t been let out of their pen. They’re normally out by 7am so that they could peck around, eat scraps and importantly, have access to water. After I’d released them, Petra laughingly said that she’d thought of it earlier but that as she didn’t really like them anyway, she’d ignored them. Right…..
At this stage we had another week and a half to go, but with Chloe leaving in a few days we were beginning to think we should join her, especially as we’d be taking the same overnight bus to Sao Paulo. Dayton had another few weeks and Sage was leaving in a month.
Finding a way out.
An annoying fact about most regional buses in Brazil is that without a national ID number, you have to book and pay in person and in advance at the main bus station. Ours was a half an hour drive or two local buses and a ferry away, so when Petra offered to get our tickets when she was driving past, we accepted. She said it would cost us $5 for petrol, and the next day it was $5 per person. Given that going there ourselves meant transport costs and taking a day off work (which added cost to the accommodation), her’s was the best option.
Petra was going to town Friday afternoon (I think), so needed our bus details by then. Tristan and I were still undecided when during a class with Stefan, Petra said she was leaving early and needed the details in half an hour. Until class finished, Tristan and I surreptitiously wrote notes to each other and had a quick chat afterwards. Weighing up the pros and cons, we decided that we’d probably gotten as much as we would out of Eco Trancoso and that anything more wasn’t worth the hassle.
It was pretty nerve-wracking to tell Stefan, but he understood and we paid him what we owed. That’s when things got ugly. Apparently when we first arrived and he agreed we could begin paying three days later, he thought it was just for food, not also accommodation. Given that our request was due to the $115 we’d had to spend when we couldn’t contact him and that food would only make up $15, it was odd that he’d remembered it that way. Even with accommodation, it would have stopped short of covering half our costs.
We got into a huge argument about whose fault it was that we’d to pay for a hotel and taxi and whether he had a duty of care to volunteers (he denied this, stating he didn’t invite them). In the end, and after calling Tristan a fascist (hilarious!), Stefan saw we weren’t giving him any more money and we’d all had enough of arguing. Petra tried to calm the situation. She knows how disorganised Stefan can be, but I don’t think she knew about the financial aspect of our argument.
Our farewell at Gilbert’s house.
The farewell we’d planned for Chloe on Saturday evening turned out to be one for us too. We decided to have it at Gilbert’s house as he had a BBQ and the environment was much nicer; we’d already spent a few evenings there. Gilbert’s house is crazy. He built it himself expecting his children to come and live with him but they never did. It’s four or five storeys of adobe and wood flooring, sparse kitchen, coloured walls, ornaments from around the world, books in different languages, a shower and toilet separated by sheets, a few mattresses and hammocks and resident bats in the stairwell. It was a photographer’s dream and if I get my shit together I’d love to do a little exhibition one day; ‘Gilbert’s House’.
Now, Gilbert, Stefan and Petra didn’t get along. According to Gilbert (who’s more than a little eccentric), when he was away one time Stefan took apart his kitchen to use the wood on the farm. He also thought Stefan and Petra were alcoholics who had fried their brains in the sun (this may be; we did have an awful lot of wine bottles to use in future adobe houses). True or not, Gilbert wouldn’t have either of them in his house and when asked, said that no volunteers had ever had a smooth time at the farm.
So while we were all off at Gilbert’s, Stefan and Petra were not. Oddly, Petra had made a salad for us to take to Gilbert’s with us – maybe she wanted an invite we weren’t able to give. It might explain why that night was our last at the farm. It was a fun night though; we barbecued a big fish we’d bought fresh from the market and indulged in caipirinhas (delicious lime and vodka drink). We all did a little yoga in his near unfurnished house and I sat in the lush green grass overlooking the forest he’d grown. The grass turned out to be a hive of sand flies, but I didn’t notice at the time!
Moving house (take two).
Through Chloe, we’d heard of Petra’s offer to drive us to town to catch our bus, so that we didn’t have to hike there with our luggage (it was worth the $5 each she was charging). On Sunday morning, I was making breakfast and we were all chatting nicely. Since I hadn’t actually spoken to Petra about the lift or thanked her, I wanted to ask what time she’d be able to drive us to town. Before I could finishing saying “Petra, so our bus leaves at 1pm tomorrow…” she began laying into me about how she wasn’t our tour guide.
For about three minutes and in front of everyone but Stefan, Petra shouted at me about how we were just tourists and if we need so much babysitting we should have stayed home. She said we left her house filthy, called us liars for not paying Stefan and complained that what we paid for her house wasn’t enough as she charged X on AirBnb (forgetting, I suppose, that we worked on the farm for at least 5 hours a day and that Stefan had set the price).
Petra then switched to shouting in German (somehow always more scary), to tell me that Tristan was an arsehole and she had no problems saying that to his face (she didn’t). With some more accusations and slurs, she went off to yell at Stefan, who sulked passed us a bit later looking apologetic. So we didn’t regret our decision to leave!
It was pretty upsetting so we left immediately to spend the night at Gilbert’s (he’d previously offered his place to others). We cleaned Stefan’s place, grabbed our luggage and found Stefan to say farewell. It was brief; Tristan gave him his key, said we were going and received a ‘humpf’ in response. We didn’t bother asking for our money back for that day’s food and accommodation.
We had a peaceful night sleeping on a mattress under a mosquito net at Gilbert’s. However, he did warn us that if we heard people in the night not to answer as it could be ‘bandits’ who’d previously robbed him. I suppose that if they heard people (and a female), they couldn’t be taken by surprise, or may do more than thieving.
We woke happily in the morning, met Chloe for our taxi to town and said our goodbyes to Gilbert, Sage and Dayton. The bus arrived and the three of us headed to Sao Paulo, arriving the next morning; Tuesday 25 March.
All I can think about Eco Trancoso is that Petra has something over Stefan, who must have been truly screwed over by volunteers in the past; that they drank heavily, damaged property and took more than their fair share of food. Given the disorganisation and lack of duty of care, I honestly felt like we were the first volunteers there. From what I can gather, the farm has been hosting volunteers for at least two years.
After we left I heard from Sage that while she was still volunteering at the farm, she was staying at Gilbert’s. Petra had rented Stefan’s place on AirBnB and chastised Sage for spending time in the kitchen. She was told to leave the kitchen immediately, as she couldn’t be there while the guests were because they needed privacy. Sage needed to prepare and eat meals, had a right to use the internet and being a camper, she had no where else to go. Pure craziness.
Next stop, Sao Paulo!
Los viajes de Bianca. 