praias and prawns

Today was much more chill. I woke up too late for the breakfast the hostel provides (it was the first bed I had slept in since my bed in nj on Saturday night!) so I ventured out around 11 to hit the beach. I grabbed a coffee (all the locals were drinking beers. The beer here is very light and refreshing, though 11 is early even by cliché’s standards), and headed to the bus stop. I got on a random bus, which was heading near the Porto da Barra, the most popular beach here, and the Farol da Barra, an old lighthouse on a point in the south of the city. I found my way after not long. It’s fairly easy to navigate here, especially when you have an internal compass that somehow always leads you to the nearest large body of water. The beach was, well, not super clean, and there were lots of people trying to sell you food and drinks and jewelry… The pretty orange and yellow umbrellas I saw from the bus are really “owned” by local vendors with coolers and make-shift bars, and to sit under them you pay them for services. I haven’t used an umbrella at the beach (with the exception of working under one at SummerTime Surf) since I was a kid, so no worries there. I walked along the water until I saw some people reading books in English. I asked if I could leave my bag with them while I went for a swim, and they were very obliging. The water was about as clean as Pier Beach on a good day, which isn’t saying much for it except that it was swimmable. But hey! I got to swim in the Atlantic in a bathing suit for as long as I wanted without risking hypothermia. So nice! After the swim, I laid out for a while (spf 30), and walked up towards the lighthouse, below which is an very crowded beach, with a full-on bar. I sat on a rocky outcropping nearby and watched all of the people lounging and drinking and laughing, and then had a fresh coconut for lunch. The energy from the coconut carried me the whole 10 kms back to the Pelourihno, through the old city, the shopping district, and other liminal zones along the way. I went to the Bahia Art Museum, which was small but neat, and managed to escape the temptation of the cheap dresses and chatchkies (sp?) of the insanely crowded shopping area. Back to the hostel for a shower, and an appearance on a Brazilian tv show they were filming about “the alternative life,” or at least I think that’s what it was about. They were speaking a mile a minute in Portuguese. I had a light bite from a Bahiana, who are women who dress in hoop skirts with white dresses and bright fabrics wrapped around them. They sell a traditional dish called acaraje, which is a deep fried bun-thing filled with veggies, hot sauce, and whole mini-shrimp, heads and all! I buckled down and ate (almost) the whole thing. The streets were very quiet tonight because last night was such a rager (turns out they go all out every Tuesday night), so I stayed in the hostel and had a beer with a lovely Aussie couple. We’ll be going to the Lavagem do Bomfin tomorrow. It’s a huge festival I’ve been waiting for weeks to see! Second biggest festival in Salvador after Carnaval, which is the biggest Carnaval celebration in the world. At 9am, the Bahianas walk from one church to another 8 kms away, where they present the Candomble spirits they worship with gifts. They are followed by thousands of revelers, in costumes, playing drums, dancing, singing… I am so excited! This is a rare opportunity that I am so excited to experience. Off to sleep! Cool breeze, and quiet streets.