After Christmas rush in (and out) of Barra Grande
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.
We found a river, and followed it, up through some little town and beyond, where it ended…we sat there in this little mucky inlet for a bit, just silent, listening to the waves of the ocean on the other side of the bush. We turned back and visited this little town, not knowing where we were, but it didn’t really matter. We had some lunch overlooking the water and watched kids doing backflips and all sorts of manuevers off the pier. A canoe pulled in – more kids – and when they went to leave, the one paddled away quickly, making the other poor kid swim for it, never being able to catch up. After paddling back (which was much easier and quicker than getting there – isn’t it always that way?), we actually learned that we had missed the river and ended up at some other small town, which apparently was further than anyone this guy had ever heard of anyone going (yay for us).
All day I had been dreaming of a fire on the beach. There was so much beach, so much wood to burn – the two should be brought together, I thought, and I made it happen. Before dark, Vanessa and I gathered wood, piled it up in a nice teepee, with some to spare, and went to dinner. We came back later, after dark and really did have a great fire. I know Vanessa was skeptical of my fire-making abilities, and I do think she followed along in an effort mostly to humor me, but, we did have a great fire…Vanessa even agreed to that.
The next morning, we, once again had planned to take a boat to the islands, but, again it didn’t happen. It never happened. Instead, we went walking again along the beach to Taipu – our favorite beach. The walk is about 2, 2 1/2 hours, and we decided to take the 4×4 trucks back to town. On the truck we met a nice couple in their 50s from São Paulo and a guy from Alaska with his Brazilian girlfried, both a bit older as well. The truck broke down about halfway through the trip and pulled into estação boa sorte (Good Luck Station), where we found no luck at all, but rather realized we had to find another way back. We flagged down another truck, who agreed to take us a little way up. From there we hitched another ride in the back of a pickup, who took as far as his house. This was good enough, because it was very close to a restaurant we had been invited to by the other 4, so we just hoofed over there. We were invited to join them for lobster, and were promised that it was very good. Well, not only was it very good, but very cheap…lobster for 6 plus rice, salad, farofa (ooh, I’ll talk about this in a second), maybe something else, and a bunch of beers only turned out to be $5 per person! Amazing.
OK, yeah, so farofa. This stuff is served with everything. It’s a side dish, or maybe it’s more like a condiment. It’s manioc flour, and sometimes it’s got stuff in it, like bacon or maybe dried tomatoes (not sure on that one). Anyway, they serve a lot of it. It’s really dry and there’s not much taste. I guess you’re supposed to just put it on everything, mix it in with the other stuff they give you (a lot of times, rice and beans). I don’t know…I just haven’t taken to it.
By this time in Barra Grande, the people were coming in by the boatloads – literally. Starting a little on Christmas night, and then in full force on the 26th, this quiet little place was just being overtaken by tourists, mostly (if not all) Brazilian tourists. Now is summer in Brazil and everyone goes on vacation these days. The whole time we were in Barra Grande, I’m pretty sure we were the only non-Brazilian tourists there (except for the guy from Alaska, but he was with his Brazilian girlfriend, so I don’t count that). It was pretty nice when no one was there, but everyone was packing in for New Years, and, well, having been there a week with it mostly to ourselves, we were glad to move on, happy that we were there when we were. And, so, off it was to Salvador, where we would spend New Years Eve.
Tags: Brazil, Tag Index
Tania
January 19th, 2006 at 10:27 pm
Great post. The kayaking and fire sound great but the Lobster dinner for $5 sounds like heaven!
Funchilde a bootie