The Blaus - South America and Europe

22 do Julho, Canoa Quebrada - Brazil

In Portuguese Canoa Quebrada means Broken Boat. As far as we could tell, all of the boats in this beach town were fully functioning, so we´re not sure how the name came about. We rented a one-room apartment on the beach for 5 nights at a cool $8 US a night and cooked our own meals to economize even more. A trip to the northeastern beaches in Brazil can be very reasonably priced compared to travel in the rest of the country...perhaps this is why we decided to extend our stay at the beaches. The weather was also an incentive, as it is warm and sunny even in "winter" in this part of the country. We had heard from other travelers that it was rainy and cold south of Salvador, so we savored our time in the northeast and spent days soaking up the sun during long walks on the beach, swimming in the warm Atlantic Ocean, hanging in hammocks and reading, and talking about our future plans and schemes.

One afternoon while we were walking along the beach we approached an old man who was struggling to push his jangada into the water. His old, thin frame was pushing with all its might and wasn´t making very much progress. Jangadas are small rafts particular to the northeastern region of Brazil that are used extensively for fishing. Some jangadas have colorful and distinctly shaped sails, and others without sails are scooted around the water with a long, thick paddle. The old man was about 70 years old and he was doing this labor intensive job alone (with a small grandson or great-grandson at the helm of the boat wearing sunglasses and pretending to supervise the operation), so we offered to assist him. He was a bit suspicious of us at first, especially because we couldn´t speak Portuguese, so I´m sure that he was not sure of our intentions. We pitched in and before we knew it another 2 volunteers came out of nowhere to help us. The fishermen in Canoa Quebrada store their jangadas on higher ground on the beach, far from the high tide line. They use a system similar to the Incan stone method of transport to push these heavy boats all the way to the ocean´s edge. Jen took over the job of moving the 2 long planks forward to create rails, Billy´s job was to move the heavy, thick log forward (which served as wheels for the boat to glide on), and the 2 other volunteers pushed the back of the boat while the old guy replaced his grandson at the helm of the operation. In no time the old man was paddling out to sea to catch fish. It felt good to help him out and make some friends in the process.

We were so excited to have a kitchen to ourselves that we decided to cook and bake something new each day. Baking a coconut cake (bolo de coco) with Portuguese instructions, metric measurements and a stove with Celsius settings didn´t prove to be easy, but we managed to gobble up the end product regardless of what the cake looked like.

Our apartamento didn´t come with basic cleaning supplies, so we experimented with what we had on hand. We wouldn´t advise doing dishes with laundry detergent on a regular basis, but if you are in a pinch, it does the job.

We must say that our most valuable possession on this trip has been our Swiss Army Knife. We would like to pay homage to the Swiss and their wonderful inventions. We have used it for everything...and we are not sure how we could live without it. Our latest discovery is that it opens cans of tuna fish with the greatest of ease.

We met a lovely Brazilian guy from Sao Paulo who loved telling us stories about the American travelers he has met in Brazil. By the way, we´ve met so many charming Brazilians that we would rank them as the 2nd friendliest people in South America (after Colombians). July is the vacation month for Brazilians, and the majority of the Brazilians we meet are from Sao Paulo. This guy Ernesto relayed stories about our countrymen that had us feeling like very savvy travelers by comparison. He heard extensively about one American guy from the Bronx who was bamboozled by the oldest trick in the Brazilian book. Ernesto was so impressed by this living and breathing New Yorker from the Bronx, which is a fabled place that he had only heard about and seen in movies. Ernesto said that the guy seemed a bit crazy, as was to be expected from an inhabitant of an infamous place like the Bronx. He wore a Brazilian flag bandana on his head and when asked about his life in the Bronx he said an average day revolved around selling and buying drugs. This American guy seemed very tough and street smart indeed, but Ernesto was shocked when he learned that this guy fell victim of "Bom Noite Cinderella." Apparently this is the most popular scam in Brazil...so much so that it even has a name that every Brazilian knows. An unsuspecting gringo meets a beautiful Brazilian woman who plies him with drinks that are laced with sedatives and he wakes up the next day with empty pockets. We got a guilty giggle at this poor guy´s expense and learned another lesson about Brazil´s potential pitfalls.

We enjoyed our time and our temporary home in Canoa Quebrada. We could stand in our kitchen and look out our front door to ogle at the turquoise ocean above our fence. Looking out at the horizon where the water meets the cloudless blue sky gave us a feeling of serenity. Some afternoons the gang of neighbor kids came to our front yard to climb the cashew tree and pick or shake down the nuts. The oldest member of the gang stood underneath the tree to point out the ripe cashews while the younger members of the clan scrambled up the tree´s skinny branches to claim the prize. The cashews in Brazil are tasty, and you can buy them everywhere...on the highways, on the city streets, and just about everywhere else someone is selling cashews.

After 8 wonderfully relaxing days on the beach, we were very tan and ready to move on to Salvador. We had seen enough of the famous incredibly small Brazilian bathing suits (on both men and women) and had heard enough loud music blasting out of cars parked on the beach to tide us over until we arrive in Rio.

posted by The Blaus @ 11:58 AM