A trip to the shore

It was raining this morning when I woke up; the kind of tropical rain that creates a thunderous an almost opaque veil through which only the Sunday morning bells of the 17^th century churches could be heard.

Much to my pleasant surprise, ‘my driver’, Junior, showed up half an hour early in his pink short sleeve polo shirt and with his melodious northern Brazil dialect of Portuguese. I was thrilled about this because he was there to whisk me away to paradise and the sooner the better.

Junior Abrasco of Tamandare Taxi

We made our way south out of Recife through neighbourhoods that were equivalent to the types of neighbourhoods typically seen in low-income countries. Quality of life in South America, I think, seems to exist as this interesting dichotomy between living conditions: those neighbourhoods that most definitely rival North American neighbourhoods in infrastructure and those neighbourhoods that look more like the crumbling urban areas of Dhaka (okay, maybe not that bad but it’s still quite the disparity). On my hop-on-hop-off bus tour in Curitiba we drove through neighbourhoods that, I swear to god, could have been North Vancouver. However, with that being said, things generally most definitely function way more smoothly than anything you’d experience in Bangladesh or India. The traffic is mellow, the electricity grids work consistently, the wifi has been amazing, and getting around has been pain free.

I was kind of surprised by this because, for some made up reason in my head, I believed that Brazil was among the melange of nations that contain mega cities and exploding populations (evidence of how much I actually knew about Brazil before coming). In fact, Brazil’s population density, at 25 people per square kilometers, is less than the USA’s and is dwarfed by Bangladesh’s and India’s 1222 and 436 people per square kilometer, respectively.

Finally out of the city, on practically deserted highways, a wave of excitement and tranquility washed over me as we sped our way through small farm villages with their ‘caged in’ houses. These villages are nestled within the rolling hills of green sugar cane fields sowed in orange and rose coloured soil. Random horses, all alone, occupied the strangest places; I even saw one that was tied to a tree grazing in the center of one of the villages on like what looked like a traffic circle meridian. I learned from Junior that sugar cane is still harvested manually and the horses are used to transport the cane to market for a huge amount of both domestic production of sugar and ethanol and international exports. The prevalence of off-leash horses seemed problematic to me, confirmed when we passed one that had been hit by a car and his/her massive carcass was off to the side of the road. It was kind of akin to a deer on the side of the highway in Canada but there was something about the size of a horse torso blocking the road that was slightly more disturbing.

Also,in a previous post I questioned Brazilian capacity to brave inclement weather and get on with their lives while in Curitiba. I want to suggest now that, according to what I saw in these rural areas, as the tropical rains came dumping down, people continued to work cutting sugar cane, walking along the side of the highways and selling lychee and oranges, to ride their bicycles and motorcycles in these downpours. It doesn’t hurt that it remains comfortably warm while the drenching occurs.

We continued on at top speed (of course) in the pouring rain, men on dirt bikes weaving by us wearing big racing helmets with visors and no shoes, and the village store fronts ubiquitously spotted with signs with the word “pneus”on them:

Which I’m sure means something like “tires” or “oil changes” or something like that but I found it funny to repeat in my head: pneus, pneus, pneus and to see it constantly sprawled across building signs. It’s probably not even pronounced like I think it is.

Finally we arrived to the sleepy Sunday village of Tamandare and my home for the next few days, Praia dos Carneiros. I chose to come here after telling a Carioca in Rio that I was thinking of visiting Port de Galhinas, a recommended and popular beach about one hour south of Recife. She scoffed and suggested this beach instead calling it a veritable paradise with almost no people. Sold.

At my hotel/apartment complex located directly on the beach, I met Leo, the manager. I immediately liked him, with his full head of white shaggy hair, his surfer dude barefoot saunter, and his tanned leathery skin covering his middle aged tall man bod, sporting giant dark rimmed hipster glasses. His English is as good as my Portuguese and I’m finding that I can totally get by on this level of communication with the help of charades. He checked me into my beautiful apartment with a balcony overlooking the water and apologized he couldn’t give me the ground-floor terrace that opens onto the beach apartment. Ha!

The view from my balcony

The view from my bedroom

Kitchen

Living room

I quickly unpacked, shoved some leftover pizza in my face that I had carted with me from Olinda (along with leftover pasta, caprese salad, cookies, and chips). I had anticipated that there would be no way a grocery would be open on a Sunday in a small village in which every wall and vehicle in some way has a reference to god and jesus: Deus e Justo! grafitti  or just simply JESUS painted in giant letters across the top of a mototaxi shop. And I was certainly correct! What can I say? I’m a food planner and a large portion of my trip thus far has been in search of calories.

I put on my swimsuit, grabbed a reclining beach chair and headed to the water:

Stairway to heaven from my apartment complex...who would've thought it would be of the descending variety?

Praia dos Carneiros, in the off-season

I dropped my shit on the beach as if in a trance and immediately went into the water. This was my first Brazilian beach full-on dip. It was absolutely heavenly and for the first time in four days my body temperature was just right. After a short float I went to lounge on my lounge chair. Now it had been relatively cloudy all day and finally the sun and blue sky emerged! Ah yes, and now to finally really work on my tan. That lasted about seven minutes before the searing heat of the sun compelled me to also go get a large beach umbrella from the hotel. It was made of wood and very heavy. I also really have no idea how to put  a beach umbrella into the sand, especially one of significant heft. The couple a few meters away from me who are staying at my same hotel, at first, watched me, as I clumsily lifted the umbrella and made an attempt to drive it into the sand multiple times. The woman started coming over saying in Portuguese, “wait wait, my husband is going to get you the thing to use to get it in the ground to make a base”. I understood. Her husband returned with this clever tool that you are supposed to use to help dig a deep hole for the umbrella stem and then pack it in with sand. I had been totally off base. Anyway, like a gentleman, he put in my umbrella for me and they introduced themselves in about as good of English as is my Portuguese. They were from Sao Paulo having a two week holiday beach hopping. Later on they went and hunted down the ice cream salesman and bought me a coconut mousse popsicle and we stood around ‘shooting the shit’ as best we could with our popsicles dripping down our arms and onto our legs.

I went back in the water a while later just as the next bout of torrential rain was about to hit. Floating about in the turquoise water with monsoon rain pounding down on my face was enchanting and I basically just wanted to get naked and quit my PhD and stay there forever. 

But I didn't. I went back to the apartment eventually as the weather got worse and had an incredibly non-romantic evening of watching Game of Thrones and Mindy Project in bed only to be very kindly interrupted by Leo, the manager, who was concerned I didn't have food and he offered to share his dinner. I kindly thanked him, said "muito obrigada mas eu sou OK" and returned to my well-planned leftovers that I toted from Olinda and eventually drifted off to sleep.