Brazil Part 1

Brazil - Part 1

 

Salvador

 

*WARNING: LONG AND DETAILED BLOG ENTRY.  PLEASE DO NOT READ IF YOU WANT TO GO TO SLEEP IN 5 MINUTES OR IF YOU'RE AT WORK.  I CAN NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR LACK OF SLEEP OR THE LOSS OF A JOB BECAUSE OF A LACK OF PRODUCTIVITY!*  J

 

**This is part 1 out of 2 so make sure to check back tomorrow for the second part**

 

            Where does one start in the explanation process when they've experienced a life-changing event?  I suppose I could start anywhere I wanted to about the past 5 days I spent in Brazil, but I might as well start from the very beginning...

 

            On the night of September 6th, my Sea, the Adriatic Sea (our halls are called "Seas" for the sake of identification purposes) had a slumber party out on the deck.  I was still feeling sick so I decided to sleep inside where it was dry and comfortable.  I didn't want to risk relapsing into how I was feeling a few days prior.  I know I missed out on a night of bonding, but there will be others over the next few months.  I woke up at 5:15 and was up on the 7th deck by 5:18.  I don't think I've ever rolled out of bed and been somewhere that fast in my life.  We were starting to make our way into port and I wanted to get pictures and video of the event. 

 

            Salvador was completely different than I was expecting...at least from the ships point of view.  There were sky scrapers and large buildings taking up most of what we could see of Salvador at that time.  I guess I had more of a small-building picture painted in my head, and I was almost disappointed.  I felt like we were pulling into the New York City of Brazil.  The things that I couldn't see though from a distance were the dilapidated buildings, street children, or both homeless dogs and people.  The closer our ship pulled into port, the more clearly I could really SEE what we were venturing into.

 

            There were two dozen people or so on the ship at 6am and we all saw the sun rise over the horizon, right above the city.  It was truly a beautiful sight.  The port itself was more geared for commercial vessels- there were cranes and barges and cargo ships all over the place.  The m/v Explorer definitely stood out among the crowd and reeked American.  I guess that is to be expected in many of the ports we go to.  The whole disembarkation process was relatively easy, but it was not straight forward at first.  We were supposed to grab our passports from the Faculty Lounge on deck 7 by Sea starting at eight, but that got changed to random callings.  Then, I guess they realized calling hundreds of people at random was going to be chaotic so they decided to hand out passports by Sea again after our port briefing.  The whole process was very smooth and most of us were off the ship by 10:30.

 

            A group of 13 of us headed out into Salvador with Julie at the front of our pack.  She's actually from Union, New Jersey which is like 20 minutes from where I'm from.  Small world.  She's Brazilian and speaks Portuguese so she acted as our life-line for most of the first day.  Immediately following our leave from port, the overwhelming stench of urine on the street bombarded us.  I was caught completely off guard.  Many people in our group wrenched their faces into contorted grimaces of disgust.  It took me a minute or two to adjust to the smell, but once I did I remembered something a professor told me a few days prior.  He said "you're going to see things you're not used to seeing and you're going to smell things you're not used to smelling.  Just accept it, you can't change it at that moment."  Once I accepted that I couldn't change the smell, things were better.

 

            Not only were we bombarded by peculiar smells, but we saw a group of young Brazilian men riding down the street on small horses.  That was their mode of transportation.  Of course, me being the horse-lover that I am, I immediately did a once-over of the horses.  Besides being a good deal underweight (at least for what I'm used to seeing back in the States), they appeared healthy and all the horses were wearing shoes, so I felt better.  Any who, enough horse talk.  There were plenty of other observations that I made such as the prevalence of an African influence among the native Brazilians.  Most of the shops in the market were selling handcrafted jewelry, wood carvings, paintings of Africans, and linen.  We walked through the market for a while and I ended up buying two pair or copper and colored thread earrings, but nothing else. 

 

            In order to get to the "upper city" of Salvador (supposedly the safer part) you had to take an elevator.  When I heard this, my heart nearly dropped out of my chest.  I don't like elevators much to begin with, but especially not ones that are right next to buildings that are half falling apart and have brush and trees growing in them. **I made an observation the next morning that I want to tell you about now.  There is lots of construction going on both in the city of Salvador and more toward the outskirts of downtown, but it is all on roads and overpasses.  I was upset by the fact that I saw hundreds, if not thousands, of houses that were eroding on the hillsides with no windows, no roofs, and were still fully occupied by families.  I understand that an economy like Brazils needs strong infrastructure to advance, but at the same time, if the government isn't improving the lives of thousands of citizens living in the cities at least a little, how much is the economy really going to improve?  Maybe some of you reading this blog have some input?  I'd love to hear your comments about this issue.  Please write comments if you'd like.**

 

            After the elevator ride up to the upper city, we immediately saw a police procession down one of the main streets.  Thankfully, I had known that we arrived in Salvador on their Independence Day, so seeing hundreds of military police marching down the main street didn't scare me.  If I hadn't had known about the holiday, I probably would have ran as fast I could away from the area.  I was lucky to have a good vantage point and I filmed some of the procession. 

           

            Walking through the streets of the upper city of Salvador was very entertaining.  Their was one area where Brazilian men were performing Capoeira and carts were set up selling traditional street food.  We were warned about eating from some of the carts since our stomachs aren't used to that type of food, so we stayed away from the carts and found a Portuguese café that specialized in crepes and acai.  For those who don't know what acai (pronounced uh-sigh-ee) is, it's a fruit that is found in the Amazon region of Brazil and the fruit spoils very rapidly after being picked.  Therefore, it is frozen and blended with either soy milk or fruit juice into the consistency of a sherbert.  Then, it's plated in a bowl with sliced bananas, granola, and can be topped with honey or sweetened condensed milk.  My roommate and I split a bowl of acai and a ham and cheese crepe.  Both were amazing.  I could definitely get used to traditional Brazilian food.

 

            In the touristy areas of Salvador, I felt relatively safe, but they were often the areas where pickpockets lurked.  You had to watch out more for the street kids than their adult counterparts since they are often harder to detect among a crowd of people.  Our group was very good at keeping an eye on each other and nobody was pick-pocketed.  Some people weren't so fortunate and they were actually locked in a bar and forced to pay 750$ to leave.  That is exactly why I didn't want to go out to a bar in Salvador.  We are briefed about all the warnings for each port prior to leaving the ship because they are real and can happen.  You can't run around the world scared, but you definitely have to be aware of your surroundings at all times and make sure you pay attention to small red flags that go up.  I'm assuming the people that this happened to won't ever let it happen again.

 

            We made our way back to the ship for a few hours and then went out to an all-you-can-eat Brazilian restaurant later on in the night.  It was a very beautiful establishment; the food was excellent, the wine was good, and the company (a group of approximately 18 SASers) was enjoyable.  There were waiters walking around to all the tables with skewers of meat that they would cut for you right in front of your plate.  All you had to do was flip a coaster that said either Yes Please or No Thank You.  I can't tell you what kinds of meat I had exactly, but I know I had beef, salmon, pork, and I even tried chicken heart!  The chicken heart isn't something I'd try again, but I'm happy I did.

 

            We all came back after dinner and crashed relatively early, knowing that the majority of us had to leave prior to 7am for trips.  I had my bags packed and ready to go that night so all I had to do was roll out of bed, grab breakfast, and head to the Union to meet up with the group.  I definitely was the one who packed the most (my hiking pack and a shoulder bag), but I was also the one who brought things that others needed such as medical tape, Band-Aids, ibuprofen...you get the jist...

 

Lencois-

 

            I can rattle off an entire list of adjectives that somehow encompasses small parts of what I experienced in Lencois, but I don't believe there is one word that can truly cover my entire experience.  Incredible, breathtaking, serene, magnificent and astonishing are a few that come to mind...

            Our trip to Lencois consisted of roughly 35 students and two faculty guides.  I was slightly concerned with ability of our one guide, Dr. Rosencranz, because he's around 70 years old.  I've never known a 70 year old to be able to do half of what he did on this trip.  He was making it up the mountains quicker than I was at some points!  Needless to say, he is one hell of a guy.  I give him credit for picking this trip to lead.  I was speaking with him this morning at breakfast and he said that this was the most intense trip he's ever done and that he's done many outdoorsy type of adventures in the past.  That right there should tell you a little bit about what I got myself into...

 

            It took just under 6 hours to get from Salvador to Lencois.  The trip went by relatively fast, mainly due to a quiet bus, which made for prime sleeping conditions.  We were all just exhausted and needed to sleep.  When I wasn't sleeping, I was staring out the window watching the slow progression of the landscape from arid farmland to lush forests the farther you got away from Salvador and the closer you got to Lencois.  I was amazed by the landscape.  There were hills everywhere, some mountains thrown in here and there, and few lakes or bodies of water to be seen.  Never in my life have I seen topography like that.  I'm assuming the Western US is similar to what I was seeing, but since I've never experienced places like Colorado or Utah, I have no idea if my assumptions are right. 

 

            We made a thirty minute pit stop at a bus stop off the main road where we all either ate lunch on the bus (they provided us with "lunch" which consisted of a "sandwich"- stale white bread, 2 slices of baloney, and a slice of cheese- a piece of cold fried chicken, an apple, and juice) or inside the cafeteria area. I was starving so I ate it without complaining, but we were all laughing about it afterwards.  A part of my felt greedy for wanting something more substantial while I was surrounded by poverty and it made me do some thinking for the rest of the bus ride.

 

            We arrived in Lencois around 3 pm on Monday and that's when the fun began.  The minute the bus driver pulled up at the top of the hill where our hotel was, I was awestruck.  I was surrounded by absolute beauty.  Our hotel was down a hill and on the far side of the hill was a river.  I can't even begin to describe the hotel in enough detail that would do it the least bit of justice.  I would have paid twice the amount of money to stay in that hotel.  But, I would also have paid 10 USD a night to stay in one of the few hostels in town.  I felt like I had stepped into utter luxury- a feeling many of us felt.  Most of the hotels common areas were open to the outdoors, covered only by tile roofs that had overhangs which vented the areas.  The staff all were extremely friendly and helpful and tried to speak as much English as possible.  I really am considering learning Portuguese now...especially since I'll be back in Lencois at the first opportunity that I get.

 

            Upon arrival, we checked in, figured out our roommate assignments, and had 10 minutes to change into swimsuits and hiking attire.  Then we were off!  Our local guides were awesome and they knew the area like the back of their hands.  Christine, our head guide/interpreter, makes me want to say "screw college, I'm becoming a guide in Lencois".  Don't worry mom, I'll at least finish college first before I run back off to Brazil J  We walked through town to get to our first trail head and I was stunned by the beauty of the area.  Lencois appeared very quickly to be different than Salvador.  There were very few cars, lots of kids and families walking around, and the houses were kept up very well.  Yes, there were parts of Lencois that were run down, but you have that in many cities all around the world.  I was impressed with how clean everything was though.  Their entire economy is based on eco-tourism, so they are extremely environmentally friendly.  Many places recycled and our hotel was run off of solar power.  Maybe some places in the States can learn a few things from Lencois.  By the way, Lencois is pronounced len-soyz.  I had been mispronouncing it for the longest time...I was saying it the French way, len-swah.

           

            When we breached the trailhead, we split into smaller groups with guides leading about 8 people.  Christine stayed back with the group that didn't feel like racing into the wilderness, and kept a slightly slower pace.  I was somewhere in the middle, especially since I was stopping to take pictures every few minutes.  It was absolutely beautiful.  We walked along the river and there were locals playing in the river, washing their clothes and blankets, and then laying them out to dry on the smooth river rocks.  What a way of life...so simple and they always seemed happy.  I wish we as Americans could accept that kind of life again.  I didn't miss my laptop, phone, or tv at all in Lencois.  I was at peace and I was happy.  That's all that mattered to me.

 

            We hiked for a while before coming to an area where we saw a few local guys jumping into a swimming hole.  It was funny seeing all of us college kids throwing our packs down and stripping our hiking clothes off.  We all were acting like we've never seen a swimming hole before.  Granted, this was a very small one compared to what we saw later on in our trip, but it was a lot of fun.  There was a 5 foot hole that you had to jump in and you had to climb on top of a small rock ledge in order to jump.  Needless to say, some people backed out, but I made myself do it.  I've jumped off plenty of rocks into water before, but it was definitely scary.  There were a few people who jumped out a few inches too far and smacked body parts on the rocks under the water.  They still have bruises to show for it.  I managed to only get a small scrape on a knee.

 

            We dried off real fast an continued our hike into the mountains.  We were passing over streams, through brush and trees, and climbing over rocks, which I would have called boulders back in the States.  Wait till you see some of the pictures of the boulders we were hopping.  They're HUGE!  Some were a good 15 feet high, if not higher.  We came to a few small waterfalls on the first leg of our hike and then we scaled higher and higher until we came to an area with a higher waterfall that we got to sit under and cool off.  We moved out real fast though cause the sun was setting in an hour or so and we needed to get out of the woods.  I thought we would just trek back the way we came, but instead we climbed up a "trail" right next to the waterfall.  It was insane!  There were a few times when I thought a few of the girls (and a few guys too) were going to say they weren't capable, but not a single person backed down.  There was a small group that decided to stay behind about a half hour before so they never made it to that point, but we ended up meeting back up with them after looping up the mountain and then back down.  There were a few points when I questioned if what we were doing was safe, but I said the hell with it and dug my feet in a little harder and started climbing.  The view from the top was worth every doubt.  I felt so incredibly accomplished...

 

            There is so much more I have to write, but I can barely keep my eyes open, let alone provide you with the detail that's needed to capture what I saw, experienced, and accomplished over the last 4 days.  I now know that I can push myself farther physically than I ever imagined was possible and I have a newfound respect for the power of my body.  I'll write the rest tomorrow, and it will most likely be just as long.  I apologize for the length...

 

-Amanda