Back to the beach

Carnaval celebration it's over for me! My body can't handle it anymore, I need to rest and I think I'll skip the last day!
I really had a lot of fun and it's an experience to remember for the rest of my life, jumping and dancing on the main streets of Salvador together with millions of people.

Unfortunately not everything is like a sea of roses in Carnaval. All the crowds that the Carnaval attracts also brings out the worst in Brazil, violence!

Thousands of police forces are assigned to Salvador during Carnaval but they are way outnumbered considering the millions of people wandering in the avenues. They are some bad and mean motherf*ckers and you don't want to be in their path when they go out on a patrol, usually in groups of 9 elements.


When they encounter some action when people are disturbing the crowd or fighting with each other, it doesn't really matter, they hit hard on anyone in the vicinity! Whether you're the one fighting, try to separate them or simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, there's a good chance that you'll get hit by those big fat sticks each of then holds.

It's a very polemic issue, I've found, since opinions vary about how the police acts. In a way I understand because in most cases the people involved are in fact mean criminals with bad intentions. They either just want to start a fight for the rush and adrenaline kick, or to create a distraction to while other members of the gang rob all the people around that are caught by surprise with the whole situation.
So in that way it's comprehensible how the police acts in those situation but if by any chance you're caught in the moment and instinctively react or fight back and get hit by a whole squad your opinion might change instantly.

So I've learn a couple of rules in Salvador:
- Take only your ID and money evenly distributed on your pockets
- Leave your mobile phone, cameras, etc at home
- Place a 3rd eye on the back of you head, you'll have to (try to) be aware of everything that's happening around you
- If you see a police squad patrolling and heading your way give them all the room they need
- If you see a fight move on or you feel the crowd is suddenly being pushed away just follow it, means you're going away from the hot area and let the police do their work... and check your pockets in the meanwhile
- Never go by yourself
- And also very important, don't take your girlfriend! It's like taking sand to the beach and she will probably be harassed every 5 steps of the way :-) and if she is ignore it, you'll get used to it pretty quickly. It's even a common competition between friends to see who kisses more people from the opposite sex and everyone counts :-)

I'm not saying that you shouldn't come to Carnaval, well millions of people go there every year but it's something that everyone should be aware of, specially tourists.
If you have that in consideration you'll probably won't run into any real problems and you'll have the best time of you life! I know I did!

Now it's time to go back to the beach again, take advantage of the last the few days left, spend some time under the Sun and work on my tan :-)

Happy Carnaval!

It's Carnaval

It was my first Carnaval celebration in Salvador! I'm staring at the screen trying to find a good way to describe it but I can't! There's only one way to describe it: "WOW!!!"
I've never seen anything like that!
Try to imagine the biggest concert/street party you've ever went to. Now put 10x more people, you get 10x more tired and you have 10x the fun :-)
For the Dutch or whoever experienced Queen's Day in Amsterdam (which was probably the biggest street event I've ever experienced until now) I have to say that Carnaval in Salvador makes it look like a baby.

It's the biggest party in the world, people fly all over the world to experience it, to dance and party in the circuit that follows two of the main avenues of Salvador.
You go back and forth dancing and drinking throughout the avenue and listening and following the bands playing on top of the open buses (also called "Trio Electrico"). There are about 20 or more buses (some more popular than others) that just go one after the other and each of them takes about 4 or 5 hours to reach the end of the circuit.

While watching the news the other day I heard that if you go partying the whole seven days (believe me, most people do!) you walk/dance an average of 150 KM, more than 20 KM per day! It's unbelievable!

Another very important detail, unlike Amsterdam on Queen's Day, in Salvador it's 30 degrees C day and night, the amount of alcohol that goes in your blood stream is proportional do the dimension of the event as well! But you have to because you sweat it all pretty quickly and you don't want to dehydrate do you? Well, you could also drink water of course, but where's the fun in that?! ;-) You also burn it pretty quickly since you're always going back and forth and dancing and jumping, an inevitable vicious cycle :-)

After the first day I could barely feel my feet! I got home around 8am but before there was time for a nice bath at the beach to wash all that sweat.
At 11:30am I had people already knocking at my door, calling for me to get ready(?!)! "It's time for the next round" they said! These Brazilian people are totally insane but how could I say no? I don't want to offend anyone :-)
It was the same story over and over again, I couldn't handle it anymore! Today I wanted to take the day to rest but guess what? Knock, Knock! "Get ready, we're leaving!!"

It was fun while it lasted

Natal was amazing, I had lots fun with Roland and Tinne in these last few days!
It was pure relaxation! The house is amazing, 30 meters from the front gate there was the beach but I admit that I barely saw the sea, just one day when we went out on a Buggy trip.








But why bother to leave the house? We had everything there :-)
I worked really hard on my tan and it's almost in the spot, I've lost Kilos of skin already!








I might have underestimated the challenge though, because in the evening the story was completely different. Like vampires after sunset, they transform themselves into some party beasts and I could barely keep up with them but what happened will be kept in secret with the Gods, the Party Gods.
You can check some pictures here but only the uncensored ones :-D

Catch you later.

Don't drink and pee

Yesterday it was celebrated the religious party "Lavagem de Itapuã" and guess who was celebrating? Another rehetorical question.
Me and Lindomar left in the morning. Lindomar is quite some person, he is a pure man and has been helping my father going through some tough periods specially now that my father is alone and my mother in Portugal.
Lindomar is the garbage man here in the condominium and cleans the swimmingpool as well, he works extra hours and still doesn't have enough money to have a proper life. He always has lunch with us and sometimes it's his only meal of the day but still he is one heck of a guy, very honest and lets my father know about all the mess that happens around here, who is the good guy and who is the bad guy and always tries to protected him the best way he can.
He is a much better man than lots of people I've met around the world that have BMWs parked in the garage and plasma TVs in the living room. My father always told me that you can't judge a man by the colour of his skin or bank account and here is a very good example.

Anyway, before going to Itapuã we stopped by his place in the middle of one of the favelas in Salvador. It's definitely a wake up call to a reality that lots of people don't know about and even less have experience it.
After that we walked straight to Itapuã, met some of his friends (all good people) and we started drinking some beers! Then the real party started on the streets, the music pumping hard from the speakers of the slow moving buses and a huge crowd following it.
It's just like the Carnival, actually for me it was just as if the Carnival had started. I was told that this party is indeed some kind of rehearsal of Carnival but in a much lower scale. Anyway it was loads of fun and I was already tired when the night fell... and bit drunk too. So drunk that at one time I had to take a leak (after so many beers!!) and went straight to the sea only to find out later that I had everything in my pockets: credit card, money, keys and most important of all, my mobile phone! Yes, that's right, my Sony Ericsson can now go straight to junkyard! Oh well, I needed a new phone anyway :-)

Oops, have to hurry, the plane to Natal leaves in a short while. I'll be back soon Salvador!

Friday I'm in Natal

Natal is already in sight. I bought the ticket the other day and I'm meeting there with my good friend Roland and his beautiful girlfriend Tinne.
I'm going to stay at their house in Natal which is about 2 hours away from Salvador by plane. I bought a one-way ticket just in case ;-)

I'm really looking forward to it but I was already told that I have to come prepared because there are going to be some wild parties and they are not going to be responsible for anything that will happen there!

Should I be scared and fallback or just go for it and hope for the best?
That was obviously a rhetorical question, now I'm obviously going there, I think I can take the challenge, you know me.
It's like we say in Portugal "if one says kill the other says scalp" and I'm the other, no challenge is too big for me :-)

red red light

Another interesting thing about Brazil is the fact that there seems to be general habit to ignore traffic lights at night.

First time I noticed it was a while ago when I took a taxi after going out in the city and the taxi driver just wouldn't take his foot off the accelerator while approaching red traffic lights. I found it quite odd of course and even feared for my life and when I confronted the taxi driver with that fact he reacted in the most relaxed Brazilian way: "oh my friend, at his time of the day it's optional" :-)
I even had that (unofficial) advice from a policeman as long as you don't endanger other ones' lives.

It was very amusing in the beginning until I found out that there's another reason behind it. It's actually dangerous to stop in a red light late at night. In the bigger and more dangerous cities in Brazil (like Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paulo) it's common to have people mugged and cars hijacked if they make the mistake of stopping in the wrong traffic light so just don't stop, step on it!

The reason I remembered this was because the other day I has to drive back home since my father lost his driving license or at least doesn't remember where he put it (like father like son?!). I shouldn't have been driving actually, I was a little bit intoxicated already, and the day before, and the day before that (...) Conclusion, my vacations have been like a huge hangover :-)

Like father like son

The first weekend is through and there are so many stories. Actually so many that I'm going to skip them all and focus on something that has been (at least) revealing.

I think that in these few days in Salvador I've found out a lot about me and the reason of all this is my father.
After almost 30 years of my life I'm spending vacations all alone with my father which apparently is a total monster (in a good way of course). I'd call him a Cupid monster or something like that.
He is one old horny dude! He just can't see one single woman with skirts (or not) or in their bikinis which, believe me, it's like germs, they are all over.
So you can imagine the content of the comments throughout the days:

- Just look at that, son!
- Check out that ass!
- Oh my God, if I was a single guy!

and it goes on and on and in the evenings it gets worse when he takes me to the area of the bars around the city also known as the "meat market".

The fact is that he is trying to hook me up with any living human being from the opposite sex.
The other day while we were going to a beach by car he grabbed his mobile made a phone call and I heard: "we'll be there in 20 minutes, but first you have to find me a girl for my son, a young one, not too used". I just laughed couldn't do anything else of course.
Tomorrow we are having lunch here at home with some of his friends that will bring some company for me, or so he says.
He already has a plan, the oldest trick in the book: "first we have to get them drunk" said the wise man.

So now you know what I have to deal with everyday, I find it quite amusing it was a side of my father that I had never knew but I did wonder where I got it from and you know what people say... Like father like son :-)

Back in Portugal

I don't know where to start! I've been enjoying so much this trip and did so many things already that it's impossible to start from one specific part.
But one thing is for sure, I'm loving it! I've seen so many people that I haven't seen for so many years! I saw almost all of my best friends, the crew from my Theatre Company where I used to perform as well as a musician and had probably the best time in my life with those guys in my teenage years.

Now I'm staying with a friend that owns a building in one of the best neighborhoods in Lisbon called Bairro Alto, or just Bairro for the locals which means exactly Neighborhood as in "The" neighborhood ;-)
It's one of the oldest neighborhoods in Lisbon and still it's full of crowds of young people in the narrow streets like it has a life of its own. It's a great place, full of bars and restaurants, the perfect place to start the evening!

When I arrived I went straight to the Snob Bar, the perfect place to eat a steak at 3 in the morning, where would you do that in Amsterdam? Home maybe, but it wouldn't b e as tasty!
The following days I met lots a lots of people! We all went to Bairro Alto (I was already there ;-) and kept on jumping from bar to bars until 4am. Then it was time fort a party and we all went to the Comuna Theatre, and what a party that was!
Next day the same thing, just different bars but the same ritual :-)

Sunday was the family day, I had lots of fun as well and after all these days I look back and I really felt how I missed those guys! Family and friends are the most precious thing in life and makes me think why do I spend so much time away from them.
From now on I'll try to be more careful and I'll try to go back home more often.
It's not like Brazil because when I go there it's just for the fun, the Sun and the small bikinis. Portugal is my home after all, I grew up there and that's where my roots are and I love it!

check-in

Here I come Lisboa, tonight I'm flying to Portugal.
Today I did my last shopping for souvenirs, finished the last stitches in the office and just checked-in via internet.
It was the first time I tried to check-in through the internet but I already have a bad feeling about it. The last step of the process was to print the page and the toner of my printer just hit the bottom, could this be a haunted trip already?
Anyway I still have to check-in my luggage so I'll try to sort things out on the spot but at least I know I'm seating in 10A at the window, how cool is that?
The battery of my PSP is charged and I have some new games. I have some books that I borrowed from Bernardo and with that I think I can keep myself busy for a month... if it's really going to be used at all ;-)

I have to go but I always have that sick feeling in the stomach as if I'm leaving something behind. Anyway I have to go. I say goodbye Amsterdam, see you soon!