Beaches are nice, but getting to them is a different story

I finally made it to Salvador, and finally realized how burned out I'm becoming of travel: it's just no fun being on some bus with all your stuff in the middle of the night, in a country whose language you don't speak, in a city that is famous for violent crime, hoping you get off at the right place, let alone make it from the stop to your hostel in one piece. While I've always found safety warnings to be overblown, I've met enough Brazilians and people who have lived in Brazil to get the feeling like you definitely don't want to wander down the wrong street in the big cities. So the hour long ride in from the airport was kind of an anxious one. Then the bus driver almost pulled off with my bags still underneath, due to a little miscommunication (because at best, I can say I speak Portanol, or Portuguese mixed with Spanish). And this burnout was before my little misadventure last night: I had been invited by some friends from Pipa to go to a national park a few hours west of Salvador; I was supposed to meet them at the bus station around 10:30 at night. So I hopped a bus which was labeled rodoviaria (bus station) with all my crap. Because I wanted to know when I should keep my eye out for the stop, I asked the driver how long to the station. He replied with a bunch of Portuguese I didn't really understand, the jist of which was either a) this bus doesn't go to the bus station. Go back to Shopping Barra, where you got on, and get the right bus; b) this bus doesn't go to the bus station, continue on this bus to Shopping Something Else, and change buses; or c) this bus doesn't go to the bus station, but get off at Shopping Something Else and you'll be real close. So he's saying this to me, the bus is doing about 75mph down bumpy, twisting roads (why do bus drivers in poor countries always drive like maniacs?), and making so much noise I'm barely catching the words I know, let alone being able to try and get the ones I don't. Meanwhile, I'm getting a bit panicky, because I don't know if I need to get off and change buses right away, while every second I hesitate I'm being taken into a hostile, unfamiliar part of of the city late at night with all my bags and no map and barely any Portuguese. Eventually I decide that he's trying to tell me c), so I just say "tell me when," and take my seat. Meanwhile, the bus fills up, people are looking at me like a jerk for taking up two seats, I'm feeling like a jerk for taking up two seats, and I'm totally anxious because I really have no idea what's going on. About 45 minutes later, we arrive at Shopping Someplace, with the rodoviaria in plane view. I wanted to tell the driver that next time he can keep it simple and just say "yes, we go to the rodoviaria. I'll tell you when to get off." So I get into the rodoviaria, and there are no tickets left (my friends had said they were the only ones on the bus when they bought their tickets earlier that day, and that I should have no problems). I don't even see my friends, so now I have to figure out how to get back from whence I came. This involved asking five people and going to three bus tops, and then waiting about an hour for the bus. At about midnight, in a sparsely populated street with all my stuff. And then getting on the new bus and having the same experience of not knowing exactly where I am, and hoping I get off in the right place and back to the hostel OK. In short, I am tired of buses, and carrying lots of junk around on my back, and not speaking the language.

While I'm complaining, can I just say that the hardest thing I have to do in South America, in terms of logistical difficulty, is to make a fucking phone call? Every country has a different system. In Brazil, there are no locutorios, businesses where you can make a call to anyplace and pay when you're done for the time used, and ask questions if you need help. There are pay phones, but they don't take change: you have to buy a pre-paid card. And don't try calling the 800 number on the back, because that will get you nowhere. You have to slide the card into the slot on the side of the phone. And make sure you buy a large card, because $2.50 gets you about 30 seconds when calling a cell phone (which is what everyone here uses, of course). So making a phone call today, I had to ask 3 different people four different questions, and buy two different phone cards, to make a one minute phone call.

So I have spent one day in Salvador, but haven't yet found the tasty food and fun music I had been hoping for. But I am meeting up with a Couchsurfer tonight to stay at his place, so he should know where the good spots are. There are lots of nice beaches, and I have surfing on the brain; in fact, flying down from Natal made me realize that the coast of Brazil is literally just one giant beach and surf spot. Except Recife, which apparently has too many sharks to surf. But when I was in 4th grade, I knew all there was to know about sharks, so I'm sure I wouldn't let that stop me. I went for a walk on the beach today and watched the surfers; the sand was the exact consistency as if God had dumped a giant bag of light brown sugar along the coast, and locals were line fishing in the ocean. I didn't drink out of any coconuts, but it was still pretty nice.

Brazil life revolves around the beach; go to any shop that has clothes and your options are beach shorts and shirts with surfing themes, or nudity (ironically, for a culture that is so sexually open, going topless at the beach is actually a big no-no). Flip flops are considered formal wear, fit for weddings or bar mitzvahs, and I think shorts are OK for anything except maybe Church. Ironically though (again), Brazilians in the cities still look pretty fancy, just in a different way from the more formal fanciness of other countries in South America. Actually being a scrubby surf bum makes you look... well, scrubby. I realized this yesterday at the mall, where I caught sight of myself in a well lit, full length mirror for the first time in several weeks. Somehow, wearing the same clothes for days on end, having straw-like, salt-stained hair, and grubby, peeling skin isn't so sexy in the world of the mall. Especially since right before I saw myself, I saw a group of really skinny, really tall people, mostly girls, looking definitely made up and definitely sexy. Then I noticed the portfolios and self-portraits in their hands; it was some kind of model try-out (a sidenote, models are even skinnier and weirder looking in real life than they are in magazines. I swear every one of those girls I saw has an eating disorder. What, I said "sexy," not "attractive"). I guess I thought I was fitting right in with my look, but I think a closer description of how I was looking would be "homeless."

In closing, I would like to describe the traditional Brazilian method of getting the attention of someone who is waiting on you (eg waiter or sales clerk): his loudly, like an angry cobra, and wave your hand wildly. There are some customs that I will just never adapt to...