Sunday, March 1, 2009

Sack-town and Vitoria

Decisions, Decisions...

We both enjoyed celebrating carnaval in Rio, but by the end of it I think we were looking forward to leaving the craziness behind, so...we decided to head further east(and north) along the coast.

After doing some research, we decided to head to the small town of Saquarema. Saquarema plays host to the national surf championships every year, is known for its small beaches and great surf. We arrived to Saquarema to find waves that were so large that they were not safe for surfing or swimming. Everybody was held up high on the beaches, enjoying the sun and staring out over the massive surf.
We made our way to the hostel(HI affiliated) we were hoping to stay at, only to find it appeared to be closed. After walking around for a long time, we settled on a skuzzy little motel. We´ll spare you the details of our lodging but feel the need to mention the bed did not have a mattress, and was made up of several unevenly sized and placed pieces of plywood. On our first night there, it was Rebecca~s turn to enjoy a bout of food poinsoning that we suspect may have been brought on by some bad lula (squid). We spent a couple of days in what we now refer to as Sack-town and have decided that Sack-town is a dirty little place that was not worth going too. To boot, when we went to leave we discovered there was no bus service east of Saquarema. Instead of being able to continue east, we had to back-track to Rio only to use a different bus company to head east again past Sack-town. Anyways, if you ever find yourself in Brazil, skip Sack-town (Saquarema). Rant over. You win some, you...

After ruffing it in Sack-town we felt like splurging a little and opted for a reasonably priced chain hotel that had rooms complete with air-con and mattresses on the beds. Vitoria is a small city that served as a stop-over and recovery place for us. We enjoyed some beach time, great food, live music, and even managed to find a book store to replenish our stock of books. Turns out we don´t have any pictures of Vitoria, so close your eyes and imagine a medium sized city(1.75 million) in Brazil.

We are both excited to board a train and head into the interior of Brazil next in seach or great adventures.

While we were in Vitoria our 1 month anniversary of being away passed.

Some things about our first month away:
Our tans are coming along nicely (Rebecca had one good peel).
We have swam until we turned into prunes, and hiked until our legs seized-up.
We have not had to put on pants yet (only shorts and bathing suits).
We regularly enjoy acai & granola for breakfast and fresh sugar-cane juice from street vendors.
We have both suffered from food poisoning once.
We have read either 3 or 4 books each.
We have seen enough speedos to last a life-time!

In summary - Brazil has been good to us!!


Brazil Funfact #2
They love speed bumps (sleeping police-man) in Brazil. Speed bumps are used through-out urban centres, and even regularly on major highways to slow you down and/or wake you up.

2 comments:

  1. haha - so Sack-town was where you ended up after doing some research eh?

    Stop researching I'd suggest - stuff like that is memorable tho and makes for funny blogs

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  2. glad to hear you guys are having a good time. i'm trying to work on my tan here as we've have a few sunny days and i'm really disappointed to hear you're judging speedos...

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