Porto Seguro

Porto Seguro.  

This city was also a popular one when I told everyone that I was going to end up visiting it.  The best reaction that I got was from my Portuguese teacher.  Now, for you to understand the exchange well I have to back up and tell you a little bit about him.  I had his class once a week and he usually spent a good half of the class arguing with me about various things.  The most common topic was drinking.  He would always ask me if was getting drunk enough on the weekends and I would always remind him that I can't drink because Rotary has a rule.  He would get so frustrated because he thought that this was absurd!  Always saying,  "But you have to drink!  You're in Brazil and you're 18!"  And I would always calmly explain that I couldn't, and he didn't need to get worked up about it.  But anyway, the subject about my trip came up in class one day and as usual I recited off the cities that I would visit.  When I got to Porto Seguro he got this great big smile on his face and stopped me.  Then he said, "You will drink in Porto Seguro.  There is no other way."  He and the other students as well went on to explain to me that Porto Seguro was a popular senior trip option and generally all of the high school students and the chaperones got smashed during the trip.  So this was the idea of Porto Seguro before I visited it.  And let me just say that I didn't drink, so, dear professor if you are reading this, I won.  

This was my version of Porto Seguro.  I hope you like it.

First of all, there was, of course, a lot of beach time.  Here we have the white gringo proudly bearing her mirror-white skin.  I do promise that I was a lot whiter before.  Right next to the beach there was a stage with dancers dancing a typical style of Brazilian dance called Axé.  It was kinda like hip hop.  There was a space in front of the stage where a bunch of people gathered to dance along with them, learning the different songs and dance moves as they went.  I was definitely one of those people.

I thought that Porto Seguro was more of a historical town than a party town, from what I saw.  I loved the little colorful, old houses.  Super tropical.

There were also some people selling natural and local healing remedies.  I found a lot of remedies that I was familiar with, such as arnica.  

Another cultural experience was capoeira! More capoeira!  We got to participate and then watch a demonstration.  I am wearing the pink and green shirt in the photo below.

Here we have the first church constructed in Brazil.

Back to the beach with giant watermelon!  These were one of the things sold by the various people walking down the beach.  Fresh, cold watermelon? Yes please.