Vacations in Brazil pt. 3

AOG, Praia do Forte

We got up and had breakfast, enjoying some very good weather. Then, after being pestered by a Spanish restaurant owner who was visiting to pick up some customers, we sat through an introduction which was half positive and half negative. Our rep started off by telling us what “All inclusive” did not include.

Phone calls, drinks at the disco, and a couple of other things, which I’ve forgotten, were not included.

He then gave us a quick, and condescending, lesson on Brazilian geography. Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo are about 5 hours away; Manaus about 8 –almost as far away as Madrid. No one had asked him about this, but I suppose he gets questions of that sort all the time.

He spent an awful long time explaining the different ways in which you can enjoy a Caipirinha- something you can have in the mornings.

Then there was the Caipiroska, which you have with vodka. And the Caipirissima, which seems to be an XXL Caipirinha recommended for clubbing and other types of adult entertainment.

He then went on to tell us about all the different tours we could take during our stay. We settled on 3: Bahia, Whale watching, and the River Pojuca tour.

The hotel has 3 restaurants and we are allowed to have dinner three times in either or all of them. One is Mediterranean, one Japanese, and the other is a Steakhouse. We are having dinner at the Japanese first, then the Mediterranean, then, on our last night, we will dine at the Steakhouse.

Afterwards we went to spend the day at the beach. It was wonderful. The hotel’s grounds and amenities are wonderful. The staff, nice.

What I found most interesting is the hotel’s game room and library, composed, as it is, of three bulky colonial Portuguese tables and chairs, one bulky sofa, the day’s Salvador de Bahia papers, and this was the interesting part, the books the guests have left behind. There’s a lot of Dutch and German books, some French and a few Italian titles.

Hardly any books in Spanish; and the bulk of the collection, no surprises there, is books in English. Surprisingly, not all are brand new titles. There were books which were printed in the 1970s, complete with curling covers and yellow, sandpaper-like pages. These were my favorites to leaf through.

However, I’d brought my own, which accompanied me to the beach and pool daily. But it was nice to see other books.

The hotel also has an internet room and public toilets everywhere.

Praia do Forte

The rep had offered us to go to Praia do Forte town (our hotel is about a 10 minute drive from it, located as it is on virgin jungle territory) that afternoon for a measly 10 reales.

We thought it would be a good idea, but having been warned about crime in Brazil, we leave the camera’s at the room’s safe. Mistake!

At around 4pm, we and some other guests gathered at the entrance hall and get carted unto a van which will take us to the town. What we thought was just a journey there is in fact a stealth tour. Our tour guide is awaiting us there and is intent on us going to visit the Tamar Project Sea Turtle reservation.

My partner and I are horrified at the prospect of being in a large group of people touring a small town like a herd. Nobody had mentioned the Tour guide. In theory, the turtles get fed at 5, and then something funny happened.

Hardly anyone had any Reales with them. The tour guide was very sceptical about anyone leaving the group or doing anything on their own, yet at the same time, about 80% of us had to go and exchange some money.

He was very reluctant to let anyone leave but then, in the end, common sense kicked in and people just started wandering off toward the bureau de change with a few Real-carrying guests accompanying him to the Tamar Project.

We saw our chance and we took it. We walked around the small town for about 20 minutes, popping in on the occasional art and trinket shop before heading towards turtle city.

The cool thing about this place was, first of all, the shape of the public toilets. It was straight out of a Gaudi fantasy. Shaped like giant seashells, and covered in broken tile mosaics, they would not have looked out of place in Barcelona.

The second cool thing about this place, turtles aside, was how close you could get to the animals.


There was a shark pool with evil looking sharks lurking at the bottom, and small Manta Rays minus the sting on very shallow pools at eye level.

This is what impressed us most. Manta Rays, in case you were wondering, have human-looking eyes. It was like looking at a person in fish form. Probably not the best explanation, but accurate.


They were so close to us that you could see them looking at you. Scary and thrilling at the same time.

The shark pool was very impressive too. They were taking turns swimming around the pool walls, with the rest remaining at the bottom of the pool until it was their turn.

The creepy thing was that you never saw them coming until they were right there in front of you. Probably something similar happens in nature with these animals. They were huge, solemn and elegant. Death often is.

Then there was the sponge and Sea Urchin pool (not many visitors), and various pools with many different sort of fish swimming inside of them.

When we left the Turtle sanctuary, we went back to see the town. We stopped at one supermarket to buy some talc and other toiletries. We marvelled at the local products.

My partner mentioned that some of the things on sale were no longer available in Spain. We also bought some aspirin and had our first cold coconut for 2 Reales, less than one Euro.

Here and there we saw one missed photo opportunity after another. We thought the people were friendly enough and wished we had not been so paranoid about taking our cameras with us.

Praia do Forte is safe enough and merited a second visit, cameras in hand. Especially when we took a turn away from the main commercial strip and discovered the picturesque streets which one only finds in tropical climates. Beautiful and calling out for more protagonism.

We were definitely coming back, oh yeah.

After wandering around for a while and half booking a driver to take us to Bahia some time in the future, we get back to the group.

They take us all back and we arrive very tired. It is only around 8pm, and we get to bed right after dinner. They close the pools at 7 by the way. This is rather inconvenient for us.

Vacations in Brazil pt. 2

AOG, Praia do Forte

After a 9 hour flight we arrived in Bahia. We discovered that the back of the plane was not too crowded and although we had chosen window and isle, we actually flew separately most of the way, across the isle, with at least one spare seat next to us for extra comfort.

It took about an hour to cross through customs and immigration. All the passengers were quite shocked at the slow speed of the process and complained from the start. Me included.

We left the baggage hall and were greeted by representatives from our tour operator. There was a girl dressed in full Bahiaiana gear smiling and waving at people. Too bad we were all tired, hungry, and fed up with waiting to reciprocate her niceness.

We got on the bus and were told that because there were two groups, we would be unloading the first group at their hotel first. This meant that the journey would take even longer. And it did.

The drive from the outskirts of Bahia airport to Praia do Forte was slow, although our driver did swerve about 3 times to avoid an accident, and uneventful. The Tour rep tried his best to be nice and friendly, but failed miserably.

He offered to exchange our euros for reales explaining that he would give us a better rate than the hotel would: 2.50 to the hotel’s 2.40.

My partner changed some money and told me when he got back that the guy’s niceness disappeared as soon as he turned the mic off. The mask has fallen off, were the words used.

Not an easy job to do, I agreed, but then, why not hire someone who is actually nice, and not just pretending to be nice? My partner agreed.

The first surprise of the day was the fact that it is Winter in Brazil, which means it gets dark around 5pm.

We finally got to the hotel after being on the bus long enough to snooze for a while, tired, depleted of energy, and hungry.

They told us to leave the luggage, tag it with our room number, and scoot over asap to the restaurant before it closes.

Second surprise of the journey. Surely this happens with enough regularity that the restaurant should stay open a bit longer?

Regardless, we get to the restaurant where the remnants of the evening’s dinner were awaiting our hungry mouths.

Afterwards, and yes, we overate, we walked to our rooms, passing by the hotel’s disco, blasting as it was, dance music and drunken guests. We hoped our room was nowhere near that racket, and swore to demand a different room if it was.

Luckily for us, it wasn’t. it was on a the first floor, and we could hear the sea from the balcony. I think for me the vacation started that moment, looking out into the palm-strewn golf park outside our balcony, with the moon shining over a slightly overcast sky.

Since we could hear the sea, we wanted to see how close to it we were. We left the room and went on a mini evening excursion of the hotel’s grounds.

The beach was a two minute walk from the room. As we got closer, the sea got louder.

There is something very romantic about the sound of the sea at night. Also dangerous. Who knows what sea creatures are out in force at night. I really liked our first experience of Brazil.

We went to sleep as soon as we got back to the room. We had an appointment with the Tour rep at 10 AM the next day, and we needed to have breakfast first.

Starting to settle....

AOG, Madrid

Yesterday I was in the north of Spain: San Sebastian. I'd gone over to a Saturday wedding in Bilbao with my other half and we had a free day to tour the Basque country. I have to say, it is the first wedding I attend where, out of 26 tables, 3 of them had two pairs of Marquises, one stand alone Marchioness, and a couple of Viscounts. You have to love Europe for things like that.

Of course, no one introduced the Aristocrats to anyone else and I, 1- made little effort to be introduced and, 2- had little chance to do so anyhow. What I liked best about the whole wedding shindig was being a little more accepted by my other half's friends. A small bond is in the making between them and I. They appear to like me, and I like them back with no appearances. I just do.

And yesterday, instead of staying in rainy, gray and drizzly Bilbao, we droved to rainy, gray and drizzly San Sebastian. Truly, it is a beautiful city. Although renowned in Spain for its culinary excellence, I have to say we were not very lucky with food. It was at best, palatable. I am not a food snob, but I have to say that nothing of note was served to us yesterday. I also saw the new Auditorium & Congress Hall, the Kursaal.

It is a beautiful glass monstrosity by my least favorite Spanish Architect, Rafael Moneo, which lights-up-at-night and has been plonked right in front of an immaculate XIX century boulevard facing the sea, ensuring that the residents who until then had enjoyed a sea view, no longer do so. I am surprised that no one thought of building it further down the sea walk where it meets the mountains and there are no buildings in front. It looks very out of place, and the scale, for a city of punctilious dimensions, makes it look like a baby doll looks like when placed next to a Barbie doll: humongous.



I had been to San Sebastian last (and first) in 1990. I spent an afternoon there with my mother. She told me about her childhood trips and the female bear she used to visit at the local zoo whenever my grandparents took her there. I have yet to see this zoo.

When I got back to Madrid last night, we spoke on the phone. She wanted to know the names of the bride and groom to see if she knew their parents. Somehow her connections to Bilbao tied me a little bit to that place. When I told her we had gone to the Hotel Londres on the beachfront to have a coffee and watch the Wimbledon final she mentioned she remembered it too. She gave me the hotel's full name, which I thought was funny since I too discovered its name once inside. Hotel Londres y de Inglaterra. London and of England Hotel, aka Hotel Londres, full stop. Perhaps the "Inglaterra" is seen as pretentious these days. I don't know, but the Inglaterra bit is not seen anywhere on the hotel's façade.

I have just read a post from a blog I read from time to time. The blog's author, Chris Cope, is American and lives in Wales. And he wants to become a writer.

In fact, he is a writer. I don't know what he has written, aside from a few columns of his I have read online. But he certainly appears to be more of a writer than I. For example...I have yet to acquire a column of my own.

But I do write. Occasionally, weekly, but not yet daily. Here in Madrid, last March, I placed an ad looking for writing buddies. I found three. They are great.

One of them is a teacher. Our writing sessions star and end as discussion sessions and little or no writing is done, but we do set the world right every afternoon. However, once in a while, we do manage to do a few pages. He and I have entered a writing contest for the Spanish Railways Foundation: RENFE. Not to win, just to enter.

The other one, a guy from Chile, is writing a novel set in an office. We meet and discuss the chapters he brings. We have written together maybe once. We also tend to chat a lot of the time.

My third writing buddy is the youngest of the three. From day one, we have always written. We have good writing days and bad writing days. But we write. We give each other praise and comment, and if something is not too good, we also mention it.

I wrote to my sister in Oxford the other day telling her my latest plans and life events as they have occurred. She wrote back:

"It's so so good that you are getting out there doing the things you enjoy like writing and acting. You must enjoy every day of your life and not waste it. It's also good that you are gaining a larger circle of friends. It sounds like you are starting to settle in and make a life in Madrid."

And I was very taken aback by her words: starting to settle. I guess I must be settling in. I just hadn't realized it yet.

This week and last week, I have been cramming for a Spanish television exam. About 18 000 people are applying for 200 jobs. No don't be shocked, this is quite normal in Spain. 1 job= 3 000 applicants. I have had to cancel my acting classes and the writing sessions. Creativity zero.

Except for the blog.

Once the exam is over, I'll start writing again. There is this small Mexican drama developing in my head since March. I have not given it much thought lately, though it grows and grows. In fact, what grows the most is the anxiety of not writing it. Surely a good sign?