I left the Rio de Janeiro province & flew north to the Bahia province where I spent 5 days in the amazing capital city of Salvador Bahia on the front & back-end of a week split between 2 of its offshore islands Tinhare & Boipeba. Morro de Sao Paulo is on the island of Tinhare & is a 2.5hr boat ride from Salvador’s port. I booked the boat the day of departure & thankfully so as it turns out only 1 of 4 previously scheduled direct boats left for Morro & they didn’t decide til the morning of. While I had intended to take the 1pm boat, a 9am phone call inquiring about the status revealed the 10:30am speedboat with a 12-person capacity was the only one leaving that day. In order to avoid a boat-bus-boat combo later in the day that takes 5hrs, I quickly packed & made it to the port just in time to buy a ticket & board (again thank goodness for low season). There is a much more expensive 30min flight option in a small prop plane but there must be a minimum of 5 passengers (or I suppose you pay for the whole plane yourself & if you’re doing that, you should probably not be going to Morro).

 

So the coolest thing about arriving in Morro de Sao Paulo is finding no cars of any kind allowed in the village. I knew this prior to coming, of course, which is why I was a bit shocked after coming off the boat when asked on the dock if I wanted a taxi. The “taxi” driver settled my confusion when he revealed his “taxi” was actually a wheelbarrow. Hell yeah, I want a taxi. Even if I only have a backpack that I’m very comfortable carrying. Of course I’m paying $5 to have a dude wheelbarrow it to my pousada on the second beach up & down steep but short hills all while giving me a bootleg quick overview tour. I freaking loved it.
The Brazilian people continue to be amazing… I find them to be so fun, friendly & laidback. I did have to laugh at them though bc in Morro de Sao Paulo, they kept guessing I was Argentinian. Umm what? I deduced they could tell I was a foreigner & since most of the people who visit Morro de Sao Paulo, outside of domestic Brazilian tourists, are Argentinians, that was their first guess. I’d laugh out loud & correct them & silently feel somewhat pleased bc my mix of broken Spanish interspersed with key Portuguese vocab has somehow fooled them! At first this happened solely with Brazilian men, who I’ve certainly found to be the most forward in South America but also the funniest, so I wondered if it wasn’t some ploy but then it crossed boundaries.
That brings me to the language. After nearly 5mos in Spanish-speaking countries dealing only with varying dialects within the same language, I was getting more & more comfortable. And then I come to Brazil. I’ve found Portuguese to be a mix between Spanish & Italian. I don’t speak Italian but some words seem similar (bela, for example) as does the thick accent. So I studied a few key words & phrases in Portuguese & essentially speak Spanish with the exception of subbing in key Portuguese words when I know they’re different. It works fairly well – I’ve even had people compliment me on my Portuguese (ha!) – until it doesn’t & I trip over a word either I or they don’t recognize & then we find one that works. Those Brazilians may not want to admit they’re speaking a hybrid of Portuguese & Spanish but I sure appreciate it bc I’ve met plenty of people who speak only Portuguese & it’s much more difficult for me to follow. I conversed wonderfully w one local guy I met on Morro until he turned to his friends & spoke rapid fire to them. I didn’t have a clue what he said to them & told him so. He laughed & admitted he spoke more slowly, clearly, lost a bit of his Italian-esque accent, cut out all of the local slang (folks from other Brazilian provinces claimed there’s a lot of local Bahia slang that even they don’t understand) & sometimes substituted easier Spanish words as he acknowledged Portuguese is a much more difficult language than Spanish. I was grateful. But one thing this trip sure has done is make me want to continue learning other languages. When I return, I’m going to try to find a Chicagoan who I can pay to meet me for coffee for a couple hours once a week & they can teach me Spanish, maybe some Portuguese, who knows. In the meantime, I love learning on the fly. And in such a lovely setting.

 



Footvolley video: https://youtu.be/mrq1kxbwUTk