Well, I´ve eased back on the partying just a tad and have been exploring more. I´ve seen a great deal of the island at this point and its all good. LIke I mentioned before its a long skinny north south land mass, with the long east side exposed and the best beaches there. In the middle is a huge lagoon. The vegetation is thick, green and tropical, and the topography is fairly extreme, almost like rio, with the steep small hills falling away to beach and lagoon. Many of the beaches feature picturesque rocky points. I had a lttle too much fun with my camera at one of these today. (That one boulder was just so photogenic) I´ll get those photos up soon. The views are great. The town I live in is in the middle of the island, on a sand spit dividing the lagoon in two. At twilight the sky, mountains, and city lights reflect off the water, as the fishermen cast their nets into the still waters from rickety wood platforms just off shore. In the day time the lagoon is a popular alternative to the beach, expecially for families. There are paddle boats shaped like giant geese, kayaks, windsurfing, wading in warm shallow water, little shoreside volleyball, little mini pirate ships moored to rickety docks, you name it.
I live right next to the town square, and things are heating up in preparation for carnaval. On the weekends a craft fair dominates the plaza in the evenings. Weekday nights, around nine oclock, just after sunset, a different escola de samba has their moment to rock the plaza til midnight or so. The other day I walked out of my house to catch a great maracatu ensemble (think drums, lots of big drums). They had songs and arrangements they had written, 15 macasao, dancers, and two singer chicks who between verses would dance around and play chekere at the same time, tossing the chekeres into the air. I love that. As I watched them, my eyes refocused to the other side of the plaza, where an impromptu circus act was going on, I caught the silhouette of a unicyclist juggling, poi spinners, and various other jugglers and freaks. Really not too bad for walking out your front door on a wednesday night.
Surf picked up a little bit, and never mind about that thing before of the waves being smallish. I went out twice that day, at two different beaches and in the second session in particular, I wasn´t surfing, I was surviving. In fact, once I had made up my mind I was in over my head and better get out, I was scared to paddle back in because that meant moving back through the punishing overhead surf I had spent so much time punching through. I made it though. After a few days solo I have found a tour/party guide. Marsana from the amazon is brazilian moved to miami at age 22. She is here on three month vacation and her pick up line is- its so hard to meet people here I don´t have any friends- lets hang out. Since we´ve been hanging out I´ve discovered she in fact knows everyone on the island, and meets about ten more every single day. She´s been great company and introduces me to good people to know, fun locals as well as expats working business angles or real estate. On top of all this she´s pretty easy on the eyes, its good to have a friend.
Speaking of business as we were having breakfast this morning one thing led to another and before I knew it four different tables had come together to swap stories about moving to floripa, buying property as an expat, and the best place to move to in brazil (floripa was the consensus). Fun to get the input since my mind has been moving along those lines, and so like, cosmic, dude? I´ve just got a few more days here before the salvador leg begins, so I´ll be making good use of my time at the beach. Also, the Sao Paolo connections are coming together so that may be a destination in coming months, when I´m ready for the urban experience.
link to some photos here: http://flickr.com/photos/65236019@N00/sets/72157594562759825/
excuse the duplications and lack of editing, I´m bad that way. There´s a couple gems, try the slideshow option on full screen if the interface is killing you-
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