All right – our trip to Salvador was 5 hours by bus. From Salvador we had a 2 hour bus ride to a little town called Diogo. The bus dropped us off near a stand of trees next to a dirt road. We asked for directions and found we had to follow the dirt road. After about a few minutes walking we started seeing little square houses and buildings. Diogo is a little town that is on one road with one T intersection. In order to get to our pousada (resort??) we had to take the T in the road. After about a 20 minutes walk we ended up at Too Cool pousada. After greeting us they took us straight to where we needed to go. We found out that we should have made reservations because they were booked. When Sophia the owner arrived she explained that there was one room available for one night then we would have to find some place else… For those of you who know me for a worry wart would have been proud of me. After unpacking and deciding to go down to the beach Sophie came back and said we could stay in the room normally used for massage because she didn’t believe we could find anything else because of Easter. That taken care of she gave us directions and we went to the beach.
In order to get to the beach we had to walk for about 30 minutes through town, a cross a river bridge and sand dunes as it got dark. When we arrived it was full dark. The moon hadn’t come out yet and the sky was filled with stars! I stared at the stars with my feet in water so warm it felt like love that had been waiting for me. Melanie and Rami played in the water…
A nice man who was closing up is refreshment stand offered to show us out off the beach to a smaller town called Santo Antonio. It was in the middle of the sand dunes with NO roads leading to it. From there we made our way back. On our way we disturbed two donkeys on the dunes sleeping.
We spent the next day on the beach after a wonderful breakfast and a trek through 15 minute short cut with a nice French couple and Junya the dog that took us over a beautiful old land bridge over a swamp, wading through a lower part of the little river and a cross the dunes, we spent the day on the beach. Running into the water practicing Capoeira, drinking out of coconuts and dancing.
At 2pm after the start of a very nice sunburn for Melanie and Rami we all nearly got heat stroke walking back through the dunes.
Later that evening we sat in the middle of Diogo at what we had dubbed the night before as our favorite sandwich shop eating egg and cheese sandwiches when the sandwich shop owner let us know that he saw us on the beach practicing capoeira and told us of an Angola capoeira group that taught kids in the area. He said he’d tell them about us. (The funny thing is we never saw anyone else on the beach.) A few minutes later some guys that were clearly capoeiristas strolled up and sat a few tables a way playing biringbau. The next thing we new Melanie was talking to them and we had a date to play Capoeira on the beach the following morning. Our new accommodations was a charming little hut hidden in the woods behind the dining area made out of a kind of wood with a coconut leaf roof. You could see right through it in places. We joked about rain and getting wet. Our mattresses were on the floor. Very much like camping right down to the bugs. We had a big spider in our room, between 4 and 5 inches in diameter. (no joke) It disappeared somewhere when we were deciding what to do it. Lucky we had talked about it earlier with a naturalist who said it was harmless to people. We tried to do it this morning but failed. After a great breakfast that included homemade cake and fresh fruit we discovered little squirrel like monkeys had gotten into our room and pooped on the section of mosquito net that across our bed. We cleaned the room and locked it against any other invaders then headed off to meet our new friends.
I played in the tide pools, Rami and Melanie swam, two boys randomly raced by bare back on two horses while a dog chased them barking wildly. Our new capoeira friends showed up and took us down the beach a little ways to where the set up the hota. Val, Corro, Antonio, Raffel pulled us in right away. We spent a good long time playing, learning the rhythm on the tambourine and learning the songs. Two donkeys and a dog ran across the beach making a racket. After we sat at the refreshment stands made of coconut trees drinking beer and talking. Melanie and Rami’s sunburn was getting kind of ruff. Other things we did with our new friends - swam in a fresh water river, showed them some of the dances we know, waited in amazement as Val climbed a coconut tree like it was the easiest thing on earth and picked seven coconuts for us, watched in amazement as they crack the coconuts open for us to drink. Val ended up being our unofficial guide on our way back to Diogo. As we walked along he told us about how he grew up there and how an Italian conglomerate had bought all the land and in 20 years all we saw would be hotels. Periodically he’d reach into a bush and pull out fruit for us to try. One was a dragon fruit which tasted nasty when I had it in the States. It was wonderful here (of course).
Diner at a really good restaurant – hung out with our capoeira buddies at Val’s house in his family compound.
The next couple of days Melanie and I went horse back riding and spent time in tourist area with shopping and food. Rami spent time out of the sun. Her sunburn was pretty bad. That night there was a barbeque at Too Cool. It was a birthday party for the owner of the pousada's boyfriend who we found out was Val's brother. Almost everyone from our Too Cool adveture was there. We also had the chance to get to know the other guest better. We sang Bob Marley tunes, danced samba and drank.
This was only a portion of what happened. If I tried to put everything I wouldn't have written anything. Check out these pics at: http://picasaweb.google.com/chateaulorange/Diogo#
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