Rising Tides

I arrive at Porto da Barra beach at an early hour. It is a luminous day and the Bay of All Saints seems magical in the sunshine, a heady mix of greens and blues. As the wind whips through the sky flinging sand and sea birds farther inland, the body of this century’s old secluded port churns with laughter, broken only by the monstrous cargo ships that assail her tepid waters. On days like today, when Iemanja the goddess of the sea really lets her gifts shine, all feel blessed, streaming to the beach in groves to offer their own happiness as reward.

On a small stretch of shore, situated by the solid Forte de São Pedro, the Porto da Barra beach quivers with revel rousers—a crown stylishly jeweled with a thousand beach chairs, shade umbrellas, and passerbys. The site of Bahia’s first European settlement, Vila Velha, or the Old Village, this place has seen its share of history. To think, how many people must have stood there, two feet planted in the sand, with a smile spread headlong into the sea. An emperor’s army, I think, enough to fill the sky.

I arrive by motorbike, burning my 250 cc machine past the beach front bars. Weekends, full of sun are what Latin/Lusitanian America is all about. I park my bike and join in with the crowd, grabbing my havaianas to walk through the sand and smile with the rest of them. “Would you like a chair amigo, a beer, a place to sit?” Hawkers are everywhere, selling their long dangled earrings, their hammocks, their beach towels, necklaces, and sun screen. One taller black man walks through the swarm, singing a melodic “Meu nome é João, eu vendo camarão!” that plays softly in my ears. The place seems to pulse with life, a kind of natural torso that moves in and out as it breathes.

In the middle of the beach by the volleyball net, I sit down and relax, trading my board shorts in for a revealing sunga—a kind of men’s swimwear reminiscent of a jungle thong. I sit down to bathe in the sun, hoping to increase my legitimacy as a native by tanning in between the lines. To my right, my beach side companion grins, a beautiful girl of poetic charm, a kind of Salvadorian muse whose laugh reminds me of the sea.

Taking it all in, all of it, including the sand crabs, the laughing kids, the guys playing racquetball, I smile to myself, joining in the holy communion of the crowd. What a Saturday this is, a beach day, a winter day in Bahia, Brazil! Sometimes the tropics are nice, sometimes they are unbelievable.

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