Bad Case of Wanderlust (My Trip Around the World): 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.