'La isla bonita': Morro de Sao Paulo, pt 1

Hey!

A few weeks ago I began writing some stories and impressions of mine from the trip to Bahia that Bryley, Yuen and I went on last August (yep I know it's been a while! Time flew by). When you arrive in Salvador, the grand capital of Bahia, it's inevitable to be struck by its natural environment (i.e. the sea, beaches and palm trees), its colonial architectural beauty in Pelourinho, its confident, attractive population; as well as its modernity and poverty, both of which stare you straight in the face. Salvador is, similar to Rio (though perhaps not to the same level), full of such contrasts, where the streets of the city are home both to great cultural heritage as well as many homeless people the society seems to turn their face away from as they pass. The city is a popular tourist playground, and you can find gringos from everywhere all year round. It's a place worth visiting, but perhaps one you have to prepare yourself for beforehand.

Salvador - Valenca - Morro de Sao Paulo

As we happened to go to Bahia in the depth of the Brazilian winter (read: it's still close to 30 degrees during the day but sometimes it rains and gets just a tad chilly at night), the place we headed to from Salvador was far less busy in that period, also as the winter holidays just ended, but would normally also be bustling with tourists - the beaches of Morro de Sao Paulo on the island of Tinharé. It's pretty quick and straightforward to get from Salvador to Morro de Sao Paulo if you take the more expensive, smaller boat that makes a direct journey in a couple of hours (but apparently is likely to leave you quite sea-sick). Instead, the three of us girls and our new friend from the hostel Silvana (resident of the actual city of Sao Paulo), took the cheaper, sea-sick-free, but longer and more complicated journey which involved getting a big ferry in Salvador across to the island nearby, where we were lucky to just catch the bus heading for a town called Valenca, where we arrived an hour and a half later. In Valenca, we had to wait a half hour to an hour for the speed boat to take us and a few other tourists to Morro de SP. I can no longer remember how we actually managed to figure all this out!

So, the journey took a little longer but I have to say that the bus ride from the place which name I no longer remember to Valenca was really interesting, because it went past beautiful countryside, with lush tropical green on both sides; and at the end of the bus trip we drove through what seemed like the central street of a small village, where you see somewhat depricated houses on your both sides, with elderly people sitting out beside their houses, and children running in the street; in other words, a place full of local life, and where everybody knows everybody else (as well as all the latest gossip ;-)). I suppose the kind of picture you would imagine to encounter in the countryside of a big, quickly developing nation... It must have been Valenca itself, even though from the tourist guides it would seem like a bigger, more modern place. Something to look into! In any case, Valenca is a proud host of a small local port, where we got on the speed boat to speed us off to the island. Heading for the same destination, we shared both our bus and boat with a Dutch family, which proves that you really do find Dutch people everywhere. And perhaps a funny detail to add is that the family consisted of one of those ultra-cool Dutch women in their forties with a pre-teen child and a younger boyfriend. Haha, awesome.

Yuen and me on the boat from Valenca to Morro de SP: it got so windy! :p



An hour or so later, we were on the island, a pretty little thing in the midst of the deep blue sea around. Ok, Tinharé is not actually that little, and we only visited a small part of it probably, the four (or five? six? help!) beaches that make up the now famous Morro de Sao Paulo. Or in any case, gathering that fame at a fast pace. From the shore, we had to climb up the steep but luckily short hill to reach the central square of the area, which leads on to the beaches so simply and unpretensiously named beach one, beach two, beach three, beach four... haha. Each has its specific characteristics and may appeal to various visitors in different ways, from what I remember beach one was kind of a normal beach with some bars and shops, beach two was the party beach, beach three quieter and more relaxed, and I don't even remember about beach four anymore. I do remember visiting all four of them, though our pousada - bed and breakfast Brazilian style, basically - was near to beach one, so pretty much at the 'front' of the island when you arrive, so to speak.

Oh yes, I was talking about climbing up to the central square: so that's the first thing you see when you finally get up with all your luggage (a small Eastpack, lol... but there are also lots of island boys who earn money from carrying tourists' luggage up and down the hill). The square is suuuuper cute, with a sort of Caribbean atmosphere, beautiful, colorful houses around, bars and restaurants, and in the evening it was full of life, with women selling lots of things such as jewellery, and children running around joyfully, while we sipped at our capeta's... oops, I got a little fast-forwarded there ;)

The pousada and the capeta

From the square, as a visitor you are likely to take one of the two ways, one along the 'main' street between mostly restaurants, hostels, pousadas, and shops; or the street parallel, which is basically the beach. Yes, one, two, three, four, one following the other. Life on a island is simple, isn't it? :*** As we first had to actually find a place to stay, we took that first option, and quickly found ourselves staying at a really cute pousada owned and run by a nice Brazilian couple in their thirties or early forties, where we had lots of space actually, as we stayed two to a room, with a whole terrace (including awesome hanging lounge chairs and a hammock) which we shared only with one other couple from New Zealand during our two-three day stay on the island. For some reason we were doubting at first how long we were gonna stay at this pousada, but I don't know anymore why, since it was actually pretty royal. Also, one of us mentioned that the pousada owner said that after we see the breakfast, we won't wanna change to another hostel or whatever, and that's so true. The breakfast was the most f* amazing I've had in Brazil, hahaha. But about that a little later.

Once we settled in at our pousada we explored the nearby area a little, though it was already getting dark, and then decided to have dinner at our own pousada, which has a small balcony, and seemed like a good option for the night for four hungry travelers. It was so funny when we got there because on that same balcony was an adolescent couple busy admiring each other, who looked at us like we were a little crazy when we arrived, as if they were thinking, 'someone actually came for dinner? ooook...' So they had to retreat to the neighbouring kitchen and start working, and the guy was our waiter for the evening - the restaurant was pretty much to ourselves during that time, as it's really small, pretty much just the balcony from what I remember. The food was really good though, with some of that Bahian-style palm-oil prepared sea food (why didn't we take a photo??), yum.

The pretty square at Morro de SP, bustling with local and tourist life


When we left to go to Bahia, Mariana, my host sister, tipped us off to try the Bahian capeta cocktail, which consists of vodka and liquid chocolate I believe, and proudly and justly bears the name 'little devil'. As we sat down after dinner at the aforementioned square to admire the evening atmosphere around, we couldn't miss the opportunity to try it :p It was very devilishly good, hehe.



Enjoying the Bahian capeta's

Well for now that's it as I don't want to make this post so long you won't get to the end, and I will write more about Morro de SP in part two soon!! :) (And the promised story of the breakfast and the 11 caipirinhas, which will leave you hungry and thirsty, hahaha).

Thanks for reading!

Beijos!

Quando na Holanda... about receiving Brazilian friends in Holland :)

Oi oi!

I guess when it comes to seeing the wonderful friends I made in Brazil again on this European side of the ocean, I'm quite lucky. In December and January I played host to my lovely Brazilian host sisters Mariana and Cacau for two weeks (including the trip to Paris), and was sad to see them go - it seemed so weird not to have guests in the house anymore! Someone to take care of from morning to evening, hahahhaa... never thought of myself as a house wife per se (still don't), but I guess I don't make such a bad (host) zusje. Yay for that! :-)

And just a couple of weeks ago (actually, I'm a little lazy and late with this post, hehe) another very special friend from Brazil came to visit me in Holland, Vico. Though he was only here for two days (despite my very elaborate but unfulfilled plans to detour him from getting his train back to Paris...), it was enough for him to fall in love with the country, so now I'm sure he'll be coming back again before too long. There's so much more to still see and do! I'll be waiting =)

In these two days, I was happy to receive Vico at my house too, where he could meet my mum and speak some Russian, take in all the Matryoshka dolls around and get comfortable at my 'cute house' as he called it somewhere on facebook (I spied it in Portuguese, lol). After a little misunderstanding beforehand, he realized once he was here that my house actually isn't in some far off strange place (as it seems I described it, haha), but is actually in quite a nice neighbourhood, hehe. It's no surprise that after seeing my house, taking a tour of Leiden under the almost-professional guidance by Bryley, and a night- and day take on Amsterdam, Vico left so enamoured with Holland ;-) The two days flew by so fast, it was like lightning. Luckily, we had some time to explore many charms of Amsterdam both at night (including the Red Light District :p) and during the day, when the sun was so kind as to shine for us the whole day. That was beauuutiful!


Together in Leiden, with the key image of Holland in the background: a true-life Dutch windmill!

Although Vico was only here for two days, it seemed strange at first after he left to go back to the normal routine (though a couple of days later I started a new job, so not completely the old routine actually). I had the feeling again as if there is something missing from the picture - where the Brazilian friend to take care of? Haha. *Sniff*!

And what was also really great is that Vico got to meet some more of my friends - and vice versa! Now when I keep talking about Brazil to my friends as well as my mum, at least some of them will be able to put the actual person they met to the story I'm telling. Particularly as all my friends who met my Brazilian friends liked them all, and the other way around! (And it was so hilarious because Vico spent a month in Russia before this visit and so he kept putting in phrases in Russian into his conversation that he learnt there... while my friends in Holland are more or less hopeless at understanding it, hahaha).

Now there's been three Brazilians who came to visit - so I hope the number will keep on going up, and those who've already been will come back again. As for me, life has once quite unexpectedly sent me to Brazil, so let's hope it will do so again soon enough! To help me with my Brazilian saudade, Vico also kindly brought me some gifts from Juiz de Fora, which warm up my culturally-torn heart, while they decorate my table and play on my iTunes. Rsrsrs :)

(NB Hahaha, that stands for risos, which means 'smiles' in Portuguese, and is one of the ways Brazilians express their emotions on internet lol. I thought it was weird at first too.)

As I promised before, there's still more to write about my experiences in Juiz de Fora and traveling in Brazil, with Morro de Sao Paulo in Bahia as the next story destination. I haven't forgotten - and I hope you won't forget to check it out, because it's coming soon!!!

Beijo!

O que o baiana tem?

Hello there! :)

Last Sunday I saw a performance by a Brazilian singer called Alessandra Leao at the Tropentheater in Amsterdam. Coming from the state of Pernambuco in the Northeast of Brazil, she gave a great show with the support of three percussionists and three guitarists, and, not to forget, her amazing voice. Her music is meant to combine the traditional and modern elements of the Northeastern Brazilian music, and gorgeous as that theater is, I wish I could just dance to her music, I think I wouldn't have sat down for the whole hour and a half.

I've never been to Pernambuco, though I would love to travel through more of the Northeast of Brazil, but till now the closest I got to there was Bahia, just to the south of Pernambuco. It would be difficult for me of course to draw comparisons between the two states as I haven't been to Pernambuco or the rest of the Northeast, but I believe that having sampled some Bahian culture I can imagine a bit of what lays in store if you venture up north from Salvador, the capital of Bahia. Alessandra Leao's performance being the starting point for this post, I would actually like to talk a bit more about Bahia, which is an extremely popular place to visit among the travelers to Brazil, and I've been lucky enough to be among them.

Salvador, the fast-beating heart of Bahia

Salvador da Bahia is a city that leaves a lasting impression, similar in that respect to Rio de Janeiro. It has fascinating history as it was the first place in Brazil to have been colonized by the Portuguese, and for many years it was the center and capital of the newly emerging country under European colonial rule as well as the center of the slave trade. The majority of the residents of the city have African roots, and the city is bursting with the Afro-European influences of its past. It has a beautiful, extremely colourful city center called Pelourinho, with the buildings and churches built in Portuguese style adorning the steep cobbled streets. (They are so steep and cobbled that walking up and down wearing even havaianas was a challenge, let alone the heels the Brazilian girls fancy so much). Pelourinho is famous for its Tuesday party nights, when the best percussion band in the world, Olodum, takes on these very steep cobbled streets to beat out the kind of rhythms on their drums that won't leave you standing still (despite the cobbles). Olodum are accompanied by a couple of dancers who show the rest of the crowd how to dance to the music, and there are several lines of locals and tourists following them. Do you remember Michael Jackson's video for 'They don't care about us?' Yep, that's Pelourinho, and it's Olodum.

Salvador is no less famous for its amazing shows of capoeira; one night we went to see a Bahian folklore dance show in Pelourinho, and it was absolutely smashing. It wasn't just capoeira, but also candomblé, which is a popular Brazilian religion (like a cult I suppose), and some samba too, I believe. But omg, the dancing was amazing, and so was the capoeira. And well, those young capoeira guys sure know what they're worth, which was easy to tell just by the way they stood outside after the performance. Tall, dark and handsome (literally), and amazing dancers in addition, their testosterone levels must be particularly high after each performance, especially as they can see the girls eyeing them afterwards. (As a note, the guys perform without shirts for much of the time. A week later, when we were back in Pelo, our hostel owner kept encouraging all the girls to go see the show because of all the male performers).

Yes, Bahia is a magnificent center of culture, music and dancing. Quite a few famous Brazilian writers and musicians come from Bahia, including Jorge Amado, one of the best known Brazilian writers (whose most well known work 'Dona Flor and her two husbands', which takes place in Bahia, is waiting on my book shelf for me to be read), and Ivete Sangalo, the queen of Brazilian axé music, and as many of you would already know, one of my favourite singers now ;) Ivete's music is known to boom out at Carnaval, and I could honestly dance to her music for four days straight, as they probably do in Salvador, to which she seems quite faithful when it comes to Carnaval. Some of her songs, too, specifically refer to Salvador, especially with relation to Carnaval and dancing at Pelourinho; for instance in one song she sings, "Come, my love, come to Olodum, and let's dance together at Pelo"... can you guess that she's a proud baiana (Bahian woman)?

Somewhere I heard, or read, that except for Rio, where samba is the deal, the rest of Brazil dances Carnaval to axé, so it's no wonder that Ivete has such musical status in Brazil. Some of her music plays in the Brazilian film Ó Pai Ó, which takes place during Carnaval in Salvador, the film I saw at the Amsterdam open-air film festival in August last year, a week after I was back from Brazil, and only recently after the trip to Bahia. Imagine what it was like for me to watch that film, recognizing all those cobbled streets and colourful buildings in Pelourinho, with all that music and dancing...


One of the central, and steepest, streets of Pelourinho :p


There is a lot to say about Salvador, Bahia, and our trip there in general, and I don't want to sound like a tour guide. But certainly, this is a place worth visiting in Brazil, though as a foreign girl you have to prepare yourself, because it's not just the handsome capoeira boys who show off high testosterone levels in Salvador. At times the male attention was quite intense, actually, even though there are so many other gringa's around, as the place is such a tourist bomb, that you'd think the men wouldn't bother you much. Not that I was particularly bothered, but after being touched by random men in the streets a few times, with the accompanying 'Ei, lindaaa' (hey, beautiful), you think, huh. In another place, like Holland, I'd be like, 'why are you touching me??' but in Brazil, after a while I just kinda got used to being ready for almost anything of that sort ;)
In Brazil, you can expect much attention from men as a girl, and in a city like this it is particularly true as the men did seem to think quite a bit of themselves, hahaha. Oh, and did I mention that their women are really beautiful, and their curves would make even Beyoncé jealous? One of the most culturally rich states in Brazil, no wonder there is a saying that goes along the lines of 'Que o que o baiana tem?' (What oh what does a Bahian have?)

About playing 'fortress' on the beach

And of course, there are the beaches in Salvador, too :p It's a big city, with at least a million people, and Pelo is just a small part of it. Much of the city is very modern, surrounded by beaches as well as high-rises in addition to the old colonial center. One afternoon, we took a bus along the city coast in the opposite direction from the city center, to check out this apparently great beach an hour's ride away. I suppose the beach itself was pretty great, but once we actually arrived there after an hour on the bus, the darkening skies have opened to leave us little choice but try to find a place to hide in one of the beach restaurants. As you can imagine, many people had the same idea, and Bryley, Yuen and I ended up fashioning a little beach umbrella fortress out on the deck of the restaurant, with the kind help of one of waiters. And actually, that was fuuuun, like playing house, or in this case house caught up in a (small) storm on the beach, as little kids :) And since we haven't had lunch yet, this was the perfect time for it, so we ordered this huge oven-prepared fish with a bunch of side-dishes. It was a pretty good afternoon given that we rode out to this beach a million light years away from the city, got caught in the rain and didn't actually get to lie on the beach or swim. And the trip back on the bus was also accompanied by rain. But I did enjoy the trip there anyways, because most of it takes you along the seaside, which is a great way to see more of the place.


Our awesome little fortress on the beach!! :)


Caipirinhas vs. football

Bryley, Yuen and me traveled to Salvador with the three of us and first stayed in a hostel near the beach in the neighbourhood called Barra for a few nights, including a forró dance party at a club we went to with a bunch of people on a bus they arranged (I don't remember anymore exactly how they arranged it or who was in that group), which was fun but ended up with two of the super-drunk French guys leaving the place before us and there was this whole issue at the door because the security wouldn't let us leave because of it since they hadn't paid. Luckily we could go before it got too long, and the next day the guys turned out to still be alive and unharmed after all (as they stumbled out so drunk and just went off in a random direction at night in Salvador, which isn't recommended).

By the time we got to this trip, I had developed a sort of habit of having a caipirinha almost daily (at least when traveling!!), without which something seemed to miss from my daily ratio (oops!). But think about it, it's like the French and wine, isn't it... hahaha. Don't worry I've dropped the habit a long time ago. But in Salvador, too, we went out with the three of us girls to have some cocktails at a bar in a whole bar-party area a walking distance from our beach hostel, where we joined all the many Brazilians whose eyes were on the game between two Brazilian football teams. I remember having a caipirinha with strawberries that night... OMG, so good! And it's just so much fun to be out at a bar sipping your caipirinha during a game, with all these Brazilians going crazy supporting these - to me, random - teams. Somehow I never have this feeling when there is a TV on with a football game at a (usually Irish) bar in Holland.

Oh, and there was this random party that we ventured into one of the nights, where the thing that springs to mind first was that one of the guys that was circling around us wouldn't believe I was from Minas Gerais, because apparently I 'don't look Brazilian'. Whatever happened to the Brazilian ethnic and cultural variety? Melting pot, and all that? Boo. Oh well, haha.

We spent a few days in Salvador after which we headed to a nearby island called Morro de Sao Paulo with our new friend Silvana, returning back to Salvador for a day at the end of our trip. But I will tell you about Morro de Sao Paulo next time, as well as the night of eleven caipirinhas... as a result of joined effort, mind you! Haha ;)

Beijo!