Tropical Paradise

We went to morro de sao paolo for our spring break and that was literally a tropical paradise. I has slacked for sifnificant portions of time in terms of getting the actual place, so I delegated that duty to someone else, and so I really had no idea what the lodgings would be like.

Almost all of the class had decided to go to Morro or some similar tropical paradise, so we told our professor and managed to get thursday off. Planning on this, we and by we I mean, Fiona, Natalie, Ray, Arissa, Meg, and Pericles decided to meet at campo grande, a central neighborhood of Salvador, at 530 in the morning. I set all my alarm clocks and everything, but getting out of the door that early is quite difficult for me, so I was a bit late. Worried, I took a cab, as I figured that would obviously get me to the meeting spot faster. Wrong. Often times, I know the directions to a place walking that don't really work while driving. Case and point, I told the cab driver to go the wrong way a couple times because there are streets that only go one way, a phenomenon that had hardly affected me as a walker. So after winding the wrong way for a while, we are driving in a highly unfamiliar neighborhood, and I tell him UFBA, the name of our school, because I know how to walk to the meeting point from there. Unbeknowest to me, there are multiple UFBA's, so he successfully drove up to one, and declared triumphantly, UFBA. In a totally random area at about 5:30 in the morning, I had all my bags and no idea where I was. Asking fervently random people around me, I eventually huffed up a hill that might be the right one, and trudged to the meeting spot, which was empty when I arrived. The other people in my group had apparently not really slept that night and instead staggered in from late night partying (early morning). 

We made our way to the ferry, and found ourself watching the sunrise in a very long line. But the line moved fast, so before long, I found myself on a ferry boat, and soon after that, I found myself with a significant creak in my back from sleeping on said ferry.After a bus, another bus, and then another ferry, we were finally there. We had a native Brazillian helping us by the name of Pericles, and he knew exactly how to get from point a to point e. 

the dawning sun as we stood in the ferry line

another group of sit people cooincidentally  on the same boat

bye salvador

hello paradise

And after walking along the beach with some very heavy backpacks, we finally made it to the cottage that turned out to be ours, which was in the middle of nowhere. The host of the cottage was certainly without a question one of the most singular personalities on this trip so far. He went by many names among us from Gizmo, to Gazmo, to Gauzo, but I believe his real name was Gauzo. He is a really short man, but also one of the most incredibly ripped men I have met in recent memory, thus earning our moniker, the mini hulk. 

The one and only gauzo!

 We hung out on the beach for the first day, as that is what you do on tropical paradises. There was a famous clay pit, so we went and rubbed the clay all over us, as it is supposed to have an exfoliating effect. While we may have looked slightly weird with yellow covered clay covering our bodies and faces, I also felt quite soft afterwards. It took us a while to get mobilized, what with hammocks etc to distract us, but eventually we decided to walk towards the main town. It felt like the Brazilians kept stalling, and then all of a sudden, they were like, let's go. Puzzled, we walked along the moonlit night along the shore. I noticed that the sand was wet where we were walking, but I didn't think much of it at the time. It was a long walk (about 45 minutes), but the beauty of the austere rocks that looked like they were from a set of star wars and the myriad stars kept us pacified. We met up with several people from our group, relaxed more, and then I met me.

I know, that sounds strange, but I met someone who was virtually me, with all the same preferences, about the same size, with a beard, someone who was solo traveling, someone who went to a liberal arts private school and was the same age. It was weird because that doesn't happen to me too often, so we spent a while chatting and further confirming that we were the same person. 

But the night eventually was winding down, so it became time to return. I met up with the rest of the group that was staying in Gamboa with Gauzo, and we started the walk home. And that's when it clicked. You know that feeling when you have a lot of signs of something, but you don't really put it together until later? Yeah, that happened to us. The return path was engulfed in water. The wet sand, the moonlit night (as tides are more extreme on moonlit nights), the insistence of the Brazilians to leave at certain times, all these clues were trying to tell me, but I ignored them. We then walked back to Morro, all with the, "well now what" look on our faces. Some people in our group graciously agreed to host us, so we went to sleep at 4, sneaking into their hostel and taking the extra beds. I awoke at 730 to hands shaking me, telling me to get up. Apparently we had to go back to 1 avoid the manager and 2 to walk when the tide was back out. Staggering home in a tired daze, we eventually made it, and slept for another hour or two on the hammocks.

There was a cute little dog that we spent an iordinate amount of time with

And another day of paradise began. We spent more time on the beach, and Ray and I decided to go to the Morro beach. We went swim suit shopping, and he bought this thing called a tsunga, which is basically a tight loincloth speedo contraption. I went on the safer side, and bought myself a regular bathing suit. We played paddle ball on the beach, hung out in Morro for the day, and returned to a delicious dinner. It was something called moqueca, and it was probably my favorite meal in Brazil, simply sumptuous. We went out after that, some of the group went skinny dipping randomly, and we slowly made our way to the sunrise party on the top of a big hill. The group was straggling, so Ray and I decided to forge ahead, and the club was absolutely dead, with our group composing the majority of the patrons. As the sun started to rise, we mobilized and got on the 6 am ferry back.

The moqueca....so good

When we woke, we realized that one of our members, fiona, hadn't yet made it back yet. It was 10 am, she had forgotten her phone, and we were at home, so we had one of two assumptions, that either she was staying with some of the other group in Morro, or that she was with a guy. As the time wore on, we were less steadfast in those assumptions. Then it was 11, and then it was noon, and we started to send texts to other people within our group, seeing if she was with them. No, no, no, eventually the answers poured in, and the time ticked on, 1, 2 , and at 3, genuinely worried now, we decided to go searching.

 We walked along the beach, in case she was stuck somewhere, and then without success, made it to Morro. Someone had the stroke of brilliance to check the health center, and we found out that Fiona did in fact have a record there. The nurse said that Fiona had arrived badly battered, with a broken arm and multiple cuts and bruises. Fiona had been there that morning, but had been transported across the bay to another facility. This facility kindly sent her back to Gamboa when they found she didn't have an ID. When we heard she was back in Gamboa now, we raced over there, and as if to mirror our moods, it started to pour rain.

Sprinting along the beach, we arrived huffing to Fiona, and although we were very much tempted to hug her, we desisted. And then commenced her story.... remember how sunset party was on top of a hill... well the hill was rather steep at points. Three people within our group fell, and Fiona fell the worst. She was unfortunately separated from the group, so after falling, Fiona remembered only waking up at the bottom of a cliff at about 1030 am. She looked up at the sheer face of a cliff that was at least 50 ft high, and found herself in the middle of a jungle. Taking assessment of herself, she found that she had a deep cut on one arm, and as she tried to raise herself, she felt the bone shifting in the other. Stuck, isolated, and without a phone, she had no other recourse but to plunge through the jungle, searching for civilization. Arousing many looks, she made it to the health post, and then it was the same as we heard from the nurse.

Fiona decided against going out, but insisted that we did if we so wanted, so as we had already bought tickets to the party, we went out. Gauzo had us do a workout before we did though, and we had some pullups to get the blood pumping. 

me and the brazilians casually working out, 

me!!

We walked along the beach, with Gauzo offering us some of the water, which we all fervently refused. We got to the foam party, and for the first bit of the foam party, there was absolutely no foam, which made me feel silly in my bathing suit. There was a lot of dancing, and then at about 3 am, there was a little stage of sorts where a fire dancer went at it. At about 4 am, the foam came down, and totally changed the dynamics of the party. The foam mounted, and I literally had to lift a rather short girl from our program out of the foam. It rained too, and while it was a pretty cool moment, I was getting cold and wet. I decided to seek shelter from the rain at the covered bar.

There was a girl also trying to keep dry, watching the crowd, and in portuguese I intimated that it was rather cold. We continued talking, and then we started dancing, and then we started kissing. We stayed in the bar for a while until it was just getting light, and I asked her if she wanted to get out and watch the sunrise. I had to forge into the foam party to get my shirt, and we walked hand in hand to some bluffs overlooking the rising sun. With slanted rays and a sky full of illuminated clouds, we watched the sunrise. I gave her a massage as we did, and thought, yup, paradise.  

paradise

I walked her back to her hostel, speaking in portuguese all the way, and gave her a goodbye kiss, knowing that I would likely never see her again (she lives in a different state in Brazil). I walked back to the ferry, got back to the house, and slept for about 3 hours, until it was time to go to the beach again. Gauzo showed off some of his capoeira moves, and soon it was time to leave, as the transportation route is rather convoluted. The return route took substantially longer than the way there, with everyone trying to go back at the same time. We spent a good 3 hours waiting at one bus station, another 3 hours waiting in one of the longest lines of my life in the ferry building. People there were getting so impatient that the military police had to intervene. Finally arriving at 11 pm, I was ready for bed.

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