The treasures of Bahia state

Bahia state seemed far away as we were taking a break from travelling in Jericoacoara, a village with sandy streets on Brazil's northern coast. There, Dave got back into his windsurfing and I called upon my adventurous self and went for an introduction course to kite surfing. Beyond these activities we tried to plan our next moves and catch up with our administrative tasks. Somewhere between Salvador and Jeri, we had a little bit of a crisis... or some might say a revelation. Just the thought of all the landmarks and places that we still had on our list to visit in the rest of the continent and all of Central America made us tired. Lots of discussions lead to the recognition that we didn't have to visit them now, and that just because we had planned something at some point, we were still allowed to change our plan. As Lecia would say, "it is your trip, you can do with it whatever you want". So we decided that La Paz, Lake Titicaca, Machu Picchu and the Nazca lines would wait for another voyage. We should have many more opportunities in our lives to travel, but when would we have another chance to sit for a month on a beach or do a month of volunteering!

We're now past Manaus and working our way up the Amazon to Iquitos in Peru. From there, we'll head to Equador, either via Lima and Northern Peru, or up the Napo River. In Equador, we'll first volunteer two weeks with the Foundation for Research for Whales in Puerto Lopez on the southern coast. Then we'll volunteer for another two weeks in the north of the country with the Jatun Sacha Foundation, a rainforest conservation organisation. In between, we'll visit a few highlights of Equador. After that we'll go to Colombia, and then Panama and Costa Rica where we'll hopefully spend another few weeks on the beach (I'd like to learn yoga this time, or maybe diving?). We'll see... I guess we don't have to decide now.

"In any state of life, you may still be a philosopher"

Anyway, back to the story on Bahia... we arrived in Salvador on 6 June, a little over 3 months after we had very initially hoped for (before we moved our departure date for Dave's knee operation, and before spending over 2 months in Argentina). The smell of Bahian food, often cooked with the distinctive dendé (palm oil), welcomed us as soon as we stepped out of the airport building. The odour emanating from the stalls across the street caught our nostrils and I ordered an acarajé snack from one of the ladies clad in typical Bahian dress (known as a Baiana). Unfortunately it turned out to be a bit smelly and impractical to eat on the bus and it seems I have some difficulties digesting the dendé. For the curious, acarajé is a Bahian street food made from mashed brown beans, formed into balls, stuffed with a mix of dried shrimp, crushed cashew, nuts pepper and chilli sauce. Tom loves it, and you can find it on every street corner in Salvador.

The local bus from the airport drove all along the coast of the Salvador peninsula until we finally landed in the centre two hours later. Our hostel was located right in the heart of the Pelourinho, the historical district of town. Dave tried to replicate the street photo that you can see on many postcards, with colourful houses and a blue church, from just outside our hostel door. We were hungry when we arrived (that acarajé had been impossible to eat on the bus) so we unloaded our bags and headed straight to one of the main squares in search of some food.

Postcard view from outside our hostel in old Salvador

Salvador's historical centre is beautiful and charming in a dilapidated kind of way, but it is full of touts and beggars approaching you every 10 metres. It is almost worse once you sit down on a street-side café, although kindly enough the touts do leave you alone whilst you're eating. Otherwise, you have to brace yourself to politely decline everyone's offerings and try not to feel too guilty when the children, women and old people look back at you with pained eyes when you've refused to hand out cash. Clearly you cannot help everyone and there is a lot of abuse of tourists' charity, but it still makes visiting Salvador a bit of a battle.

We had a great time wandering through the Pelourinho nonetheless, mostly on the following day as it began to rain shortly after our late lunch. We visited the numerous extravagantly decorated churches and their adjacent cloisters. The azuelos (blue painted tiles imported from Spain and Portugal) of the First Order of Saint Francis monastery impressed us particularly. They were scenes depicting a moral code for the monks (based on Greek doctrines) and proved to be a good philosophy lesson. The churches also blew us away with their intricate wood carvings and golden decorations. Apart from the churches, we visited the Afro-Brazilian museum to learn more about Candomblé gods. Candomblé stems from African religions and was brought in by the slaves who superimposed it on Christian saints to be able to continue practising it (for example Our Lady of Conception is worshipped as a representation of Iemanjá, the goddess of the sea). Candomblé is still very much alive in Northeastern Brazil, as is Umbanda, a similar religion.

The main chapel of the First Order of Saint Francis

Towards the end of the day, we moved on to Barra de Salvador, one of the principal city beaches. We watched the sunset by the lighthouse and enjoyed an excellent caipifruta de maracujá (see our previous posting on the Costa Verde) in a beach bar overlooking the surfer's point. In the evening, we were lucky enough to be around on a Tuesday which is the Perlourinho's weekly party night. The main praça (square) was covered in food stalls where we were able to eat cheap meat skewers served on big plates of good salad with a touch of farinha (crushed dried manioc). There were also bands playing on a small stage at the end of the praça. This felt a bit more like the easy-going Bahian vibe we'd been hoping for. More photos of Salvador are here.

Post-sunset view along the beach

In the morning we boarded the catamaran for Morro de Sao Paolo, the main village on Ilha de Tinharé south of Salvador. Like on Ilha Grande, there are no cars allowed here and if you can't carry your luggage, someone will transport it for you (for a fee) across the sandy streets to your selected location. We insisted on carrying our own backpacks, but were unable to shake off the guy who kindly wanted to help us find a place to stay. We are unsure whether he was working for the tourist office (as he suggested) or lurking for a commission, but next time we will definitely lie and say we already have a place booked. We settled for a cheap but comfortable pousada on the back of segunda praia (2nd beach... there are 5 in total which you can all access by foot at low tide). It had a nice terrace with tables, hammocks and sofas overlooking the sea, and a kitchen to cook some of our lunches and dinners by ourselves.

Our pousada balcony

Segunda praia turned out to be a good choice during both day and night. It's the best beach to go swimming as it's sheltered by an outer rock wall and boasts lots of cafés and sun loungers if you fancy taking a break from the warm waters. In the evening, stalls mixing caipirinhas or caipiroskas (vodka-based) with fresh fruits set up along the beach. You can pick from dozens of different fruits, even some you've never heard off before. I mostly stuck with my favourite - maracujá - but tried it from the various stalls around. I promise that some are better than others depending on the type of cachaça, the amount of sugar (usually lots...) and the quality of the fruit. There are also lovely restaurants where you can dine in the candle light with your feet in the sand.

A balanced fruit diet with your caipirinha

We spent four nights in Morro and were glad it was raining cats and dogs when we had to move on as it made it easier to leave. Time just flew between a day walking all the way to beach #5 and back, another taking a boat tour around the island, and one lazing on the beach and watching the sunset from the lighthouse hill. On the boat tour, we first landed on an isolated stretch of sand with a beach shack selling fresh coconut water or grilled lobster with garlic. The coconut water comes straight out of a chilled coconut with a straw... check my facebook picture! For lunch, we stopped in Boipeba, a village slightly more rustic than Morro on another island to the south of Tinharé. We then had a bunch of oysters for desert from one of the floating oyster bars near the village of Caravelas. The people from the village collect them fresh from the mangroves and sell them to tourists passing by in the boats - very tasty. Finally we visited the historical town of Cairu, the capital of the archipelago, and its surprising Franciscan church and monastery, one of the oldest of the Order of Saint Francis in Brazil. For more pictures of our tour and Morro, click here.

Lovely beach and iced coconut

Partly because I keep arguing that we should see other things than just beaches in Brazil, we decided to head inland to the Chapada Diamantina national park after Morro de Sao Paulo. The park was founded in 1985 to save a piece of land from the damage caused by the diamond mining which is still going on today a bit further afield with less aggressive techniques. The park and the surrounding area feature a number of caves, waterfalls and rivers with nice swimming holes to freshen up from the heat. We based ourselves in Lençois, a charming little town full of colourful houses and cobbled streets on the edge of the national park. As we hit town, Lençois was being decorated for Sao Joao (festival of Saint John, a big party in the northeast of Brazil, with night-long Forró dancing... We'll explain more about Forró in a future posting). The decorating involves hanging lots of small bright flags in the main square and along the streets. We even saw the first "fires of Sao Joao" (locals light bonfire in front of their houses on the days preceding the actual Sao Joao on 24 June) although these were mainly to entertain the kids from the house next door to our hostel.

Lençois centre ready for Sao Joao festival

Apart from giving easy access to the Chapada Diamantina park, Lençois offers a range of nice restaurants with international cuisine, something kind of interesting given the size of the place. We ate twice at the same italian restaurant where the pasta was just excellent and the wine selection decent. After evenings drinking beer or caipirinhas (the main fare in Brazil), enjoying some red wine (Argentinian...) to accompany the food made the whole eating experience even tastier. The guy who owns the place is an Italian hippy who settled down in Lençois and bathes naked in the Ribeirão do Meio river every morning, followed by some yoga moves. We saw him on our way to the Sossêgo waterfall... it didn't keep us from going back to his restaurant. The second time we had to eat by candlelight due to a major power failure in the town which made the dinner pretty romantic. Another evening we savoured burritos and guacamole at a relaxed Mexican eatery. The typical dishes came with a Brazilian twist as well as mean caipirinhas.

Barbla tempts some small monkeys

We offset our eating and drinking by some doing walking during the day. On our first day, we explored the town's surrounding area and tried to find a trail leading to Cachoeira Serrano (Serrano Waterfall), Cachoeirinha (Little Waterfall) and Cachoeira da Primavera (Spring Waterfall). We think we found all three of them but were never too sure of the trail we were following as it was more like a sliver of a path through the thick forest or along the river. On our second day we took a car tour to explore the sights a bit further afield. We first stopped at the Rio Mucugêzinho where we fed curious monkeys with bananas and then walked along the river to the Poço do Diablo (Devil's Well), a popular swimming spot near a waterfall. It was too cold for me to go swimming so early in the day and instead we had a little scramble around the rocks to get closer to the gorge. Next we climbed up Morro do Pai Inácio (Hill of Father Ignacio). At over 1,000 metre, it provided a good overview of the Chapada Diamantina national park and the top was full of interesting cacti and bromelias. Then we visited two caves formed by a river of clear, turquoise water. Unfortunately the sunlight was missing to illuminate the first cave (Gruta Azul - Blue Cave) so the water was rather of a dark blue colour. In front of the second cave (Gruta da Pratinha - Silver Cave), the river forms a lake in which we went for a swim. To finish the day on a high, we went to another cave (Gruta da Lapa Doce) which turned out to be enormous. Between the entrance of the cave and where we exited, we walked 850 metres in the dark, with only our torches to light the way and the many stalactites and stalagmites. Before getting back to the fresh air, the guide made us sit down in the cave, turn off our torches and observe a minute or two of silence to experience the full might of the cave. It was a rather impressive moment and we drove back to town in awe of what we just saw.

Heart-shaped rock

On our last day in the Chapada Diamantina, we took a guided walk to the Sossêgo waterfall. The path first leads through the forest and then along the Ribeirão do Meio river into a gorge at the end of which the waterfall tumbles into a great natural pool. Because it had rained a lot in the previous days, the water of the river was quite high and we literally had to jump from stone to stone in the riverbed itself for the last stretch. In some place, we even had to take off our shoes and cross the river in the water. Fortunately our guide knew the way very well and led us through all the tricky bits safely. We all had fun in having a bit more of a challenge than expected to get to our destination. We went swimming by the waterfall despite the cold water. We had the place all to ourselves and it was just too beautiful to give it a miss. The sunshine and brisk walking kept me warm on the return. Before getting back into town, we stopped at another favoured swimming hole on the Ribeirão do Meio. This one boast a rocky waterslide that keeps all the town's kids entertained. Dave and I both had a go, although I thought once was enough for me and Dave went for a series. Check out the video below to see what it's like.

View above Sossêgo waterfall

We really enjoyed our stay in Lençois (click here for all the pics) and were almost a bit sad to leave the next morning to head back to the coast. Our last destination in Bahia before catching a plane further up the coast to Recife was to be Praia do Forte. Praia do Forte lies about 60km north of Salvador and apart from being a very cute but touristy village, it is also serves as headquarters for the Projeto Tamar. Tamar is an abbreviation for sea turtles in Portuguese (TARtaruga MARinha) and the Tamar Project is dedicated to the protection of sea turtles in Brazil. There are five species that nest on the Brazilian coast and islands. All of them except the Leatherback Turtles (the biggest kind) can be seen at Tamar's visitor centre in Praia do Forte. The centre serves as a base for the Tamar researchers and volunteers who protect around 60Km of coastline around Praia do Forte and over 1,000Km across Brazil. They patrol the beaches at night during nesting season to ensure the turtles lay eggs in safe conditions. During hatching season, they help the baby turtles get back to sea. Tamar reckons they have helped over 1 million baby turtles to get back to sea in the last season. Of these, only 1,000 are likely to reach adulthood. The centre in Praia do Forte also acts as a hospital for ill or injured turtles who are taken to the station for treatment and recovery and then released back to sea (if possible). Finally it plays a big role in educating the community to prevent locals from poaching eggs, killing the turtles for food and generally enrolling them in supporting the protection efforts and helping to save the turtles when they get into trouble. Recently Tamar has been conducting research on round fishing hooks which are deemed to help decrease the number of turtles or seabirds that get inadvertently caught in the fishing lines. As a result of all this, and after 30 years of activity, Tamar believes that numbers of four out of the five turtle species found in Brazil are now on the increase.

A hawksbill turtle

We chose to stay in Imbassai, an even smaller village 10 Km north of Praia do Forte. We walked all the way from Imbassai to the Tamar centre along the beach. As it was another rainy day, we were the only ones on the isolated stretch of sand. That is if you don't count the hundreds of turtles nest that we saw on the way and out of which would soon emerge thousands of baby turtles. The nests are all marked by white plastic pillars and the number of eggs in each of them is counted by the Tamar researchers and volunteers. At the beginning we were wondering what the pillars were until we saw the signs along the beach and bumped into the small beach information centre. We were totally committed to turtle saving later on after seeing some of these impressive creatures swimming around the pools of the larger Tamar station in Praia do Forte. It was just magical to look at them, and it must be even more magical to see one of these big, ancient animals in the wild or thousands of hatchlings making it to the sea as quick as they can. We were so moved by it that we searched for volunteering opportunities in this area in Ecuador, Panama and Costa Rica. Unfortunately volunteering positions were either already full or we were going to be too late in the season by the time we got there, so we settled on researching Humpback whales instead. This will be on the same stretch of the Ecuadorian coast than where the turtles come to nest. If we are lucky, we may still see a turtle in the wild or hatchlings rushing for the water. Check out all our photos and a turtle video from Praia do Forte here.

A loggerhead turtle

Bahia is one of the most visited parts of Brazil after Rio and it certainly didn't disappoint. Although we were very happy with the selection of places we visited, there is so much more to see in this large state. We missed all the beaches and the marine national park in the south for instance, all of which are are meant to be really wonderful and worth returning for one day. For us, Bahia also meant getting back into proper backpacking after the effortless city breaks we'd had with Tom and Carol in Sao Paulo and Rio. Perhaps this triggered the whole reflection about how busy the journey had been up to this point and what were our priorities for the year. Or perhaps we just reached that certain travelling stage where you start gaining perspective and questioning things (it's meant to kick in after a few months on the road). Our thoughts would take a few more weeks to mature, but we'll remember Bahia as the place where we really started revamping our original travel plan.

On the day of our departure, we enjoyed a fresh grilled fish for lunch on Imbassai beach, served by a friendly and enthusiastic beach shack owner. We then took a mini-van back towards Salvador (they remind me a bit of a Turkish dolmuş for those who know what that is...) to catch our evening flight to Recife.

A small stretch of the 10km beach from Imbassai to Praia do Forte