Itacaré

11th – 23rd April 2008

We ended up spending much longer in Itacaré than we planned, so this post is a pretty long one! We hope you don’t get too bored with our ramblings!

Arriving into Itacaré at around 4pm on Friday afternoon, after what seemed like an eternity on a minibus, we set about looking for somewhere to stay. Well, Nicky and Sam searched and Ady looked after the bags and felt sorry for himself. Somehow, the side of the bus had not been marked after the journey…

Itacaré is a picturesque fishing village that sits in the midst of remnant Atlantic Coast rainforest at the mouth of the Rio de Contas. Some of Bahias best beaches stretch north and south – the majority are great for surfing.

Sam and Nicky chose the Billabong Pousada – something to do with it having some life and fit men… Sam was also quite taken by the circular thatched cottage in the courtyard – rather like a boutique hotel at half the price! We dumped our bags, grabbed some food and crashed out – hopefully everyone would be feeling better in the morning.

A day on the beach was called for, and Tiririca was the destination. The Billabong Pousada is quite popular with the Israeli crowd, and we bumped into a couple of guys from the hostel. In the evening, we headed out for a Moqueca (Seafood cooked in a sauce with palm oil) served with Farofa for dinner was our first real traditional Brazilian dish, and was delicious.

Rafting
Some extreme activity was needed before Nicky headed further south, so we booked a day white water rafting. We were supposed to be picked up in a 4x4 at our Pousada at 9am… and a 4x4 pickup arrived at 9am, but there seemed to be some confusion. After 10 minutes, the driver beckoned us to a waiting taxi. Not just any taxi, but a Fiat Uno taxi (NOT a 4x4 Fiat Uno, for those of you that remember them!). Anyway, by now, we had met Charlie, a Brazilian from Brasilia who was also going rafting… He joined us in the taxi.

We knew the rafting place was 30kms away from Itacaré, so it was a squeeze, but wouldn’t be for long we thought. 10kms into the journey, all was well… then the road turned into a dirt track! Now we know why we were supposed to be in a 4x4!

After over an hour of creeping along the track, bottoming out the suspension, banging heads on the roof, and first gear crawls up rocky hills, we arrived at the town where the rafting was based. We kind of expected the taxi to go back now, and for the mythical 4x4 to continue the rest of the journey…

Safety lesson (in Portuguese!) over, we kind of got the gist of what to do, we were ushered back to our Uno! This time the instructor climbed in the boot, and off we went. How we got up the hill to the start of the rafting is a mystery – but we made it and before we knew it we were off down the river.

The pictures here tell the story – it was great fun and we would recommend it to anyone.

Before we could take on the river, we had to pay our respects to the River God – you can see us doing this in the photo to the right. Respecting the River God ensures you have a safe passage through the rapids.

At one point we did a canyoning style jump of 7 metres – Ady managed to drown the waterproof digital camera at this point – never to be seen again. Nicky spent 10 minutes teetering on the edge of the jump – but made it eventually.

Towards the end of the rafting, we got an added bonus when three fish jumped into the raft… Sam screamed and tried to jump out! She’d rather join the piranhas in the river!

Next was a zip wire… Ady was first and managed to get stuck 3 metres from the start! A rescue was initiated and a faulty piece of equipment to blame – nothing to do with excess Pastel eating we were told!

The event was concluded with lunch at a local restaurant – it turned out to be a feast of all you could eat and we thoroughly enjoyed it. As we were just about finished, we looked out of the restaurant and couldn’t believe our eyes… yes, you guessed it – the Fiat Uno! We were already tired, but the thought of another 2 hours in that car almost finished us off…

All in all a great day out – shame about the transport!

Party Time
Nicky’s last day was spent on the beach followed by dinner at the Falafal restaurant. We met up with the various other people that we had picked up along our route so far. The Favela bar is where it all happens in the evening in Itacaré – a small bar that spills out into the street. Ady was feeling the pain again with a dodgy tummy, but Nicky and Sam were on a mission – the Caiporinihas were flowing, followed by Watermelon Caiprioskas.






Nicky seemed to be getting very friendly with a certain young man, and from this photo it looks like Sam was being her usual flirty self!

Promises of a beach party didn’t materialise, so the evening didn’t have a crazy ending! Nicky had a transfer booked for 9.30am – she was heading to Rio – so the night came to an end.

We had such a good few days in Itacaré, that we decided to extend our stay for a bit longer – so the tales continue…

Just the two of us
It’s time for Nicky to head south to Rio – and she left us at 9.30am. A quiet day by the beach with some people from the Hostel and a bargain dinner of Chicken, Rice, Black Beans and Chips for £2.50!

Time to start our Surfing lessons… and it wasn’t so much in at the deep end as in at the shallow end with no waves at all… we learnt how to control the board properly in still water, which should give us more of a chance when we get to the waves on Thursday.

All you can eat pizza seemed like such a good idea after all that hard work on the surfboards….

Thursday and Ady has a bad stomach… again. A Surfing Sick day is called for and our lesson deferred until Friday. Ady spends the day feeling sorry for himself, but manages to head out in the evening for Falafal!

Back on the surfboards, we get to see the real waves… 9.30am and we are in the thick of it with 8 foot waves crashing into our 9 foot longboards and bodies! This was a different league to the surf that we’d frolicked in before in Devon and Cornwall!

Sam struggled to get out to catch the waves, and Ady spent most of the time underwater! By the end of the lesson, we were both just about standing up (in the shallows this is, the waves continued to grow in size!), but were totally exhausted and feeling pretty dejected.

Emma, from one of the Local travel agencies had seen Ady taking a photo the day before (one of the dragonfly pics!) and asked if we would like to join her on a wander around the older part of the town to take some photos. We met up in the morning and had a stroll around… the resulting pictures are all here – the best ones are in the Itacaré Best Pics folder too. It was good to see the parts of town that the tourists don’t normally venture into.

In the afternoon, our final surf lesson, and we both felt battered and bruised from the day before. Ady managed to catch a few waves, but again the size and strength of the waves were more than we were used to.

Saturday night was party night and we headed to Pirilampu where the final party was being held before the owners sold up. A good time was had by all and the evening was rounded off by a dodgy burger from the 24 hour garage and a walk home in the pouring rain! It’s not all sun and surf over here!

Back at our room we were greeted by a dismembered cockroach in the bed… How it had got there we have no idea… Ady expertly dealt with it and we crashed out… what a hard day!

On Monday we headed to the Tijupe waterfall – there are some pictures of the falls in the Itacaré folder. It was a Brazilian public holiday so the place was busier than normal. Our final day was spent on the beach as usual, gathering the energy for the upcoming move to our next destination.

Our last meal was at what seemed to be a good restaurant, with a group of people from one of the hostels. We ordered Mango Chicken, which actually turned out to be Chicken in a cheese fondue sauce… not exactly what we expected. The cheese affected our sleep – we awoke at 3.30am to the sound of ‘something’ in our room… too big to be a Cockroach, we couldn’t get back to sleep – Sam had to call the security guard down to help, but he just shrugged his shoulders and laughed!

The best photos from Itacaré are available here and at the link on the top right – Itacaré Best Pics. There are lots of others too, all on the PicasaWeb site in the ‘Itacaré Others’ Folder.