Beach during the day, dancing at night
There is more to do in Salvador, I'm sure, but this is basically all we've been doing since we've arrived. There's a free breakfast at the hotel of coffee, fresh fruit (papaya, pineapple, melon, the same every day), an assortment of coconut-flecked baked goods (a steamed, not too sweet white one, a cornmeal one, and a tapioca one), some bread and pão de queijo, a bread made chewy by the cheese baked in it. We wake up as late as possible to still catch the free breakfast at about 9:30, and linger over as much coffee as the girl will bring out for us. Brazilian coffee is strong, with no hint of bitterness.
We decide that the only thing on our to-to list today is a nice bowl of açaí.
We take our sweet time getting ready to go out. A shower, some Internet time, a little shopping, and then the beach.
It's pouring rain again, so we take a really long time to eat breakfast, and we're hanging out with two gorgeous couples: an Irish guy with a Russian girl; the other a Hungarian girl and a Chilean guy. We're talking about traveling and laughing like crazy.
We decide to go to itaparica, a little beach on the island of Barra grande. There are a whole lot of beaches in Salvador, and the further you go from Pelourinho, the nicer they are. We had already been to Barra, the closest beach that we didn't like (too crowded, black-ish sand) and Ondina, the next closest. We really liked Ondina, and had been twice.
I know many travelers like to go and get the best possible beach experience, even if it means traveling an hour or two to get there. I can't be bothered. If a beach is clean enough, I can go in the water, it is well-serviced by vendors, AND I can get home easily, that's good enough for me. But we were already still a little red from yesterday, and we hadn't even expected to see any beach today because of the rain, so why not go on a little adventure?
Besides, it's always fun being on a boat for a while.
We walk down to the dock after finally accessing some of my money that Chase had tried to keep for itself. The boat to Barra grande was set to leave right away, so we get on the boat,
This is when Lysia informs me that she usually gets a little seasick, but, don't worry, it's usually worse at the dock than it is at sea. I asked her why we were on a boat if she gets seasick. "Oh, it doesn't stop me from going," she says.
The boat hasn't taken off yet, and I remember that the girl at the hotel says that there is a ferry and there is a boat, and one is faster than the other. Or at least, that's what I remember her saying. I have a momentary panic when I see that we are the only Americans on the ferry, and maybe the trip will take 2'hours. I ask the guy next to me how long the trip is, and he assures me it's about 40 minutes. We take a seat on the periphery. It's standing room only on the boat.
It must have been about 15 minutes into the ride before Lysia starts groaning. 20 before she starts repeating "oh god, oh god," not too loudly by loud enough for the guy next to her to start to look concerned. The boat is really rocking, and I notice the man in front of me get pale, and his wife feeds him a sucking candy. It is not helping, and the man puts his head in his hands. I tell Lysia she's doing much better than that guy, and she says, "oh no, I don't think so."
Lysias hands go numb and I think she's having a panic attack. She's not, but the "oh god"s are closer together, like contractions. I can't figure out whether it's better to put my hand on her back to comfort her or not, so I ask. She grunts, "IT'S BETTER." I'm now trying to talk to her to distrct her, counting down the time left on the trip. Just 10 minutes, Lysia. Try to look at the ground, try to take deep breaths, I say.
Then a young teen girl walks right over to the side of the boat and throws up. I am so happy, "Lysia! A girl just threw up! You're not going to be the first! It's totally ok!" No one seemed the least bit worried or concerned for this young girl. Neither did she. She just threw up. Her family calmly talked to her and asked her if she was ok. The people who were sitting right next to her didn't even move over. If we were in New York, Everyone would have made disgusted faces and moved the hell out of the way.
Not brazilians. They're tough stock,
Lysia takes this as a cue and takes the position, hurled over the side of the boat to puke. The man immediately to her left is nonplussed. No one is offended or bothered, but three people tell me I'd better hold on to her so she didn't fall over the side. I did, and start mopping her down with a wet cloth.
The poor man across from us held his ground, and we felt badly for him because Lysia instantly felt better.
5 minutes later, we're on the island. Almost made it Lysia, but you didn't puke on anyone and you didn't fall off the boat. I call that a win.
We're greeted by a hell of a lot of taxis, vans, and motorcycles ready to take us to a different part of the island. The lady at the hotel gave us a list of her favorite places on the island, and we were originally going to go to a different part of the island but chose itaparica because neither of us could take another form of transportation.
It's super pretty from far away, but when we get to the beach that was right next to the dock, it's kind of nasty. It's got some run down beach front shacks, and we just want to lie down at this point, but we notice we're surrounded by garbage, only a few people, and the water is full of seaweed and is murky. We figured out we weren't on itaparica beach at all, but After an hour, I really just want to get the hell out of there, and chalk it all up to one poor choice. Lysia was feeling a little better, and thought we could now take a van and find this pretty beach, but then i remembered something about there being a "last ferry" and there was no way I was going to get stranded on this fucking island. Lysia, on the other hand, starts thinking about the prices of these cheap pousadas so as to not have to withstand the trip back quite so soon.
I give her a pep talk, and we wait until the last possible minute to board the ferry.
Lysia takes a seat on the interior this time, and I sit across from her on the periphery again. If she needed to barf, we could just trade places.
Lysia closes her eyes, and sits in silence, I think she's meditating or something, and she seems ok. I start my knitting.
I notice that a man is standing by the bathroom, a couple of feet away from me, gawking at me knit. this happens a lot when i knit in public, actually. Some guy once told me I reminded him of his grandmother, which I'm sure he meant in the most complimentary of ways. I ignore him.
It's not long before the guy sits right next to me, and says he's really interested, and he hopes I don't mind if he watches, because he's very interested in my knitting. What was I making? "Um chapeu," I reply, surprised that I remembered the correct word for "hat" in Portuguese.
I'm also surprised that I did NOT remember that I need to stop speaking Portuguese to random men who approach me. I could smell the alcohol on his breath. Not because he was an alcoholic, necessarily, but it was probably a combination of the fact that (a) he positioned his face about 6 inches from my face to watch and (b) it seems that any hour of the day is a good time to drink beer in Bahia. I let him stare at me until he starts repeating "toca o chapeu," over and over, which I think means "play the hat," for some reason. I excuse myself by saying that I have to take care of my sick friend, a lie, and he says "oh, of course," and promptly and kindly disappears. They're aggressive, but not too persistent.
Lysia doesn't look sick at all. I say "how are you doing?" and she calmly and firmly replies, "oh! not so good. I'm not gonna make it!" She offers to throw up on my new stalker boyfriend, an offer i appreciated but declined. She calmly walks over to the side of the boat, assumes the position, and I tell the people flanking her, in Spanish on the her left, in Portuguese on her right, that they might want to move over. Neither of them do, or seem to care. Lysia starts to wrench, and i start mopping her again with a wet cloth. I figure the fear and embarrassment of having to vomit is probably worse than vomiting itself, because Lysia is a total pro at this point. She's talking to me while she's puking, commenting on what contents are coming out of her and how this must happen a lot because there's already a lot of other people's old vomit on the side next to hers.
There's an old man sitting next to us, just looking at us is a non-judgmental way. He hasn't moved out of the way at all. I tell him it's the second time today. He shrugs, "it happens." I take my camera out, snap a couple of photos of Lysia bent over the side of the boat without her knowing. I say to the man, "this will be funny later." He shrugs again and agrees. "Divertido mais trade, sim."
We walk off the boat, and Lysia feels a little loopy but otherwise ok. She starts smoking a cigarette because she thinks it might help. We walk on the right of the square, to avoid the annoying, pushy gypsies, and walk past a couple of kids, in front of the mercado.
A young boy calls Lysia "moça" and asks her for a cigarette. She fishes in her bag to give him one. "Don't give a kid a cigarette!" Teacher Cindy scolds. "I don't give a FUCK," Lysia retorts, "I was smoking at 13." We're both laughing until we walk past another kid 5 seconds later who also bums a cigarette. "oh fuck no I just gave one to your friend." This English he seemed to understand.
I now notice that this small path we've chosen is full of dirty children and men, and I tell her to start walking faster. Salvador is like the forest in the Princess Bride. It's not so bad once you figure out where and what to avoid; fire swamp on the left, rodents of unusual size on the right.
Lysia wants to go to sleep. I remind her that neither of us has eaten anything since breakfast, and that a big bowl of açaí would probably be very refreshing right now.
It was the first and only thing on our to-do list that day, and although it took a shitty boat ride, a shitty beach, a lot of vomiting, we finally crossed that off the list. A young man in a hair net took a long time and really great care making our açaí, slicing a banana into very thin slices, and placing them in a decorative ring on top of 500 ml of açaí in a bowl for me. 500 ml is the Brazilian measure of a "fuckload" of açaí. He must have known what kind of day we had.
We make an attempt to go to the party and show at the top of our block, but it's Brazilian pop, and neither of us gives a shit. We settle on dinner at Ulysses (the restaurant and not the man,) repay our $12 debt to Flavio (he kisses my hand in thanks,) share a passionfruit mousse, and go to sleep so we can be refreshed for our last day in Salvador.
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