As we drove to the hostel we realised just how big Salvador de Bahia is... in fact the third largest city in Brazil. We were staying in a part of town famous for fun and sleaze so headed out directly. It was the night before Labour Day and the local bars were throbbing. Immediately we noticed the difference. Brazil is so sexy! We watched curvy women ooze sexuality as they swung and swayed to samba and sipped too many passion fruit caipihrinias before watching the moon set like an egg yolk on the horizon on the way back to the hostel.
The next day we nursed our sore heads with coconut juice brought along the beachfront. The weather was hot but the beach was a long way from paradise. It was heaving with Brazilians bronzing themselves in the sunshine on the national day off. I loved watching the wrinkly tanned skin in tiny bikinis, the fat arses, the perfect torsoes. Brazil is a very physical country, lots of sport lots of dance. It almost felt like the men were more preoccupied with the way their bits hung and their bodies sung than the women. Fat, thin, surgically engineered they let it all hang out in Brazil. They carry themselves with pride and a whole lot of sauce.
Salvador is the blackest most African part of Brazil. There's a strong African influence in the food, the music and the people. Women in head dresses and long white skirts selling sausage, girls nudging forward with perfect posture and men tall and firm. So the thing I didn't get in Brazil, and this isn't so much the case in Bahia, is why it's unfashionable to be black.
I was told that there's still a huge amount of racism in Brazil. Stories about men and women bleaching their skin, trying to look whiter, maintaining tan marks to prove their whiteness. Despite Brazilian society appearing multi cultural you hardly see any black models on billboards or as TV presenters. Maybe this is an international reality that I'm just waking up to? It is certainly true that across Latin America, the paler your skin the more affluent, successful and privileged you are likely to be. And that seems like a big bloody problem.
Anyway, it's less like that in Bahia. We were told that the region has a new governor who is fighting for justice for all. The stage was set for Labour Day festivities and there were posters of Che Guevara and banners preaching equality. We watched as more people gathered. Young and old. Children in ruffle skits and women in net dresses. And everyone moving.
The music went from samba to reggae to timbalada (tribal Bahian music). The atmosphere out
in the open air as the sun set and children came in from the water was like nothing else. Full of warmth and passion and just very slightly edgy. I loved this generosity of spirit and how Brazilians love to show off. Someone dances well, someone else shows they dance better. You want to take a picture... wait they want to do a better pose... get the picture?
Communication was a mixture of Spanish, English, Portuguese and hand gestures. I found it really frustrating not being able to speak to people properly. But I loved the sound of the language on the tongue and I will learn it before I come home.
Itacare and beautiful bores
We left Salvador in search of better beaches and headed for Itacare, a small fishing village surrounded by lush green rain forest. You follow a dirt road and arrive at gorgeous beaches where flat golden sand sparkles as the huge waves crash forwards. Lots of surf, lots of samba, open air beach parties, Capoeira (Brazilian martial arts) and little stalls selling hippie flowing beach wear.. stay there too long and you'll be wearing tie die.
I have to admit that at first we were slightly aghast at the torsoes walking around (OK me and Paula were, Sarah was too busy going on and on about a certain Irish man whose name won't be mentioned...) People really don't have much else to do here except surf, sit in the sun and chat up women. It's super flattering at first and then it just gets empty and annoying.
I am fast learning that beauty doesn't guarantee passion, affection or even decent chat. I say this with the admission that we had sort of err chosen where to stay based on the extremely fit man who let us in to his hotel. Looks wise he was a God. I mean really, we all agreed that there was no one better looking than him in Itacare... and maybe Brazil. But after one night spent looking out at the stars and a beautiful moon, listening to the sound of the waves and being kissed by someone who made me feel like a dog was licking my face... I decided looks weren't everything... Good for the ego but shit for the soul.
Poor hostel man. He seemed a bit put out by this girl, who he'd worked so hard to woo, and who now preferred to err... re paint her toe nails than spend another night experiencing his version of romance. (Sorry bless.... am I being obnoxious?)
Anyway I am trying to make a point here... A lot of these super gorgeous boys just couldn't seem to understand why their perfect bodies weren't doing the trick with these three English ladies. Instead we spent our time making each other laugh and putting the world to rights. And the men who won our attention were actually a very unlikely mob...
The first approached me from a distance, tall with very tight curls and a tasteful sweat band he said 'What's yer name? I'm Dean from Derby' ( in very thick Derby accent.) I called Thacks over, being another Midlander. 'Look it's Dean from Derby' I said. 'Actually it's Burton not Derby but most people don't know Bolton that well.'
Dean had eyes for Paula and followed her to the sea in the hope of some skinny dipping. 'I know my hair's a bit shit' he said 'but I'm getting cornrows on Friday'. This had us all in stitches though I'm not sure he got the joke. Under a moon lit sky he and Paula waded into the sea but she didn't take her clothes off. 'You're the worst skinny dipper I've ever seen. Get your kit off' was the cry from Derby.
Next was a band of merry men who looked like the cast of the Office on holiday... and behaved like it too. One was a very sweet computer geek from Swindon. His friend, also from Swindon painted formula One cars. 'How interesting' we exclaimed. 'Actually it's a bit repetitive. They just keep coming round and round' he said.
Then there was the alcoholic clown from Mane (his real job) who got kicked out of the bar and our favourite... laughing gas Lee. We called him that because when asked what he did for a living he replied in a proper Bristol accent 'well... I used to be like a business analyst but when I go home I'm going to sell laughing gas at the festivals... it's a right little money spinner.' He seemed very pleased with himself and we were once again in fits of tears.
Lord knows what they thought of us. Jaded media types kissing thirty? Sex tourists? No how could they think that after a very drunk Paula came to the rescue of a giant frog being taunted by locals. 'Leave it alone' she said ushering them to release it onto her hand. It was a picture. This documentary producing tall blond showing true affection to a err tropical frog.
Don't get me wrong. I loved laughing gas Lee with his former raver hunched posture and saggy tanned belly. He was nothing but lovely. Absolutely. And whilst my mum is probably reading this thinking, this mob sounds like the quue in Tescos, I have to say there is something wonderfully reassuring about meeting really British people when you are away. Especially when you are in the presence of these perfectly sculpted Brazilian bodies. Itacare wouldn't have been the same without Laughing gas lee, the geeks from Swindon and Dean from Derby. God bless them.
Why Rio rules
If it is possible to fall in love with a city the moment you land then I guess we did when we hit Rio. From the moment we arrived we all cooed with appreciation. There's no rushing in Rio and we looked out of the cab window as images we've seen time and time again unfolded before our eyes. The favelas poking out from below, a mass of tin and bricks and cardboard, and glassless windows. Christ on the top of his mound, with outstretched arms watching over the city, the deep blue lagoon near Ipanema beach where skaters in bikinis and men in speedos crossed the road to spend the day by their favourite beach post. This is a free spirited city where sport and music play a big part in people's everyday lives, and for a moment I felt less guilty about the holiday I was taking from my travels.We were staying in a great little place called the Mango Tree. Aimed at travellers like us, who did their twisting elsewhere and made intelligent(ish) conversation at breakfast, it was run by a maverick Australian and his Brazilian British wife. A wonderfully kind and endearingly monotone Aussie girl sat on reception and in the kitchen a stout woman, talking to herself in Portuguese and wearing a T-Shirt advertising Jesus' love made carved up fruit for juicing.
It was a good job our hostel was so nice. City hostels are often pretty awful, not least in Rio. Pretty P and I had picked up some sort of bug and weren't feeling so pretty. We took turns sweating and shivering in our bunks, throwing up (in my case blood), sleeping and groaning.
But we didn't let a bit of sickness stop us. Oh no. The first night we danced salsa at a bar round the corner. Coming in at about five in the morning, with stories of snogging and general bad behaviour, we bumped into Maz Matthews, a casting director from London and after three minutes our new best friend. He was and is a very gorgeous gay who somehow always looks as though he's been plucked from a magazine. Actually I think he thinks his life is a film and every pose is a great shot in an epic scene.
But the gays are very well connected don't you know. Internet dating... they have it down to an art form. (Am I being terribly politically incorrect... sorry) But seriously straight singles turn up in cities, see the sites, maybe they meet a stranger maybe they don't. Maz Matthews had three liaisons booked before he arrived, one with a sultry tango dancer who showed us the best restaurants in Rio, one with a dodgy masseur, and another with his Ex, my favourite the adorable Philipe. Brazilian born and bred with the most giving of smiles and bright eyes, you couldn't not like Philipe. And I think I made Maz and the rest cringe when after a glass of wine or two I repeatedly told them that 'everything tastes better when Philipe's around.' It was true though.
Philipe showed us the cinema quarter, the underused art gallery and the port, whi
ch looks out onto Sugar Loaf mountain and is shaded by perfectly positioned palm trees. Then we took a rambling tram full of nuns up and over the Lapa district as people, mainly kids, swung onto the side of the tram and hung off the bars gliding higher and higher. We descended and entered a great little restaurant that sung Bossa Nova and tasted like feijuada, a typical dish from the favelas of beans, meat and rice.We spent our days in Rio playing tourists; sitting on the beach, eating from the many kilo restaurants, where you chose from the buffet and pay by the kilo, and visiting sites like Christ the Redeemer, a huge beast of a statue towering over swarms of tourists imitating his position and getting their photos taken. You get a fantastic view of Rio from up there and it really is a beautiful city. It's strange saying that because it didn't feel as well constructed as other cities. There didn't seem to be a main square and there weren't that many grand colonial buildings. Instead there are sky scrapers to house the millions that live and work in Rio. But they didn't feel ugly, perhaps because Rio is a city where you get a huge lagoon slap bang in the middle, where cars drive by sandy beaches and tropical plants and trees lean out from the sidewalk. It feels like there is space in Rio. Roads are wide and you can see the mountains and the sea from most places.
One of the most memorable nights was our first out with Philipe. We headed to Lapa, the main stage for night life in Rio. Crowds fill the streets clutching cocktails or beers and jugging to the music pouring our of crumbling dance halls and battered bars. Women, who are sometimes actually men, inch up against police cars in short skirts and too much makeup. It's raw and pounding and very alive.
After convincing Philipe that we really wouldn't be shocked by wherever he had in mind to take us (he was a very nice young man by the way) he led us to a heaving bar where the man on the door gave change from a suitcase and there was only one kind of beer on sale. With a high ceiling and climbing stairs women and men hung over the balcony, navigating the new arrivals with their slow smokey eyes. We stuck out as some of the only Europeans in the place but no one seemed to care. Men and women juttered and juddered to the music and we squeaked smiles at Philipe, who grinned knowing he'd delivered. 'This is the real Rio' he said. 'Not the Rio for tourists or the rich European Rio. This is real. This is Lapa.'
There were lots of wanting eyes and wanting offers for all of us but I certainly seemed to attract the most eclectic admirers. One was a very good looking boy who spat in the street. It was like a slow dribble coming from his mouth and I felt obliged to tell him that he really wasn't doing himself any favours phleming like that. Well he wasn't! Did he take this as a come on? I thought I sounded like his mother. Whatever it resulted in me coming out with a lot of 'no no no, yes yes yes' for which Maz Matthews and Pretty P have since taken the piss. Then there was a rather glamorous girl with a boob job. Matthew and I got chatting to her at the bar and I should have known he would get me into trouble. She was, she said, a TV reporter with a crush on me... in fact this translated as a twisted porn star who has her own sex show on Brazilian TV. Finally Angel, a gorgeous tall black Brazilian with clear blue eyes, who advised me not to hang my jacket up or it would get nicked, and then stepped in to break up a fight. Maz called him Angel because he was our guardian angel for the night... or so he thought.
The long and short of it is that by seven o'clock in the morning and on Sarah's last day we weren't ready to go home. So Philipe, Thacks, Paula and Maz piled into a cab and I got in the next car with the porn star named Carol, Angel and the rather stoned club promoter. The boy was probably dribbling on a corner elsewhere by then. It all seemed like fun and games until Paula's cab turned right and ours carried on.
Children beware. This was not a particularly wise thing to do in Rio, supposedly one of the most dangerous cities in the world. I pride myself on being a good judge of character but I do seem to have a rather unique ability to get myself into situations with manipulative undesirables... caused in part by my relentless belief that most people are basically good.
I sat back and thought, OK so this is how it's going to be is it. The car drove on and there was some wrangling about where we were going. Then the discussion turned to me. Who was going to end up in bed with me. I was hearing this in Portuguese and not fully understanding. But at the same time I totally understood thanks in part to the looks I was getting from the driver... looks of pity, of 'how did nice girl like her end up with these three and what is she getting herself into?'
We drove and we drove; stopping so that one of the guys could collect a bag of beer from a parked van, then so that the police could search the two guys, pinning them up against the bonnet, gun tucked neatly into his belt. The porn star and Angel clearly weren't getting on but I wasn't going to get out with him when the taxi dropped him at his favela. Not that I have anything against favelas. But a) I ain't stupid... OK I ain't that stupid. And b) I'd had enough and wanted my breakfast. The club promoter got out too so that it was just me and Carol, the worst of the lot. I turned to the taxi driver and in Spanish pretending to be Portuguese asked him to please drop this young woman home and then take me to my hostel. We had been driving for nearly two hours and I ended up picking up the tab. Not an adventure I would repeat but it made the others laugh at breakfast.
With Thacks' departure two new friends arrived. Rollerdisco an Aussie Canadian who brought roller disco to the UK and organisation to our rabble. And Super Maño, deliciously eccentric, unforgivingly sarcastic and totally Spanish... from Zaragoza no less (near where my family are from). As coincidence would have it I had bumped into him on my way out of Chile as he set of to trek through Torres del Paine. He'd laughed at my now rather weird Spanish English Latin American accent and I had felt chuffed to have met a local so far from home. But Super Maño also knew Maz Matthews who he'd repeatedly bumped into across Argentina. Maz had been telling us about how once again he had seen Super Maño on the beach when the great man sauntered up in person and we realised the double coincidence. After a lot of exclamation in Spanish he came over to the dark side and has been with us ever since.
Rio was all about the good times. It ended with Paula's birthday on the 18 of May. With the help of some of you we paid for a champagne and chocolate cake breakfast, balloons and the whole hostel singing (OK that was free) we introduced the lady to 29 in style. She was blind folded and taken for a massage and a picnic and then we tried to go for a ridein a chopper... only it was too cloudy to see Christ. We ate Lebanese food, saw ten piece samba band and tried dancing before bumping into Angel (who this time at least got a kiss) and a gorgeous man with a tight fitting T Shirt saying VOLUNTEER, who Paula stole away with to watch the sun rise.I think I have sufficiently described three weeks of pure good times. Old friends, new friends, beaches, boys. We had a lot of fun. But by now I was feeling like I really wanted to get back on my travels and moreover get to Bolivia where I was planning to base myself and write for a few months. My flight home leaves from Sao Paulo so I have to come back to Brazil at some point. But by then I want to have earned it. I need to have learnt a lot more, seen a lot more, worked hard and maybe even suffered a bit to have earned dance lessons and sunshine again. Maybe I spoke to soon though. Bolivia, as I was about to find out, would be a whole different story.
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