Capoeirando and more...

Warning!!! This will be a long post again as it has been ages since I last wrote!

It has been so long since I last wrote that I don't even know where to start on the blog. I left Rio on the 4th in the evening, heading over to Ilheus in the state of Bahia for Capoeirando. It is a long way, nearly 24 hours of bus ride! I arrived at the bus station in Rio safely though a bit worried as it is in the middle of a favela, but luckily nothing happened. As I was waiting to get on the bus, the "queue" of people was so long I was in disbelief, and I was convinced not all of us would fit on the bus and I would lose my seat so I was eager to get on as soon as possible, though this was made impossible by the queue jumping and other sorts of Brazilian queuing going on...When I reached my seat, relieved to actually have one, my relief did not last for long. A fat woman came to sit next to me, and worse than that she had a kid of about 2 or 3 years old. Probably 3. The kid, as I feared, had no seat and sat on her lap for the whole trip! The whole 24 hours of bus ride, I had a fat woman spilling over into my seat and a kid on her lap. She was clearly stealing all the elbow space and occasionally elbowing me when she was trying to sort out the kid. The kid spent most of the trip thinking I was its bed and kicking me to get space for itself which I was well annoyed about. Normally I love children, but this one was definitely not my friend! I can't believe the mother even brought it on the bus with no seat of its own for such a long trip. To make matters worse, she had a couple of friends travelling in front of her, and every time they woke up they would start chattin really louldly to each other and disturb all the surrounding passengers. And finally, the guy in front of us had a radio that he had brought with him that he kept playing, and would turn it on every time he woke up: 1 am, 3am, 5am....! No respect at all for other passengers. Eventually I asked him to turn it down and he acted all pissed off about my not enjoying his music (that the woman next to me would sing along to....). Unbelievable! Then, in the morning we made a stop for breakfast and it happened that the place where we stopped was really busy as it was prime time breakfast time for all the buses. I felt sorry for the lady serving people as she was clearly overworked and very stressed and was trying her best to work as fast as possible. So I decided to wait and be polite whilst people were shouting at her and shoving their papers in her face. But these people that were being so rude, kept being served before me. Time after time people would jump in, be rude, and get served. After a while I got so angry I rolled up my paper in a ball and threw it over the counter. When I came back for a second try I decided that damn it, if being rude is what it takes then I'll be rude too. And I got my breakfast. Sometimes, I really cannot understand the "jeito Brasileiro"...Anyway, the bus ride was long and horrific, and I was very glad to arrive in Ilheus safe and sound.

I arrived in Mar e sol by night so didn't get to see much of the place except to drop my bags down in the house we were renting. It was full of people I didn't know soI just sat there and chatted with them, and then there was some samba de pagode later on in the evening so we danced and went to bed. Pretty uneventful, but nice. The next day Veronica arrived from Salvador at the crack of dawn, and then we all went on a day expedition to Itacare, a village near capoeirando which has nice beaches and is a tourist destination. We all went in the big bus that had brought the people from Sao Paulo and spent a nice day chilling on the beach. It was good because by this time we had also met up with Lottie and Rowena and her boyfriend, all three of them from London. It was nice to see some familiar London faces and spend time with them. There is so much that happened at Capoeirando that I think I will try and make it short. There were a lot of capoeira classes with a lot of masters. It was good, interesting, fun, and also painful. There were a lot of famous mestres there, including some such as Mestre Jogo de Dentro, Mestre Cobra Mansa, Mestre Onça Negra just to cite a few for those of you who know. The schedule generally worked as: 2 or 3 classes in the morning, and one in the late afternoon. Between lessons we had an extended lunch period which we generally used for going to the beach. The beach there was amazing, so beautiful, big, the sea so blue, and loads of palm trees, and almost noone on it except for us. Perfect! And finally, now I have hit the north of Brazil, I am getting pretty much constant sun too: wooooo!!! In the evenings there was usually music of some kind: pagode, forro or samba de roda, mostly provided by the guys I was sharing the house with or by masters playing the drums (Mestre Onça Negra loved it). The playing was good, and there were several championships that took place as well that were fun to be watched. It was also an amazing place for making friends and meeting new people as well as hanging out with familiar faces too. There were the people from London and also a crew from Liverpool and Manchester that turned up so it was nice to see them, but I also met loads of new people from all over: Brazil, America, Sweden...It was fun.
The house on the other hand, was a different matter....I ended up nicknaming it the house of horrors, as it was truly the most vile place I have ever stayed in!!! For a start, there were 15 of us in a 2 bedroom house. The room Veronica and I were staying in techincally housed 4 of us except loads of people had their bags in there and just kept coming in and out of the room for no reason. The house had no doors so getting changed was not easy. Our room had an en suite bathroom but that had no doors either so it was not very nice... Then, the water in the house was brown, so the floor of the shower constantly looked dirty, and the toilet bowl constantly looked like there was something vile in it. The bathroom was badly designed so that the drain that is normally in the middle of the floor was hidden in a corner behind the toilet and did not drain anything at all. So the floor got wetter, and people trodd in it with sandy shoes so it got muddy, and so and so on. It was vile! That, and the toilet bin overflowing, and in the end loads of flies everywhere and URGH it was just so disgusting, I didn't feel clean for the whole of the week I spent there, and really hated having to go in that house for anything. One one of the days the bathroom smelt so bad that it woke Veronica up: urgh! On our last day, the water in the bathroom was so bad that it had started flooding into the bedroom, and it was just gross. Definitely the house of horrors! When I reached Itacare, i don't think I have ever been so happy to be able to have a shower and finally feel clean! So the house, was the only negative point of Capoeirando I suppose.

On the Sunday, when most people had already left Capoeirando, Veronica and I, and Horrivel and a couple of others all went to Mestre Cabello's fazenda. Mestre Cabello is an angola teacher and I actually didn't know him until this capoeirando. But he gave us a good class and seemed like a very interesting person, so I was interested to go over to his fazenda. They were having a churrasca there so we all went over for lunch. The fazenda is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. It is basically in the middle of the jungle, surrounded by grass and trees and nature and it is so beautiful. Its structures are little or big round thatched huts but that remain open aired. The main hut was where we had the food, and it had hammocks strung around it that you could lie in and look out at the jungle or in to the people chatting. It also had a huge lake, with a beautiful wooden bridge accross it, and another hut next to that in which capoeira classes take place. Down by the end of the lake there is small waterfall and one can go and swim in the lake and sit on a bridge over the waterfall, looking back out towards the fazenda. They also had changing rooms and showers a bit further out in the "garden" which were lovely, and everything had clearly been really well thought out. It was such an amazing place, I completely fell in love with it and felt like I could live there forever. It was so calm and in such a wonderful setting, and also close to the sea if you ever want to go to the sea rather than swim in the lake. Perfect! In the evening Veronica Horrivel and I all made off for Itacare, not without some complications though as the taxi driver that was supposed to take us never came back, so we had to treck up and down the dirt track with our backpacks all the way to the bus stop to get the bus. Still, we managed to arrive in Itacare safe and sound, to a nice bedroom in a nice clean place, and have showers and for me in any case, finally feel clean and healthy again. I swear I thought I was going to catch a disease in that house!!

Since then Horrivel and I have been in Itacare, a chilled out surfer village on the way between Ilheus and Salvador. It is small and like I said very chilled out, full of reggae, surfers, and hippies. But it's good as after capoeirando what we really needed was a chill out and a bit of time to rest after all the intensive capoeira. Veronica stayed with us for one day and one night and then went off to Salvador to start her dance course. In the meantime we have been mainly beaching and catching up on the internet. The weather has been amazing so far, with a bit of rain every evening but nowhere near as bad as before. In fact, I got sunburnt today :-( booo! The waves here are really huge and in fact swimming in the ocean can be quite dangerous as the waves are so big and they just keep coming in, hardly leaving you any time to get over them. Not only that but there are loads of surfers around who might surf into you, and the current is strong so best to stay in the shallow bits. Still it's very beautiful! Yesterday we went back to Mestre Cabello's wonderful fazenda, this time for an capoeira angola class as well as enjoying the lovely location. It was a good class, especially in the hut by the lake :-) We made it back a bit easier this time seeing as we knew we were getting the bus and where to get it from, but we did have to wait for it for an hour! We have met some interesting people here in Itacare, in particular two Norwegian girls who I think are really nice and very funny! I think this is all for now as I really cannot think of more, and the post is probably quite long. Hopefully won't be as long next time!