Vacationing From Vacationing

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My boogers are still black from that train ride two days ago. Lord knows what my lungs look like. My hands, well, I was finally able to wash them clean once we got back to Rio this afternoon. Previous to that...

We checked out of our crappy hotel on the outskirts of town yesterday morning so we could check into a crappy hotel in the thick of the pure awfullery of Vitoria. Our room was tiny, lightless, and already occupied by a twelve-pound cockroach named Thiago. Thiago showed us around a bit - the bathroom, where the light switches were, how to open the windows - and thus didn't take kindly to me trying to smash him flat. Now I know, you shouldn't step on cockroaches. They might be pregnant and, if they are, will scatter their eggs everywhere upon the initial smoosh. But we were only going to be here one night and anyway, the presence of new life in this place would only add an element of inspiring beauty it was severely lacking in the first place. On the eighth stomp, it was apparent for the moment that I might finally have killed the sucker.

Ugly ugly. At some point in the afternoon it was time to visit a beach. Beaches are pretty. Even the smoggy waters of Lake Michigan look nice from a distance. So we headed to Praia de Camburi, which would theoretically promise not just pretty beaches but a seafood stew known as moqueca and maybe a couple of them coconuts with the yummy water inside.

Camburi was beautiful. If you find oil rigs beautiful. And dirt. And waves that wash up plastic cups, Kleenex boxes, and Apple IIe motherboards.

The one good thing I can finally say about Vitoria is the moqueca is deliciously heavy on the cilantro.

Upon returning to the aforementioned thick of the pure awfullery of Vitoria, we stopped into an internet cafe whose three-meter staircase to the door sported a lovely array of at least ten more dead cockroaches but whose owner offered us warm smiles and citrus candies. He asked us where we were from and began to speak with inspiring pride about his hometown of Vitoria. We couldn't believe it. Was there something we missed? Maybe there's another Vitoria somewhere, where angels sing and children are quiet and açaí is provided by the complimentary bucketful? We certainly weren't going to tell him what we thought, and we had already settled on hopping the first bus to Rio the next morning, but he almost convinced us to change our minds as he spoke of a place with undying passion... a beach, he said, the best beach in Vitoria, the one I supposed we must have missed, the one that would completely turn our impressions of Vitoria upside-down. He gave us the number of a bus, and wrote down the name of the place on a piece of paper so we wouldn't forget:

"Praia de Camburi."

So here we are in Rio, less than 24 hours later, sitting comfortably back at Tupiniquim and taking a well-needed break from vacationing. At least for another day or two. The beaches at Ilha Grande are next on the itinerary, but in the meantime, I'm off to shoot some pool in the hostel's common area and maybe blow my nose a few more times.

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Photos

The least unpleasant view of Vitoria
You guessed it: This is the beach.

Comments

[drae j namaste-rose]

traveling is fun..
see? the beach was better..