ESCAPE

POINT OF NO

RETURN PART 2

After one caipifruita—sweet and fiery Brazilian cane liquor muddled with sugar and mango—I meander, a little lightheaded, between the village’s small storefronts. Candy-colored cotton hammocks weave a multi-colored web across one, and the turquoise walls of another are lined with shelves of handmade leather sandals. The sweetest souvenirs come from baskets piled high with saran-wrapped cocada de cacao. These fudgy spheres stuffed with shredded coconut are the delicious reward of the Bahian climate, which nurtures coconut palms on the beach and cacao trees in the jungle.

It was cacao that brought men to this rain-forested region of Bahia in the late 1800s. They came from all over Brazil, and fought wars for the lush land where cacao trees flourished and made them rich as exporters. The end of this violent era, “when fortunes were being multiplied and when progress was changing the face of the town,” serves as Amado’s setting for Gabriela, the book that has backpacked with me through Bahia. The sensual story makes the cocada even more appealing.

Just as I unwrap one of sticky chocolate mounds I feel a hand on my shoulder.

Busted.

“Have you had dinner yet?” It’s Magna, just off from work at the Pousada. I shake my head, afraid I’ll be scolded for fortifying myself with caipifruitas and cocada. Instead she links her elbow in mine, telling me she’s on her way to a friend’s creperie for dinner.

For days I’ve been gorging myself on traditional Bahian food: langoustines, shrimp, fish stewed in coconut milk, all with seasoning, as Amado put it, “somewhere between the divine and the sublime.” I decide to take a night off from the author’s recommended dishes and let Magna lead me into an open-air bar with surfboards and swirling fans suspended from the ceiling.

We drink fresh pineapple juice and eat crepes folded with melted white cheese, olives, salty ham and hearts of palm. I have a hankering for a frosty blended bowl of açai, an indigo Amazon berry espoused for its energizing power, but worry it will keep me from sleeping. Magna laughs out loud, and waves over the waiter. “I don’t think anything is going to keep you up tonight,” she says.

The next morning on the bus out of town, I lean my head against the window. I’m a little beat-up, but happily so, with sunburnt cheeks, jungle dirt under my fingernails and a smattering of surf-earned scrapes and bruises.

As we pull away from the village, a sign warns: “Devegar, Area Urbana.” Go Slow. It seems ridiculous to think of Itacaré of an urban area, but as access improves, development is scrambling to keep up.

The road my bus is driving on is only twelve years old. It would take me two hours to get to the nearest airport, then two airplanes to get back to Rio.

Now a new highway from Salvador, Bahia’s capital, is just one bridge away from completion. When it halves the driving time to Itacaré, that sign will take on new meaning. I hope the Bahians continue to take their own advice: deixa-le rolar, and remember to Go Slow.

-Jenni Avins