To really be able to know and understand a foreign culture and it’s people seems to me a task that would take a lifetime to accomplish. Brazil is a vast country of incredible cultural and physical diversity. In the last 3 years I have spent over 6 months living here, and am only just beginning to understand its complexities.
In the midst of my third 28 day Brazil trip, I found myself re-reading a journal entry from a week ago. The contents of which described the beautiful rolling mountains, vast sand dunes, lagoons and pristine Atlantic coastline of Florianopolis in southern Brazil. Wiping sweat from my eyes and swatting a mosquito off my arm, I took a moment to glance up and consider the contrast between where I had been a few days ago and with my present surroundings.
Last night we wrestled a black Cayman from the water in the middle of the night into a dugout canoe. Today we visited a native village, and played soccer on the riverbanks of the Amazon against children from an elementary school set in the middle of the jungle.
Tomorrow we'll be exploring the colonial streets of Salvador, walking to the drum beats that pervade the air of the tiny winding cobblestone streets. The next day might find us horseback riding on a deserted beach on Morro de Sao Paulo, or perhaps a sunset surf at a secret break I stumbled upon three years ago in Itacare.
While you could spend a lifetime exploring Brazil, and still leave missing something, the reality of most of our lives is that wandering the globe endlessly is an impossibility. Which is why for me I think that a 28 day trip is the perfect travel trip. We see more, do more and experience such unique and impressive things that at times it almost becomes overwhelming, this trip is mind blowing in every sense of the expression.
BT’s 28 day Brazil travellers experience things most people will only ever see on television or in magazines, they are able to live in moments so foreign and far away, that most of our imaginations would be challenged to envision them.
Each trip is a new experience for me and the moments that fill every day are always unique. Its these moments amongst fellow travellers that keep me grinning and stoked to share my love of this country with first-time visitors to Brazil.
I don't know much about horses or horseback riding. The only times I came anywhere close to that liberating feeling you get from being atop a galloping horse was while riding David Bowie (the horse, not the rock star) in the company of Alessandro Faro, our local guide and friend in Morro de Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Morro is an island around 60 km by boat from Salvador. The motorless island boasts a vast expanse of protected land and a periphery of white sand beaches. The locals pride themselves on spending long days on the beach, playing beach soccer, futevolei, capoiera and fresco ball. For good reason, it is not unusual to get completely distracted by beach activity (and speedos and bikinis) and forget about the interior of the island. In part, this is why I always go horseback riding on every trip to Morro.
Alessandro is originally from Argentina. He spent years driving taxis in Buenos Aires, battling traffic and stress. Now he and his wife live 10 minutes from the beach, in a carefully crafted wooden house among the trees. Ale takes visitors around the island's interior on horseback, providing a perspective that they may have otherwise missed, had they remained exclusively on the beach.
This time around, I was just as elated at the end of our tour as the year before. Ale invited us up to his home for refreshments, where we laid back in a hammocks and watched a humming bird beckon him to refill the bird feeder. Overcome by the peaceful vibes emanating from this place, I looked over at Ale, the head engineer of this situation, who had just finished rolling a smoke.
Out of nowhere, Ale, with a look of concern, took off running downstairs to his horses. I jumped out of the hammock and looked off the balcony to find David Bowie on his belly, and a nervous dog barking by his side. Both animals were clearly distressed. The horse had managed to tangle itself within its reins, and fallen to the ground. Ale carefully approached DB, keeping him up to speed with all his actions and intentions, quite like one learns to do in First Aid. He untangled the animal, comforting it as it came back to its feet, all while holding his cigarette steadily in his mouth.
I stood there in awe, as I watched him conclude this graceful rescue with some kind words and a stroke of the mane. Even the Canadian Beach Travellers group (horse-friendly folk) were impressed. Ale came back upstairs and nonchalantly mixed some more mango juice for us - what a champ!
Here's another short story about a BT dream-job and how this maritime boy went from lobster trapping in the Atlantic to piranha fishing in the Amazon ~ among other activities he embarks on while flying around Brazil guiding BT trips. Meet Taylor Aikins:
So how did you first hear about Beach Travellers?
Well in my first year of university I was getting pretty stir crazy, midterms were creeping up, it was getting colder, and I could feel the travel bug biting again, so I literally googled something like travel/surf/awesome, and BT popped up. I checked out the website and boom! Love at first sight.
How exactly did you get involved with BT?
After spending a while looking through all of the videos and checking out the photos, I emailed BT with my life story and my resume. I said that I wanted to be a guide, and was told that most of the guides have either been on a BT trip before, or worked as a campus rep, so that seemed like the next best thing to me.
How did you end up being a Brazil guide?
I started working as a campus rep at St-FX University in Nova Scotia, and after about a year of putting posters up, hosting info tables and repping the shize out of BT, Graeme, one of the founders, and Mitch, one of the Costa Rica guides flew out to the Maritimes for a marketing campaign. They spent a couple days at my school, and over beers one night I mentioned how keen I was to be a guide, and I soon decided to jump on the Brazil 28 day trip to see what it was all about. My parents weren't happy at first, but it ended up being the best decision I ever made. I came back from Brazil and started repping again, ended up getting hired as a Brazil guide, and it's been insanity ever since.
What work do you currently do for Beach Travellers?
Right now I manage marketing on the East coast of Canada during the school year, and in the summers I head to South America to guide BT trips and show travellers all the best that Brazil has to offer. I also get to head to Costa Rica to help guide there whenever they need me so it's just amazing how everything turned out. I have been studying Portuguese and am now pretty fluent, and every year I get to do something amazing with my summers. I couldn't ask for more, the BT family is just that, a family, and now that I'm a part of it, I can't imagine doing anything else.
Thanks to everyone that has applied so far. We're still scanning applications and conducting interviews, so stay tuned.
