Reflections on the Hidden Pousada Trip to Bahia, Brazil

I came to Brazil with expectations of a beach holiday, and to help my twin sister, Alison McGowan, evaluate hidden pousadas for the American and European market.  It became so much more that that.  After 40 years of being apart, since Alison lives in Brazil and I live in the US, it was a wonderful opportunity to reconnect, while appreciating Alison's extraordinary knowledge of her adopted country.  On this trip, we have been places and seen things that virtually no foreign tourists have ever experienced.  We have met fellow travellers, with interesting lives and recommendations based on their own travels.  And, we've been privileged to see a totally unspoiled part of the world, where life is vibrant, yet slower.  Daniel, at Pousada Mata N'Ativa in Trancoso said it best when asked why his prices were so low.  He explained that it was more important for his guests to appreciate his pousada and its amazing gardens and details, rather than to make money.  At a time when the global economy is in crisis, that attitude seems remarkably sane.  Today is November 4, 2008, and tonight we will know who the next President of the United States will be. I haven't watched television or seen a newspaper or answered my cell phone in two weeks.  I am totally relaxed.

End of the Road: From Santo Andre to Belmonte

Once again, the day commenced with a long walk on a deserted beach with perfect blue skies.  The wind picked up from the northeast, ensuring another clear day.  Alison's pousada interview with owner, Hugo, encouraged us to take a trip along the road north, before going to a recommended restaurant on the ocean nearby for more peixe frito (fried fish).

I had looked at the map with some curiosity.  From Santo Andre, there is a 55 kilometer "yellow" road north.  That meant asphalt, albeit with irregular speed bumps in some most unexpected places.  According to the map, the road ends at a town called Belmonte, located where a large river meets the ocean. No towns or villages are marked in between.  Why is the road asphalt, when so many roads here are dirt and sand?  What else is up there?  Hugo enlightened us.  Belmonte used to be one of the largest coffee producing towns in Brazil--in the 19th century, and it was still a vibrant place until the 1940's, when a plague hit the coffee plantations.  The business never recovered.  But Belmonte is hardly a ghost town.  It's as if the original fishing village has just absorbed and encroached on the extraordinary colonial architecture.  Ruins of by-gone grandeur, some derelict, some painted in garish colors, stand side by side with fishermen's cottages, the squares and promenades curiously deserted. Between Belmonte and Santo Andre is lone long sandy beach, along which there is virtually no development. (We heard that the Nestle family still vacations there.)  Until CVC discovers this stretch of coast--unfortunately already beginning--this is the place to find certain solitude in a gorgeous setting.

On the way back, we stopped at Maria Nilze's restaurant, just a few kilometers north of our pousada.  The protocol here is to order, then lie on the beach or in a hammock, while your food is being prepared.  An hour or so later, you enjoy fresh fried fish and rice, this time prepared with succulent root vegetables.  Delicious, and enough to last us all day.  Prices are not cheap--about $25 per entree, but what most people know when they first come to Brazil is that portions are usually designed for two people sharing.  Tip:  bring a friend with the same culinary tastes.  I've been very careful with the water here (don't drink the tap water), but I've eaten everything, including salads, with no ill effects.  Perhaps I've just been lucky.

Paying for Potholes in Espelho, Bahia, Brazil

Today was another travel day.  Caraiva is definitely in the middle of nowhere, meaning that any way out is via dirt and sand road.  The journey didn't start very auspiciously.  Despite the pharmacist's drops, I still had a problem with my eye. In addition, we woke up to grey clouds, indicating that somewhere close by it was raining.  This was not good news, because we'd been told it would be impossible to reach Espelho, our next stop, in bad weather.  And neither of us wanted to follow the rain clouds back the way we'd come. I suggested to Alison that we go straight to Trancoso, located in relative civilization, and come back to Espelho for the day via boat, but after talking to the man where our car was parked, she changed my mind.  According to her source, there was only one really large hill close to Espelho that would give us trouble if it rained, and after that it was plain sailing.

I'm not sure that Alison's source had ever been to Espelho, because there were plenty of challenging sandy hills, even after the turn off to Espelho, that would have been difficult to navigate in bad weather.  Luckily, the wind started blowing hard from the northeast, which meant sun and no clouds.  As usual, there was a distinct dearth of signs directing us to our destination, Pousada Recanto do Espelho.  We received information from a man at the beach parking area, but baulked at the road we'd been told to take.  It was even more rutted than the average sand track, descended at a 45 degree angle, and ended up who knows where. So we parked at the top and walked down the hill.  There we discovered the most wonderful beach and ocean view.  We were exactly where we were supposed to be.

The pousada manager, Thiago, went to college at the University of Kentucky (of all places) on a tennis scholarship, and is fluent in English.  When I commented on the state of the road, and suggested that he might get more business if the ruts were fixed, he laughed and said they actually would pay for potholes, because it discourages tourist buses.  That's how Espelho keeps its reputation as the second best beach in Brazil.  Of course, there are day-trippers, but avoid Wednesday to Friday and you can pretty much have the beach to yourself.

Espelho's reputation is high praise, given how many beautiful beaches we've already seen in a tiny section of Brazil.  But this one is definitely special.  I'm sitting now in the wonderful open restaurant of our pousada, overlooking the ocean with a pristine yellow sandy beach.  Bug spray is definitely recommended from dusk on, since the variety and size of the bugs is quite impressive, but so far my US-bought Buggspray is doing quite well.

The pousada almost next door is also owned by the same people who manage our pousada.  It is slightly more up-market (read more expensive), and always full, even in low season.  Curiously, though, the rooms there do not have an ocean view.  I think we got the best of both worlds by sleeping in our pousada, but going next door for internet access and the most amazing shrimp in a pumpkin dish (Camarao na moranga).  This is where we also made friends with other guests, who'd found their way to paradise in a Range Rover.  After hearing that, I had no more worries about getting out of Espelho.  I was sure they could just pull our car over the hills and ruts.

One final important fact about Eseplho:  you need lots of cash.  It may be off the beaten path, but they don't accept credit cards, and because everything has to be trucked in, the prices are more similar to those found in Boston or New York than other local Brazilian prices.  Entrees were about $25 per person. 

Caraiva and the Indians

This morning, before I started feeling so bad, Alison and I found a local man, an Indian, to take us up to the Indian reservation. It was an extraordinary trip, involving us, Tzyge (our guide), and his four year old son, Caique. Caraiva is 470 years old, but like in many places, the indigenous Indians have been persecuted, even as recently as 1951. The only reason the group we saw survived was because they were nomadic.  Still, they're unable to hunt and fish like they used to because they've been pushed towards the ocean and away from the forests and rivers where they've traditionally found their food.  We were greeted at a tiny opening in the river by Tzyge's brother in full headdress.  He took us to the communal hall, a round building with open sides and a straw roof, where they have marriage and other formal ceremonies.  According to his story, if a man likes a woman, he throws a small stone at her.  If she likes him, she throws the stone back.  Our Indian guide also showed us their fishing hole in the river, reminding us that the river also had alligators.  We didn't see any, which is just as well, because Alison decided to ride on a rubber tube behind the boat on the way back.  By that time, my eye was almost completely swollen shut, so I returned in the launch, vowing to see the pharmacist at the first opportunity.

Crazy Shrimp, Head Fried On: Thinking differently in Caraiva, Brazil

Crazy shrimp, head fried on. This wonderful expression, taken from a translated menu in Caraiva, describes how I feel in this place, which Google Earth thinks is in the middle of the ocean.  In a sense it is.  You have to get to Caraiva port (think tiny beach at the end of the sand track, where the boats pull up) and take a kayak across to the village, which is built completely on a series of sand dunes.  There are no motorized vehicles on the island, so that means walking on sand uphill to the Pousada da Terra. Our bags followed on a donkey cart, and when we moved out, we got pride of place sitting above the donkey.

Caraiva is an extraordinary village, firmly kep in the past by the fact that it has no traffic and only got electricity a year and a half ago. Curiously, it has some excellent bars and restaurants and a few tourist shops. What electricity there is is of the 40 watt variety, so forget reading a book inside. The pousada rooms are for sleeping only, but at least at the second pousada, you could sleep or read in the outdoor hammock.  The beach is only two sandy blocks from the first pousada, and a more magical beach could not be found.  Unfortunately, I appear to be allergic to papadise.  My right eye has swollen to quite a size, so it's difficult to see. A local pharmacist, located in a tiny shop in his house, has given me a remedy that appears to be anti-allergic and anti-inflammatory.  Alison says I look better, but I'm not convinced.  It's miserable being sick in paradise, but lucky that a pharmacist here can prescribe medication. Doctors don't seem to exist.

Getting to Caraiva was another challege.  Alison had warned me that the road from Cariva to our next destination, Espelho, was difficult if it rained, but not to worry, we'd just come back the way we came.  What she didn't tell me was that the first road we took from the BR101 would also be a dirt/sand road that would be equally impassible in bad weather.  The good news is that most of the route (except the part where I swear we went seriously wrong) was well sign-posted.  The bad news was that if it rains, that route, too, will be impassible.  The dirt/sand road was 47 kms long, and we saw one car coming the other way.  Clearly, once you get to Caraiva, you say--or perhaps you go north to Trancoso, which is where we'll go after Espelho.