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

Surf camping, touching dolphins, and Farro music!!

Yes, yes, we continue our travels, but they are definitely slowly (quickly!) winding down...
What do we miss most from home (other than our great friends and family of course!)...In-n-Out Burger, delicious craft beers, kitesurfing/mountain biking whenever we want, pillow-top mattresses, clean places, a good salad , and dill pickles. Yep, there, you have it.

We also forgot a few highlights from Praia de Pipa. It has got to be one of the top surfing spots in the world, because the guys surfing there are AMAZING. Look up some videos on Youtube. Intense. Scott is trying his luck at making it pro before we head home, but the chances are pretty slim. An added bonus of this beach is that you can literally walk out and swim with dolphins. Yep, a dolphin licked my toe as it went by. I was ecstatic!

The dolphin that licked my toe!

Look closely...the guy at the surf campground is flattening out the spot for our tent. This would never happen at home!

After Pipa we met up with a few new friends in an off-the-beaten path town called Joao Pessoa. We had some awesome times - great food, good company. See ya in Switzerland Victor and Stephanie!

Lisa splurged and got a haircut. She looks great!

Some new friends and good times!

After enjoying the beaches for a solid three weeks we decided it was time to stop being such bums and check out the city of Salvador de Bahia.  Like most places we go to these days we google the place to see if it looks cool and we try to decifer Lonely Planet's exaggerated storytelling to see if it's really cool.  We arrived in Salvador after a long overnight bus to find that the city was mostly shut down, totally booked, and was preparing for a HUGE festival.  The festival, Sao Joao, is the second largest festival in the state of Bahia (first is Carnaval, obvi!) and we had no clue what to expect.  After looking at five different places to stay, we found a small apartment overlooking the bay to rent right near (but not in) all the action.  We always love renting apartments so we can cook something a little more normal (aka not rice and beans). 

The historic UNESCO neighborhood center of Pelourinho. Beautiful.

An automatic sugar cane juicing machine. Normal.

We're still alive! Enjoying fresh coconuts. Delicous. Again. 

More Salvador

View of the famous landmark, the elevator. And the view from our apartment!

Some kids hanging out on the street. Good clean fun. Except they were lighting firecrackers until who knows when...

Salvador is super artsy...

Even the public telephones are artsy - this one is the shape of a half coconut!

Love this place!

The festival is a HUGE celebration. These pics are basically the during the day before the festival started and only one at night (not a good idea to bring cameras out).  The festival is all farro music (pronounced Faa-ho, of course, and is super popular in the northeast of Brazil). It is all locals with amazingly cheap beer and food.  There were a total of seven different stages running four nights in a row from 8pm to 2am. It was a big deal, with everyone dressed in their best going out clothes! Surprisingly, we knew many of the bands and had such a blast singing along to our favorite Brazilian songs :)  I didn't even realize that we knew local music down here but turns out when you are in a country for over a month you learn a lot.

Traditional garb...and city streets!

The main square during the day

The same square at night

Yeah

The first night in Salvador also happened to be our eight month anniversary (yes, we celebrate every month) so we set out to go to one of our all-time favorite meat restaurants, Fogo de Chao.  They are also a chain in the US, but rightly so, the food is amazing. After we explained that we liked our meat medium rare, not well done like every local here, we enjoyed some amazing cuts with some great wine.  I can't wait to see what's in store for our nine month celebration!

I can look like a normal person and eat delicious meat!

Mmmmm....

Until next time...