Morro de Sao Paulo

We’re taking a day trip to a nearby island, 1hr 50 mins away by hovercraft. At least, that was the plan. Particularly choppy sea meant that the journey took over 2 ½ hours, we’re all feeling a bit queasy by the time we eventually arrive and no one feels like going back in 3 hours time for a repeat performance. But we’re all cheered by the sight of 3 or 4 dolphins gracefully gliding in and out of the water nearby as the boat docks and decide to try to stay overnight. Our first task is to change the return tickets over for tomorrow’s boat and the second is to find a place to stay for the night. We manage to find a cheap pousada with a room for the night, even though it only has 3 single beds. Ruby’s not impressed, but since we are also having to pay for our place back in Salvador, she’s going to have to put up with Harley’s feet in her face for the night.

Morro de Sao Paulo is a gorgeous little island with no roads (and therefore no cars) and streets that are just made from sand. Transport here is either by horse or wheelbarrow, or there is one tractor that can drive along the beaches, if you’re really desperate.

From where the hovercraft docks, you walk down onto 1st beach, along to 2nd beach, keep walking along the water’s edge to 3rd beach until finally you come to 4th beach. Each beach is different, facing a different direction or with a different type of wave and three out of four are almost deserted. It reminds me of Koh Samui in 1990, before they built an airport there. Mostly unspoilt, laidback and very relaxing. All except for Ruby whose major worry is that we’re unexpectedly staying overnight and she doesn’t have Scruffy, her lifelong favourite teddy with her.

The island is surrounded by coral reef which means that the waves break a long way off the shore and leave a 3 foot deep natural swimming pool, which makes a nice change from the huge waves we encountered in Rio.

With no change of clothes or even any toiletries, we’re really feeling in backpacker mode, but it’s a welcome relief not to be laden down with baggage and even more of a relief not to have to pack up again in the morning. The kids obviously aren’t feeling quite so relaxed as us since they spend the entire morning arguing, pinching and poking each other. After several hours (in fact, several days of this), we’re at our wits end and just can’t decide what to do. We’ve tried everything over the course of the last few weeks to stop the bickering (admittedly, it’s mostly Harley hitting Ruby and being generally annoying) and, on a whim, I tell Ruby to hit Harley back, something we never normally endorse and which she never normally does. For a couple of minutes, all hell’s let loose as we stand by and watch the pair of them scrap like cat and dog. An elderly couple walking past look first at us and then at the kids and can’t believe their eyes. Only when Ruby draws blood by scratching Harley on the chest do we step in and declare her the winner. Ding ding. Ruby’s shocked and embarrassed in equal measures by the fact that she scratched him so badly and he’s screaming, mostly from shock. Will and I are looking at each other in that “did we really just let them do that” way and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Something must have worked, be it guilt on Ruby’s part or fear on Harley’s, because they spend the rest of the afternoon playing happily together in the sea whilst Will makes a deal on 10 caiporoskas and some acai berries (Amazonian wonder-berries, meant to be an aphrodisiac) before we have to take the 3pm boat back to the mainland. The dolphins are there again and give us a lovely send off, whilst I keep my eyes firmly fixed on the horizon for the next 2 hours to avoid a repeat of the queasiness I had on the way over. Not everyone seems to know the eyes-on-the-horizon trick and there’s a few green-faced people who get off the boat the other end.

Harley's birthday

What does Harley want to do for his birthday? Go to the playground, of course. Amelia on the front desk tells us that we can find one at the end of the street so we dutifully trot up there, past houses with Brazilian music pumping out through open, barred windows and up to the square….to be greeted with numerous comatose bodies lying prostate in the grass, next to puddles of their own vomit, sleeping off the effects of last nights frivolities. We step around them and straight into one of the many piles of shit, left not by the revellers (at least, I don’t think all of them are, although some do look remarkably human-like in their form) but by the many wild dogs that constantly roam the streets. And, to add to the delights, the slides and see-saws are made of rusting metal. Time for a re-think. The rest of his wish-list is to buy a new toy car (even though we’ve just given him a remote control Lightening McQueen), a chocolate cake and a toy from Mcdonalds, so a swift change of plan sees us heading for Barra where we know there is a shopping centre. The taxi driver tries the age-old trick of setting the meter on tariff 2 instead of 1, but we’re not up for being taken for a ride, literally. Mind you, since both Ruby and Harley have got shit on their shoes, of one form or another, he probably deserves double the fare.

Barra is as unremarkable as most other shopping centres around the world with one difference. In the middle of this one is an ice-skating rink. Should we? Rude not to really. I’m in a summer dress which is not really suitable ice-skating clothing, but no one else seems to care so I buy some socks and clip up my boots. Luckily, two of the staff have got hold of the kids and are dragging them around the ice so Will and I can concentrate on at least staying upright, if not on our style. It’s been years since I skated and it’s not at all like riding a bike so I’m a bit cautious on my first few laps of the rink, which is considerably more than can be said for Will who flies around like (a very large) Bambi on ice. He’s literally flying round, arms and legs flailing and I can hardly stand for laughing at him (note I say AT him and not WITH him). Thump, he hits the ice and then, shortly after, thump, so do I. With sore knees and elbows, I’m just righting myself when a cute young guy skates effortlessly in my direction to quietly inform me that my left breast has popped out of my dress. Oh well, lucky I’m not the shy type or I may be embarrassed. Our half an hour on the ice is almost at an end without any major injuries when Will decides to really push the boat out and takes the most spectacular backward fall, straight onto his head and almost knocks himself out. I have visions of spending the rest of the day in casualty but he assures me that he’s ok so we head back to our hotel where I try to keep him awake whilst simultaneously trying to stop Harley ramming his remote control car into all the furniture.

Salvador

Elias is back in his gas-powered car to take us to Rio for one night and we’re heading back to the Copocabana Beach hotel where we stayed previously. For some reason, Elias waits until we’re all loaded up before deciding to stop for a couple of pounds worth of gas which is pumped into the engine of the car via a metal tube which looks like a dipstick (an oil dipstick, not a stupid person). Back at the hotel, we’re put into a 4th floor suite, same as before but this one has a view, has been recently renovated and has the added bonus of not smelling of mothballs like the previous one did.

It’s costing £600 for the four of us to take a 2 hour flight to Salvador de Bahia, but the alternative is a 28 hour bus, which I’m not prepared to put myself through, let alone the kids. Salvador is known as the African soul of Brazil as here, the African slave descendants preserved their culture more than anywhere else. The African feel here comes from the mix of Brazilians, Portugese and the Africans, most of whom have intermarried at some stage. Our guide book informs us that if we’re going to be pickpocketed or mugged anywhere in Brazil, Salvador is likely to be the place! So we pack away the crown jewels, lock up the laptop, gird our loins and brave the fray.

We’re staying at Studio do Carmo www.studiodocarmo.com.br run by Italians Francesca and Max and they’ve given us a huge room on the ground floor with lovely wooden floors. It takes the kids a few days but they manage to find a couple of holes in the floor which they can peer through, down into the kitchen below and watch our breakfast being made in the mornings. It’s not cheap at £70 per night, but it’s in a great location and it has the added bonus of serving breakfast in your room. We treated to some weird local fruits and fruit juices, some of which we’re still not sure about.

Our location in Cidade Alta or the Upper City is very close to the Largo do Pelourinho, steep cobbled streets where slaves where auctioned and runaway slaves were publicly beaten on a pelourinho (whipping post). A sobering thought. Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985, the whole area has since been renovated and is full of beautiful colonial buildings, built by the Portugese and now painted in pastels colours. To get down to Cidade Baixa or the Lower City, we take the Elevador Lacerda (236 feet in a couple of stomach dropping seconds), built in 1872 and costing about 2p per trip. There’s not much to see down here so we jump in a taxi to the Mercardo Grande, which we figured was the correct way to ask for the huge local market that’s on everyday. Guess our Spanish still isn’t up to much since we’re first driven to a local hypermarket (well that’s one kind of large market, I guess)! Never mind, we’re onwards to the market….only to discover that today, Sunday, is the one day of the week that it’s closed. Round trip, back to the bottom of the Elevador, R$ 30 (£10), a great way to waste money!

It’s very poor here with lots of favellas (slums), beggars, a huge drug problem (crack is apparently the drug of choice here), kids sleeping on the streets in plastic bags and an average wage of R$ 400 pcm (£130) so we’re understandably very cautious when we withdraw R$ 500 from bank to tide us over a few days. Not a large amount of money for us but definitely makes us potential mugging targets. We split the money between us and put bits into different pockets, just in case. There’s tourist police everywhere which, on the one hand, makes you feel safe and, on the other makes you realise how much crime there must be here. There is always the option to be escorted back from the bank by the police and this will cost you R$20, the same amount which you need to pay to the cashier if you’re paying cash into the bank in order to ensure that it reaches the right bank account…it’s quite tiring being on high alert all the time, not only where personal safety is concerned, but also never taking our eyes off the children. Maybe this is why we all loved Laos so much. Average annual salary of USD 200, yet no violence, few beggars and a very relaxed atmosphere. It couldn’t be more different.

On Tuesdays (Blessed Tuesday) in Salvador, everybody goes to church (not quite everybody…we prefer to worship at the temple of food and wine. If it was the temple of bread and fishes, we may have something to be proud about) and that’s followed by a big music night. There’s live music on every street corner and right across road from our hotel, on the steps in front of church Terça da Benção is a live band. Couldn’t be in a better spot for us to watch from the door of the hotel, but it does mean that, as the streets are so packed with revellers, it’s difficult for us to leave and find a restaurant for dinner. Not to worry as there’s a pizza place just a few doors away and they agree to let us have a take-away, which is when Ruby declares that she feels like salad. Wow, there’s a first for everything!