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Archive for January, 2006

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Cactuses in Brazil?!

Tuesday, January 24th, 2006

We spent a few more days in Salvador after New Years, mostly awaiting the famed Tuesday night parties the city puts on every week. Every week, can you imagine, they set up stages and tear them back down, showcasing local musical acts. It was really great, and worth the wait of a few days of doing nothing in Salvador. Well, not exactly nothing…we did search out and buy some local music, tried to meet up with the 11-year old Lais from the ferry (but were stood up), took a crowded boat back and forth to some crap beach, and spent the nights watching “Stick Man” walk with his stick up and down the street below the hostel patio selling drugs and pimping prostitutes, at least that’s what we gathered he was doing… [read on]

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New Years Eve in Salvador

Monday, January 23rd, 2006

The buses into Camamu (port entry town to Barra Grande) were packed, loaded with people and all their crap on their way to spend their holidays in Barra Grande. The buses out of Camamu were empty, and we liked it that way. We were now in the state of Bahia, which is where the majority of the Afro-Brazilians live (something like 80%), with Salvador the capitol. The bus dropped us off at the ferry port in Bom Despacio, where we got our tickets and boarded. While explaining to Vanessa how to say “I’m thirsty” in Portuguese, it seemed that we attracted a lot of attention on the boat, and soon were friends with nearly half of the starboard side of the upper deck. We met a mother and her two daughters (all who speak English) from São Paulo, an 11 year-old girl named Lais and her mother, and another man, his wife, and son (whose name was Sued, deus (god) backwards). The man thought I was a hippie (must have been the bandana on my head)…something about how he used to be a truck driver and drive up and down the coast, picking up hitchhiking hippies. The girl, Lais, was really shy at first, because she heard us talking English and wanted to talk, but was shy to use her English. She got some words out, and we taught her some more, while she taught Vanessa some Portuguese, and I thanked her for that (Vanessa is good at saying, I don’t speak Portuguese, but she does, and points at me; I have to admit that I’m getting pretty good at it now…never thought I could speak Portuguese, but I get along alright); she was so excited to be talking to us…we took photos and got her phone number so we could see her again while we were in Salvador. All this while, I thought we were still in the port, waiting to leave, and yet we were almost to Salvador…the smoothest ferry ride ever. [read on]

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After Christmas rush in (and out) of Barra Grande

Thursday, January 19th, 2006

The day after Christmas (which was just the same as Christmas and every other day), Vanessa and I had planned to take a boat to some nearby islands, which were highly recommended. Well, that never happened that day, or any other day…we had missed the boat after a slow morning, just like every other morning. We really were doing nothing. We decided, though, that we should do something, so we rented some kayaks from our pousada to go cruising around a bit. This kayak was the fanciest kayak I’ve ever been in – it had a steering rudder contraption thing. Well, after 15 minutes of going in circles and feeling like idiots as the owner of the pousada swam out to us to align the rudder (not our fault), we were off to explore whatever there was out there. We were recommended to go down the ‘river’, so we went to search it out. [read on]

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A few public service announcements

Monday, January 16th, 2006

A BIG SHOUT OUT

As the first matter of business, I would like to send a personal shout out to two ladies I don’t even know – Pam Laraia and Donna Riccio. These two ladies work occasionally with my stepfather and learned of my travels through probably your typical water cooler conversation. Anyway, he told them about my blog and apparently they’ve become big fans…who would have thought!? I just wanted to thank you both, Pam and Donna, for the kind words and inspiration on the card sent to Lee and my mom; your donation to the Tania Travel Fund was an amazing, generous surprise; it takes a very kind heart to reach out like that. Let it be known that you are funding my hotel tonight…it’s a little bit of a splurge after sleeping 4 nights in a hammock and having the ceiling dripping on me while sitting on the toilet. In this place, I have a bed, the ceiling seems to be well sealed, and it even has a pool! Big up, ladies! [read on]

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Christmas on the beach

Monday, January 9th, 2006

For a 24 hour bus ride, it really was not all that bad. The bus stopped every few hours, where we could buy food (I’ve become addicted to salgados mistos, which just means mixed snacks…really, they’re just ham and cheese sandwiches, croissants, or the like…) The bathrooms along the way were also quite impressive – surprisingly clean, and always with toilet paper. Yay! Despite that, though, I did witness one little girl squat down and pee on the ground while no one did anything about it as people proceeded to walk in it. Lovely. [read on]

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Sydney Vicious does Rio de Janeiro

Sunday, January 8th, 2006

After a good tour of Christ, we headed down to the beautiful beach of Ipanema, which just looks like a regular beach, though it is kept pretty clean; the views of these rock formations jutting out in the distance aren´t too bad, either. There are about 5 venders for every beachgoer, and they stroll the beach, offering you all of their goods quite insistently. If you don´t want one thing (agua), perhaps you´ll want another (cerveja – beer). No? Then, it must be a refrigerante (soda). No. As soon as the refreshment guy leaves, then the ice cream man comes, and then you get the sarong dude, and then the jewelry chick. And, how about a bikini? Because everyone really needs a bikini once they´re already at the beach. To eat, various people offer sanduiches natural (cold sandwiches), camarão (a very suspect shish kabob of shrimp, that’s been carried up and down the beach), or my favorite, grilled cheese on a stick. This man walks around with some sort of salty cheese on a stick and a hot oven contraption, which he uses to grill the cheese. I might have seen him adding some sort of spices to the cheese, but I can´t be too sure…it just isn´t what I would call beach food. [read on]

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