Beautiful Bahia

Salvador

In my last few days volunteering at Bahia Street I got to lead a workshop on making banana bread, pumpkin bread, and fudge. It was a bit of a challenge trying to find all the ingredients (since the recipes from my mom were from the states, and some things just aren't the same here). But on the other hand the delicious bananas, hand-ground nutmeg and cloves, and local-churned butter were certainly an improvement over their American counterparts. I thought it was cool that Bahia Street uses its budget to support local shops and vendors whenever possible. When I went out to buys things we took along a notebook full of forms for the vendors to sign, as a replacement for the receipts which they don't give out. That way the money spent can still be filed in the accounts and the local vendors benefit from school's purchases.

Some of the ingredients. This brick of chocolate was massive, but between the fudge and banana bread we used almost all of it.



Two of the cooks at Bahia Street. Here Sonha is helping me stir the mixture of condensed sweetened milk, caramel, and butter that form the base of my fudge recipe... hard to go wrong with those ingredients





 Pumpkin and Banana bread!

Fudge!

Food was a success. I left copies of the recipes and my friends at Bahia Street promised to send photos when they bake up huge batches of banana and pumpkin bread for the girls. Around 70 girls makes for lots of baking.

I also did some exploring around town, taking photos of some of the vendors and their delicious foods. Here in Salvador there is a common local dish called acarajé--bread made from black-eyed peas fried in palm oil cut in half and filled with mixtures of shrimp, cashew, salsa, and spicey peppers--it is mighty tasty but I underestimated the potency of the spice the first time. Given the lack of spice-tolerance in Rio I foolishly thought Bahia was similar and requested a generous share of spicyness. The result was painful bliss. And it came back to bight me at about 3am in the morning... acarajé with ample spice makes a quick circuit of the digestive system.

Here are some pics from my wanderings:

 These lobsters were pretty impressive looking

This lady was super nice, and was happy to let me take pictures of her selection of beans, corn, avocados, and other vegetables.

This guy was the sea-food master, had an impressive array of fish, and the lobsters above were his too.

Arembepe

The second half of my week in Bahia I spent in Arembepe, a small beach town north of Salvador. It has become famous for its beautiful beaches and hippy village, atractions that brought celebrities from around the world. I talked with some of the residents of the hippy village. Apparently there are 28 families with permanent residences, no more development is allowed. They make their living as artists mostly, selling their goods to tourists. I bought some cool bracelets from one guy. He told me that he is one of the original residents, and spends his time travelling around the country exploring remote areas to find pieces for his jewelry and art. He had all sorts of cool nuts and teeth and beads and stones and stuff. I found out a few days later that shiny finish that he put on some of the beads he sold me was in fact paint (due to it rubbing off on my hand), contrary to his sworn claims of being polished to a shine with sandpaper. I should have known from looking at them. Wonder how many other tourists he fools...

Since the beach was the main attraction of Arembepe I spent most of my time there. I ranged north and south of the town, saw the beach in many moods, from stormy and crashing at the dunes, to calm and full of cristal clear tide pools perfect for taking a break from the hot sun.

 This is actually a picture of the river just on the other side of the sand embankment from the beach. The river carries on for miles behind this natural levee before finally veering into the ocean.

 An awesome natural pool. The waves break on the rocks and leaves this hollow full of clear, warm water.

 A small shack near the end of the hippy village. Don't let this be representative of the neighborhood though, the houses were much nicer.

 Stormy day. The waves were breaking hard against the rock reef and still coming in with enough strength to break again on the beach. And the water was way higher up the beach too, in some places there was hardly room to walk. Not so good for swimming on days like this.

Lobster tails. The storm washed up a lot of interesting things (trash, coral, coconuts, shells...). These were pretty stunning

One of the incredible tide pools. This one was cut off from the ocean, meaning it was warmer and great for just chilling in. Others were closer to the waves and surrounded by more rocks, they were better for cheching out the critters. If you sit in the water without moving all the colorful tropical fish and crabs come out to play.

Wish I had more time here, it is an excellent place to relax and take it easy. And a big thanks to Iana for the superb room and board while there!

After Arembepe I headed south to São Paulo and from there branched off into the countryside to work on a biodynamic farm called Estancia Demétria. But these exploits are for the next blog. Just to get you excited for the news though, I witnessed my first Cesarean section on a cow in the middle of the freezing cold night in a lonely field. I pinned her legs to keep her from bashing the vet. Learned more about surgery and anatomy of a cow in that night than in all my life in school. Well I guess I never took classes on surgery or cow anatomy  but I learned a lot. Unfortunately (fortunately?) I didn't get any pictures of the process.

New Lands

Lost Island of Paradise

This last weekend I caught a bus out to Arraial do Cabo, a small town on the cape east of Rio, where the coast turns northward and the rocky hills and beaches jut out into the open ocean. It is known as the diving capital of Brazil, but I did just about everything besides diving. The first two days were cloudy and rainy, meaning I had most of the beautiful and remote beaches to myself. Even the hostel I stayed in--which had capacity for probably 50 people--had only me, an Argentinian, and a Spaniard.

Map of Arraial do Cabo from satellite.

The first day I arrived I headed out on a trail leading to the point of land (Pontal do Atalaia) nearly touching the island on the right (Ilha do Farol). The channel between them was pretty nasty, with the storm winds blowing huge crashing waves against the sides and a swift current ripping through the channel.

This was somewhat discouraging, since I wanted to get to that island. Ever since I found this place via Google Maps and saw that beach on the island (Praia do Farol) I had wanted really to get there. When I researched the area and found out that this particular beach had the title of ''the most beautiful beach in Brazil'' it made me desperate to get there. (The famous beach is visible in the background of the photo above). And furthermore, the highest point on the island held the ruins of the original lighthouse, built in stone by the Portguese. I heard that a trail existed to navigate the jungle and get to these ruins. From looking at the satellite images the gap looked so small and tame I thought I would be able to swim it easily. But I hadn't counted on stormy, rainy weather. Or that it was a prohibited nature reserve protected by the Brazilian navy. Only chartered tourist boats were allowed entrance to the beach. And even then only for 40 minutes of restricted exploring. No leaving the immediate beach area, and when your time was up you had to head back to the boat. And besides the beach, there was absolutely no entrance allowed on the island. The Navy had a few outposts on the island with guards to ensure compliance with the laws of the nature reserve.

All of this I discovered in my first two days in Arraial. I was pretty dissapointed that my plans of reaching the island had been set back--I wasn't about to catch a tourist boat just to stroll on the beach for 40 minutes, and I didn't want to end up in a Brazilian jail for infiltrating a no-go zone. But I still had my third day open, and a bunch of plans in my head...

On my way back from checking out the channel of impossible swimmage I stopped to hang out on the sheltered beach of Prainhas do Pontal do Atalaia. I built a raft and breifly thought about attempting a subtle crossing of the inlet to arrive at the magical island, but the current would likely have carried me far from my intended destination, and furthmore my raft lost its bouyancy pretty fast once my main bamboo pontoons starting leaking.

 My raft. The space between the two layers of the pallet is stuffed with styrofoam. The bottom has another sheet of styrofoam and parts of an old tire tied on. All of the parts were conveniently available on the beach.

Making my way across the great divide. As you can see, my mighty raft is already 98% submerged...

While I was messing around with my raft I met Nacho, the Argentinian. He was the one who told me about his hostel (which was cheaper than the one I had found earlier online) so after we were done playing with the raft we headed back to the hostel and caught the last part of the Manchester vs Barcelona soccer game.

The next day I spent exploring the beaches and trails of Arraial. The story is best told by the pictures so here are some.

 Morning at Praia Grande. This beach faces the open ocean and is much more like our beaches on the coast of Washington than the other beaches I've been to here. Long, flat beach, windy, dunes.

 A view of Praia do Forno, a protected little beach that is super inviting. Couldn't resist swimming here.

 The hidden trail that the Spaniard and I found at the end of Praia do Forno. By the looks of it this used to be a legitimate road paved with stone, wide enough for a car. But now the jungle has reclaimed it and only a narrow singltrack remains winding up the side of the hill.

 The Spaniard and I split up to cover more ground, I set off running and explored all the trails I found. This trail terminated in a semi-abandoned farm area on top of one of the hills overlooking the water.

 A view of Enseado do Cherne, the cove on the other side of the rocky hill from Praia do Forno.

 The highest point of the hills near Arraial. There were some rocks cemented in a ring here. Maybe for secret animal sacrifise.. or to catch water..

 The view from the top looking back towards Prainha and the north part of Arraial. You can see Praia Grande stretching off into the west on the other side of Arraial.

 Overlooking Praia do Forno on my way back via a different trail. I found out afterwards that all these trails I had been hiking and running were prohibited, but since the Spaniard and I came in through a forgotten entrance we had escaped notice. I left by the same route we entered, but the Spaniard ran into the authorities on his way out a different exit. He got out fine, but had to show his passport, which I did not have with me. Lucky.

 Relaxing at Praia do Forno afterwards. I literally sprinted the last part of the trail down to the water, ripped my shirt and shoes off and dove in. This was not exactly due to eagerness to enjoy the wonderful water; I was being chased by angry Brazilian killer bees trying to sting me to death.

 A friend I met out on the point of Atalaia, where I had gone the day before too. I came back during the evening to catch the sunset and look longingly at the magical island, its amazing beach, and its ancient ruins. I had one more day to try and reach it.

Sunset at the ocean. The open ocean was crashing furiously against the rocks here, sending spray more than 100 feet up and over the rocky cliffs to hit me. It was pretty spectacular.

Since this blog is public I think it prudent to leave out the details of the next day's adventures, just in case the Brazilian navy is reading this.

Salvador

I arrived here in Salvador two days ago, and have been helping out around Bahia Street. Bahia Street is a school for African-Brazilian girls from the poor neighborhoods of the city. The girls arrive at noon, after their regular classes end. The cooks here prepare an excellent lunch for the almost 90 people here (including all the girls, teachers, and volunteers). Afterwards the girls head off to classes in Biology, English, Math, and other subjects.

I spent yesterday fixing all the bookcases and shelves in the library and playroom against their respective walls to keep them from keeling over on small girls, and installing new glass shelves in the chemistry laboratory. Tomorrow I'm in charge of sharing some of my mom's delicious banana and pumpkin bread recipes with the cooks here so they can make them for the girls.

I also finally tasted Jaca fruit! The stubborn creature that resisted my best efforts to split him open on pointy rocks. The secret is letting him ripen first... But it was awesomely good! I bought R$2 worth of jaca and ate it all in one sitting. I would describe its flavor as a combination of banana and pineapple, with a texture tougher than either and smooth, not gritty.

Maybe next time I encounter a jaca in the woods I will take it home to ripen up and then have myself a feast.

Farewell Rio

A Feast of Epic Portions

Last Friday my lab celebrated by going out to lunch at a fancy restaurant serving fejoada (bean and meat dish) buffet-style. It was up in the top floor of a glamorous high-rise, and the view was pretty nice. 

 

I say pretty nice because compared to the views I get when climbing mountains here its kind of mediocre. But the food was excellent.

 

 

My labmates and me, enjoying the delicious and plentiful food. It struck me as a litle odd that with more than a dozen dishes of fejoada and other meaty foods to choose from there was only one small tray of vegetables... I tried to take from the green plate in moderation. And after my second round the saltiness of the food really started to hit. Food in the States is salty but Brazil puts the US to shame. I may have even violated rule number one of the Clean Plate Club and left a chunk of salt-saturated pork after round three... Then I moved onto dessert, sampling a little bit of everything (pudding, custard, candied coconut and more). Maybe you can't tell from the photo but I probably have a solid 5 pounds of food in my stomach here. I hadn't eaten since lunch the day before, and had gone running, so I would get the most out of my expensive all-you-can-eat lunch.

I spent the next three hours slumped in my chair at work, trying not to think about all the food inside me, while everyone talked about our lunch...

Botanical Garden


I spent most of Saturday exploring the Botanical Garden here in Rio with Javier. I love plants so it was a lot of fun to see all these amazing news ones put in the same place for me to see. A plant zoo.

 This plant wasn't particularly fascinating-looking, but when I crushed up the leaves they had a strong scent of cloves, which was cool.

 The biggest tree that I found there

 The main paths with lined with giant palm trees. Pretty impressive.

 Cacao. You can eat the white fleshy part covering the black seeds (which we use to make chocolate). I tried eating the seeds too, but neither tasted very good. It wasn't ripe, and the seeds need lots of processing, like coffee.

 King of the bamboo fortress

 Carnivorous plants

 Orchids in the orchidarium

 Crazy Cacti!

 Rare glimpse of a tucan

This tree was full of little monkeys. I got a nice close-up of this guy, usually they shy away from people, and I've heard stories of monkey-bites if you get too close, but he seemed pretty chill.

Pedra da Gavea--Summit number 3

I stayed true to my ritual Sunday morning summiting of Pedra da Gavea. This time I went as light as I could, stashing my backpack tied to a tree in the woods, and hitting the trail barefoot. It was a popular day to hike the trail, and I passed close to 50 people on my way up. I got a lot of strange looks--being a half-naked, sweat covered, barefoot hudlum running and climbing up the trail as fast as I could. But I beat my record (made it up in 52 minutes), and it was a ton of fun.

 

The view up here never gets old

 

 My feet at the top

 After descending I trekked out to the beach of Barra de Tijuca. This is a view from the beach, looking back up at Pedra da Gavea, where I had just come from.

According to many, the beach here is more beautiful than Copacabana and Ipanema. Hard to tell, but it certainly was stunning. The beach is less crowded here, and cleaner, but lacks the renoun of the other two. Barra is a wealthy neighborhood and lots of people were out playing with expensive water toys, like kite surfing and jet-skiing. It made for excellent spectating as I enjoyed my half a dozen bananas and package of cookies.



Exodus

This will likely be my last post from Rio, since I leave next Tuesday. The last few weeks really seem to have sped by fast, compared to the first week or two where each day seemed an endless adventure. I think that reflects how comfortable I've gotten here. If I didn't have a schedule (aka airline tickets purchased and limited funding from UW) I could see myself staying here much longer... Already thinking and planning times when I can come back.

I've been (even harder) at work finishing my final report ("Status of Second Generation Ethanol Production in the US and Brazil") and preparing my presentation for tomorrow. My report is in English (as it will be submitted for publishing) but my presentation is in Portuguese. This will be a great test of how much I've learned in the lab, with my work, and with the language.

A salute to all my awesome colleagues here at INT:

Me joining Cristina, Patricia, and Javier in their room. The majority of our "festas" (parties/breaks from work) happen here, since the coffee and snacks happen to be strategically located in their room...

 Anete, me, Lorraine, and Cristina in the lab. I get to spend intermittent time helping other people on their projects in the lab rooms. Regretably, the longest day I spent in the lab was when I was cleaning all the counters and equipment, and washing glassware.

 

Anete, Viridiana, and Livian

 

A (rare?) moment of everyone hard at work.

I've loved my time here, and will miss all my friends.

Next up is Salvador, where I'll meet up with a friend of my mom's to work with an NGO that runs a school for girls. I'll be doing ground work, taking photos, helping out around the school, and interviewing potential new employees. Or at least thats the plan now, more details to come when I get there.