Day 5 - Cumbuco

After a late Monday night out on the town, we were certainly less than pleased to have to wake up bright and early on Tuesday at around 7:30am. Little did we know that this would become a trend all week - going to bed late, waking up early. Suffice to say that I quickly learned how to sleep on the bus, both to and from the beaches! Some of the beaches were as much as two hours away, so we had quite a bit of napping time.

Cumbuco was one such beach, several hours away in a remote area. The tour guide explained to everyone (while us non-Portuguese speakers slept ;o) that there were options on things we could do at the beach, such as renting dune buggy rides, sand surfing on the dunes, and going out on a boat. We signed up for a package that included all three options for 33 reais each, which is like $12 (talk about a steal). When Daniel was telling us about these things, he kept calling the buggys "boogies" and saying that each "boogie" fit four people on it and I was totally confused, probably because I was in a foggy state of mind after sleeping for a few hours on the bus. I equate "boogie" with boogie (or body) boards, you know, the things we rode on waves as kids with. So I was envisioning four people riding on a boogie board down some steep sand hills and it sounded kind of strange to me. I didn't realize that he was talking about buggies until a few minutes later, and then it was clear. Hey, I'm not a morning person - anymore!

So first up, we took a boat ride out into the ocean. It looked and sounded pretty fun, going sailing in the beautiful ocean where the water was nice and warm (it was probably around 75 degrees). My mind drifted back to sailing with catamarans on Lake Tahoe and stuff, so that sounded pretty cool to me. Then we saw the sailors and the boat and realized that this wasn't going to be a luxury trip on the boat. Very rustic boats with hardened, seasoned sailors on it. Unfortunately, since there was nowhere to store our things, we had to leave the cameras behind so we couldn't capture how rustic these things were.

When we finally got lined up on the boat (these things are TINY, couldn't hardly fit all six of us, especially with Stefan ;o), they had to wait for waves to come up so that we could push off. While we were riding out, Daniel was talking to the sailors and telling us their situation. These people were clearly very poor and we realized how the tour companies were taking advantage of them. But, they were happy just to have the opportunity to make some extra money. For every 10 reais that the tourists paid, the sailors got 0.30 reais of the money. The restaurant, tour company, and the agents took the remaining 9.70 reais. This wasn't even enough money for the sailors to live on, so every month they would go out for three or four times for three days on this tiny boat and catch fish to feed themselves. This isn't a canoe-like boat, it's basically got a flat deck on it and, like I said, we had to finagle and rearrange so that six of us could sit down. There isn't any kind of holding tank for the fish, so they would go on cages on the deck. In order to sleep, the sailors would have to sleep standing up, sort of like the comatose sleep I do on the subway. Except they're in the middle of the ocean, hundreds of km from land.

Anyway, they took us out to the ocean and we all go to go swimming for a few minutes and then climb back onboard and haul ass back to land. The wind was so strong everyday at the beach, it's no wonder windmills are popular ways to make energy out there. Once we got back, it was time for lunch (lobster, shrimp, fish, and veggies were our staples for the week's lunches) and afterwards, dune "boogie" time.

Stefan, Daniel, and Kelly hopped onto one buggy and Roland, Csilla, and I jumped on the other one with Vas and I sitting on the back in Csilla in the front seat. Daniel told us that the driver can take us "with emotion" (meaning driving like a maniac) or "without emotion". I know that these guys are professional drivers and all, but we had no idea how crazy they would be, so we developed a hand signal, thumbs up for driving more crazy and thumb down for chilling out a little bit. The drivers took us up into the dunes and, after driving off a cliff that scared the crap out of us, took us to the top of the hill so that we could go sand surfing.

There was a lagoon (probably more like a cesspool ;o) at the bottom of the steep hill and they had wooden boards that they waxed up for us to sit on and ride down the hill. You had to use your hands behind you to control your speed, balance, and steer. It sounded pretty easy, but was actually quite difficult. I finally made it to the cesspool on the third try after Daniel and Roland had each made it in at least once. Of course, the hardest part about the rides was having to climb back up the hill, lugging the board behind you. They had a snowboard-like device for the hill as well but I didn't dare push my luck with that. There was a Brazilian kid who was the son of one of the guys who rode it very well though. Funny to think that he's never seen snow before but he could snowboard very well....

After the sand surfing, it was back to the dune "boogies" for an awesome trip across the dunes, flying down sandy trails and tearing up the dunes and stopping for pictures. It was quite exhilirating and we only had to give the drive a thumbs up once for more "emotion" and high speed passing of the other dune buggies. It was totally awesome!

Afterwards, we hung out at the beach for a bit longer, body surfing as usual and soaking up the scenery and the sun. Honestly, I spent most of the trip under umbrellas which explains my lack of tan - and sunburn. The sun was vicious that close to the equator and I'd rather be a whitey than have a burn. There were some donkeys that were dressed up and available for rides. We didn't ride them, but since Daniel referred to them as jackasses (he was being serious when he said that word), Stefan immediately clung to the Portuguese word (asno) and used it whenever he could, even though you don't call someone an "asno" (like we call Stefan jackass). Asno became one of our top-10 terms of the trip, though, especially with Kelly and her imitation of one.

After lounging all day, it was back on the bus and nappy-nappy time for us. Once we got back, we cleaned up for the evening and were planning a mellow night after a busy couple of days. We decided that this would be the glutonous night, so we headed to Sal E Brasa, a traditional Brazilian churrascaria (barbeque restaurant). This basically involved gorging ourselves on as much meat and side items as humanly possible for the price of about $15. There's a full salad bar with various casseroles and salad items to munch on beforehand (including things like olives, cheese, hearts of palm, sushi, etc.) and once you finish that, it's meat time. You have a coaster that is red on one side and green on the other, and once you flip that thing to green, you are bombarded by waiters carrying skewers of different kinds of meat and asking you if you would like this meat or that meat. They come by one at a time the whole night and you can pick and choose if you want prime rib, chicken hearts, chicken marinated in champagne, filet mignon, lamb, etc. Yes please!

After fiilling our bellies with caiparinhas and pounds of meat, it was time to work off a few of those calories, so we went to the street markets to do some shopping. Well, the girls did some shopping anyway. Kelly apparently had been practicing and we found that she was very good with her new fulltime job - spending Daniel's money. Daniel, demonstrating his proficiency in using English cuss words, summed it up pretty well, "I'm f**ked" ;o) . It's hilarious hanging out with people like him and Roland who don't speak English as a first language because, despite having a few grammatical errors when they speak, they have absolutely no issues when it comes to using cuss words. They always use them grammatically correctly and at appropriate spots in their sentences. I think they hung out with Stefan too much ;o)

After walking around and shopping at the street markets, we tried to round everybody up to head back to the hotel but we couldn't find Roland and Csilla. But we weren't in any major hurry, so Stefan and I lacksidasically walked back to the hotel after looking for them, stopping to watch some crazy Brazilian soccer game being played on concrete and admiring people playing a mix of volleyball-soccer, which is like playing volleyball, except you can't use your hands. Feet, chest, legs, and head are used to block, bump, pass, and dink the ball over the net. These guys are amazing.

We arrived at the hotel to find everyone in the normal location at the hotel - the corner poker table that was baptized as our poker-playing spot. Vas had his chips out and stacked and ready to rumble. Daniel joined the party and we got our caiparinhas or Guarana (Brazilian soda) and Vas transformed into the yuppy that we all know and love by ordering a glass of cognac (yuck) and busting out his Cohiba Siglo III cigars from the duty free store for us to chew on and smoke. He recently became a fan of the expensive cognac and so he ordered the best stuff they had, supposedly something called XO cognac (I guess that's a ranking). He milked that glass that night, as cognac should be milked. We found out the next day that the stuff he got was actually the lowest "ranking" cognac (VS? VSOP? Something like that) that the hotel had since they were out of the XO stuff. No wonder it was only $8 a glass :o).

Roland ended up being poker champion that night, once we finished at around 2:00am. I was ready to pass out and ended up in fourth (out of five) place, pretty embarrasing. I stuck around and shuffled cards to see who would win. And, more importantly, I got to see Daniel fold a straight when the river was turned over. He had two 3's in hand and didn't notice the straight, so he showed his cards and folded to Roland, handing a sizable chunk of change over to the eventual winner and leading him to victory - for the night ;o)

Justinho, will I ever finish this week?

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