South American Adventure: beach

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

The beginning of the end...or a new beginning??

Lisa´s two cents:

Seriously where have Scott and Lisa Zengel gone?!? The Scott and Lisa that you all know, the Scott and Lisa who are active, productive, high-energy, etc etc... where are they?! It has been 6 weeks now since we have made it to Brazil and it has changed us! We spend our days lazying around the beach, perhaps we may open a book, perhaps we will just stare at the waves. No we have not taken up smoking, good try. We have finally reached a point of complete and utter relaxation.

We have just spent 6 days at a beach town called Itacare. The town is made up of a bunch of touristy restaurants which turn into bars with live music at night. One bar even played a mix of American music and Brazilian, which was pretty sweet. There are 5 beaches here, and we basically just rotate from one beach to the next depending on the surf and direction of the sun. We took a day trip with our friend Carrie (from Oakland... small world, small world) to another amazing beach one day and Scott tried to surf one day (the waves here are seriously huge).

Other than that... beach, swim, sunset, repeat.....

View from the top of our hike

Our pirate ship

Stunning

To surf or skate, that is the question!

Rough commute to work

Tip of the island

Sunset at Barra Grande

Scott has become an amazing surfer

Peace

Scott´s version:

The Brazilian beach tour continues...

Of course, as you all know, we are chasing summer and I think we're close to the end of it. Our perfect beach weather has started to make it's way into South American fall. Let's just say that it's not cold but it has gotten a bit more rainy...

Lisa and I have perfected our beach bumming, full well knowing that is dream can't last forever, and it is in fact coming close to the end. We spend over a week in Itacare just hanging out, relaxing, and visiting beautiful beaches!

The next beach spot that we visited is definitely at the top of our most amazing beach list! The peninsula of Barra Grande (pronounced Ba-ha Gran-ge!) was a last minute addition before we headed down to Rio...and it was simply amazing. Imagine staying in an intimate three room bed and breakfast steps away from one of the most beautiful beaches in Brazil. The Spanish owner, Carolina, was super nice and we really chill. She's the typical story that you hear about someone getting sick of the corporate grind (she was a VP of Marketing in Madrid) and escaping to a beach paradise..she's truly living the dream! She would bring breakfast just outside our room(of course you can hear the waves crash while you are going to sleep every night!) with fresh mangos or papayas, delicious coffee, and to top it off...she would ask if we wanted coconut juice and her boyfriend would climb the palm tree, cut down some coconuts, and bring the fresh coconut water to our table. Does it get any better than this?? Life is good...

I tried my hand at a little more surfing while we were there and have realized that I just need to spend more time at warm surf beaches so that I can become an expert! Enjoy the pictures, this is the last of our Brazilian beach adventure...sad!

Checking out the waves

Fresh papaya, mango and melon for breakfast

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Just when you thought it was perfect...

After spending a week up in the desert, we decided to add a little palm tree and humidity to our beach life. Ya gotta change things up around here so we dont get bored :) We decided to head down to Parque Tayrona to do a little hiking and spend some time on the beach, but before we decided to head into the park we stopped at a little beach spot called Casa Grande to relax for the day. This place is run by a very kind Colombian family, it`s clean, and let`s be honest it`s beautiful. We set up our tent about 10 feet from the water and 6 nights later we were still there!!! We spent our days swimming in the waves, drinking coconuts right off the palm trees, and walking on the sand. It was incredibly peaceful and relaxing. (Cuz life is stressful down here for us...right?!)

Scott even surprised me one day with a manicure and pedicure on the beach. Its been 5 months since my last one... so it was thoroughly enjoyed!!! I even let the woman paint a flower on my toe... its like I am in high school again.:) ¿¡Porque no!?

After 6 nights there we decided we should motivate and head into the park, so we packed up our house and off we went. We were greeted with a lush rainforest trail with all sorts of lizards and crabs. We hiked about 45 minutes until the trail opened up onto the beach. The ocean was stunning, with huge boulders and crashing waves. We found another amazing patch of sand and set up our tent. We spent 2 nights there relaxing in the park, hiking to different beaches, and swimming in the ocean. Every afternoon there were crazy thunderstorms which was a refreshing break from the humidity and in some ways very romantic.

The first night we were peacefully sleeping when all of a sudden we were woken up to the sound of horse hooves. Scott and I both abrubtly sat up inside the tent to a white horse about 4 feet from our tent and trotting straight for us! Luckily, Scott yelled loudly and at the last minute it veered away from the tent. Maybe horses sleep walk too!?

So after 2 weeks of camping we decided we needed a cold A/C room and a nice bed to sleep in. We spent a few nights in Santa Marta (not that cool, but we had some great meals and caught up with the family!) and then headed to Taganga. Coincidentally we ran into Timi from our Bolivian Salt Flat tour in Santa Marta. Small world!