The beach towns we have been to have been varying in size, shape, level of activity, character and charm. After Saquarema, we were on a downward slope of level of activity as they are displaying the characteristics of very off season. The symptoms are closed restaurants, shops and any kind of communal areas - making it very difficult to get a meal or any kind of entertainment. The thing that is weird is that the weather is fine, still sunny and blue skies - only its chillier in the evenings and the sea is a little more churned up. Guarapari and Conceiçao de Barra were examples of this - talk about dead. So it was pretty frustrating - not to mention a pain in the royal bum to try and get from one town to another - its like you need a special code and eye scan to get any info on when the buses go and from where!
I will now stop moaning. Purely because we took a leap and came to a small town called Itaunas which is absolutely lovely and has restored our faith in traveling off the beaten track via the coast. This place is normally a packed party town - think Hikkaduwa on Feb 6th (Bob Marleys´birthday) some of my Lankan buddies know what I am talking about. But its fairly quiet cause the holiday season is over, though the weather and the town are perfect.
As is our pousada - especially the owner who found us right after we had got off the rickety old bus and were looking through the guide book for a decent place to stay - and he rode past on his bicycle and asked us if we wanted a place to stay. Bit weary at first but then realised the pousada he owned was mentioned in the guidebook. So off we went and it was a lovely place with hammocks and funky high ceiling rooms.
The owner - he is a funky dude, has an immense music collection, which he wakes us up with by blaring awesome Brasilian or your regular pop rock from the west tunes. One day its Blur, the next is Brasilian jazz and you get the picture. Plus freshly made mango or acerola juice in the morning. Yum.
We also got to know some other locals through a guy Lee got chatting to while surfing one morning, super friendly chap from Sao Paolo, we even got a free delicious home cooked meal from the dude´s pousada owner who he is friends with. The dinner included the hottest chillie sauce (which we confidently sprinkled on all over our food - yeouch!!), mussels, beans and what we believe to be illegal armadillo meat! Tastes just like chicken, but the shell gave it away to be something a bit unusual. We had to keep quiet about the ´tatu´because it is illegal to hunt them, I dont usually condone that kind of thing but we definitely would have insulted the owner if we refused. Anyway it was a real interesting experience.
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