We made it back onto US soil last night after 19 hours of traveling home from Brazil. Our flight from Salvador to Sao Paulo had a stop over an Vitoria, a coastal city surrounded by mountains and the plane had to nearly drop from the sky at a 30 degree angle landing on a runway way too short for the size plane so we had to screech to a halt. When I peeled my face off of the chair in front of me I looked around and no one seemed to pay it much mind, I guess this was usual for this airport. I never knew this place existed and I watched commuters get on their busses and children go off to school probably without any idea that such a place as Brooklyn existed either.
It was so nice to come home. Jack looked cuter if that was even possible, and Marlowe smiled with her toothy grin and Ron Wood hair cut and made my heart melt. I missed Tom so much, there was so much I wanted him to see when I was there. We need a trip together and thankfully the in-laws are more comfortable with the babies from spending this week with them and would be willing to have them for a weekend in the future, so a weekend honeymoon might be the way to go.
Ruby has school tomorrow, she spent tons of time in Brazil doing the giant math packet her teacher gave her. She didn’t complain though. This morning in honor of Mark, we made ourselves a one egg cheese omlet each and had rolls with guava jelly as we had had them every day in Brazil. Ruby is insisting on wearing her Havianas (flip-flops) to school tomorrow, but thats not going to happen, she’s got gym. She has a bunch of bracelets to share with her friends, the ones you get in Brazil that you tie 3 times and make a wish at every knot. I didn’t explain the religious church that started this touristy thing, they are Catholicism meets West African Vodun. Either way, it is a cute idea and thats well enough.
I feel incredibly thankful that I was able to go and see some real life outside of the habit-trail I live in.
Here are some photos:
The chalet we stayed in down the hill a little from the main house (there are 2). Everyone washed laundry by hand here, and we sleep every night under mosquito netting.
The walkway up to the main house. Mimi’s little yellow building on the right past the arch is her yoga room. There are tiny monkeys and sloths here. Palms with leaves the size of my car.
Lunch was the big meal, we only had fruit for dinner. Lunch would usually last 2 - 3 hours. Ruby and I loved the breakfasts with the windows all open and the sounds of the jungle coming in. The cicada are loud at sunset, the only real time keepers here.
Ruby sipping a coconut from a bendy straw.
Some guys came and tried to dig out the owner’s boat. There was only one chance to get it out which was when the tide was high on the full moon. But in Brazillian fashion, they took a break to barbeque at this time, so it is there until the moon is full again.
The locals, Indians and hippies like to sell jewelry made from seeds, bone and feathers or home made pastries and empinadas on the beach. You learn how to say Nao Obrigade which means No thank you. There are a few scattered old fishing boats but thats it. No air traffic at all, no speedboats or anything going by, none on the horizon ever. It really felt that we were at the end of the world.
This guy sells pineapples that he trims with a machete and you hold by the spiney top.There are a couple of stands where you can get a SKOL beer which tastes like Miller Light, or a mixed drink with some of the scariest looking jug vodka ever. Another local favorite is roasted cheese on a stick. It is sprinkled with oregano, and roasted over coals burning in a coffee can. There are local cowboys with usually 2 horses that go up and down the beach giving rides to the tourists. All the female vacationers fall in love with them. It’s a rough job but someones got to do it.
This is the entrance of the ocean water into the River Trancoso that rushes into the mangrove forest. You can walk across it until high tide, then it becomes a swift current like a big wave pool. Ruby loved it and we couldn’t get her out of it every day (she got the nickname “flipper” while she was there). You can’t see the beach from your peripheral vision when you are looking out to sea so it looks like you are in the middle of the ocean. Its probably hard to see here, but there is a boat in the background that a local man makes money with by giving tourists a ride across the river. But most of them walk across laughing with their cameras held above their heads.
Ruby and I at the beach the day we left. Earlier she mentioned that she loved the saying about a tree that falls in the forest, and it asks if anyone hears it. I asked her what she thought it meant but told her I thought it was about needing to be heard in order to be valid. She said she thought it meant “that you should live out loud”. I just love this kid! As we were leaving the beach for the last time she said that she asked “What did the ocean say to Ruby when she said good-by?” and when we couldn’t guess she said, “Nothing. It just waved.”
…more on Brazil later, but now I’ve got to go thank my lucky stars.
