Finding Joy in Simplicity: Living in Itacaré

Some say Brazil’s a dangerous place. On my first days in the Bahian surf town Itacaré, where the mouth of the Rio de Contas meets the Atlantic Ocean, I was mugged, as it were, by the contrast between two things. The first was the shit-out-of-luck search for a newspaper; a situation which is foreign to anyone who’s lived a life in cities. And just as I was getting used – warming, even – to the idea of living in a more detached, straightforward part of the world, came the second. Over beers with locals, I was struck by the recurring turn, “É complicado aqui.”

As a region, Bahia is a vast northeastern chunk of Atlantic coast, pocked with coconut groves, cacao plantations, summer heat and clammy-hands humidity. Bays flutter with reggae and football; boats haul fresh catches into bustling markets, surfers carve their paths. Waterfalls and bastard mosquitoes abound. Kids have kites. Marijuana. To the uninitiated, so it goes: there is absolutely nothing complicated here.

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How to Not Suck at Surfing

how-to-not-suck-at-surfing

“Surfing recreates you. I went into the water literally ready to blow my brains out and came back out of the water a warrior.” ~ Doc Paskowitz (Click to tweet)

How long should it take to learn to surf? It’s difficult to know. It is, it seems, a monstrous task for anyone who’s not twelve.

From Cornwall to Santander to Biarritz, I have snatched and grabbed at surfing for years: a day here, a stag-do there, the occasional long weekend flash-flooding my sinuses and wishing something that looks so cool would be so much easier for the rest of us. Until recently, it had been a frustrating journey.

Then, I had one of those perfect days where everything that I had to remember to remember was right where I needed it to be. As the waves rolled in along Engenhoca beach in Brazil, I felt everything that surfing had ever promised.

I grinned like a loon.

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