Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Salvador, Bahia, Brazil trip - day 12
[ Sunday, 6 Feb 2005 ]
Today we headed over to Morro de São Paulo, a resort-type town on Ilha de Tinharé, the largest of a collection of 26 islands just outside the bay. We took the 2pm catamaran over, quickly found a beachside pousada, and went to the beach for drinks and lunch (actually breakfast). While Bob took a cat nap to recover from the motion sickness pills and the ride over, I walked down the beach. When I started out the sun had all but actually set. By the time I was at the end of the beaches, caipirinha stands, and lights I was alone, staring out across the Atlantic and up at the clearest sky I have ever seen. The Milky Way, and in fact the whole sky, was so brightly filled with stars that constellations I knew faded out of recognition. There were so many stars in fact that the very notion of selecting a few stars to form a constellation seemed ridiculous and futile.
At this point I was so terrifically relaxed that it was effort to stroll even lazily back up the beach. But I sang and was generally silly on the way back. Someone was working though, as they had built a small bonfire on the beach, used it to light a log torch, and was out wandering around in the tidepools, prowling for fish perhaps.
[ Monday, 7 Feb 2005 ]
It rained all night and into the early afternoon. After a morning walk in the warm rain, I came back to the pousada and just chilled in the hammock overlooking the walk of poetry that lines this street and the on-coming storm over the Atlantic. After we checked out we went hiking around the fort and the island in the rain, which let up around 13:00. I love walking in the rain because when you're walking in the rain that's all you can think about -- walking in the rain. You're just completely focused on being wet, getting wet, avoiding getting wetter, watching every step -- you're naturally and completely focused. I also enjoy the fact that rain is a great "equalizer", i.e. it's hard to preen and keep up appearances when everyone just looks like wet rats. Very amusing to me for some reason.
We caught the only catamaran back to Salvador, and it was rough. The sea was very choppy with the passing storm and the boat lurched violently for about 2 hours straight. No one was feeling good by the time we docked.
A nice final dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant; it's the only place with good and timely service we've yet been. After that, we just relaxed under the ceiling fan in the apartment as I got a first class instruction in the history and variety of Brazilian music as Bob DJ'd from his laptop. So nice.
[ Tuesday, 8 Feb 2005 ]
It rained again all night, and the storm was raging in full when we got up at 4:00. Roberto managed to find a willing cab driver and I was off on a hurling wet and wild ride to the airport. A 7:00 flight from Salvador to São Paulo, then to Mexico City, and finally back to LAX added up to at least 14 hours in the air. Who knows what sleep schedule I'm on at this point.
When I finally got off the plane at LAX we were all shuffled down a corridor toward Customs. Ahead I see an agent and behind him an agent with a dog sniffing all the passengers. As I approached the first guard he stops me and asks if he can put a marker on me to test the dog! He assures me that she won't bite but will just stay fixed on me until the second agent stops me to find the marker. My natural distrust of authority means I'm a little freaked about a setup (entrapment!) but I agree. As I walk past the dog she sniffs me and just keeps on checking other passengers. The first agent runs to catch up with me and retrieve his marker from my pocket and apologizes saying that "she's a new dog". Guess I missed my chance to import some extra goods!
Add to this the fact that I got helped by the fastest customs agent ever: she was processing at least 3 to 5 times as many folks as the other agents. When I got up there I causally complemented that she was the fastest one working. She quickly quipped, "Well, I've always been accused of being fast." Alrighty then ... welcome back to America.
