On NOT Going to the Beach

Which way do I go?

There are a number of people who seem to be a bit puzzled, and somewhat skeptical, if not out and out suspicious of the fact that Mark and I live at the beach and yet don't go to the beach. The conversations on this subject always take the same form. People start by remarking on how very white we are, and how we must have to take some strong protective measures against the sun when we go to the beach.  Oh, but we don't go to the beach, we say. You don't go to the beach? they ask, aghast. No, we say, We don't. In fact, it was at that point in such a conversation that a fairly aggressive interlocutor said, If you don't go to the beach, you should move to the mountains!

What is going to the beach, anyway? In some ways it could be said that Mark and I go to the beach all the time. After all, we live right on the beach. Our veranda and our terrace look out at the beach, and down in our little park we sit just above beach level. We walk down the beach to go to the various stores and restaurants in the neighborhood. We pick shells off the beach to use in various landscaping projects. And it's not as if the entire town of Búzios is at the beach every single day. Most of the year-round residents are busy working, and are hardly ever seen at the beach (except for those early-morning/late-evening joggers and walkers).






So why do we live here? It's not so hard to fathom. There is something profoundly peaceful in gazing out at the water every day. There is something deeply primal as we listen to and even move with the back and forth of the waves. Come on down, join us in our park, and you'll figure it out in a nanosecond.





Dear readers: I know I've only barely returned to blogging, but after this post I'll be taking another hiatus. We've spent four years together, and I've enjoyed your comments and your loyalty. As we say here in town, See You in Búzios!

Bring on the Olympic Sailing Events!

The excitement that all of Búzios felt at the possibility that the Olympic sailing events would be torn from Rio's grasp and staged out here in our clean, unpolluted waters was contagious. After all, we were told that even the great and powerful United States Olympic Committee had requested the change of venue! Wow, now that's support a little town can get behind. Even Mark and I felt the buzz, since our terrace sits smack dab in what would be the front row. We began to draw up lists of people to invite, and in what order: family first, friends next, acquaintances last.

Windsurf event in front of our house

Sailing event in front of our house

But the momentary excitement was just that — momentary. It's taken a while for the penny to drop, but we're all pretty sure that it ain't gonna happen. Rio will never allow the recently-documented problems of pollution, bacteria, viruses and e-coli to come between it and the stupendous opportunity it has to strut its stuff on the world stage. There is not a chance in hell that Rio will let itself be robbed of images like these:

 










So was the idea of bringing the sailing events to Búzios just a publicity stunt? Is the hashtag #velaemBuzios a wink-wink-nudge-nudge joke? It does look that way. Búzios has the clean waters, but it doesn't have the infrastructure needed to accommodate all the sailing vessels with their attendant equipment, or house the athletes, the coaches, the technical support staffs, the medical staffs, the press corps, the spectators, etc. The idea was floated, everyone got into a tizzy, stickums were slapped on surfaces all over town — and the idea has fizzled.

But don't you think that a few new Olympic events will have to be  developed with host city Rio de Janeiro in mind? Put Jérôme Valcke in charge of it, he's not doing anything, and he can even steal my ideas: Sailing in Sewage, Canoeing through Corpses, and Rowing in Rubbish. Triathlon Trash has a certain ring to it as well. Oh, well, I guess Mark and I can throw out those guest lists we were drawing up!

More Blog Updates

Time to satisfy the curiosity of those readers who are wondering what's been happening with some of the ongoing dramas — or even just the day-to-day changes — that make up our life in Búzios. So here are a few blog updates:


The Vacant Lot's Not Vacant Anymore
(First posted on 9/16/13, updated on 6/23/14)

Two years ago the beautiful forest next door to our house was uprooted, sections of the steep, sloping hillside were removed, and construction began on the foundation of a house. But just a few months after it started, the work stopped. Whether it was stopped by the authorities or the owner simply abandoned it because he ran out of money has never been quite clear. All we know is that people carted off the tools and the porta-potty, and Mark and I have since been watching nature return in all its exuberance. Here's how the lot was left when it was abandoned:

And here's what it looks like now:

Hah! Now it's for sale!

For us it's just a matter of waiting for the next shoe to drop.


Bakery 1 and Bakery 2
(First posted on 5/6/13)

The bakery at the corner of our street, the one I referred to as Bakery 1 in the May 2013 post, is now being run by the owner's son, and is being slowly dragged into the 21st century. The old TV with bad reception has been replaced by a snazzy flat screen model, products are being upgraded, but the place still thankfully retains its seedy, neighborhood-y feel. Bakery 2, otherwise known as Golden Bread, is no longer the only place to meet and greet, and not because the quality has gone downhill, but rather because the formula has changed. They've gone the way of self-service. As someone who hails from the land of self-service, all I can say is that the place has lost some of its original luster.

Bakery 3

But more to the point here, Búzios has now been blessed with yet another bakery, Bakery 3, and what a place this is! Run by the elegant, French-born Valérie and her equally elegant, German-born baker-husband, this newest hot spot of European-quality breads and rolls and pastries and other baked goodies has some of our friends touting it as the only bakery in town. But Mark and I frequent them all, of course, 'cause you never know which side your croissant is buttered on.




Dining Areas
(First posted on 8/18/14)

A year ago I was thrilling to the plethora of dining areas we have at home — five, count them, five, quite separate and distinct, each one of them used depending on the meal, the weather, and the number of people we need to seat. Well, could it be that five wasn't enough? We have added a sixth dining area to the mix. Outside the living room, and at the top of the stairs which lead to the beach, our new favorite dining area is intimate, cozy, protected from the glare of the setting sun, and it reminds us of Provence:



Girl's Night Out  
(First posted on 11/10/11, updated on 5/13/13)



The institution of Girls' Night Out that my friend Cristina and I began some 12 years ago is still going strong. We still meet once a week (barring illness, travel, etc.), we still alternate languages, and — believe me — neither one of us has aged one iota. Really.





Watchin' Movies
(First posted on 5/7/12, updated on 5/13/13)

In the two years since our update on how many movies Mark and I have watched since moving to Brazil, the number has risen to 2,088. Hey, it's our main source of entertainment . . .


Man in Water
(First posted 11/19/14, updated on 8/10/15)



This man fascinates me. He is still there, almost every day, standing in the water in front of our house, quiet, contemplative, pensive. Yesterday Mark and I passed him on the beach (he was on his way into the water), and we all nodded a hello. The man will never know what a world-renowned celebrity he's become.

Brazilians and Argentines

Hello everyone! I have a guest blogger sitting in for me this morning, a guy called Mark Something-or-other. Hope you enjoy his take on life in Búzios. (Why, he's lived here as long as I have!) 
Barbara


You don't have to listen to a lot of the jokes that Brazilians tell about their neighbors the Argentines to figure out what it is that ticks Brazil off about the Argentines so much. "What's the definition of ego? It's the little piece of Argentina that we all carry within us." "What's the world's best business deal? Buy an Argentine for his real value and sell him for what he thinks he's worth." And then, the jokes aside, there's that relentless Argentine needling about how (their) Maradona is greater than (our) Pelé, (their) Messi is greater than (our) Neymar.



No war is brewing between the two countries, and no local Donaldo dreams about putting a fence up at the border. Brazilians will often in fact generously refer to the Argentines, in their own language, as the hermanos—not that there aren't some undercurrents of irony there along with the fraternal feeling. But Argentines are, unquestionably, a thorn in the Brazilian side, and all the more so here in Búzios, where many Argentines are long-time residents (and continue, most of them, to speak with heavy accents), many young Argentines come for a season or two and work in restaurants (and continue, irritatingly, to greet their customers in Spanish, as if we were still in Recoleta) and thousands of Argentines pass through every year on brief sun-and-sand vacations and go about their admittedly completely intelligible gracias-ing when they could just as easily make the simple effort to express their thanks for this and that with an obrigado — and seduce.

Mario

In Búzios, the situation is particularly complicada, since, though the Brazilians don't like to acknowledge it, Búzios to a large extent has come to depend on a collaboration between Brazilians and Argentines. Our one movie theater, where the bill of fare is more likely to be an Iranian film festival contender than a Hollywood blockbuster, was founded, and for decades has been overseen by, the Argentine cinephile Mario Paz.

Sonia

Of our many restaurants, the one that most resembles an old-line European establishment, by name Cigalon, was created by, and continues to be lovingly fine-tuned by, the Argentine lawyer and foodie Sonia Persiani.

Amalia

Of our hundreds of pousadas, the one that has been noticed most in the international travel press, and most recommended to upscale travelers, is the Casas Brancas; Casas Brancas was created by the Argentine Amalia de la Maria and for many decades it was she who obsessively kept CB standards way up in the stratosphere.

Marcelo

Our great satiric newspaper, the Perú Molhado, was published and edited for many decades, with insouciant genius, by the Argentine photographer-writer Marcelo Lartigue.

Hugo

I have inevitably been thinking about the Argentine contribution to Búzios because Amalia of Casas Brancas died just a couple of weeks ago. She had been sick. She decided to go off to Croatia with her husband, José, also an Argentine, for a last fling. She flung. She expired there. In other days, there would have been pages and pages about her in Perú Molhado—biography, celebration, irreverent nonsense. But Marcelo, the careless genius of the Perú, himself died about a year ago. Underlying cause of death: too much high living. In Marcelo's absence, the Perú has gone to pot and, when Amalia died, the new management published a small picture and a graceless caption. Some day Barbara or I — one of us — should write a memoir of our dear, dear Búzios-residing Argentine friend Hugo Oks. It is painful for Barbara and me to think how many years it has been since Hugo passed on.
   
Mark and Barbara to Buenos Aires: Send reinforcements! Send reinforcements urgently! Please!

Búzios 2016?

Back in December of 2014 I said that due to force majeure I was suspending my blog and going to the States for a while, and that I'd see you all next year. And then — nothing but silence. I turned my back, dropped you all like hot potatoes, left you in the lurch, walked off into the sunset without a fair-thee-well. I know, I'm so sorry. If I told you all that I had good reasons, would you believe me? Would it make things right?

I've been back in Búzios for a few months now, but I returned feeling pretty cranky. I didn't think anyone would still be interested in what an American transplant thought about her adopted home in Brazil, nor did I feel I had it in me anymore to write. So I stopped blogging, just like that. But then, one day recently, I looked out at our bay and there he was, Man in Water, standing out there as still and pensive as when I first wrote about him last November. I felt the itch to sit down and tell my readers that, by golly, he's still there!


There's really so much to talk about these days, how can I remain silent? The Brazilian economy is on the skids, corruption is pervasive, crime is rampant, and in one of those you-are-what-you-eat moments, President Dilma is losing weight at about the same dizzying speed with which her popularity has taken a tumble . . . but what really got me back in the saddle was when I learned that Búzios — known in Brazil as the Capital da Vela, the Sailing Capital — is aggressively campaigning to have the 2016 Olympic sailing events moved out here! How wonderful is that! While the Rio authorities are tripping over themselves trying to disprove the recent findings of horrendous pollution in Guanabara Bay, we here in Búzios are sitting on beaches and waters that are clear and limpid and waiting to be of service. And Mark and I are sitting on what would be front-row seats if this comes to pass. I'm up and blogging, because the stories are too good to pass up.

Our Humdinger of a Hummingbird

Butterfly is such a pretty word in any language — papillon (fr), borboleta (port), mariposa (sp), schmetterling (ger), sommerfugl (dan), kamehameha (hawaiian). Equally pleasing to the ear and to the eye is hummingbird — oiseau-mouche (fr), beija-flor (port), chupaflor (sp), manu hu (hawaiian). Hummingbirds are very much on my mind these days. Once a year for three years running Mark and I have enjoyed the brief company of a hummingbird family. Now — forgive me if I sound like Wild Kingdom's Jim Fowler — the mother, the sole nest builder and caregiver of the species, has repeatedly built her nest in one arm of a hanging lamp under the roof of our terrace pergola. I guess "location, location, location" is as important to hummingbirds as it is to humans, because our terrace lamp has apparently been found to be eminently suitable. Although the lamp swings fiercely in the wind, it is well protected from predators and rain.

Here's the lamp, sans nest.

Here's the mother, scoping out the area. Quite amazing for a hummingbird to remain so still, but house hunting is serious business!








The hummingbird nest is an amazing architectural creation, a dense cup that seems to spring up literally overnight. It’s made from moss and lichen, from feathers and small bits of bark and leaves, from plant down or fuzz, and most crucially, from spider silk, which is used both to bind the nest together and provide the necessary elasticity for the nest to expand as the babies grow (think of a pregnant woman’s stretch pants).














Only one to two eggs are laid. There isn't space for any more, no matter how elastic the nest!












Here's the mother hummingbird, patiently  at work.

And then Mark and I sit back and watch the birds grow. I admit to feeling enormous guilt for having snapped some of these pictures, because every time I approached and held the camera above the babies they sensed the shadow and thought Mom had come with food. It was hard for me to walk away from those open, yearning, hungry mouths!

The entire development process is quick, a mere five weeks or so from start to finish. One day I went looking for the babies again, and found only this one bird sitting on the rim of the nest. Just seconds after I snapped the picture, the second fledgling fledged!

So, Mother Hummingbird, same time next year?

Man in Water

It never previously crossed my mind to blog about this subject, mostly because the subject is neither important nor compelling. But here it is. There is a man who stands in the water within view of our house almost every day, rain or shine, morning, afternoon or early evening. But because so many years have passed and he still stands there, solitary and pensive, I feel I must say something now. He stands there for hours, I exaggerate not. Hours. Sometimes at high tide, sometimes at low tide. He rarely moves. Only his clothes change from one day to the next. Who is he? Why does he stand there so immobile, and for so long? Pure mystery.

Most of the time he stands off to the left of our terrace in what appears to be his favorite spot —

But occasionally he stands off to the right of our terrace —

And once in a blue moon he stands directly in front of our house —