Hello, dear readers. As promised, we’re checking in from (mostly harmless) Bogotá, Colombia. Due to an unexpected airline bankruptcy, our simple evening flight from Salvador turned into a two-day, four-flight odyssey clockwise around the continent, retracing much of the ground we’d previously covered and depositing us north of the equator fourteen hours later than expected. But that, my friends, is a tale for another day. This week I’m going to pass the mic to Lea for a special bonus entry on her adventures in Brazil. Read on to find out what she was doing before I caught up with her in Salvador:
Let’s start with a rhetorical question – Why don’t more estadounidenses (Spanish for ‘Muricans) visit Brazil? Granted, many of us don’t travel internationally the same way as Europeans, but that doesn’t stop the hordes from descending upon all-inclusive resorts in the Caribbean and Mexico . Is it that Brazil seems too exotic, too dangerous, too far away? Or that when we think of Brazil, the only picture we can conjure is sweltering jungle and piranha feeding frenzies in the Amazon? Whatever the reason, I’m very sorry it took me so long to visit, and I plan more trips to explore the many areas we missed. We barely scratched the surface of this exciting, beautiful country.
Jared and I are very different people, and I have a much higher tolerance for almost everything than him. In this case, he wanted to take a break and relax in the (tiny, boring) beach town of Porto Seguro, while I wanted more adventure and to see more places. This led to me hopping north to Ilha de Tinharé and the tourist paradise of Morro de São Paulo. Getting there was definitely a slog, but the island was worth every minute!
The trip to Morro de São Paulo is somewhat complicated. First, I took a 13-hour overnight bus from Porto Seguro to São Salvador de Bahía de Todos os Santos (or “Salvador,” because who has time for all that). Upon arriving at the main bus terminal, I took two city buses to the docks just south of the Mercado Modelo. I luckily arrived just in time to buy a ticket for the 9 a.m. ferry, but not so lucky was the weather. It was too bad for the quicker open-water ferry to operate, so instead I took a 40 minute ferry across the bay to the small town of Vera Cruz on Ilha de Itaparica, followed by a 1.5 hour bus ride to Ponta do Curral, then another 15 minute ferry to the dock in Morro.
At this point, even I was ready to break down and cry after almost 16 hours in transit on four buses and two ferries! I paid the island tax, hiked up the short but very steep hill from the dock, and finally made it to my hostel. By this point, it was almost 3 p.m. and I hadn’t eaten for over 24 hours, so I stuffed my things into a locker in my dorm room and headed out for the first restaurant I could find. After eating and taking a badly needed shower, it was time to hit the beach.
Morro has five beaches, conveniently named First Beach through Fifth Beach after the order in which they were developed. From where I was staying on top of the hill, First Beach was closest. It is a beautiful stretch of rocky coast with a nice, big sandy area, beautiful to look at and fairly uninhabited compared to Second Beach. That first day I simply sat on the sand until it started raining, then headed back to my hostel to relax and get some sleep.
I chose Morro for my destination because I had read there was great snorkeling in the tide pools at First, Third, and Fourth Beaches. After a good night’s sleep, I got up the next morning and hung around in the sand until low tide. My arrival on the island had fortuitously coincided with the full moon, so low tide was extra low and there were a ton of rocks exposed at First Beach. I put on my mask, grabbed my Olympus T-4 waterproof camera, and headed into the warm water to check out the fish. And fish there were! Many different kinds, of all sizes, plus crabs, snails, and eels. The water was very clear behind the natural breakwater, which also made the area very calm and easy to swim. Here are some of the things I saw that first day during approximately 2.5 hours of snorkeling:
I’d taken a chance and booked a bunk in a dorm room, as I often do when not traveling with Jared (who has much higher standards). However, upon arriving at the hostel, it was immediately clear that this was a pretty young crowd. The rooms were very small to accommodate four people, and the bathrooms were miniscule. I spent time my second day looking for another place with more comfortable accommodations. On my third day, since I was changing hostels and my room wouldn’t be ready until 2:00, I left my bags at the new place and headed down to Second Beach to check out the party.
Second Beach is by far the most developed in Morro, with tons of restaurants, bars, chairs for rent, and strolling vendors selling anything your sandy little soul could desire. I rented a beach chair with umbrella and enjoyed several hours of chair-side service. One thing in Brazil I absolutely adore are the big chunks of mozzarella cheese impaled on skewers, coated with oregano, and grilled over hot coals in a hand-held brazier. I’m normally not a huge fan of cheese, but something about Brazilian cheese sticks is simply too delicious to pass up. Luckily the cheese lady walked by my chair and I was able to buy a snack to go with my drink.
Later that afternoon, after chilling (literally) in my new hostel, I decided to visit the church and lighthouse at the tip of the island, since the views of sunset were supposed to be stunning. All I can say is: what a waste of dripping sweat and knee pain from climbing a super steep and rather long hill! The lighthouse was almost completely obscured by trees and power lines, and the view over the island was really nothing special. In addition, it was very crowded at the top because everyone else on the island was thinking about watching the sunset, and there was a zipline from the top of the cliff down to the water on First Beach.
After approximately 45 seconds and two pictures, I headed back down the hill. When I arrived near the bottom, it made me wish even more I had not expended the energy to climb up – the view from the bottom was over the boat dock, with trees and a much better angle on the sunset. Here’s a tip if you visit – save yourself the angst and just watch the sunset from there!
The fourth day on the island, I set out in a kayak to Ilha de Caitá. I had read about this beautiful little island right of the coast of Third Beach and the wonderful snorkeling in its tide pools at low tide, being able to walk on the island itself, and the lone palm tree that inhabited the island’s large sandy spit. Since I was kayaking for the first time in the ocean, I opted to take a smaller, lighter, one-person kayak because I was concerned I wouldn’t be able to handle the larger two-person kayak by myself. Mistake! That was the single worst kayak trip I’ve ever taken.
The lady renting them mentioned (in mixed Spanish and Portuguese) that the single-person kayaks were unstable, but having white-water kayaked before I wasn’t overly concerned. How bad could it be? The answer to that is it can be very bad. It was the most unstable boat I’ve ever been in, even though there were barely any waves because the tide was going out and the reef was blocking most of the flow. I didn’t fall out of the boat, but it was a very close thing a couple of times and I was completely soaked by the time I got out to the reef.
Once near the island I wanted to get out, tie off the boat, and walk around to let the tide finish going out before snorkeling. It seems that in the time since the articles I read were published, several things have changed. First, the palm tree is gone. I’m not sure what happened, but there was almost no vegetation on the island, and certainly nothing as distinct as a palm tree. Second, the person leading the kayaks wouldn’t let us get near the island itself. Maybe they closed it to protect it, or who knows what, but he led us to an area behind the reef instead. Third, there were no tide pools.
The tide was low so there were areas to snorkel, but being outside the shelter of the island meant that there was still a fair amount of current and waves coming over the reef, making this a much rougher snorkeling area than First Beach. In addition, this area is where the kayak company took people to do the “Bautismo” dives, so there were a number of divers walking on the bottom and kicking up silt and sand, making conditions close to the boat very cloudy. I finally swam away to a shallow area with clearer water. There were fish around the area, but not nearly the number or diversity of those at First Beach. After maybe 35 minutes of poking around, I gave up and paddled my horrible kayak back to shore.
Since tide was just past low, I walked back to First Beach, renting a snorkel along the way, to see if I could salvage the day. After all, it was sunny and warm and I still had a few hours of daylight to enjoy. And I’m glad I went back! Once again there were many different fish, crabs, and TWO eels at First Beach. I was able to spend over an hour snorkeling, including some areas I hadn’t been able to access previously because the tide had been too low. Overall, it was a very nice ending to what had been a rather frustrating 24 hours, and a nice way to wrap up my time on this very beautiful island.
The next morning I got up early for the return trip to Salvador. The weather was sunny and (very) hot, so I was able to take the fast ferry directly back in just 2.5 hours. Jared had arrived early that morning and was waiting at the dock to give me a kiss and help me with my bags. With a smile and fond memories, I said goodbye to Morro knowing that I will never again be content with a Caribbean beach.