Have found myself falling into a bit of a routine. But its a great routine!
Breakfast at the pousada. I usually get an omelet and then try some the various breads and fruit. Fried plantains are awesome. There are these round little breads which appeared the one day - they are basically homemade cheese balls! They are so good, I actually cleared out the basket this morning. I also tried Acai juice which is nothing like what we get at home. But thats to be expected when they make the juices fresh from the actual fruit each morning. If there arent too many people at breakfast they will let you pick what juice you want. So among the choices was cacao (apparently Im staying on the cacao coast). So I ordered it maybe expecting a hint of chocolate but nope not at all. The cacao fruit is just a fruit. Made a very mild flavored juice, nothing real exciting.
Next is surfing for 4 hours with a couple breaks to rest. Saturday I was feeling really tired and sore but I still had an awesome day (best so far). Was catching waves pretty consistently. The instructors are awesome. You could catch a great wave but they will still point out ways to improve- they will say great wave but dont forget to bring your knees in, etc. At the beach there is a little shack that sells food and drinks. They use tapioca flakes and line the bottom of the pan with it. Then they add whatever you want (ham/cheese/tomato/oregano is my favorite), but they also have sun meat, chicken and even sweat ones with fruit, caramel, etc. The tapioca forms a little tortilla. Its quite odd looking but tastes great after surfing. We also had a bbq on the beach on friday with steak, sausage, rice, farofa, beans, and a tomato salad. Really great food.
After surfing is a shower and a trip to the coffee shop. I get my cafe gelado (which is basically an iced mocha milkshake) and a piece of pie. Or sometimes we will walk further down pituba (the main street) to the bakery and get a torte or piece of cake.
In the evening, at 7:30 we meet up and watch the video of the day. Get to see what we did well and what we need to fix. They are so good at repeating the things we need to work on. The feedback is awesome and has definitely improved my surfing. I think the thing I like best is they are always trying to push you to the next level.
Afterwards we all go out to dinner. Last night we went to Casarao amarelo which is restaurant in a refurbished historic building. Sat and ate on the veranda looking out at the water. Had filet mignon and gorganzola risotto. It was so delicious I actually finished every last bit despite the large portion. Then we went to the bar downstairs to watch a band play. They were apparently doing covers but I cant say I recognized many of them but the guitarist was pretty good. After we tired of trying to figure out what song was playing we went on to the next bar called Favela. So some of the bars here are hilarious to look at. They put a big table in the street filled with alcohol and tons of fruit. These muscular guys dressed only in shorts and an apron stand out the street with all their fruit ...and alcohol making drinks with a hand mixer. The first time I saw it I thought maybe we had walked too far and were in south beach or something. Then you enter the bar and grab a table or bar stool. So strange! We stayed out pretty late since we had today off from surfing.
Today (the one day of rest) started with a late breakfast and then wandered around the town a bit and took some photos. Walked down pituba to the other beaches on the other side of town. They are beautiful beaches but I decided to walk back to the beach across from my pousada that has lounge chairs with beach service :) I know its lazy but its my day off! Ran into one of the other surfers (a girl from Switzerland, who also just ran her first marathon just before coming here) and we hung out on the beach most of the day. There was a brazilian drum band playing at the beach which was really cool (so much better than the cover band from last night). Then headed back to town to meet up with others to watch a local soccer game on tv at a bar. Also went to watch a local basketball tournament that one of the surf instructors was in. It was basically just local kids (and some adults) that were playing for fun. Overall a relaxing day and hopefully Ive given my arms enough of a break to do this all over again for another week!
Recent Comments