Life in Flip Flops: BAHIA!

After completing the hurried and exhausting and "bus-full" challange of visiting several places in and around Rio de Janeiro in under 2 weeks - we heading up north to the Bahian town of Itacaré. Described in the Lonely Planet guide (which I now want to burn) as a town of "surf, reggae and eco tourism". Perfect! For this trip, we had to prepare ourselves for our first "over 20 hours" bus ride. Indeed it seemed like quite a feat, so we armed ourselves with playing cards, newspapers, books and lots of food!

From the moment we got on the bus, the whole feel was different. In general on Brazilian buses, the air con is put on very high and the people in general are also quite religious. So you would sometimes see written on the bus "departure 17.00hrs to Salvador. Jesus is our Lord", for example. Even on the bus, the bus driver, before heading off, explains to all passengers that the journey will last so many hours, that we will make such and such stops every couple of hours to stretch our legs and go to the bathroom and perhaps buy food (which we definitely did). So from the moment we got on bus, aside from all these regular rituals, the people were already darker skinned and conversed with one another freely, as though all previously aquainted. We were offered food from two ladies sat in front of us and given some "cumin cake" from the woman opposite, after noticing me stare curiously at her fluffy yellow delicacy, and oh what a delicacy it was!

Within the first two hours, we had eaten pratically all our food (except for the fruit). Yet the journey went pretty easily and quickly overall. We read, spoke, listened to music, ate again... and overall, it was a pleasant journey and an incredible destination. Itacaré, situated a couple of hours south from Salvador de Bahia, was a coast town village full of surfboards, surfers and surf shops. Good vibes resumes it quite well.

We checked into our hostel, which had a balcony with hammocks, an open air kitchen and was approximetaly 10 minutes walk from the beach and just off the main street. Before even seeing the Atlantic Ocean from a Bahian point of view, we headed off to get information on Surf schools. We were advised to go to an independent one, which was in fact 3 times cheaper than all the rest, and within a couple of hours in Bahia, we already had a surf board under our arms and heading to the beach! Our instructor, Allan, spoke little English, but enough to tell us to "peddle" "sit" "turn the board" "protect the wax" (from the sun), "feet together" "big wave" "little wave" and "good wave". The first day we peddled and peddled to practice (and realise how unfit we are!). The second day we went on waves and managed to stand up a couple of times. I also managed to nearly kill people several times! (no kidding). Me and my orange board were a real danger to all other surfers! But I was determined to catch a wave, no matter what it costs!
The third day was great - The first wave I took, I rode and overall had a good days surf because the waves were stronger. However, after midday, the waves get chaotic and we couldnt do it anymore. Besides, our bodies were aching us a lot!

By day we surfed, and by night we went out with people from the hostel. We met Swiss and Swedish, amongst others. On one of the nights we all went to a party on the beach where they played "Forró" music. I didn´t dare to dance but Nathalie managed pretty well!

The beach in Itacaré is heavenly. Those (un)lucky to receive a postcard from there will know what I mean... Just imagine a heavenly beach - that was it! And it was SO hot! The sand was burning hot! So hot it literaly burned your feet and we had to run to the shade! Speaking of which, this is where we developed a gorgeous tan and where my hair had been naturally dyed a blonder tint by the sun. It was definitely over 40 degrees in Itacaré. We were taking two to three cold showers everyday, and as soon as we were out of the shower, we already began sweating!

We tried hard to not succomb to the tourist temptations of shopping, but did indulge in the best "Açai na Tigela" I have ever had! Açai is an Amazonian fruit, packed with vitamins and energy and absolutly delicious. The way they serve it in Brazil is in a bowl, blended with ice cubes and other fruits (especially bananas) and topped with honey and granola grains. A real breakfast boost!

We loved our time in Itacaré so much that we didnt want to leave! We had only 4 days there but we had already bought our ticket from Salvador to Campo Grande (on the other side of the country), so we were obliged to leave the town, a town I shall definitely return to one day.

I can´t upload pictures of Itacaré, but will do the next chance I get.

We took a coach at midnight for Salvador (overnight buses save us one night in the hostel).
We froze, the ride was extremely bumpy and we didnt sleep all night. I think it was the worst bus ride we ever took. The combination of that, plus saying good bye to Itacaré, did not make me a happy bunny! We had to change coach midway in the middle of the night and at 6am catch a boat to Salvador for another hour. We arrived in Salvador, exhausted and hungry at 7am, and everything was closed. Even the local market hadnt opened yet!
We managed to find a small food store and ate an Açai na Tigela to boost us up and walked around town. We had a day and night to kill before taking the plane at 4am to Campo Grande.

Salvador is a beautiful little town. Once the comercial capital of Brazil, it is now renowned to be the most dangerous city and to have the best Carnival parties! We spent the day in the old town centre, called Pelourinho. The streets and houses all looked colonial, with a touch of colour. We visited sevral churches (including one made of gold - very impressive - called Sao Francisco) and a historic museum. We also visited the house of the famous Brazilian writer called Jorge Amado. We bought one of his books (I bought his best seller "Garbiel, cinnamon and clove") and we came across a musical cultural centre, filled with historic indigenous musical instruments. I wish I could remember all the names. There were incredible instruments from all over South America. We even had the chance to watch a group of 11 young kids from the age of 4 to 10 play drums. They played amazingly well and learned new beats very quickly. It was very impressive.

We spent the rest of the day in the sun and headed off to the airport before night-time fell. We didnt want to be around Salvador with our backpacks late at night, nor take a bus to the airport. We picked our bags up from the port (where we had left them in the morning) and took the bus to the airport. From that moment on, our bodies started entering a mode of delirium from sheer exhaustion. We arrived at the airport and just wanted to pass out. We were so tired! We had been awake for almost 48 hours! Finally we boarded our plane at 4am and were hoping to arrive in Campo Grande at midday.

The first flight was fine, I utterly passed out. But we had to change plane in Rio de Janeiro at approx 8 am. We did so, but whislt waiting for the second plane to take off, the air con stopped working and the plane could not take off. We had to go back into the airport and wait for the next plane. To cut a long story short, we finally got to Campo Grande airport and were lucky enought to find a cheap ride to the village of Bonito, our destination for the next couple of days.

So what attracted us to Bonito? Well , it is situated in the world´s largest wetland - The Pantanal. And is Brazil-wide famous for its incredible excursions in crystal clear rivers and caves. We wanted some of that!