The morning I left Itacaré last year, I clearly remember thinking that I probably would never come back.

I was walking on the long Avenida Alto da Boa Vista when it crossed my head. As the name suggests, it’s a pretty steep street. It was 7 a.m., and I was going to the bus “terminal” to eventually, maybe, make it to Salvador before sunset. It was a painful twenty-minute walk downhill with my backpack because I had hurt my toe (the classic “stubbed my toe against a rock at the beach” injury).

There was nothing wrong with Itacaré. I had a good week in what had turned out to be a surprisingly international village in a remarkably wild setting. But it’s really, really out of the way.

I found myself in Ilhéus against this year and at one point, since I was already in the middle of nowhere in Bahia, stopping in Itacaré again on my way to Salvador made perfect sense.

I just knew I was going to regret it while walking up the damn Alto da Boa Vista with my backpack.

In theory, Ilhéus to Itacaré is an easy two-hour, $10 bus ride.

I did pay $10.

Nothing else about the trip was that easy. It’s Bahia. It’s another world, on another schedule.

I was early at the bus terminal because I was afraid it would take time to find an Uber. In fact, I found one right away—speed limits and stop signs were just suggestions so I got there in about ten minutes, which left me almost an hour to test a few uncomfortable blue plastic seats between smoke breaks and regular checks on the buses coming and going.

The bus was almost on time.

I almost boarded it seamlessly—when I showed my e-ticket to the driver, he told me I had to get a printed ticket.

“But… there’s no time!”

He gave me a weird look. “There’s always time.”

It was too early for deep philosophy and I couldn’t translate Foucault’s and the rhythm of time easily into Portuguese to contribute to what could have been a fascinating discussion. I rushed to the ticket booth and asked for a printed ticket.

Two minutes later, I found out that someone was sitting in my seat. I’m not sure where the bus was coming from but I’m guessing it was coming from far away or another dimension. All the passengers were barefoot, eating chips, and sweating profusely.

We, the passengers boarding in Ilhéus, would be just like them soon enough.

“The seat problem again,” a passenger assessed.

“I’m not moving him!”

The guy sitting in “my” seat was an older gentleman and I agreed that he probably shouldn’t move (or take a long-distance bus, but none of my business).

“It’s okay, don’t worry! I can sit anywhere, I don’t care. I just don’t want to take anyone’s seat. Is there anybody here? No? Perfect.”

And I fell asleep.

And I woke up because I thought that maybe we were arriving because, surely, a two-hour bus trip should take two hours.

It doesn’t when it stops everywhere to pick up passengers, and when passengers ask to be dropped off in the middle of the tropical jungle.

I tried this trick with the bus driver, asking him to drop me off uphill so that I wouldn’t have to climb with my backpack.

It didn’t work.

I don’t have the Bahia skill to be dropped off wherever I want.

I climbed the hill with my backpack again.

It was worth it. I’m in the jungle, with monkeys and bats around at night.