Favorite Beach Week - Baia Formosa & Flor da Banana

Dear Friends of Planet Brazil (FOPB),

This week I will be making daily entries to the blog, featuring a few of my photos each day. I have really gotten into shutterbug mode here and, after only 6 weeks, have taken almost 1000 photos! I can’t stop myself - the light is so brilliant this close to the equator, it turns the sea turquoise and the sand pink. Also, I am experiencing this new place with beginner’s eyes – open, eager, and curious, like a child. Perhaps this is one of the greatest gifts of making a move like this – the chance to be a child again. (Then there are other days when I'm a whining old woman, like when clouds of flies come to share my dinner, uninvited, or when I'm served pizza with a squirt-on cheese sauce called catipury. )

Since it’s winter is upon you in America, I assume (despite the global-warming temperatures being reported on CNN) you are all dying for a bit of summer sun, sea and sand. So I’ll make this a week of favorite beaches...

Why not start with the exotic, erotic 'Flor da Banana'? I took this photo from the veranda of the Pousada do Farol, in Baia Formosa, a rustic fishing village about an hour’s drive north of my town of Joao Pessoa. I stayed there over Christmas weekend with Cristovam, my namorado (who I’ll tell you more about in a later entry), and we had the whole place to ourselves. The streets, restaurants and beaches were eerily empty for two days, as family celebrations went on behind closed doors. It was even hard to find a place open for Christmas dinner. We were like Joseph and Mary getting turned away at every door; until we finally found refuge in a little bar with blarring, scratchy radio music and a few drunks bringing on the holiday cheer with their beer and cachasa. The owner had a nice table for us outside, and was eager to cookup a whole fresh fish, along with the obligatory beans and rice, and a big bowl of farofa (a garnish of manioc flour sauted in butter and sprinkled liberally on everything to add flavor and protein). It was a feast fit for a couple and a giant family of flies – oh so romantic. Admittedly, I missed the turkey and tension that goes along with the American-style holiday gathering. But this was a new and different way to celebrate.

To give you a better idea about this great little beach town (too lonely to be included in the Lonely Planet guide), I’m including a couple touristy photos. Great surfing here, and a room at the inn with a view, full breakfast, and no extra charge for mosquitos, costs about $50R reais ($25). Or you can pay $300R to stay in the exclusive Euro-style Portuguese-owned hotel where they speak the language with a horrible guttural sound, and aren't too inviting to Brazilians. (See, I’m forming new stereotypes already.)

See you on the praia!

Beijos (kisses) , Anne

PS Excuse the intimacy of my closing, but this is how all Brazilians end their non-business letters and emails. Even when parting company on the street they use this expression, or 'um abraco', a hug. I find this to be one of the sweeter aspects of life on this new planet.