•Islands (Sept./Oct. 2001)

My friend Claudio and I drag our slightly haggard selves up the steps from the boat landing at Ilha de Tinhare, pass through an old stone arch, and enter the village of the Morro de São Paulo. It’s the weekend after Carnival, and we’ve come to this small island in the state of Bahia, in northeast Brazil, to recover.

Claudio lives in Salvador, Bahia’s capital, where this year some two million people, including a reported several hundred thousand toursis like me, thronged the streets every night of the annual party—second only to Carnival in Rio as the biggest pre-Lent celebration on earth. For me it was a chance to dive further into Brazilian culture and enrich my passable Portuguese with a Carnival-specific lexicon. As a result, my vocabulary now includes a new usage for brincar (to play). In Brazil you don’t “spend” or “do” Carnival; you “play” it. And there is pipoca, literally, “popcorn”; but in Bahia it refers to those who are out playing Carnival in the all-night-every-night street parties but are not allied with any one parade float or musical group.

I myself may have overpopped; in fact, owing to my celebratory diligence, I have added one more phrase, ressaca do carnaval (Carnival hangover) to the list of new words. As an antidote, Claudio proposed an overnight in Morro de São Paulo. And so this morning I took a bus to meet him at the ferry landing. Every day during Carnival I had ridden that same city bus, and every day it had been filled with animated adolescents plastered with temporary tattoos, the latest craze in personal party décor. But this morning, with a ressaca  hanging over all of Salvador, the bus was quiet, the tattoos cracked and peeling, the city strangely subdued.

We boarded the morning ferry, which took us across the bay to the island of Itaparica, where we caught a bus across a causeway to the mainland town of Valença, where we caught another boat to the island of Tinharé, which lies some 50 miles from Salvador, in a fluvial archipelago of about 30 islands. There is a more direct way to reach Morro, but Claudio had insisted we get the full experience, milk the sense of distance.

Now that we’ve finally arrived, we make our way from the stone arch above the dock and through the village center—a couple of cobblestone streets lined with attractive shops, restaurants, and little hotels—in search of lodging by the beach. Claudio has in mind a bed-and-breakfast where he stayed a year o two back. Pousada Vila Shalom, located on the second of the island’s four beaches (commonly referred to by number: First Beach, Second Beach…), is clean, cheap, and completely full. Clearly, Claudio is not the only self-appointed doctor prescribing this post-Carnival cure.

Beyond the B and B, the beach is an endless maze of deck chairs, umbrellas, thatched-roof refreshment huts, and bronzing (or burning) bodies. I feel a bit daunted by the idea of seeking lodging elsewhere—the sun is high and our energy low. We’re supposed to be here to recharge, not exert. Fortunately, a nice young man employed in a nebulous manner at the front desk turns out to be a friend of Claudio’s friend’s brother. (Connections—even distant ones—are important in Brazil.) We’re told to leave our bags, and they’ll see what they can do.

Now the cure begins in earnest. The first stop on our healing pilgrimage is Fonte do Céu (Font of Heaven).

“It’s not a waterfall,” Claudio warns me. “I was expecting a waterfall the first time I came, and I was disappointed.”

Leaving the village center we ascend a steep path, passing large homes set amongh thick foliage. Some are pousadas (guest houses); others are weekend getaways owned by residents of Salvador. Farther up, the houses are closer together and a lot less posh, and the path becomes more of a drainage ditch. We cross a few backyards and duck under some clotheslines before arriving on a small plateau that offers a vista of sea and sky competing in joyful blues. We are winded.

The last house on the hill runs a bar and the rustic chairs and benches look inviting. We sit for a moment, panting, willing ourselves to be restored by the beauty of the landscape. I’m thankful it’s downhill from here, where the path narrows and enters a tropical forest. I’m not up to close observation, but I can’t help noticing the squawks, cheeps, and trills issuing from the greenery, or hoping that the insistent bird calls will soon overcome the sound loop of Carnival hits still playing in my head.

I am not disappointed by Fonte do Céu, which, as Claudio said, is not a waterfall but a substantial spring flowing from an unseen source on the hillside above a small cave. In front of the cave is a rock platform where you stand to be pummeled by the cascading spring water.

After the demands of the journey and the climb, it’s hard to imagine a more refreshing sensation. Claudio whoops repeatedly. We’re getting purified. As we head back down the path, I notice that the ferns, succulents, and fungi of the forest seem to stand out more from their surroundings and that sounds in the village—whether from radios or dogs—are louder than when we first passed.

We make our way back to the Pousada vila Shalom, where we’re greeted with the excellent news that a room has opened up. We’re already in our bathing suits, so we just refresh the sunblock and walk toward the ocean, only 100 feet away. But before we can wet our feet, we encounter a beach bar, and without much reflection, we order an ice cold beer. (We, along with nearly every other passenger, had our first on the ferry to the island. At home in North America, a beer in the morning signals a problem; here, it signals thirst.)

In front of the bar, a shirtless potbellied man stands before a blender, whipping up frozen slushes of açaí, a deep purple frut considered to have energizing poperties. Usually eaten with granola sprinkled on top, it’s a healthful treat we decide to save for later in our regimen.

Soon enough we’re wading in the warm azure water. There are waves, but because we stay close to shore, we don’t’ really have to deal with them. Knowing that Claudio does a lot of snorkeling, I ask the question I always ask at a beach: Are there sharks?

“Yeah, there are sharks, but they’re Bahian sharks. They’re lazy; they’d rather lie around,” he says, joking about the Brazilian stereotype of the Bahian as someone who avoids work at all costs. “It’s too much work to attack you.”

By dinnertime, the cure really seems to be taking effect. We toast our success with another beer. The village is filling with others who share our drowsy, contented state. We’re sitting on the steps of the church that overlooks the water, when we hear the tootle and boom of a marching band. It’s a quartet of older guys—a trumpeter, a saxophonist, and two drummers—all wearing natty jackets and shuffling up the street, playing a samba. The band pauses in front of the church plaza, and before I know it, Claudio and I are joining 10 or 15 other people in the street, surrounding the band, dancing, and singing: “Mama, give me a pacifier. Mama, give me a pacifier. Mama, give me a pacifier, so I wont’ drink and cry no more.”

This feels all too familiar. It’s Carnival all over again and who am I to stop the unstoppable, resist the irresistible? So we samba, for hours, from one end of the village center to the other, talking with the guy who manages the band, laughing at a little girl who dances with her mother, staying out fo the way of the dog that gallops and jumps more enthusiastically than anyone, until we finally hurtle down to the beach and collapse beneath the stars.

Sunday, we get serious. We eat açaí with granola. And though we arrive a bit late to see the natural pool that forms at Fourth Beach—the tide has already come in—we hike up to the lighthouse and explore the old fort that adjoins the stone arch by the ferry dock. Not realizing that there’s an easy path down to the sheltered and relatively unfrequented Fort Beach, we get there the hard way, scrambling across the rocks from First Beach, on the other side of the village center.

We’re starting to feel virtuous again. Remembering that Claudio, along with the rest of the state, has to be back at work Monday makes me wonder if the stereotype of the indolent Bahian doesn’t bother him.

“I don’t think anyone likes to work,” he replies thoughtfully. “But we admit it. You can’t take material things with you when you die, but I believe you can take memories, of good experiences, beautiful places.” So if I hear him right, the Bahian, while partying, is actually looking well ahead.

Satisfied with his response, I lie back in the gentle waves and let the sun dissolve whatever unnameable toxins are still coursing through my veins. Was this cure a hair of the dog that bit us, I wonder, or another dog entirely? Is Carnival itself sickness or remedy? These are important questions that demand further applied research...just not right now.