Trancoso – another beautiful beachside hideaway!

We had a few days where there were no guests staying at the Pousada so Ali and Damo invited us to go with them on a road trip down the coast to Trancoso. Now I have said it before and I will say it again, Brazil is vast and Trancoso approximately 400km and 7 hours of driving to the south is still in Bahia. It was well worth the effort to get there, a gorgeous old fishing village, with one of the first churches built in Brazil in the 1580s. It has been beautifully preserved with it’s multi-coloured, one storey houses now holding a variety of stunningly designed (and extortionately expensive!) boutique hotels, restaurants and shops. The Quadrado, the grassy square at the centre of the village is pedestrian only, and is where the main bulk of the pousadas, restaurants and shops lie. It is completely dead during the day as everyone is hanging out at the beach and the numerous trendy beach bars there and if there is one thing the Brazilians know how to do well. Several of e pousadas in the village have bars spread long the beach and our favourite was that belonging to Uxua (pronounced ooshua), the bar itself being created out of an old fishing boat.

Uxua’s bar on the beach

St.John chilling on the beach at Uxua

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The church of São João Batista dos Indios at the end of the Quadrado with its Atlantic backdrop

The Quadrado comes alive at night with the restaurants setting up tables under the huge old trees hung with lanterns and the shops opening their doors from 5pm onward. We were there in low season so the prices (apparently) weren’t as steep as normal and the atmosphere was very chilled. In high season things heat up a bit and the party vibe is in the air, but the steep prices manage to scare away mass tourism to a certain extent, possibly helped somewhat by it’s relative inaccessibility!

The Quadrado and the multicoloured fishermans’ houses now containing boutiques, pousadas and restaurants

We spent a couple of blissfully chilled days there (with perhaps a little bit of partying at night) in a fabulous pousada called El Gordo which, as the name suggests had fantastic petiscos (small dishes) – to die for Bolinhos de Bacalhau (brazilian fried cod ball these ones coated in panko crumbs), sea bass cerviche, salmon tartare and calamares fritos to name a few. It also had one of the best stocked bars we have seen since our travels began in January, with decent rose (very hard to find out here) as well as some proper gin (Hendricks!)/vodka (Chase!) and tonics. If you have ever travelled out here you will understand our group delight at finding these things, we really aren’t all alcoholics but cachaca (the favoured Brazilian drink made of sugar cane and headache inducing) and beer can wear a little thin, as can rice, beans and heavy meat based dishes, the favoured Brazilian staples. Another restaurant that bears mentioning is Capim Santo, a pousada and restaurant with more exquisite food, from balls of manioc stuffed with prawns to a wonderful salad of mango, pineapple and prawns lightly flavoured with lemon grass and chilli.

A visitor peers in our bedroom window!

As we were “on holiday” Ali and myself indulged in a little girly pampering with manis and pedis and of course we simply had to check out the shops. I managed to restrain myself from anything but window shopping, I simply don’t have the space in my bags (and the price tags were on par with London!) but was thoroughly tempted by many things from the super soft cotton Brazilian designer t-shirts, to wooden sculptures which would look great in your Bahian beach house to the delicate jewellery set with gemstones from Minas.

Trancoso is worth the time to get there and the money to spend time there. It is one of the most beautiful villages we have ever seen and as a stop on your holiday I couldn’t recommend it more. We will definitely be going back as there was plenty that we didn’t get round to doing, including a visit to Praia (beach) do Espelho 30 minutes down the coast, constantly making the lists of top beaches in the world. Caraiva is another village beyond Espelho only reachable by boat that we will also need to return to explore. I can’t wait….

Pineapple anyone?

Ali on the beach

Oí Brazil!

We are back on the road again, this time in Brazil. Until we got here we really had no concept of the vast size of Brazil, you can look at a map but it takes landing here and then trying to get to somewhere which really brings it home, Bahia, the state we currently are in, is itself the size of France.
We flew into Salvador and then made our way to the Marau Peninsular where we have been staying and helping out at friend’s Pousada (hotel). Barra Grande the town at the tip of the peninsular is a sweet little place which you can probably walk from one end to another in 15 minutes. The roads (really more road singular, though there are tracks coming off it leading to various properties and small villages) on the Marau Peninsular are appalling to put it mildly, 40km or so of red sand/mud track that becomes steadily more pot-holed the more it rains. The best form of transport is either quad bike or dirt bike and these are often driven along the beach making for a much smoother ride than the roads. Due to the relative difficulty of getting into and around the peninsular, it has so far escaped pretty much unscathed and unknown from mainstream tourism. There are quite a few very large, private houses and scattered, small pousadas and property here is at a premium. As is pretty much everything else, eating out is not cheap and nor is getting around as everything has to be brought in from outside. It is beautiful though with golden sand beaches that stretch on and on round every point and along which you can walk without seeing a soul.

Deserted Beaches, looking one way

Looking the other way!

Our introduction to Brazil, and to the Marau Peninsular in particular, has been to a place where the people are welcoming and warm, willing to try and understand our attempts at Portuguese. The pace of life is incredibly laid back, there is Brazil time and then Bahia time, meaning things here happen several days later. The natural backdrop is simply stunning, unspoilt coastline with the constant crashing of waves on the beach, it is a place you could simply sit and do nothing and just re-charge the batteries or you could hire a surf board, go for endless walks down the beach, explore the natural beauty of the place and the hundreds of small islands that scatter the bay. We have experienced beautiful sunsets over a freshwater lagoon, raced up the beach on quads and admired the giant bromeliads that grow wild here like some sort of pre-historic jungle. One day we visited a waterfall, Tremembe, a wonderful boat trip through the huge bay on the land side of the peninsular, dotted with islands and mangroves to where the sweet water abruptly cascades directly into the salt waters. We declined to swim in it this time round, the force of the water being a little too much after all the rain we have recently had but it the drier seasons it would be idyllic. Either way Bahia and the Marua Peninsula is a world away from England, something we can really appreciate after our recent visit back…

Tremembe Waterfall

Us at the top of Tremembe Waterfall

Boat on the bay

We have been here, at The Butterfly House (www.butterflyhousebahia.com) run by the fabulous Alienor and Damian, for about a month now which has been great for us on a number of levels. It is somewhere which encompasses all of the above. Small, intimate, friendly and stunningly designed and decorated by Chloe and the talented team she assembled over the years it took to bring the whole project to fruition, the style is a mixture of Brazilian, French and Moroccan which blends seamlessly. It is set in a tropical garden, with a meandering path running through it, between the 5 bungalows and down past the bar and restaurant to the never-ending beach. Our favourite area is probably the gîte style lounge by the pool, in the heart of the property, perfect for chilling or evening drinks. There is a talented chef, Elias, on site and the small but excellent menu changes regularly, depending on what they have in the kitchens that day. We have met some lovely people here and of course there has been a few late nights on the Caipirinhas, we are in Brazil after all where any excuse is taken to drink, dance and party!

The pool central area at the Butterfly House – it’s been tough staying here!

Our favourite bungalow at Butterfly – Amirante

View to the beach from one of the suites – Aurora

Bungalows (Sara and Agra) in the garden at Butterfly

Being here has given us the time to get ourselves sorted out for the next leg of our Latin American adventure, this time in South America. We have had the chance to brush up on our Portuguese, an absolute essential out here as no one speaks English and Spanish if of very limited help. We have also been able to get a real idea of how boutique hotels function in this part of the world, from the logistics of getting the food and alcohol to the site (not easy!), to the electrical supply issues inherent in this part of the world, to the staffing and hosting of a site like this.

Oysters and white wine on the beach, some days have been tough going!

We will be moving on soon but we will definitely be back in January as St.John’s brother is, by happy coincidence, getting married in Barra Grande to his lovely Brazilian fiancée, Leah. Our next part of the trip while still being an adventure is less about the travel and more about our future and what is out there for us. We are going to be exploring options and opportunities along the road and as they arise. We will continue to update the blog as and when we feel the time and necessity.

Cassange Beach in front of Butterfly

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