Hey!I think it was yesterday or the day before that my mum commented that it's been a while since I'd written on my blog (she checks it these days with surprising frequency). And it's true, it's been already almost a month since I wrote here last, so I'm going to break the bad habit now. I guess I just got a bit busy, what with my role as sales assistant at a large Dutch department store, and starting an internship as copywriter at the communications department of Fairfood International, an NGO based in Amsterdam. And, if you check out their website once in a while (fairfood.org), you might notice one of my articles, as I will also be writing for the blog as part of my responsibilities. So, even if new entries don't appear on this blog as often as they should, you can check out the Fairfood website to see if something I'd written recently had newly appeared on there :)
Well, as my readers residing in Holland would know, we've been having quite some summery weather lately, it's incredible. Today, I went into town clad in a summer top and skirt, and havaianas. Unbelievable! With weather like that persisting outside, it's time to go back to the Brazilian island of Morro de Sao Paulo, as I'd promised to make your mouths water with the story of the most perfect breakfast and 11 caipirinhas shared by three garotas. (Actually, I will probably just make my own mouth water from it. lol)
The breakfast from a dream
(... but I know it was real!)
I'd told you much already about Bahia, Salvador and Morro de Sao Paulo, though even as an (inspiring) writer, sometimes (ok, quite often) I find it difficult to express exactly what it is I feel or have felt about something in words. Expressing what you think is in this respect much easier... but as always, I'm going to keep trying, hoping that my readers will keep coming back to the blog.
So, the first morning we woke up in our lovely pousada in Morro de SP, we were greeted by the hotel owner with trays of what is the most loveliest breakfast, really. See the photos below as proof that I'm not lying, as writers may have the tendency to exaggerate things now and then.
Yep, there were plates of exotic fruit: papaya, oranges, pineapples, bananas, my favorite watermelon, and the small little red fruit the name of which I can no longer remember... it probably grows in the Amazon, like acai (can someone help me with the name?? haha); orange juice and coffee; cheese and ham (Brazilian must-haves); rolls, croissants and chocolate brownie-type cakes, and of course white bread rolls (another Brazilian must-have at breakfast, haha). All that served on a platter, and consumed on a nice terrace with the view of the sea in the background, and the feeling you have when you've got a day ahead of you where you don't really need to do anything, rather than explore the island and relax. Sounds good, don't it?
Actually, I remember that when we went off exploring the beaches (as you may recall from the previous entry, there are at least four main beaches on Morro de SP), the sun was hiding for much of the time. Even so, it was still warm (Bahia, duh), and we could lie on the beach with our coconut water (for those of you wondering about that, yes, it comes in a real coconut, they call it agua de coco in Brazil... yum! I wish they had that here in Holland, too, it would greatly complement the nice weather. But I guess that's one of those special things you get so easily in tropical countries and can't get in this part of the world)."Mais uma?"
As this isn't an exact account of all activities we did on the island, it should suffice to say here that we had a lovely relaxing day on the beach, and the sun came out later in the afternoon after all (with the unwanted effect that it burned Bryley's legs while we were walking back.. quite badly); and we had a big lunch at a restaurant on the beach closer to home and when some small rain drops were felt, we could hide under a cozy wooden roof, where we read some magazines and chilled out on the wooden - but cushioned - benches; and Bryley had a tereré done by an elderly lady, basically a Brazilian dreadlock made up of multiple colours.
And I just remembered what we actually did that night! Haha. We have some photos posing all together with the four of us (Bryley, Yuen, Silvana, and me) on the deck at the sea, but honestly I was just wondering a minute ago, so what came after? There seems to be no photographic evidence. But now I know, we went to this random party (I think, just me and Bryley, as Silvana and Yuen were too tired) with a few people we already knew from Salvador who were on the island at the same time (one of them recommended to us we come there in the first place). We stayed around at the party for a while, but weren't really feeling the vibe, and we - girls - knew that the minute we'd get up to join the people on the dancefloor there'd be a large amount of guys swarming around us. Just as was the case at Pelourinho in Salvador, the local male population present at the party also seemed to think much of themselves... hahaha. On a similar note, I remember we also noticed a few dark-skinned women with small children of mixed complexion that we kind of figured came as a result of white tourists visiting the island with such frequency.. well, enough said. Just something that popped into my head just now as an interesting observation we made, especially that night.
The next morning Silvana, our friend living in Sao Paulo, had to get the boat back to the mainland, which made it the three of us again. That day we chilled on the beach, basically lazing around. But what I've been promising to tell about is the night of eleven caipirinhas, which came that evening. The three of us girls dressed up in our best outfits (Bryley in my long beautiful dress from Rio de Janeiro which I never find the occasion to wear in Holland) and headed to one of the restaurants along the main street, where we sat for hours, enjoying good food, great live music practically next (door) to us, and, well... the caipirinhas. Ok, in our defense, the caipirinhas were quite small, but we still managed to make it to round 3 (round 2 for Yuen, she was lagging behind a little, which you wouldn't expect of her, but true, hehe), after which I was feeling giddy and happy. LOL. At which point we paid our bill, including the 8 caipirinhas. But since we ordered so many, the waiter offered us a round on the house, so how could we say no? Except that the fourth caipirinha turned out to be a little more difficult to consume. Which in the end I managed almost to the end, and Bryley ended up drinking her own to the bottom plus helping Yuen with hers. Really. Hahahaha.
The guilty little caipirinha ;-)As we left the place, it actually began to rain, so we had to run home along the streaming sandy pathway. This happened on a Monday night in early August, and someone had told us that Mondays were party nights on one of the bigger beaches on Morro. So, as Bryley insisted we go check it out and it had dried up by then, we left the already dreaming Yuen at the pousada, and headed to the beach (while I felt a bit of a brain freeze after all the caipirinhas, haha). As we half-expected though on a relatively cold and rainy night off-season, the party was kind of there, but not really, since there were a few bar stalls around selling drinks, a few people, some music, but otherwise pretty deserted. We stayed a little while anyways, and I had trouble convincing the random guys around that I was a mineira (that is, from the state of Minas Gerais). Especially the guy we talked to who turned out to have spent some time in Holland, caught me out. I blame the caipirinha-induced brain-freeze. Haha!
Palm trees and natural skin lotion
The next day we were leaving the island to go back to Salvador, but we couldn't leave without trying out the famous mud bath of the island. For this, we walked for almost an hour along a narrow beach side off the mainstream tourist way, dodging big boulders in the way, sometimes walking ankle-deep in the sea to make it around them (the beach was that narrow and the boulders that big at some points). But it was beautiful scenery, with blue sky, many palm trees and almost jungle-like vegetation along the coastline. And as we finally made it to the rocks that exude this natural muddy skin lotion, we saw that quite a few other people had the same idea, you almost had to line up for the treat. Nah, kidding, we could totally relax in the light-pinky soft mudbath for a while, after which we took lots of silly pictures covered with mud. No, they're not going on here, hahaha!
Going around the big bolders on the beach on the way to the mud bath :pWell, only a few more words to say about Morro de Sao Paulo now. As our boat took off from the shore later in the afternoon, we had some truly beautiful sights before our eyes (and cameras) from all around. Beautiful sky, lit with softly changing colours of the slowly setting sun, moving waves around the boat that always make me muse, and the charming island we were leaving behind, with a pretty sandy shore and a jungle green just behind it. There were also some small cute boats strewn about, and pretty colourful houses along the shore and also higher up among the green sides. It was a beautiful sight to have for the beginning of our trip back to Salvador. I have a photo which especially makes me miss the trip and just Brazil in general, though it actually hasn't got anything specific to do with me, but for some reason it just does. A bunch of local boys playing soccer on the beach on an island in the Atlantic ocean, somewhere of the coast of one of the most popular destinations in Brazil... what's so special about it? :-)
Getting a Brazilian tereré
After a rather long trip back, we made it back to Salvador and checked into a hostel in Pelourinho, where the host was tipping off all the girls to go see that folkloric Bahian dance show with the half-naked capoeira guys, of which I have written before. That Tuesday, we attempted another go at the busy Pelourinho night, ending up at a very random party at a big dirty outside club where none of us felt quite comfortable I think so we didn't stick around; and as usual of course we had hordes of local guys after us, causing havoc and making us run (well, not really, but some of them got a little too excited about the gringas, but what can you do). Oh, and again I tried to pass for a mineira, and this time there was this random Brazilian guy in the crowd who actually complemented me on my English, when I said I was from Minas. My English! Lol :)
The next day we explored the shopping possibilities at the busy market in town, where we bought some jewellery from a Chilean guy living in Brazil, including the birthday gift for our host sister Cacau, and my super-colourful acai beads that I love and love to wear. Also, this is where I got my own tereré (dreadlock in my hair), custom made from Brazilian colours only, that is, green, yellow, blue and white. It was beautiful, my tereré, and I still have the actual dread itself. It was a shame that already after a couple of weeks it started disentangling and I had to take it out. Next time in Brazil, I'll be sure to get another one :)
Perhaps also funny to note is that that night we had our dinner at the pub of our own hostel owner, where we were presented with a menu consisting of food from all corners of the planet, so we chose a meal of Indian, Moroccan and Thai cuisine, which was random but very good nevertheless, and it came in these cool ethnic-looking plates. Yes, I fall easily for this kind of stuff :p At the same time, each meal had a fair offering of rice on the side, so they actually looked kind of alike.. haha. Not to mention that rice is actually one of the integral parts of the Brazilian cuisine as well ;)
At this point, the story of the trip to Bahia comes to an end, and I applaude you if you managed to get to the end, in one go in any case. I feel like I've written a whole novel! In any case, I hope you have enjoyed reading about Bahia and that this isn't the last time I'm writing about it, and look forward to the next trip there =)
Obrigada!
Mwah!
PS Just wanted to mention that after taking the night plane back to Rio, Bryley and me still managed to spend a few hours in Rio before heading back to Juiz de Fora, so we were basically awake and on the road for... quite a while. A day, maybe? But it was worth it, even missing the bus because of the traffic and waiting an 1.5 hours to change our tickets for the next bus ;) But we made it back home that evening, right on time for Cacau's birthday party :)
