Over the hills, under the moon - and off the beaten path

Vidigal on the slopes of Dois Irmãos - one of the photos, which back in Denmark persuaded me it could be nice to live in a favela   When we planned for Rio, Michael came up with a longtime dream of spending some time in a favela - one of the vast slum like areas, which are covering the slopes of some of the many mountains in and around Rio. I wasn't keen on doing it, having heard of the violent crime and abject poverty inside the favelas - but Michael worked hard to persuade. He had found an apartment in Vidigal, a township,  which within the last couple of years had almost come to the threshold of being  gentrified. All his research told him, Vidigal would be vibrant, exciting, safe  - and when he showed a photo of the view from what could be our future rooftop terrace - the Atlantic Ocean with huge waves crashing towards the rocks below the terrace - it was a done deal! ...

Brazil is  the fifth-largest country in the world - and to really feel its size, we decided to travel by bus  from Itacaré to our next destination, Rio de Janeiro. It looked like just a small, local route, when you saw it on a Brazilian map - but Brazil IS a vast country and driving the distance would actually take us almost 27 hours. The first few hours, we regretted the decision of going by bus. The guy behind the wheel seemed to be a driver from hell. We were thrown from side to side, while the speeding bus skirted along winding roads. Eventually, though, we, the driver and the bus seemed to get accustomed to each other. The driver might still be going far too fast on the narrow, bumpy roads, but we had buckled our seat belts, and we now found time to look out the window. We spent hours watching endless stretches of Atlantic rain forest, of vast grass plains scattered with flocks of...

    Today, the last day before leaving Itacaré, we finally reached it. THE BEACH. Prainha. The one we, way back in January, saw on a photograph and decided, we just had to visit You can't go to Prainha by road. You have to trek a couple of miles inside the jungle, which surrounds Itacaré. This jungle is one of the last, large expanses of Atlantic rain forest left in Brazil, and - especially in the early morning - it is teeming with animal life. There are monkeys like brown howlers and masked titis. There are sloths, armadillos -  and even jaguars! The other day an old man had been attacked by a jaguar not far from our town. With all this in mind, we actually found it quite exciting trekking down the narrow jungle paths, not knowing what waited at the next bend. Being extremely nervous about snakes, Rita has a feeling they are almost magnetically drawn towards her. And it might be true: She's  come across snakes around the world in...

  Surfers are known for saying "The best surfers out in the water are the ones having the most fun." In that respect - and ONLY in that respect - we might have been the best surfers on Engenhoca Beach  today. Because - boy - did we have fun in our first surfing class ever. OK - as newbies, we didn't 'do the barrel' or 'roll the turtle'. We were content just hitting the right wave and being catapulted forward, towards the beach, in an explosion of bubbles and foam. Surfing is not easy. Not in any way, but, while Michael chose a boogieboard and were able to speed along from get-go, I went for the classic longboard and had to take several hours of tedious instructions. The longboard teacher, Aldi, was a rugged man about my age, who had surfed almost since he, as a toddler, began crawling out into the water. He now used his many years of expertise, to show me how to get up on a board and how to find a point of balance, while picking up more s...

      We've now stayed a full week in Itacaré . It's for sure one of the most easygoing and truly lovely towns, we've ever visited. Yesterday, we decided one week wasn't enough. We prolonged our stay with ten more days (and this morning I even passed a tiny, beautiful house which was for sale down at the old harbor. Momentarily I dreamt about us settling down here more permanently!) Even though a week has gone by, we still haven't found time (or stamina!) to explore the jungle for the famous, hidden beach! The Spanish have the saying 'mañana'. I wonder if Brazilians put the same meaning into ' amanhã'. They should - at least in this town, where every day is yet another day tiptoeing around on a  sizzling, red-hot frying pan. Whenever a big plan comes along during the day, I stay in any shadow I can find with a nice book and mumble a 'Tomorrow is another day...

It started this winter with a photo of a lovely, hidden beach outside the small coastal town of Itacaré. Exploring that beach was our reason for going to Brazil Last night, we arrived in the town after a ferry trip from Salvador across the 'Baia de Todes os Santos' and then taking a local bus for many hours south through the endless stretches of cocoa plantations along the Atlantic coast. We're not yet on THE beach (it is hidden and you have to walk  into the jungle to find it) But even at the local beach, just outside the town, the waves are hitting hard. High above the tops of the palm trees, stretching towards the blistering sunlit sky is a group of black, vulture-like birds flying around in endless circles. Itacaré lies, where the Rio de Contas runs into the ocean, creating a natural harbor. It was known as a mooring place for pirate ships and whalers and in modern times it was one of the places, where cargo vess...

  Every carnival season Salvador is the scene for the greatest street party in the entire world.  According to the Guinness Book of Records, it's bigger than Rio, bigger than anywhere on the globe. Of course, we had to join the party, but as Rita feel very claustrophobic inside huge masses of people, we decided against going to the main events at Campo Grande or Circuito Dodo, where hundreds of thousands would be crammed into the avenues along the seafront. Not risking that, we made two flies with one bash, by going to the old, colonial part of Salvador, the Upper city or Cidade Alta, which we really wanted to see.  Here the carnival was supposed to be more intimate. You go to the upper city by taking the famous almost 150 years old  Lacerda Elevator - the oldest public elevator in the world. In just 30 seconds, we moved up 70 meters and walked out towards the most beautiful view of the Bay of al...