World Traveller November 2019

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The Old Town in Salvador 46 worldtravellermagazine.com
BRAZIL ‘ SALVADOR — WOW! NEVER MIND HAVANA, THIS IS THE LIVELIEST, MOST SULTRY COLONIAL CITY IN THE AMERICAS ’ Credit: The Sunday Times Travel Magazine / News Licensing Banda Didá, an all-female percussion band led by a woman with a huge pink Afro burst into the street below me, playing right below my table. A local couple at the next table looked across and smiled. ‘Vamos, amigo!’ they said. I had no choice. Salvador had taken me. So I joined them on the streets, to parade and dance behind Banda Didá, drink more Caipirinhas and finish the night goodness knows when. Sunday morning woke me with church bells and more percussion. I’d only had a few hours’ sleep, but I couldn’t resist Salvador’s drums. Later, as I cooled in the hotel pool with an açai-berry smoothie, I could feel myself coming dangerously close to giving in to Salvador’s seductive pull — there were all those markets to revisit, piquant food to sample, more glittering churches, more drum parades... ‘Stay,’ sang Salvador. Boipeba, I reminded myself. I needed to get there before Salvador sucked me in. So I skipped the overland route south via sugarcane fields and chocolate plantations and splashed out on an air taxi. The flight was spectacular — over the terracotta and high-rise sprawl of Salvador, the glittering Bay of All Saints, specked with white yachts and tiny beachfringed islands. Then rainforest: ribbons of brown river snaking through the green into swathes of spidery mangroves, white egrets floating above them like winddrifting petals. An eagle... The mangroves became beaches and beaches and beaches. Then we dropped over a river-mouth harbour with a few wooden fishing boats, a tiny hamlet of cottages, a cocoa tree plantation, a gash of grass cut from the coconut palms... This was Boipeba. I’d decided to stay in Boipeba village. There were options further south that looked wilder, but I wanted a bit of local life. The island, friends had told me, is cut with trails running through the rainforest, sweeping along the beaches. Don’t just flop on the beach, they said. Boipeba is a place to walk. My hotel, Pousada Santa Clara, was a delight, shaded by tall branches and set in its own butterfly-filled tropical garden near the village beach. I allowed myself one afternoon to laze in the hammock outside my room, thumbing a paperback and watching as marmoset monkeys played in the trees, and little agoutis — like guinea pigs on stilts — rummaged underneath. In the evening I wandered along the beach into the village, a strip of sand lined with a few thatched bars, and watched the sun sink watermelon-red behind the palms. The moqueca I ordered — a fish stew similar to Jamaican rundown, but with twice the flavour — came in a huge terracotta pot, simmering in coconut and dendê oil, garnished with coriander. But the locals at the adjacent table — three young men with dreadlocks and tiny Speedos and a woman in an equally tiny bikini — wouldn’t let me eat alone. ‘This is Bahia,’ they laughed. And I was pulled over to join them at their table. Glasses clinked in introduction — ‘Pedro, Chico, João e Andressa.’ ‘Meet us on the beach tomorrow,’ they said after dinner. ‘We’ll play capoeira, then show you the way to Moreré. It’s the most beautiful beach on the island.’ Like Salvador, Boipeba had taken hold of me. The next day I woke early, when the sun was still twinkling low over the sea, its first rays as gentle as the lapping water on Boipeba village’s white beach. Capoeira is tough — a whirligig martialart dance with intricate steps. I’d never even managed the most basic of them. But then my new friends appeared, all smiles and high-fives, and the capoeira began — João with the berimbau, me awkwardly bashing out rhythms on a hand drum. And Andressa and Chico began to dance — spinning and swirling at effortless speed. I was dragged in. And with all the rhythm and positive energy of the morning I somehow managed a capoeira ginga — the simplest three-way step that lies behind all capoeira moves. It was the first time I’d mastered it, and I sat down, sweaty, panting and grinning with boyish pleasure at my achievement. After a cool beach-bar passionfruit juice we set off to Moreré, my toes sinking into the sand as I walked, sending ghost crabs scurrying into their burrows. The path left the sand and cut up into rainforest. An iridescent blue morpho butterfly as big as a handkerchief floated along before us like a spirit guide. Birds chirruped welcomes overhead and a cicada soundwave washed through the trees, hissing like water on a shingly shore. We passed beach after beach, all gorgeous enough to fill a whole day. There was palm-shaded Tassimirim, empty but for a couple of feral horses. (‘You can hire a horse for a beach ride,’ Andressa told me.) Then the long, broad crescent of white-pepper-fine sand at Cueira — which took half an hour to walk across. (‘This is where we come to body-surf,’ said João.) And then Moreré. Moreré is that beach everyone dreams of — squeaky white sand, turquoise sea, towering coconut palms and a single bamboo kiosk, painted in bright colours, with wooden tables in the sand under a thatch roof. The Caribbean had nothing on this. We ordered fresh fish straight from the reef and a chilled green coconut. The bartender — like a young Grace Jones — opened it with two swift hacks of a machete. Later we snorkelled over the turtle-filled reef and lazed in tidal pools as big as tennis courts. It was bliss. And I had a week ahead of me to snorkel, to body-surf, to horse-ride and to wander the forest trails. Salvador had seduced me. But on Boipeba I had fallen in love. Inspired to travel? To book a trip, call 800 DNATA or visit dnatatravel.com worldtravellermagazine.com 47
Page 1: INSPIRED BY ISSUE 139 | NOVEMBER 20
Page 7: Welcome note Holidays are a coveted
Page 10 and 11: CONTENTS features 24 36 THE WORLD'S
Page 12 and 13: TRENDING DESTINATIONS Emily William
Page 14 and 15: Ras Al Khaimah As the temperature d
Page 16 and 17: JOURNEY INTO THE SPIRIT OF ARABIA.
Page 18 and 19: GLOBETROTTER WILD TIMES Be at one w
Page 20 and 21: GLOBETROTTER SUN VS. SNOW Whether y
Page 22 and 23: KNOW-HOW The Knowledge HOW TO... Sl
Page 24 and 25: Nature's bounty The island of Sir B
Page 26 and 27: The world’s 33 best swims Whether
Page 28 and 29: BEST SWIMS POSTER-PERFECT PLUNGE Th
Page 30 and 31: 3WILDLIFE SWIMS SWIM WITH DOLPHINS
Page 32 and 33: BEST SWIMS ©Marina Bay Sands, Sing
Page 34 and 35: 3CITY SWIMS THERMAE BATH SPA, BATH
Page 36 and 37: worldtravellermagazine.com Your pas
Page 38 and 39: CALIFORNIA Soaking up the sun and s
Page 40 and 41: GEORGIA the clock on the wall reads
Page 42 and 43: GEORGIA Activities on the lake asid
Page 44 and 45: INDONESIA This image: A bowl of Moq
Page 46 and 47: entle bays where turtles swim in tu
Page 50 and 51: long the weekend Venice A labyrinth
Page 53 and 54: THE LONG WEEKEND Get crafty Take a
Page 55 and 56: HAVE YOU PICKED UP YOUR EDITION OF
Page 58 and 59: Island Lore Mysterious coconuts, vo
Page 60 and 61: Lemuria, earns the right to brand i
Page 62 and 63: WORLD TRAVELLER X RENAISSANCE DOWNT
Page 64 and 65: WORLD TRAVELLER X ADDRESS SKY VIEW
Page 66 and 67: WORLD TRAVELLER X THE ST. REGIS ABU
Page 68: WORLD TRAVELLER X DUKES THE PALM, A
Page 71 and 72: RARE IS REAL Nestled among the roll
Page 74 and 75: WORLD TRAVELLER X DUBAI MARRIOTT HA
Page 76 and 77: 1 INSPIRED BY Reader offers Great d
Page 78: DNATA TRAVEL OFFERS WEEKEND ESCAPES
Page 81 and 82: Now win! DIGITAL BE OUR TRAVEL COMP
Page 84: Inspiration. Expertly crafted. Comp

World Traveller November 2019

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