Beaches in Bahia

When I’m forlorn, melancholy or generally baffled at what life throws at us, the best remedy for me is to go to the beach. Amidst the swirls of humanity there to enjoy the surf and sun, you can immerse yourself into a world where all senses are piqued. This causes a degree of recuperation to the soul, slightly diminished on the ride home where egregious driving by drunk beach revelers reminds us of how reckless people cause such disharmony in society.

But let’s stay on the positive. Fortunately for me, a beautiful beach is ten minutes from my house. Last Saturday, we parked in a lot that advertized a five real fee. A team of people instruct you on how to park your car efficiently to cram as many cars as they can into this space. This is classic informal economy stuff, nobody is paying any taxes there. But if you chose to not pay the fee, there is nothing the people running the lot can do about it.

We have a spot where the wait staff know us. Our main waiter, a large square man with an operatic voice and charm which he uses to make sure you tip him well, was not there.

“His knee was bad, plus the owner here refuses to pay us our tips. I am going to be moving on after the season is over; it’s impossible to live on what he pays us.”

This is partly what makes Brazil such an unequal society, this tendency to exploit to the maximum, the incapacity for long term thought in things that involve profit. The idea that having happy workers matters is irrelevant when there is a teaming pool of desperate poor ready to work under miserable conditions to replace any discontents. Squeeze as much money as you can and keep another people in thrall while doing it, capitalism in its basest form.

I must admit I spent rather less time than I should have considering these terrible issues of human exploitation, instead revering the magnificence in front of me. The aquiline water, intersected by cauldrons of white created by the waves, invited compellingly.

Our waitress finished digging a hole in which to place a large sun umbrella to protect us from the scorching sun. Pedro gave us about ten seconds to sit down and relax before wanting to jump into the ocean. There we went. Pedro, now six, has lost fear of the ocean and knows how to avoid the punches it throws at you and take advantage of its blessings in the form of waves and relief from the heat. He simply loves it now and will spend all day there if you let him.

Claudia gallantly agreed to play a bat and ball game popular here with Pedro, not such a mind-numbing task anymore as he is quite competent and fun to play with. This gave me a chance to sit back, sip my coconut water and look about.

Everyone knows Brazilians wear swimsuits designed to show as little as possible of the ‘genital’ areas and for woman, to have much of the bottom revealed. Many woman of impressive beauty and curvature pass by, confidently showing off what God has given them. Few men would not derive some kind of pleasure from watching a stream of gorgeous and semi-clad woman stream by in front of them.

Many men wear the kind of speedo trunks that makes any man from an English-speaking country recoil with disgust but are favored here. As they are by the European tourists, some of whom wear even more revolting versions of this unfortunate design of swimming apparel.

The human body is an amazingly versatile thing. There are so many different versions of it, those of us with short legs and large torsos, those with the opposite, short, tall, fat thin. Some bodies look like letters, people with oversized or protruding heads resembling a capital P, others with protruding stomachs looking like an E, a curved body somewhat like a C, an erect one an I. Most people are overweight, large bellies already formed or in their incipient stages. This phenomena seems to accompany a society getting richer.

For whom the workings of the market are like a wet dream, this place is paradise, a veritable hub of economic activity, again of the type that does not show up in government statistics. Popsicle vendors ring bells which seem directly linked to a component of every Brazilian child’s brain that says immediately, ‘I must have a popsicle.’ Pedro is no exception.

The list of merchandise for sale is impressive. Small kites, little plastic parachute men, beach sarongs, sunglasses, sun block, pirate CDs and DVDs, hammocks, cigarettes and sweets, bikinis, dresses, hats stacked in piles two meters high, dish towels, and much else.

The food offers that pass by are also plentiful. Barbecued cheese is available from vendors that carry around a can with coals that miraculously manage to stay alit the whole day. They carry molasses and oregano to sprinkle on withered, melted stick of cheese. It’s excellent. Vendors display raw oysters with lemon on a plate for those brave people who like a thing that slithers down your throat and dies in your stomach. Boiled peanuts and cashews done in various forms, salted and sweet, are for the taking. Fruit salads and natural sandwiches are provided by people who look like they should be in advertisements for clean living.

There is a breed of people in the world who make artisan jewelry. Some in this tribe have an aversion to bathing, most have adopted a lifestyle descended from the precepts of hippy philosophy. They frequent towns where tourists go, and often provide the extra service of scoring pot for anxious visitors from Europe dying to augment their already heightened spirits.

One nearly managed a sale to a young woman sitting at a table near to us. He set down his work pinned to a felt covered screen which he carried around all day. His hair was curly and unkempt, and around it he wore a Jimmy Hendrix type bandana. He had a leather band around his bicep, wore an old waistcoat with no shirt, had two bracelets the principal content of which was shells. A large tattoo of a Joshua tree spilled from his back to his stomach. His shorts were yellow and black, with a portrait of Bob Marley. His leg was tattooed with a replica of one of his earrings, a kind of handy advertising method. If this guy attempted to cross any international border, the probability of him getting bodily searched would be about 100%.

Alas, the woman did not bite and he hoisted up his creations to trundle along elsewhere. Walking in the hot sun over sand for eight hours should be compensated better. Another service offered that should be scrutinized is henna tattoos. Not because they’re not nice, but because the salesman will swear that they last 15 days. This had happened several times to us, and at the most the things last three days, if you take regular baths. That’s a fifth of the time advertised, but what are you going to do, sue the guy?

The beach was packed, lots of groups playing soccer with small goals where coconuts were the posts. The wind made everyone’s voices into small unintelligible fragments, almost like birdsong, punctuated occasionally by the shouts from the game. It was a perfect day, the only clouds irrelevant to the piercing blue sky which overwhelmed but could not totally banish them.

We ate a small sardine like fish covered in batter which you could feel clogging your arteries as it entered your body. We drank beer so called it hurt your teeth. And we took turns servicing Pedro’s unending energy which we hoped would make him fall asleep earlier. It didn’t.

If you have lived by the beach for any length of time, it is hard to imagine life anywhere away from it. It feels as if the world is open to you, you are linked with the rest of humanity somehow. And in Brazil, there is the added spectacle of beautiful women keen to show as much of their body as they can get away with, though that obviously is a minor factor in the beach’s overall attraction. Being an intellectual sort, I tend to ignore the bouncing bottoms passing in front of me and rather contemplate the great Portuguese navigators who opened up the world 500 years ago. I can’t think why my wife doesn’t believe me.