Our arrival on the coast was much less glamorous than we had expected. After Penedo we took a bus to Maceió to digest, write and publish our incredible experience in the Chapada Diamantina. Besides the beautiful color of the Sea nothing special happened. We dove back into urban life and lived three “normal” days: working on the computer from morning to evening, cars, shopping center and pollution.

Once the work was done, it was time to leave. First destination: Barra de Santo Antônio. A small village near the Praia do Carro Quebrado (broken car beach), voted one of the 10 best beaches of Brazil.

Before catching the bus in Maceió, we had a quick snack. Returning to the hotel we encountered the first omen of what was to come: we saw a black cat walking on top of a wall to our right. It looked… waited… and a little bit before we would pass it… HA! It jumped exactly in front of us and ran away.

I have to confess that I am a bit superstitious and so got worried. Hoping to be comforted, I asked Stephan:

“Amor, any black cat brings bad luck or does it depend on the side from which it came?”

“Uai (expression from Minas… Stephan is already Mineiro!), I am not sure, but I think it has to come from the left because in German the expression is ‘Schwarze Katze von links…’ (black cat from the left).

“Great, I always thought this saying was racist anyway. Just because it’s black, it has to bring bad luck?”

We continued to our hotel, and already on our way out of Maceió things started to not go as planned. We had planned to take a bus from the bus station, since it would have been more secure and more comfortable. Yet, as the Brazilian was responsible for the time, we missed that bus and had to take a normal city bus at night. It was a bus that serves the commuters who work in Maceió but live in Barra de Santo Antônio, about 40 minutes away.

We left Maceió with little information about where we would go. Our tourist guides gave a few suggestions for pousadas (guest houses) and we thought that that would be sufficient. We had called the one we had thought the best, but it was closed for renovation. As for the other numbers in our guides, nobody picked up.

Since I am happy, I am in the mood to make new friends, especially, when they can tell us more about the place we are headed towards. So, after a short while, the whole bus was debating our final destination and where to stay for the night.

Barra de Santo Antônio is divided in two villages, one before the river called Barra I and one on the other side known as Barra II. The Carro Quebrado beach is on the other side of the river and to visit it we had to cross over either by ferry or canoe. Since Barra de Santo Antônio is small, many people in the bus believed that we should stay overnight in the previous relatively bigger town called Paripueira, about 6km to the South.

The conclusion we arrived at in the bus, not without dissent (one lady insisted that we get off in Paripueira, and part of me wanted to do the same), was that to cross the river at night was too risky and that even though there are only few pousadas in Barra I, the Pousada of Dona Maria in the Conchas Street*, should do for one night.

To put this discussion into context: Stephan and I, both with two backpacks, are clearly sticking out from the crowd. In addition, our buying power was visibly higher than the average person on the bus, but trying to hide this fact, we said that we were traveling with a small budget and that we were looking for cheap options to sleep.

During this short trip of 40 minutes and also after reaching Barra de Santo Antônio, I could clearly sense the fine line between rich and poor in Brazil. I felt the tension of having a lot in the middle of those who have little, and the fear that some of them, it’d just take one, might be violent and would try to rob us.

Arriving in Barra de Santo Antônio was not very reassuring. The town is poor and small and in a matter of minutes everyone must have known that we had arrived. A guide with strange and not very trustworthy eyes welcomed us. And, to not leave any doubt that things were not going well (believe it or not) another black cat crossed our path. This time, so we would really understand, the cat followed German customs: is crossed our path from left to right.

Despite the tension, we were still full of hope. We knew exactly where we had to go: the pousada of Dona Maria in the Conchas Street. My god! The Conchas Street was a small favela street. The pousada did not have a sign; children played with sewage; and 4 half-drunk men with tattoos closely watched every one of our movements.

Dona Maria was in Church. Her grandson of ca. 9 years received us and showed us the pousada and the room. The roof was missing in parts of the house, the bed was a mixture of space ship and the bed of a cheap motel, and the bathroom had a strong smell of mold.

A mix of everything, the immediate environment, the black cats, the men on the street, our vulnerability, shouted for us to leave running! But that did not appear to be easy. There were no taxis and we were by foot carrying all our belongings.

Lucky us, on the way to the pousada, we had seen a woman with good eyes. We went back to her and she took us to her brother, who took us to a close village with more accommodation options. We arrived at the Tabuba beach in the Pousada Tabuba, and finally felt certain that we were well and secure.

Finalmente na praia do Carro Quebrado - Finally on the Carro Quebrado beach

Part of me felt guilt for my discomfort. I would have liked to have had more tolerance towards the poverty surrounding us and to move with more ease between the two sides of the fine line. But I clearly sensed that we were not welcome.

To get to the other pousada was a relief. We had a beer to celebrate and relax and decided that from then on we would only travel in the morning, with a reservation for a pousada at the next stop. If it were not possible to uphold these rules, we would stay where we were.

Relieved and covered with sweat (it had been very hot), we just wanted to take a shower and sleep. Just, when everything seemed to be almost perfect: no water in the room! We did not worry. If the bad luck brought by the black cats was just lack of water to take a shower, we did have a lot of luck! We found a sink outside with running water and washed ourselves there, happy as we could be!

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* We changed the address of the pousada and the name of its owner.

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