Esther's Adventure

Hello,

Our journey from Morro to Itacare has been quite good, the two German girls with share the taxi with are nice and we compare notes on Salvador and Morro. The conversation turns to boys (typical!), and we mention that we´ve come all this way to Brazil, to meet a cute German and some English boys. They agree with us and explain that they too have met a nice German boy who also has a job in Zurich, same as our German boy... strange? It couldn't be the same boy could it? It sure could, so we all compare photos of Felix and agree that he was obviously sewing his royal oates in Brazil and we were lucky he´d only got some snogs out of us! Boys eh?! Can't live with them...

Itacare is a sleepy surfing haven on the coast of Bahia about 6 hours south of Salvador. We're booked into a hostel in the middle of town, called Auberge de Pharol. We check in and get a nice room over-looking the village square, with a balcony and an en suite(!). We´re sharing initially with a Norwegian woman who´s rather moody, but she leaves after one night, and we get two fun Danish girls. We like it here. The beaches are beautiful and more rustic than Morro, the people are cooler too, hippies and surfers. Plus the sea is proper, I mean big waves and a nice cool temperature. There is lots of handmade jewellery on sale in Itacare, made with twine, leather, bone, and acai berry beads. I buy a pair of earring`s on the beach made with snake and crocodile teeth. Sometimes the teeth accidentaly bite me when I wear them!

For dinner we find a transvestite pizza parlour up one of the streets near our hostel. The lady/man who runs it is super glamorous, and beautifully turned out, she's stunning. The whole atmosphere of the place is electric and as a treat, we order a glass of red wine each. For some reason you can't buy wine by the glass in Brazil, well in the restaurants and places we've frequented. We've been to mean to buy a whole bottle, so when we can just order a glass, it's heaven. We relish every sip. It's a nice Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile, mmm. Party animals that we are, we do some window shopping on the main street, and then turn in for the night. In our 6 nights here we're in bed every night by 10 o'clock. This proves quite funny when the two Danish 20 year olds are getting in from the beach / after beach drinks at this time, showering, getting dolled up, to then hit the town again for the night. We get up around 8am ish (sometimes earlier), just when the Danes are coming home! What a change around. I really feel old now, this should be me!!! Sorry this used to be me (us!). We like the Danes and love how cross eyed they are when they finally surface much later in the day. We can appreciate their fun, snug in the realisation we don't need to do all that anymore (much!).

M and I take surf lessons. We'd been recommended that we use 'Thor' down towards the beach. We get a joint lesson but with his brother in law Leandro, who speaks better English. Leandro reminds me of Doug in San Diego. He's petit and has that muscly upper body surf look. He's a good teacher and we have a great first day catching waves and falling off the boards. Unfortunately I bang my knee about 5 times and feel it going blue and squashy with funny liquid (?) , which it's done since fucking it up in Les Arcs, snowboarding in about 1900 and frozen to death (1990?) Every movement hurts. When we finish we're properly exhausted, so exhausted in fact we can't speak or do anything. On route home we find an amazing Israeli falafel place which is also cheap, and can just about muster the energy to eat dinner. Yummy fresh falafels with humous, tzaziki, fresh herbs and grilled aubergine all wrapped in home made flat bread. Delicious! All washed done with, well I have a beer, but M has a lemon and mint cooler. Lemon and fresh mint and ice all blended together with sugar. So refreshing. We hit the sack and are completely oblivious to any Danish antics that night, they could have had a party in our room and we wouldn't have noticed.

On day two surfing I attempt to do it, but the knee is saying no, so I resign myself to sitting on the beach, damn! I get sun burnt. Fronts of arms and legs. Face is also a bit red (not too bad). I shower and after-sun up in the evening, and decide I have glow in the dark boobs. A perfect neon white body bikini. I find it miraculous how skin changes colour and I love being brown.

M and I have become Havaiana obsessed. We can't walk past a shop without stopping and checking on the different styles. They also have a brand here called Ipanema. These in our mind are inferior. Isn't it strange how we've taken that 'style stance' about a foreign product when we really don't know what's cool or not cool in a foreign country. Plus you can buy Giselle Ipanemas. And I actually like them.

We have a day off surfing on the Sunday to allow injuries to heal and to chill (we've been so busy!), I spent all day in the hammock on Saturday. Exhausting. M now also has bruises and cuts. We have afternoon tea at a lovely cafe on the main sleepy street. Delicious chocolate cake and ice cream. Heavenly. Cocoa is grown in the area so is a delicacy of the town. Best quality chocolate in small quantities (well modest quantities ie not a whole bar of dairy milk), is hard to beat. We feel the love and the serotonin transmitters firing in our heads.

M and I attract weirdos. Is this a like attracting like thing? Or is it (we hope it is), opposites attract. So far on our trip we've met many nice people whom we definitely want to remain in contact with. In Itacare we meet John, whom we actually met in Salvador briefly. He decides click on to us and we have trouble shaking him off. He invites himself to dinner one evening after inviting himself to 'lie on the beach with us'... We don't really want him to come, so we sneak out of the hostel and head to the falafel place on our own. Only 30 mins later to be caught red handed hiding behind the flat bead wraps with humous on our lips, by John who basically bollocks us and is angry! What nonsense! We feel like naughty school girls. Honestly, some people. He then tries to entice us to watch him have tattoo, a massive Peruvian cross on the top of his back. We politely decline the offer. He's been travelling too long and has been abusing some South American exports we believe, he's deffo wacko.

On our last day, I still don't feel up to surfing, so offer to translate some of Leandro's shamanism writings. He's a real Carlos Castaneda and has written many stories about magic forests and true love. It's all very deep and therefore difficult to translate. It's heavy going but I'm glad to have helped. M's now been properly bitten by the surf bug.

After three attempts to procure a bus ticket to Rio...we finally get one. Brazillian scheduling is not always very organised. We head back to the hostel to chill and pack up, our departure is 6am!

I haven't screwed the top of my water bottle on securely, so it spills its contents all over my mattress. It looks like I've wet the bed. I advise the hostel and am given a new mattress.

We get up a 5.30am to get organised, whilst M is brushing her teeth she hears a glug glug glug sound. Her water bottle is now emptying its contents all over her mattress. It's so wet we have to pull it out of the room and leave it on the balcony. We leave the hostel, the pair of serial bed wetters!

22 hours to Rio...

NB:

I feel old and creaky.
John - names have changed to protect the innocent/not so innocent.
Green coconuts slashed with a machete.
Forgetting the lock, but not.
Chocolate salty balls.
Suduko.
Ochre soil blue sky.
Feeling quite home sick.

xxxxxxx