Living it up in Brazil, where it is sunny and hot, full of beaches, full of people, and with party energy pulsing through the very air.
We experienced Tuesday night in Salvador da Bahia, a crazy, crowded city-wide celebration of Tuesday (Tuesday! why??) – loud live music in the streets, food stalls, drink stalls, caipirinhas flowing freely, transvestites hassling to dreadlock your hair, and seemingly all of Salvador’s young and lively and scantily clad, filling the city’s narrow colonial streets.
That said, it was not much different on any other night of the week. It would be as if they decided Notting Hill Carnival would be more fun if they repeated it every day of the year.
So I just don’t think I can keep up with Salvador. We had to accept that we can’t always party like the Brazilians do, and instead enjoyed lazy afternoons sipping coconut water on the beach, and a perfectly civilised evening at a folkloric dance show.
Which was thankfully not as twee and contrived as it could have been, and was instead an eclectic Afro-Brazilian assortment of music and dance, candomble and samba and capoeira (which I love – sometimes aggressive and macho, but with a dancer’s catlike grace and incredible gymnastic ability, all fuelled by more of that seemingly boundless energy).
And, at last, we saw a demonstration of the strange-looking instrument called a berimbau that we’d seen everywhere (what a fun, quirky souvenir to show off to the folks back home! such a talking point!). At least now we know it sounds very cool when played skilfully, it’s an interesting contrast with the very African-sounding, deeply rhythmic drum beats.
We were longing to escape the city though, and see some nature again, and get some exercise (see how I’ve changed!) – so we headed off to Lençois, set among gorgeous green hills, forested and humid, and surrounded by the Chapada Diamantina, a series of plateaus in the midst of what used to be diamond-mining country.
Lençois itself is a pretty little rural town, and in the daytime, perfectly peaceful. We learned, of course, that nowhere is safe from that Brazilian spirit, and even in the littlest of rural villages, come nighttime the partying crowds appeared out of nowhere, and the buzz must have been infectious because we ended up trying six different types of cachaça that night.
We also took some lovely walks through the forests, and along the area’s mineral-rich rivers, raging after heavy rains. And we took what was easily our most ill-fated tour yet: after setting out along the pot-holed road in our guide’s trusty Jeep, fearful of more rain, it was about 20 minutes before he had to turn back, apologising and explaining about the trusty Jeep’s tendency to over-heat.
Back to town, a long while waiting, then setting off again in a shiny new, but less trusty, Fiat rented from a dodgy-sounding bloke who always rents but refuses to drive his own vehicles. Onward, and we were guided through an impossibly vast cave, and out the other side to discover the Fiat had a flat tyre.
More waiting, as our increasingly frustrated guide had to borrow a couple of jacks and fix the thing. All fine, but just ten minutes down the (now deeply muddy) road, and the Fiat is stuck in the mud. And it’s not moving. It continues not moving while a pair of well-intentioned but vaguely irritating Americans stop by, offer countless unhelpful suggestions, then drive off again.
Finally we are rescued by a barefoot, heavily dreadlocked and seriously easy-going Bob Marley-lookalike, who tows the car to safety with a hard-won piece of easily-snapped rope. We made it eventually, and all was well. We swam in a slightly slimy river, admired a blue lake within a cave, and were very impressed by the view from atop the Moro do Pai Inaçio, a plateau with some sort of interesting story about Mr Inaçio that I wasn’t really listening to so can’t recount.
Sadly time is running really short these days, and we had to hurry on. Via yet another ludicrously expensive night bus (this time fancier than usual, and I admit it was nice to have a comfortable seat for once, but that doesn’t really make it ok), we arrived in Porto Seguro.
Along the coast between Salvador and Rio de Janeiro, Porto Seguro seems a laid-back beach town, but I’ll reserve judgment on that until we’ve been out in the evening. We arrived this morning and it had a very morning-after-the-night-before feel, with the remnants of a stage and banners, some hungover locals, and a suspicious quiet in the air.
Tourists don’t rest though, and the historic old town was still busy. It was here that the Portuguese first landed, and little more than a few churches remain, but they are the oldest in the country. That said, the amazing free capoeira demonstration in the square, by one of the town’s capoeira schools, was a tad more impressive.
Now, after a long night and longer day, we must off to seek as peaceful a dinner as we can find. I can already hear the bass of music pounding down the street.
