Hippyville

An hour´s bus journey from Arraial and we arrive in Trancoso, a small village, but with an ´international hippy community´. Here we have the good fortune of staying with Antonio - an ex of a friend of Darren´s - and he was a great host. He had a new house 30 minutes walk from the centre of the village in a housing development called ´condominio coqueral´. We had remembered the name of it because it sounded like cockerel, but it wasn´t until 3am on our first night that we discovered that it means cockeral in Portugese too - and the houses are built next to a cockerel farm! We lay awake and listened to them having a cockerel choir competition where one would start and all the others would follow suit. Then they would have a little rest for 5 minutes and start again. And it went on and on, until about midday.

Mirror Beach

We stayed in Trancoso 5 nights in all and it was really nice to just chill for a while and not have to keep packing our bags. The village is very rustic and the original town square consists of a simple church at one end, with a broad grassy plaza surrounded by coloured houses and dotted with huge old trees as well as the ubiquitous packs of stray dogs, which are always fun to watch. One of the shops we went into had actually been built around a big old tree, with it trunk disappearing up into the roof. The restaurants and bars here have a lovely atmosphere but are expensive, so Antonio and the locals go out in the new centre which is a bit inland.

Pretty houses

On sunday night there was an outdoor concert (it seems they love to party on sundays especially!!) and Antonio got us tickets. We were mildly excited (we were not sure what to expect after our previous experience of local music culture), however we were gagging for a night out and some party atmosphere. We started the night in a bar opposite the location hanging out with Antonio and his friends. But then the heavens opened and it started to rain...very, very heavily. We could still hear the music from across the road and decided to wait until it eased up. We had a really strong Caipirinha, so strong in fact, that by the time we had our second round delivered Angie managed to spill Antonio´s all over his lap! She gave her drink to him and at this point we decided a quick exit was advisable and as there was a break in the rain we ran over to the field to find a group of people huddled under the sound desk tent while the band played on valiantly. We only stayed for 10 minutes but then the rain started again so we went back to the bar to continue our party there. By this time the Caipirinhas were kicking in proper stylee and the locals decided to teach us to dance Forro style. Darren trod on a girl´s toes for 5 minutes before she gave up and Angie managed to pick up a few men...sorry, moves. In the end we made a lasting impression. Angie, who was trying to avoid Darren´s two left feet, tripped and put her hand out to save herself, unfortunately it landed on what appeared to be a light switch, but was in fact the power supply for the whole bar. When the power came on the bar had emptied! We think it was a convenient excuse for them to scarper and nothing to do with the drunken gringos. We stayed a while longer, surprisingly, and then had to face the walk home, rain or no rain. The roads had turned into rivers and by the time we got back we were totally soaked and our shoes took 3 days to dry.

Trancoso Old Square

While we were in Trancoso it was Brazilian independence day and we watched the school children parading through the main street in white costumes with face paints etc. However, they don´t bother to stop the traffic and the children had to jostle for position with all the lorries, delivery vans and motorcycles!

On our last day we had booked some transport to a beach about 30km south of Trancoso. Called Praia do Espelho (Mirror Beach) it was billed as being in the top 10 in Brazil. It is a lovely beach, but I think it makes it into the top 10 because the journey there is so incredibly arduous that those who eventually make it there get the 2km curving stetch of soft white sand almost to themselves. Getting there took over an hour, on dirt-track roads that regularly collapsed into huge muddy gullies and crossed rivers on rickety plank bridges. We heard that it is impassable after heavy rain and if you are unfortunate enough to be on the beach when it rains heavily, you can´t get out of there! But the scenery is great, passing through unesco potected jungle (atlantic rainforest), Indian reservation and most spectaculalry, a huge flat river valley filled with herds of buffalo and gigantic dragonflies. The beach is protected by reefs so we were both able to swim. I (Angie) have had to pass on a lot of beaches because it´s too rough for my poor swimming skills. And it was on this beach that we finally had a typical beach snack that we have been seeing all over - cheese on a stick, grilled over charcoal that the vendors carry round in little cauldrons. It doesn´t sound like typical beach food but it works surprisingly well.

We left Trancoso hideously early to catch 3 buses down the coast to Caravelas.