ITACARÉ - BAHIA

If there was somewhere that rivalled the love we have for Arugam Bay in Sri Lanka, it's Itacaré in Brazil. Described on TripAdvisor as hard to get to, and even harder to leave we would be quite happy to be stuck here. We arrived late in the evening after a 24 hour bus journey from Rio. Surprisingly the bus was super comfortable and smooth even though the driver was a bit fond of the gas. The time flew by as quick as the Brazilian countryside.

The main businesses in this crumbly beach side town are fishing, surfing, yoga and a lot of hippy bracelet stalls. It's situated round a working fisherman's bay protected from the Atlantic swells by a rocky headland and lighthouse. The streets are cobbled, the houses colourful yet rustic, groups of sun baked men play dominos on the pavements and everywhere you turn you are greeted with loud music and a big smile.

We stayed in a guest house called Casa Blanka 2010. It is run by an Italian couple called Sara & Pierre. Pierre built the house himself over a number of summers, he even made his own bricks. Casa Blanka gets its name from Pierre's love of Blanka from the mega drive game Street Fighter and has a number of other businesses with Blanka in the title.They still live there now with two cute kids and a friendly cat. The common area is open and relaxing, the rooms spotless and comfortable and the location is on a little side road just off the main street. We love those guys, Sara picked us up from the bus station late Thursday night and really looked after us the entire time and Pierre took us out to a beautiful beach out of town called Enghenoca where he gave H a couple of surf lessons, he also makes a mean polenta chapati.

Being a surf town one of the first thing we did was get the lay of the land (or sea in this case). There is a costal track leading out of town to four little coves each producing a slightly different wave and drawing a different crowd. The shit hot locals head to Tiririca a powerful beach break. It has a skate bowl overlooking the beach and a couple of good bars and very luxurious looking accommodation. It's set amongst palms, banana trees and other exotic colourful plants however was a tad out of our price range. This is the most famous beach of the four.

To the north you have Resende where I surfed most. You walk through a little tropical woodland which surrounds the cove to reach the quiet sands with a few guys selling snacks and chairs from an ocean battered shack.

To the south of Tiririca you have Costa another quiet beach and further south you have Ribera. The last is reserved mainly for families as it is most protected from the swell, has a shallow river for kids to paddle and a big beach restaurant. We were caught off guard at first by loud cries from the forest on the north side, then a child on a zipline burst through the trees, screamed over our heads and disappeared into the jungle on the far side, never to be seen again.

By the end of the first day we had walked from one side of the town to the other, rented some boards, surfed till sundown and Helen joined a yoga class on the beach. With nothing more to do other than repeat we happily settled into a tropical Groundhog Day.

Continuing the Groundhog Day theme we found a really good yet cheap place to eat called Da Lu's. They serve up a fantastic moqueca (a light coconutty shrimp stew). Sitting outside her little restaurant, drinking litre beers overlooked by a giant painted frog was our idea of paradise. We nearly got caught out on our first visit whilst slipping into a doze after a massive lunch. She came over and said "feijoada" which sounded a little like 'finished'. We said yes then she grabbed the empty bowl of the 'feijoada' (bean stew) and made for the kitchen. Being polite Brits and knowing full well we would have to eat more so as not to offend we cried out to stop her just before she disappeared out of sight.

Da Lu's was usually followed by the worlds best chocolate cake at the cafe on the corner near our place. This was literally an unhealthy obsession as we would always sit at the same table  and watch the world go by.

Early in the morning on a couple of days we drove twenty minutes south with Pierre, to a beach called Enghenoca. To get from the main road to the sand you have to walk for fifteen minutes through thick jungle. As we followed the path Pierre pointed out the remains (or beginnings) of the grand hotel Warapuru which sits high above the beach and is slowly being reclaimed by nature. The story goes that a bunch of investors were using the project to launder money from Portugal through a loop hole in the law or more likely corrupt backhanders. Everything was going to plan until a new Brazilian government came in and demanded a few million and the whole project ground to a halt. The grey concrete shell looked like something from the film Tomb Raider peering down on the sands from its tropical hideout. As the beach is a fair walk from anywhere and is surrounded by jungle it feels like being on the set of Robinson Crusoe. Sloping palms and other exotic plants sprout right down onto the sand and two rocky headlands guard each end. On the first day the clouds were heavy and the wind was onshore making the waves a bit mushy, however on our second visit, the wind had dropped, the waves were clean and the sun kept popping out as did a number of turtles (or maybe the same one over and over again). I surfed three hours solid both days and took great delight in using a strong rip tide by the rocks to get out behind the waves rather than using my arms like a chump. It was like being on a conveyor belt: 1.Walk along beach, 2.Jump in rip, 3.Wait and converse with turtles, 4.Surf, 5.Repeat. Helen was making the most of it to. Pierre is a qualified surf instructor and got Helen out of all the bad habits I had taught her. She caught loads of waves and was pretty knackered, but stoked after both sessions.

Everyone seems to know everyone here and community really matters. As we walked the streets we noticed everyone smiled and greeted everyone they passed. Towards the end of the week even we were saying hello to folk we had surfed with or bumped into at bars or cafes etc. It was a very welcoming feeling. My personal favourite is this guy who every time I walked past he smiled, pointed at me and groomed his beard.

Pierre called out to him once 'Bon dia Papai Noel' (Good day Father Christmas). I though this was a joke until one day we got speaking to him and he handed me his business card!

Highs and lows whilst traveling can often come right next to each other. While traveling Asia definitely one of us but maybe both had managed to pick up a live in pet worm. I'm not going to go into details how we know, but this little guy had been around for a while. Why he chose to show himself now and not when we were in an English speaking country deus (god) only knows. Still it needed sorting. That was the low. However the high in this situation is a conversation I'll never forget. Sara from Casa Blanka managed to find us a local doctor and soon we embarked on the most surreal google translate conversation I think anyone has ever had about shitting in a cup. At the time of writing, we have a short wait until our test results to see if what we passed, passed!

One evening whilst lounging about in the guest house we got talking to Vagner and Claude. They were staying for a few days and with the help of our old friend google translate we started to get to know each other. Claude wanted to introduce us to a Bahian sweet called a Brigadeiro and insisted on making some for us. It consisted of coco powder and condensed milk heated and whisked until it resembled a fudge like consistency. It's tasted as good as it sounds and a lot better than it looked, but you couldn't eat a lot of it.

About five minutes from the guest house is a rocky headland that juts out into an estuary looking back across the town. At this time of year the sun sets behind the surrounding jungle on the horizon, and the headland fills with locals and tourists. It was our last night so we grabbed a cold beer and joined the crowd. It was a very tranquil moment and seemed like a good end to our time here.

We had only been in town for six days yet as we left we kept bumping into people. We were starting to get a little taste for what it would be like to stay here and it tasted good. We slowly walked to the bus station, sad to be leaving but excited too. Tomorrow we wake in Salvador the capital of Bahia and Brazil's third largest city.