Morro de Sao Paulo, Days 3-5 (Jan 20th-22nd)

Our third day in Morro was much like the second. Although I had gone to bed "early" on the previous night, by Brazilian and Argentinian standards, I awoke too late for breakfast on Saturday, and instead found a local artisan working in the dining area of the hostel.


After watching him work for a while, Ben and I headed out to the Second Beach yet again. I spent the day chatting with the group and getting some sun. Since out of the girls, only Vanessa and Flor spoke English, and none of the boys did, save Ben, my Spanish continued to improve, despite the fact that I was in a Portugese-speaking country.


I rented a pair of chairs under an umbrella for the day so that I could stay out of the sun for a bit, and it turned out to be worth every penny. The cabana boys ran up to rinse your feet off every time you hopped back onto the chair, and my umbrella became the center of our little group's area, with everyone rotating in and out of the chair next to mine. We relaxed, enjoying acai served by the infamous beach runner who roamed the shores shouting, "A. CA. Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiii" every five minutes.

At low tide, Laura, Vanessa, Flor and I walked over to the Fourth Beach and sat in the shallow pools left behind as the water receded. This less populated shore provided an excellent respite from the bustling party of the rest of the island.

When we returned, I went out for one more swim with Liev, one of my Israeli roomies.


We ended the day watching the sunset from the beach once again.


That night, we spent most of the night on the beach, drinking cocktails of caixaca mixed with fresh fruits like acerola, caicu, kiwi, and strawberries. Stands for these drinks lined the whole of the beach, but the best were concocted by Tania, a local to whom we became very loyal.


Later, everyone went to another party at a club that featured both a wet Tshirt contest and a foam machine. I wasn't exactly feeling that vibe, so I returned to the hostel, hung out with my roomies for a bit, and went to bed. It was 3am, and I was actually accused of cashing in early!

The next morning, I joined the girls for some scuba diving just offshore. We had a blast, kayaking out to the reef, ramming each other like bumper cars. Our guide, Tyson, made us all laugh, splashing us often and finding an octopus and letting it crawl up Laura's arm.


Since we had gotten up quite early, I took a break from the beach and returned to the hostel for a long nap. I met up with everyone later, but elected to spend a night with just the girls. We hung out at their hostel for a while and shared homemade caipirinhas with their neighbors.


Then we headed up to another club by Toca and partied late into the night. So late, in fact, that by the time I returned to the door of my hostel, the sun was coming up.


I decided to forgo bed for the time being, and I hung out in front of the hostel, watching the sky light up alongside of Moran, another guy from my hostel who had wandered up at the same time.


By the time it was done, we were both awake again, so we walked back up to the Second Beach, where we ran into my Argie guys from Salvador again, and I bid them farewell, since I would be leaving that afternoon. One of them said he wanted to kiss me goodbye, so I held out my cheek. Instead he grabbed my face and gave me what can only be described as a silent-movie-era big, goofy, close-mouthed smackeroon, he held my face in his hands as I pushed away on his shoulders with mine, keeping the rest of our bodies about three feet apart and moving us in a bizarre slapstick dance around the sand. When he let me go after an epic 3 seconds, he literally jumped into the air and hooted, as his buddies nearly fell off of their chairs laughing. He was so clearly drunk and the whole thing had been so ridiculously comical that I couldn't even get mad.

Following that, I returned to the hostel for a few hours rest before collecting my things, returning to the beach to say goodbye to my friends, and jumping on the catamaran back to Salvador. The boat ride, which Ben and I had avoided on our journey to Morro, was in fact quite nauseating, but fortunately, I had a companion in Clara, a girl I had run into in both Salvador and Morro.

Much to my surprise, upon my return, I found Salvador in full swing, pulsating to the rhythm of Olodum, one of the most famous blocos that perform at Carnavale each year.


A gigantic crowd filled the Pelourinho, where the group performed an outdoor concert as a warmup to the festivities the following month. No option existed but to push through, holding my bags tightly under my arms. Thank goodness I had only brought a weekend bag to Morro and had left the majority of my things at Hostel Cobreu.


When I made it back to the hostel, I checked back in, retrieved my things, and watched the rest of the concert from the hostel balcony.


I went to bed early that night, disbelieving that I had just spent my last evening in South America.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Morro de Sao Paulo, Brazil

Morro de Sao Paulo, Days 1-2 (Jan 18-19th)

I had originally intended to remain in Salvador for ten days, but the island of Morro de Sao Paulo seemed to be all anyone talked about, so Ben and I decided to travel there together. We also decided to avoid the quicker but infamously nausea-inducing catamaran ride there and took the ferry-bus-speedboat route instead.

By the time we boarded the speed boat, we were calling each other Lil' Bro and Big Sis. We had dealt with the threat of Ben's sea sickness, a rude girl on the bus who wouldn't move out of our reserved seats, and the old woman seated next to us on the ferry having an "accident". We had shared any number of mortifying stories with one another, none of which I will repeat here, except to say that Ben ended one with the following statement, which amused me to no end: "I like my women like I like my food. Smelling of garlic." Hee hee.

When Ben got a look at the tiny tiny speed boat that would be taking us across the final leg of our journey, he turned green with anxiety. Apparently, he had had more than one past experience involving being ill over the side of a boat. Lucky for us, a group of friendly Argentinian girls began chatting with us before we'd even left the dock and kept us both distracted from Ben's queasy belly the whole way.




Once we had docked in Morro and sidestepped the large number of porters clamoring to transport tourists' baggage for them in wheelbarrows, we set off down the one and only, very long main road, past the simply named 1st and 2nd beaches toward our hostel on the 3rd beach.



When we arrived at the hostel entrance, I turned to Ben and said, "Huh. That's a very large Star of David over the door." Comically, we had inadvertently booked ourselves in an Israeli hostel where everyone spoke, not the Portugese or Spanish, which I needed to improve, but the entirely foreign Hebrew. Fortunately, almost everyone there also spoke English.

I had come a day early, but they were still able to accommodate me in the last bunk available in the whole hostel. Ben, who DID have a reservation for that day was not so fortunate. Because so many of the guests were long-term, many of them often rotated beds, and one had rotated into Ben's. After a big debacle finding the mystery bed-thief, we finally got settled, put on our swimsuits and headed to the beach.

After a five minute stroll, we came across our boat companions, as well as the helpful group of guys who had gotten me to my hostel in Salvador the week before. We settled in by the girls and soon met another group of Argie guys, who would complete our group for the week: me, Ben, Laura, Pato, Flor, Vanessa, Emmanuel (Flaco), Damien, and Alejandro.





After watching the sun set on the beach, Ben and I headed back to the hostel, where we each took a quick nap and got ourselves together in our respective rooms before heading back out to the beach for a late dinner, together with a Chilean guy who had also been at our Salvadoran hostel. We didn't see our group from the beach, so after I had performed my wingman duties and the boys were settled into some flirting with a pair of cute girls, I went to a beach party with the Argie guys from Salvador. Much dancing ensued.

The next day, Ben and I met up at breakfast and headed back to the beach again.





We ran into the French group from our Salvador hostel, and the boys played a pickup soccer game by the water, while I went back and forth between the sand and the perfectly warm, calm water.





Eventually, we ran into the guys we had hung on the beach with the day previous. We moved camp to hang with them, and soon after met up with the girls as well.





After yet another lovely, lazy day by the beach, we all arranged to go out together that evening. We met up in the Argie boys' room, where Ben and I got our first tastes of Fernet, a seriously nasty Argentinian liquor which they mixed with coke. Ben liked it far better than I did.





After that, we headed out to the streets, or I should say street, of Morro to go to Toca, a club down by the port.





We danced under the stars and the boughs of the lantern lit trees.





Sometime around 2am, the power began to go out intermittently, causing comically predictable howls from the crowd each and every time. Eventually, the power stopped coming back on, so everyone at the club tramped back down the hillside to the beach all together, laughing, singing and dancing as we went. I lost and refound my group about 3 times, and couldn't have had a better time.







- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Morro de Sao Paulo, Brazil

Salvador, Days 4-5 (Jan 16-17th)

The next day was as blisteringly hot as those prior, and since I had gotten a bit of sunburn in Praia, despite regular and vigorous applications of sunblock, I chose to spend the day in the hostel's front room where I could enjoy the sun without actually being in it.


While I lounged on the red sofa, reading and writing, another hostel guest joined me, and pointed out that we knew each other.


After squinting at him for a moment, I realized that he was one of the Manchester guys with whom I had spent New Year's Eve! He reminded me that his name was Ben and told me that the rest of his group had returned to England, while he had chosen to travel for another few months. Shortly, we were joined by Stefan, my roomie with whom Ben had hung out the night prior, and the three of us decided to stroll down to Praca de Se...


... where the Laredo elevator provides access to the lower half of the city..


... and views of the bay below.


After grabbing some graviola and acai-flavored ice cream from a local shop, we caught the sunset at the restaurant I had tried to return to the previous night.


The boys conceded that both the carne de sol and the views relieved them of the doubts they had had upon entering the admittedly dingy-looking bistro.


After dinner, we had a few drinks with Marcus (on the right) back at the hostel bar, and I fell asleep around midnight yet again.


I started the next day with some yoga and exercises in my dorm room and then vegged out with Ben on the hostel porch yet again. As the midday sun abated, we ventured out into the city and checked out the Afro-Brazilian museum, which featured some stunning wood carvings.


I also loved the metal depictions of the peaceful African tribal deity who resembles the Judeo-Christian devil. Different strokes, different folks.


We returned to the hostel to pick up Stefan for dinner. Upon seeing me with makeup on, Stefan, ever the blunt German, cracked me up by asking, "Who are you?" The three of us ate an overpriced and rather unsatisfying meal at an Italian place Marcus had recommended, further cementing my preference for sticking to local cuisine when traveling. They even tried to serve red wine cold! Granted, such is often the practice in Brazil, but they claimed to be a real Italian place! Fortunately, they had great sangria. ;)


The service had been so slow, that we had to scramble to finish in time to get back to the hostel in time for the party in the Pelourinho, which occurs every Tuesday and is oddly the biggest party of the week in Salvador.


Fortunately for us, it all starts with a concert on the steps outside our hostel, so we were able to climb through the window onto the side balcony for the best seats in the house (or outside of it, in this case). That's Ben and Stefan on the balcony on the left.


As we drank and danced above the party, we would wave and shout to the revelers below. I spotted Sue and Max in the crowd and flagged them down.


The crowd was massive and spread across not only the staircase but the street in front of the hostel as well. The popular local band, Geronimo, captivated the crowd and brought on some amusing special guests, including some very flexible drag queen dancers and a corpulent girl with an impressive ability to shake essentially every inch of her body at once.


After the concert ended, the party moved up to the streets above the Pelourinho. We all put away our cameras in case of theft, grabbed beers from the hostel bar, and moved on with the horde. Sue and Max and a group of French travelers staying at Cobreu came with us, and we spent a good hour partying on the cobblestones and drinking libations from the street vendors.

After an hour or so, most of us entered Sankofa for some salsa and samba. I spun from partner to partner, learning a few new steps from each, but mostly just enjoying the hell out of the dance. By 3am, I was drenched with sweat. I went to check on Ben, who had been sitting along the all chatting with our Chilean friend, but he had left. I decided to leave the club as well, but just outside the doors, I found the street party still going strong.

I rejoined Max and Sue, who had barely moved an inch since I'd last sent them, and as I stood chatting with them, someone approached me from behind and placed his hands over my eyes. I reacted calmly at first, thinking one of my hostel mates must have a juvenile sense of humor and asking who the hands belonged to. In answer, he began to lick and kiss the side of my face while keeping his hands firmly clamped over my eyes. I began to yell and slap at his hands, but only after Max pushed him away did the aggressor release me. I spun around to find a Brazilian guy I had met through a friend five minutes before entering the club. When we had first met, he had been very forward, but I had thought I had made my lack of interest clear. Apparently not. I yelled at him, in the best Portuguese I could manage, for essentially molesting me but at the very least for not releasing me when I asked him to. From the look on his face, you would have thought that I had been the one to cause offense. He simply could not believe that his advances were unwelcome and that any girl would react so angrily to being licked by a virtual stranger. I asked Max and Sue to walk me back to the hostel, and they obliged.

Upon my return, I checked with the front desk to make sure that Ben had made it back safely and headed to the front room, where I chatted with one of the French guys. As we sat talking, Stefan wandered in, half asleep and rather tipsy and extremely entertaining. I laughed heartily as his talk turned to rambling then to little more than the vocalization of his stream of consciousness. After a while, I left him and the Frenchman and hit the sack.

So despite a rather wet bit of effrontery, that Tuesday certainly ranks as one of the most epic and enjoyable of my trip.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Salvador de Bahia, Brazil

Praia de Forte (Jan 15th)

Fabian had invited me to join him and some CouchSurfing friends for a day at Praia de Forte, since my earlier attempt to get there had failed. At 6am, I awoke to him standing over my bunk bed, shaking me, and I almost abandoned the scheme entirely in favor of sleeping in. Fortunately, he remained persistent, and within an hour, after a bit of bus terminal breakfast (mmm, let me tell you), we had found his four CS friends (Eliza, Max, Maya, and a boy named Sue), bought our tickets, and climbed aboard the bus to Praia.

I had brought both my travel pillow and my eyemask, both of which garnered me some snickers from the group, but I awoke from a sound two-hour sleep refreshed and invigorated as the bus pulled in to Praia.

As we meandered through the pretty but packed village toward the beach, Fabian observed that it had become far more touristy since he had last been there, when the pathways, now lined with flashy restaurants and shops, hadn't even been paved. The popularity of the beaches provided an explanation. So many umbrellas dotted the shores that it took us 20 minutes to find a spot secluded enough for our tastes.





We had just laid down our towels and gotten comfortable when Fabian discovered a fresh eel carcass just above our spot. I freaked out; I am terrified of eels. But the group convinced me to go into the water anyway. As we waded out, we discovered the reason for the sparse population on our part of the beach: rocks honeycombed across the first 50 meters off the shore. We didn't mind, however, as the spaces in between formed lovely little bathing pools in which to sit and enjoy the day.





The rocks also created the illusion that the surfers, making their way out and beyond to the swells, were walking on water.





After baking in the pools for a bit, I returned to shore and rented an umbrella to give my pink skin a respite from the sun. I laid under it chatting to Maya, a lovely Brazilian girl from the interior of the country. It turned out that Max, a self-proclaimed German hippie, was surfing her and Sue's couch. I was surprised to hear that she and Sue lived together, as I had had the impression that they had only just met at a CS event. I began to wonder if perhaps they had a romantic connection, despite the fact that I had seen no verbal or physical affection pass between them. I asked how long they had known each other, and she replied, "About two years, but we've been married for a year." I literally shrieked, "You're married?!" We laughed heartily as she agreed that people often couldn't tell.





Later, after another swim or two, Max entertained the group with some acrobatics and juggling.





When I had first seen the clubs in his bag, I had expected some basic skills, but he wielded them impressively, catching them behind his back and turning flips between tosses. I can tell you that MY high school gym teachers certainly didn't have such skills, let alone six-pack abs, long shaggy hair, or a dreadlock (worn to symbolize non-conformism), which leads me to believe that the German school system, which hired Max, is far cooler than the American.





The day passed quicker than any of us wished, and soon we realized that we needed to start back if we wanted to see the turtle sanctuary nearby before we left. Maya, Sue and Max elected to wander the beach closer to town while Fabian, Eliza and I marveled at the mammoth, ancient creatures in their pools.





Each of the turtles at the refuge had been rescued from fishing accidents or some such mishap, and as much as I appreciated seeing them up close and knowing that the tourist donations that allow access to the park provide much of the funding for such rescues, I mourned their caged state. Such elegant creatures-- some stretching to almost 4 feet long-- deserve a whole ocean to swim, not just glorified swimming pools.





The sanctuary featured not only the turtles themselves but exhibits on their anatomy and history, including a display of massive shells, which looked like medieval shields.





And of course, some kitschy props provided for silly photo ops. Personally, I love a good tacky tourist shot now and then!





Toward the exit, a tiny pool acted as a nursery for a large number of recently-hached little ones who would later be released into the seas. I have no qualms about admitting that I found them ridiculously cute.





Finally, one last viewing pool featured sting rays and nurse sharks, each of whom poked their heads and fins above water within inches of my face, as I leaned over it, but I decided to enjoy the experience rather than try to photograph it.

When we had had our fill of turtle education, we met with the others in front of the charming church on the beach.





The sun had begun its descent into the horizon, and we realized that we only had fifteen minutes before the last bus back to Salvador.





We hauled ass down the main strip and arrived on the street just as the bus pulled up. I have only two solid memories of bus ride home, both afforded by the traffic jam that made us an hour and a half late: the incredible sunset and the desperate need to find the restroom upon arrival, having foolishly imbibed two large bottles of water on the journey.

Sue, Maya and Max headed home, while Eliza, Fabian and I cabbed it back to our hostel where the two of us snuck Eliza in for a shower, so that she wouldn't have to go all the way back to her place before dinner. We walked up the street in search of the same place we had had carne del sol with the capoeira guys the previous night, but sadly, it was closed. Instead, we had an enjoyable meal at another restaurant, whose outdoor section literally stood in the middle of the street. Then, content but exhausted, I chose to make it an early night, while Fabian and Eliza went out.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Salvador de Bahia, Brazil