The Salvador to Lencois nightbus started well, with me falling asleep in some short-tempered Israeli lady's seat. I didn't know we had seat numbers. It turned out neither did the person sat in my seat. But like a good english gent I simply find another empty seat and park in that, like the israeli chick should've done in the first place.
I awoke more by luck than by the driver letting us know we'd arrived. If you sleep any less light than a feather you can easily awake in some bus station in the deepest Amazon. It was 5am and I stumbled off the bus, in an odd cold sweat. Night bus drivers have zero conceptual understanding of Air Conditioning. At the start of every hot journey they crank up the AC to sub zero max, until someone complains of frostbite, then it is turned off until everyone has sunk back into another sweaty mess. Then the cycle is repeated. I've met travellers who take sleepingbags on Brazilian nightbuses to combat the cold. Weird when you pass temperature displays en route saying it's 25 degrees outside.
I spotted a fella from the hostel I'd prebooked holding a sign with my name on. As it doesn't happen often I do like seeing my name on a board. He got my pack and I got dirty looks from grumpy Israelis & we push on through the empty colourful colonial town. It's deserted but for the occasional stray dogs and the odd street traders setting up stalls.
Lencois, formerly a diamond prospector town, is bang in the middle of the Chapata Diamantia national park, 5 hours west of Salvador in Bahia. It is encircled by lush forest, which when I arrive is swirling with mist as the sun starts to lift. By the time my pack carrier & I make it to the hostel, passing a lady hanging her washing on next doors barbed wire, the sun has backlit the forest in smokey orange. The dusty shaded trees look magic.
After firing off a few digital rolls I duck into my dorm to relax and catch a few mozzy bites. Aparently mozzies avoid peeps with too much alcohol or garlic in their veins. One could argue, why get spendy deet spray when one can piss the same money up the wall, feel happy and be protected? But I decided it's about high time I took at lest a minor detox, and we'll see if these mozzies just flat out don't like my blood. I'm starting to get insecure about not having tasty blood, as I've still pretty much not bin bit yet.
The hostel foolish enough to put me up is the Pousada Dos Duendes, nestled in the quiet backstreets on the edge of Lencois. It could well be the best hostel I've ever stayed in. Good peeps hang there, it's got a giant chessboard, a dopey dog and an inquisitive kitten learning to use it's claws on peoples legs and clothes. It serves cheap, tasty traditional home-cooked grub nightly and a free breakfast with a bizarre selection of fresh fruit, cheese, cake and tuna pizza. 10 hammocks dot about the sociably laid out grounds and a top selection of MP3s play softly to speakers all round (though the Wurzels pop up a bit regularly...) The place was set up by a top chica, Olivia, who's all over the pages of the LP as the person in the know in Lencois. She's sound and her Belgian support staff are equally mellow & efficient. It's the perfect antidote to the carnaval madness. As the Brazilians say when you mention Lencois: Muito tranquilo. Though Lencois internet speeds are of an equally tranquilo bahian speed.
During day one, when not testing the load-bearing capacity of the hammocks, my quality new dutch partner in crime (Johan) and I stomp off into the jungle to find a natural waterslide. Equal measures of immature banter, travel philosophy and business advice is passed about, and I'm again reminded why the dutch are so cool. We're of a kindred mindset (eternally optimistic, cheerful and a bit silly) and I start to think that perhaps I'm a dutchman trapped inside an englishmans body. But then I realise I can only speak one language. It is a prerequisit that to be a proper dutchy you've got to be able to speak a minimum of ten languages fluently.
The following day a group of ten or so fine folk take a day hike slash 4x4 mission to the fumaca falls. We stomp 13km to the falls over yellow mud, lakey swamps, rocks and a marshy terrain that looks supiciously like Wales. We survive on water and salt crackers alone. Oh, and buscuits. And peanut bars. And some yummy freshly pulped frozen fruit juice. And two sandwiches. [All in all, not a bad packed lunch]. The steep uphill start sets my heart a racing and I the last of the Salvador cachassa ended up dampening my shirt. When we reach the top I was temped to play who's got the fastest heartbeat – but that is also known as a game called 'who's the most unfit' and I may just win. On finally reaching the Fumaca falls, a waterfall plummeting 450m out into a ravine, it quite literally took my breath away. Fumaca means 'smoking', and has been so titled because the water falls so far that it ends up evapourating to mist before reaching the ground. To view the falls you have to lie down over a protruding rock ledge, have someone hold your ankles and army crawl forwards. It brings forth all sorts of exciting / terrifying primal insticts about not hanging off cliffs what can real kill you.
A dip in another waterfall en route home, a stop outside a petrol station to take in a firey red sunset over a strange valley and we roll home for a party, thrown by the hosel in celebration of three staff birthdays. Free super strong punch (which tastes of medicine) and stronger still caipirinia are served to all, while the locals dance the 'forhal'. It is a strange sensusous hipshaking scottish country-dancing hybrid, mutated from the colonists and diamond prospectors in the area, who occasionally put on dance 'for all', hence the name. Loads of caipirinia, beer and sticky cake later we're all on and off the floor dancing to the live band and demonstarting to the local contingent just how little natural hipgrooving, leg-shagging rhythm the brits have. The band play funky, cowbell-heavy, 15-minute long tunes which could quite easily be replicated on a dustbin lid, 3 milkbottles and a wheezy accordian. The Brazilian men, clearly in heat, make every effort to jump female flesh. Two of the waterfall ramblers, Belgian Sarah and the excellent Israeli Itay, end up making out so aggressively they look like they are trying to eat each others heads. We finally laugh our asses to the hay after a long and entertaining day.
The next day, in a cachassa fug, I cut my hair with a pair of childrens paper scissors found in reception (see flickr photos for a photo). I louge for another day, evaluating photos and reading bookses, and that night our gange visit one of the many excellent tiny colourful restaurants in town. Excellent international cuisine at a place with 5 tables and the kitchen stove in full view. I had a fabulous coconut chicken curry. Others had Hungarian goulash and Pad Thai. Like a proper traveling snob, I refuse to become a 3 minute supernoodle eating backpacker. That stuff'll make you sterile.
My time in Lencois blurred into a nice comfy, er, blur. I took aimless evening meanders around the streets, wishing I'd carried my camera to photograph the locals perched on doorsteps, hanging their colourful washing on barbed wire, or riding old bikes about the hilly cobbles. Old colourful one-story buildings, in various states of repair, fill the welcoming streets as the low sun throws soft golden evening rays. Arriving back at the hostel I meet a cheerful Itay, wearing his long sleved Argey footy shirt. Brazil & Argentina are arch enemies and wearing a) long sleves in 30 degrees C and b) and argey top in deepest Brazil shows that the man has a full pack of washing to do.
Not long later I find myself becoming late for the night bus, skip the shower, bid new good friends good bye, sling on the pack and clatter through the quaint streets in a bootcamp jog. Locals sat on doorsteps or leaning out of their one-bed windows regard me with bemused 'good evenings'. From open doors waft the ever present bob marley tracks and the smells of good food.
I arrive in the nick of time in an even sweatier mess, wishing I'd been more organised and more showered. Then I sit with a bunch of backpackers in the rain for twenty-five minutes while we wait for the bus. You gotta love Brazilian time.
Until next time y'all. Thanks for reading.
Barns
MJ – PJ & Duncan's 'Lets get ready to Rumble' – though that damn cachassa song was still rolling round in my head.
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