Loony tunes and gooseberries

Bahian lady

Tearing ourselves away from the blissful remoteness of Itacaré, our new found surf Eden, took a whole lot of restraint.

Under the watchful eye of shaggy haired surf instructor Joel, we had for several days battled the regular swells with eager enthusiasm. In waters crowded with teenagers who carved waves like others carve Christmas turkey, Mere impressed the locals with some kick ass rides of her own, standing up for longer than most of the real pros on the beach.


Memories of Itacaré

So leaving was tough. Like an stubborn pensioner who won't eat anything but his favourite schnitzel every day because he, well, likes it, it is tricky to deliberately seek out change when the status quo is so comfortable.

Likewise, we've found that one of the major problems with travel is that you stumble upon places you like so much you don't really want to leave. 'Why should we leave here?', 'Can't we can stay for the rest of our journey?', one of us would say. 'No can do', would be the reply. 'It's the price for discovering parts of the world you never been to before'.

Fortunately, as has almost always has been the case, we soon found something equally different and interesting. São Salvador da Baía de Todos os Santos (or just Salvador, for short) is a rustic colonial city on the Bahian coast. It's the third biggest in Brazil (and the original capital) as well as the home of Afro-Brazilian culture.


Tubular swells

As we experienced for ourselves, this was a very special and very strange place. Under the cover of darkness, on the cobble stoned streets, several million party animals would ceaselessly keep the spirit alive. If New York never sleeps, Salvador never even frickin blinks. Because a blink would be a 1/100 of a second of precious party time lost and that, by Salvadorian measures, is utterly unacceptable.

As if it's programmed into their DNA, these guys dance, sing and drink till the last man drops. And by the next morning the city street cleaners have swept away most of the mess, ready for the party to resume once more. We were told that Brazil is the party place of the world. And that Salvador is the party place of Brazil.


Attitude

Last night, for instance, we meandered through another pumping street party, one that has raged for several days in honour of St John. Being the only gringos around, we huddled by the nearest makeshift bar, and sought solace in the fruity alcohol on offer. Like parents at a house party, we were the gooseberries in the corner, but even so we had fun as we observed the madness from the side lines.

We watched as every able bodied man, woman and child met in the city squares next to the church, to devour char grilled kebabs, cocktails and rub butts to clashing sound systems.


Coffee cart

Later, when we tried to find a late night snack, we had very strange experience. We had wandered away from the inferno of the main party, to a quieter patch of drinking venues. There we noticed a very old bouncer standing idly by a large blue wooden door, selling tickets for 1 Reals each ($.50), to enter his special little show.

We paid the man, if mainly out of curiosity, and walked up a few dusty steps and through a brick arch. There, we entered the lion's den, the eagle's nest, the inner sanctum of the nuttiest nuts we have ever seen.

It was a single large room in a roofless building, the size of two tennis courts, with no more than a dozen patrons scattered along the periphery, all sitting uneasily in bright yellow, beer-sponsored furniture.

As if directed by David Lynch the room had a few heavily stoned characters gently swaying in the middle of the dance floor, occasionally bumping into each other since they had their eyes closed. On stage 5 drummers banged giant bongos, as if they had done nothing else for the last few days.


Morning fishermen

Two red-eyed Brazilian Rastas stood on stage and chanted the same three lines over and over again, at an uncomfortable volume. The lead singer himself, a man who must have past 70 many years ago, wasn't even on stage, instead passed out across a speaker next to the stage. When he came to, he staggered up to join the rest of the band and continued this never ending loop.

The only bar staff was an 80 year old woman, who every ten minutes would conga her drunken way across the room to clean the same empty plastic table she had just cleaned ten minutes ago. Whoo-ow, people! What the hell is this place? You know where this is. It's Sunday night in Salvador.

We lasted only a little while. Just in time before we too would have been sucked into this black hole asylum, and been forever banished to the scary dance floor, we left back to the normalcy outside the building - coconut juggling 8-year-olds, weed dealers and tired looking prostitutes.


Next generation

Salvador is also the home of Capoeira, the unique Afro-Brazilian martial art. Once a combat technique practiced by African slaves - it was reprimanded and so the slaves ingeniously disguised it as a dance instead. As such it has survived and evolved ever since. Go to any beach in Brazil and you'll see two things.

1) an ostentatious display of fleshy bodies, some pert, some flabby, but all ungracefully stuffed into their childhood swimwear.

2) a number of highly disciplined Capoeira warrior dancers in all white; standing on their head, doing overhead flips on the spot, and dancing their impressive dance of discipline and rhythm.

As unfit foreigners, however, the closest we ever get to Capoeira is Caipirina. And, hey, that's not bad.


Durable colours

We also had the pleasure one night of going to an intimate performance of Virginia Rodrigues, a famed Brazilian vocalist. We cramped into a tiny little theatre and watched as she delivered some powerful and classic songs.

Our only gripe was that old Virginia had in her accompanying trio of musicians a highly overzealous percussionist, who went absolutely crazy on the cowbell. Yeah, seriously, the cow bell. Had Christopher Walken appeared from a booth and demanded a little more juice, it would not have looked out of place. Oh well.

Today we wrap up our South American leg of our journey, taking a flight via Sao Paulo to Miami, where we are rendezvousing with Nonnie, to go to Bermuda. Indeed, some have it good.

Thank you Brazil, you very crazy place. We've had a blast.

Muito obrigado.


Salvador