Beach Life in Brazil

Imagem 057
see all photos »

Hello All,

The 18 hour bus ride down the coast of Brazil was not that bad!  We watched movies (one being Richie Rich´s Christmas, oh god!), read and slept. The buses are much nicer then any greyhound we have ever seen. Brazilian countryside is amazing, absolutely beautiful.  We made a smooth transition from the long distant bus to local buses and made it to the small beach town of Barra da Lagoa. Sarah you would absolutely love this place. Its a mixture of Brazilian families vacationing, young backpackers and hippies. All the restaurants overflow onto the beach and you can sit under an unbrella all day with your feet in the sand.

"True to form, it didn't take long for Peter to hurt himself."

Imagem 056
see all photos »

We have been in Brazil for two weeks and are only now getting used to the South American schedule. Which consists of 10pm dinners that last three hours and hanging out at a beach bar for the rest of the night. The rest of the night really is the rest of the night. Most people will arrive at a bar around 2am and stay out until around 6am. No thank you! We make it until about 2 or 3 and head home.

Carnival started two days ago, because we are in a small beach town its not very crazy. The Hostel has been hosting parties and outings. We all went into the city to watch the Samba Parade. Very cool, there where four Samba schools that made up the paraded. Each school hade over 10,000 students! The parade started at 11pm and we left at 2am, after the second school! It was amazing.

Imagem 143
see all photos »

The night before the Hostel hosted a boat rave. This was forty people on a funny looking boat, two dj´s, and all you can drink Caipirinha´s. A Caipirinha is the national cocktail made from limes, sugar and cachaia (liquor made for sugar cane, cheep and nasty). The drink is very yummy but you can only drink two or three because of all the lime and sugar. It was absolutely the funniest boat ride I have ever been on! It started off fine, we spent about an hour riding up the channel and then back down. We then headed out to the ocean. As soon as we hit the ocean the night took a new turn. Instead of a mellow boat ride it turned into a game of hold on to the boat with one hand and your drink with the other, while attempting to dance to tecno, haha.

Imagem 142
see all photos »

The small boat with 40 young backpackers dancing to house tecno was on 10 foot swells!! Caipirinha´s where everywhere! I actually got an entire cup of lime, liquor and sugar dumped on top of my head! I quickly turned to bottled water and attempted to stay afloat.  True to form, it didn´t take long for Peter to hurt himself. I was in the front of the boat chatting with some of the girls and here comes Peter with a bloody paper towel raped around his finger. This is what he says to me, "now don´t be alarmed, but I put a gash in my finger and I probably need stitches". Now tell me, what do you do in this situation, swim to shore? Supprisingly the staff quickly maneuvered the rocking boat and surfaced with a glass of salt water, hydrenproxide, gaze and tape. Go figure they had a first aid kit. It was a mean gash but we have been able to avoid stitches due to the beauty of butterfly bandades and first aid spray. The rest of the night was a "shitshow", multiple people injured themselves due to a rocking slippery boat. In total, everyone fell very hard at least once (including Peter´s fall from about five feet up, which was seperate from the finger cutting incident), people were puking off the back from the rough seas, one guys dropped a large nife on his foot (but that wound was quickly attended to with the moonshine alchohol and a hand full of sugar...brazillian first aid) and one guy actually broke a rib! We got stuck out in the ocean because the tide had gone down and the first attmept at going back up the canal resorted in almost tipping the boat over. We got on the boat around 7pm and did't get off until 12. People where actualy jumping off the boat and swiming to shore! What a crazy night.

Imagem 141
see all photos »

Other then a couple crazy nights we have been spending the days at the beach. The sand is like silk and the sun is strong. Yesterday a cold front came in and the temp dropped, its windy and poring! We have two more day's here and it is going to rain for the rest of the week. What do you do in a beach town when its poring? We are off to Buenos Aires on the 22nd and can´t wait, we are ready for another city. We have rested and are ready to walk.

We love hearing from you guys, it gets lonely out here, and we already miss everyone at home. Its hard to be in such a great place and be thinking about how much 'so and so' would love it. We truly wish everyone was here and hope everyone is doing great.

Imagem 140
see all photos »

We love and miss you,

Sus and Pete

P.S. Peter is uploading the photos now! Enjoy.