Beachtown Bliss

After four buses and 13 hours of travel, Daniel and I arrived at our destination, Itacaré. Itacaré is a small beach town in the state of Bahia, a few hours south of Salvador. It's nestled right between the churning, blue ocean and the rainforest. The beaches here are known for surfing, and the waves are strong with a powerful undertow, but the water is warm and the beaches are small, rocky coves lined with palm trees.

After arriving and finding a place to stay, we headed down to the nearest beach. There was no one over the age of 30, everyone was tanned and naturally beautiful, and the scene was even completed with the cliché guy with a ponytail playing the guitar and singing Bob Marley songs.

As in so many other small towns in South America, a great number of the backpackers here are Israeli. When there are Israelis, there is Israeli food, and that means falafel. In Brazil, so many of the restaurants have menus that are exactly the same, and that usually includes a lot of dry, salted meat and fried carbs. Our dinner, in comparison, was a delicious falafel sandwich and a salad with more vegetables than I've eaten in the last three weeks combined. Topped it off with fresh pineapple juice and my night was complete. We walked down to the beach for a bit, which was completely lit up by the full moon, and I truly felt we were in paradise.

There are four beaches nearby, within a half hour walk, all of which are small, rocky coves with great swimming. There's another beach which can only be accessed by a trail that goes right through the rainforest. Everyone told us we could only arrive with a guide, but being the stubborn and cheap duo that we are, we decided we could hack it alone. We did eventually end up at the beach, but only after two hours of basically going in circles. I've never sweat so much in my life as I did, the humidity is insane, but my pores are all the healthier for it and I did treat myself to two cocos gelados (coconut's are kept in coolers and then they drill a hole in it so you can drink the milk and it's cold and delicious) as a treat for the exhertion.

Off to find a suitable place for dinner then we'll put ourselves to bed early tonight...plans for tomorrow include catching the sunrise at the beach.