The plan should have been easy—find the ocean again, somehow.
On paper, it was a tad harder. Brazil is a big country. There’s always a way to get to the coast but I could also be stuck on the coast with the next city hours away and the next town unreachable by bus.
It’s relatively easy to travel from Fortaleza to Salvador. I know the Nodeste route through Natal, João Pessoa, Recife, Maceió and Aracaju very well, been there, done that. In the south, I also did the Rio to Santos route through Parati, Ubatuba, São Sebastião, and Ilhabela. We’re also familiar with the southernmost part of Brazil since we bussed from Uruguay a few times.
But the coast from Salvador to Vitoria remains a mystery to me. It’s a tough one. The state of Bahia is huge and cities are few and far between.
It sounded like a fun challenge but where to start?
Eventually, when I was in Rio de Janeiro, I found a very cheap plane ticket from Belo Horizonte to Salvador.
Dilemma solved.
“I’ll get there first and then I’ll figure it out.”
I was rather proud of myself. I would add two new cities—Petrópolis and Belo Horizonte—to my big book of Brazilian cities, I’d venture far from the coast for a change of scenery, then I’d explore Bahia, somehow.
On top of that, I had just scored a direct flight leaving at 11:40 a.m. and arriving at 1:30 p.m. Perfect timing, much better than a 5 a.m. flight with a seven-hour stopover in Brasilia or whatever.
Then, at one point while in Belo Horizonte. I learned that like everything else in Belo Horizonte, the airport was fucking far. Kind of like GRU in São Paulo.
Oh well.
On Sunday, I packed and carefully planned the day ahead—up at 7 a.m. to leave at 8 a.m. at the latest, plan A Uber or plan B taxi, at the airport around 9 a.m. hopefully for a flight scheduled at 11:40 a.m.
Sounded about right.
Feng called me earlier than usual so that I could go to bed early—or at least earlier than usual. And I did. I even shut off my computer before finishing a work assignment. “I’ll send it from Salvador, I’ll get there early enough!”
Indeed, it was perfect. Arriving in Salvador at 1:30 p.m. meant I would have plenty of time to settle in, go to the supermarket, finish work, and get used to Bahia heat after Belo Horizonte’s “cooler” 30°C weather.
I woke up at 7 a.m. and did what pretty much anyone does when getting up—pee, brush teeth, wash face, etc. I finished packing and checked my phone.
Shit.
“I think your flight is cancelled,” my night-owl Brazilian friend had texted me around 5 a.m.
Surely enough, I had an email from GOL.
It was a bit early for my brain to process the info in Portuguese. Flight cancelled, got it. Rebooked on the 2:35 p.m. flight got it. “Do you agree with the change?” GOL was asking politely.
I clicked no and I was offered many flights leaving right now and arriving in the middle of the night in Salvador after 20 stopovers in various Brazilian cities.
“Fine, fine, I’ll take it!”
I clicked “yes,” texted my Belo Horizonte Airbnb host to tell her I’d be leaving a bit later than planned (“no worries!”), and texted my Salvador Airbnb host to tell her I’d arrived later than planned (“don’t worry!”).
I set up my alarm for 10 a.m. and started worrying instead of attempting to go back to sleep.
I woke up every 20 minutes wondering whether it was all a dream, whether I understood the email correctly and whether I would eventually make it to Salvador.
I left at 11 a.m. The Uber driver was the chatty kind and he kept insisting I should stop somewhere to eat because food was expensive at the airport. “I’m fine, really.”
I dropped off my backpack, got a new boarding pass and started waiting.
We were supposed to board at 1:40 p.m.
We were still waiting to board at 2:35 p.m. which is inconveniently the time we were supposed to take off.
Long story short, I finally landed in Salvador at 5 p.m. and I arrived at the Airbnb at 6 p.m.
Goodbye relaxin evening in Salvador, hello mad rush to get food, finish work and eventually go to sleep. Good thing I knew my way around…
I’m by the ocean again!
