Flashlights danced over the area and young girls screamed as the crowd shrank back with every flicker of movement. Suddenly two brave men jumped into the sand, one grasping the beautiful snake’s head and wrestling it quickly to the ground as the other clasped himself to its tail and pulled it to full stretch, revealing all its subsequently measured 21 feet. The crowd gasped in amazement. Another flurry of testosterone and the two bold snake-tamers were joined by seven more heroes who hoisted the beast to their shoulders at chunky intervals and began a spontaneous procession through the streets. I joined the throng as hundreds of Itacare’s citizens sambaed over the cobblestones behind the great snake, including an entrepreneur with a wheelbarrow shouting “Beer! Ice cold Beer! Best antidote to snake venom!” Adorably, he punctuated this message with convincing cries of “Look out! Run for your lives!” I’ll be speaking to the local branch of the Advertising Standards Authority in due course.

Jessie took off at full speed to go home and get the camera, absurdly forgotten just this once in our haste to get to the dance floor, chucking her flip-flops in the process and exposing her capoeira-cut feet like a true reporter. Arriving home, she decides on an unofficial secondment of Elias’ bicycle, pedals like a mad thing back to the crowd and, seeing a handy platform on the back of a truck, climbs aboard, camera at the ready as the procession arrives.

I, approaching the scene with the crowd, arrive in time to see about seven torches, spotlights and lanterns, along with the headlights of Itacare’s only police car, focussed on a familiar butt in white floppy trousers leaning precariously over the wall. “Jessie!” I may have shrieked, in my usual role as the wicked guardian of the beauteous rose, “Those lights are shining on your ass!” And pink as a rose she was as she hurriedly stepped down to a disappointed groan and a flutter of applause from the crowd. We clustered around the entrance to the alley down which the creature had disappeared, but there was no more excitement to be had that night.

This morning the town is abuzz with rumours. Various reports of the captive’s zoology, power and provenance circulate. These snakes are so strong, if they can but manage to bend one of their million or so elbows to 45 degrees, they can cast the rest of their length around the enemy in the blink of an eye and crush its bones to powder. And my internet research says this may be one of the largest on record! No wonder it took nine men to bring it in.

The great creature lay resting in a nearby B&B, so we gulped down our papaya and headed for the scene to document it properly, only to find a handwritten sign reading:
The Anaconda is wounded and aggressive and needs rest. Visitation prohibited by IBAMA
(Institute of the Atlantic Forest Biosphere.)
Disappointed, we were turning away when a bare-chested gentleman (formal wear here requires a t-shirt tossed symbolically over one shoulder; otherwise a pair of shorts and flip-flops is standard attire) asked: “You want to see the snake? My son filmed the whole thing!” Within minutes we were in a cavernous room with four huge black mamas resting their weight on massive haunches and a bright-eyed young man proudly brandishing his digital video camera.

Someone is on their way from national television! This clip could be on nationwide news! Elated to be at the heart of such a story, we cluster around and the video begins, full of strong brown arms, excited voices and thrilling glimpses of a girth even bigger than mine. We watch our valiant heroes bring in the exotic refugee at the head of a procession of several hundred people clapping and singing. The camera rounds the corner as we approach the B&B, and… there it is! Illuminated by every hand-held lighting device in Itacare, each curve set off to perfection in my borrowed white pants… once again, my daughter’s ass!

Pray God that man from the nationwide news never gets here.

Sadly I just missed Susan, but Dick is coming soon and Rosy and Mike are eagerly awaited for Easter. I’m still hoping Soozie will get out here this summer and James and Paul, where the hell are you? It’s so wonderful to be able to share this marvellous place.

Itacare is bustling with another year’s progress. When I see how many new B&Bs, shops, bars, and restaurants spring up from year to year, how many drab old houses are now brightly painted, how many new offerings there are for tourists - motorbikes! kayaks! funny vehicles with 3 wheels! - I remember that when I first came here the road linking Itacare to the rest of the world had only been in place for 20 months. So, though the town is 273 years old, its modern life is very, very new. In 2001, there was hardly any concept of money. What would cost 600 one day would cost 5,000 the next. They just had no idea. Itacare was a poor fishing village in a poor part of a poor state with a bit of tourism for the surfing hardcore. But the road has brought the world to its door and Brazilians learn fast.

By way of illustration, I was sipping a freshly ground sugar-cane juice on the waterfront the other day and eavesdropping on a group of Grizzled Old Fishermen, hoping for an interesting nugget about the tides, or the moon, or the mating season of the green-finned cavala. Instead of which I found them to be in earnest conversation about hair transplants. “I understand it’s charged by the follicle,” said one of them, with a frankly receding hairline. He certainly didn’t get that from Itacare with YOU!

You may remember how proud I was to nudge the local newspaper’s development from a tourist freesheet towards becoming a significant voice for the people, encouraging my friend Denise, the publisher (and editor and journalist, photographer, etc) to put her goolies on the line in last October’s election campaign. God bless her, she went for it in a big way and pulled out every stop in an attempt to defeat our incumbent mayor, Jarbas the Thief, Liar and Smarmy Bastard, including a series of exposé articles and major front-page support for the opposition.

Sadly, the opposition was middle-aged and fat-tummied Diana, earnest, honest, head of the Tourist Association and responsible for getting our sewage system. Jarbas won, of course, proving my theory that middle-aged fat women just don’t get a look-in. (I’m living on fish and fruit at the moment.) It seems once these old-school country politicians get their hands on a town like this, with its rich prize of national and international funding for roads, schools, health and education which somehow never gets spent, it’s hard to shake them off.

So of course Jarbas had his revenge on Denise. Anonymous phone calls at 3am warned her to be careful when turning corners, as “you never know what awaits you”. Then two days after his victory, a car with loudspeaker parked outside her house and broadcast her sexual preferences in pornographic and misogynistic detail for hours. Subtle, huh? Actually, I thought this was a very good sign. Four years ago, Denise, was afraid of winding up with a bullet in her chest. What’s a little loudspeaker action by comparison?

And so to the current issue of Itacare for YOU! , featuring an editorial showering blessings on all the public officials in their New Administration’s chores, wishing them harmony and success in ‘making our town a better place’, photos of local parades and birthday parties, tips on hair care, horoscopes, the Tide Table (thank God, I can’t live without it) and, bravely, a small article about the town’s accounts for 2003 being rejected by the State’s Municipal Accounts Tribunal, merely because of:-
1. 130 cases of irregular payments;
2. 36 municipal cheques returned for lack of funds, thus incurring fines and additional costs and indicating complete lack of financial controls;
3. £190,000 paid out with no invoices or receipts;
4. £60,000 in unpaid taxes;
5. Overpayment to all local councillors.
The penalty? The councillors have to return their overpayments (ha!) and the Finance Officer in charge has been fined over £300!! Hmmm, I’ll bet they’ll really watch their step this year.

And we’re SO on the Happening Map! Last year’s Academy Award-winning actress (I’m sorry, I can’t help myself) Charlize Theron, her boyfriend Orlando Bloom, and 38 of their closest Hollywood mates spent Xmas and New Year right here in Itacare, paying $50,000 for 14 nights in the B&B where we stayed when we first came here. Apparently they had a great time, bringing their own drums for nightly drumming circles on the beach (I suppose Santa Monica and Malibu are too heavily polluted for any of that by now) and whizzing around town incognito on motorbikes. Ana Cubana, my friend who owns the B&B, said they wanted their lunch every day for $3 a head, can you believe that? And they were well shocked when the price they had originally agreed in Brazilian reais - the 50,000 bucks - turned out to be 7,000 reais more 4 months later thanks to the drop in the dollar. Now there’s a new experience for Americans. Apparently it took them some time to get their head around that.

Just got a text on my English cellphone from Jesse’s English phone: “Mama, send boat!”
She’s trapped on the peninsula across the bay and not the snappy swimmer her Mum is. I wonder how much that text cost me?

January 27

Itacare was 274 years old yesterday and still celebrating all night long, culminating in the 67th rendition of Happy Birthday to You at 5 am with a salvo of rockets. Little wonder then that this morning I was unphased by a similar salvo, only to discover on my canoe ride back from the peninsula that 15 armed men had stormed into town and robbed our only bank - on payroll day, of course - taking almost £200,000. (There’s a nice excuse for Jarbas. He’s probably behind the whole thing anyway). Apparently they had a whale of a time a la the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang, shooting up everything in fine style, putting the good citizens of Itacare to the run while shouting out ‘We’re not here to harm you!’ and ‘We just want the government’s money!’ and ‘So where are your stupid police? Where the hell are they?” They took a few local cops as hostages, put a bullet in another cop’s bum for good measure, and roared off with the good news that they’ll be coming back to celebrate Carnival with us. The town is a-buzz with versions of the dramatic story, even more interesting than the facts themselves.

I have quite a lot of work to do, trying to raise another $600,000 to complete the purchase on Nirvana plus loans and guarantees and finance for the Beach House and the Hotel. I sit on my terrace and hack away at cash flows and business plans, stumble through the heat to send faxes or work on the internet, argue with the phone company about my wobbly line and so forth. Communications here are fragile to say the least. I was incommunicado for two days after the robbers shot up the telephone lines and then couldn’t send an urgent fax because of power failure. When I did get them sent no action was taken because they arrived illegible and then they couldn’t phone me to tell me. So don’t any of you think this lifestyle is a piece of cake!

Vibeke and I took a few days off to escape the decibel-heavy mayhem of Carnival and sailed up the coast to Barra Grande. Our captain - who turned out to be not only the doctor who rescued the Anaconda last year but also the very man to pull the bullet out of our officer’s backside -caught a huge wahoo (I had previously only seen this word on very chic London menus) and we ate the beautiful fish for dinner. We watched the most exquisite sunset from Nirvana’s westernmost beach, and then strolled around the point to sit by our lighthouse and watch a big fat yellow moon rise over the sea. You don’t often get that. We have sunrise and sunset, moonrise and moonset, all from our land. Cool or what?

Next day was full-on 9-5 action. I photographed loads of beautiful seaweed for my money presentations in Sao Paulo next week (thinking: Foundation! Face masks! Arthritis cures!) and every inch (again) of our 500-meter coast. Swimming in the bay and trying to find a boat to take us to Boipeba, I met several interesting new people, who introduced me to more, and so it went - a human chain for several days, all of whom beamed with pleasure and extended their hands in hearty congratulations when told I had bought Muta Point.

There was Lio, a lovely man from Belo Horizonte who runs a gorgeous red and white schooner and who’s avowed mission in life is to make as many friends as he possibly can. Then I met my new neighbour Roberto, from Brasilia, whom nature hasn’t blessed with good looks, being the owner of a pug nose and frizzy red hair, but whose gorgeous heart has won him a beautiful lady and new-born girl twins. He built a 9-chalet pousada in seven months while they were brewing in their mum, and now he says his job is to fill his girls with love every minute of their lives. Next was Sr. Louro, contemporary of Sr Jorge from whom we bought the Plantation and who has lived next door (next beach is more accurate, I suppose) for 45 years. He grabbed his machete and took me on a tour of Nirvana, complete with a buried 9-foot cannon (he says there is a whole bed of them under there), an old well and a clay pit. Vibeke and I were more taken with the 100-foot avocado tree (it’s all very well but how are we supposed to get them down?) and the field of orange irises. The mango we ate was the sweetest I have ever tasted.

Somehow in the course of two days we managed to eat a lot of lobster, meet several more fascinating new residents and a few important local politicians (I must remember not to sneer at the new mayor’s wife’s dress sense); we swam, ran, island-hopped and walked all over Nirvana (which is HUGE) several times. Like a new lover, I want to learn every curve of her body, every hidden beauty mark. Only then can I begin to visualise how to fit our dreams into her perfection.

Vibeke and I had packed our minimal rucksacks for adventure. I thought two bikinis was an unnecessary luxury; she thought my book and shampoo were over the top. It all worked out perfectly. We hopped on a fishing boat and confirmed that whale and dolphins are abundant…as well as marlin! Now there’s a lucrative sport, and completely undeveloped so far for the simple lack of the right boat and equipment. Twenty minutes later we disembarked in Leopard’s Cove, a tiny village on the southern coast of the beautiful island of Boipeba. Ignoring offers to send us horses from the northern tip where Jesse, Bess and Alex awaited us, we gorged on - oh dear, more lobster - napped in the shade till the heat of the sun was gone, and headed off confidently to walk to the north.

Brazilians are quite strange with directions. They don’t seem to know their rights from their lefts, using the word ‘direto’ instead, which means, ‘straight ahead’. Their sense of time is also quite elastic, being Latin, and tropical, and, well, just not giving a shit really, and then there’s the distance thing. It’s kind of in their nature not to disappoint, so they do have a tendency to tell you what they think you want to hear.

Thus we found ourselves fairly exhausted two hours later and still climbing the central spine of the island through magnificent forests and with amazing - but surprisingly distant - views to the sea on either side. We had been told an hour and a quarter, maybe an hour and half. I should have suspected that much precision. It was quite a shock, I can tell you, when the hills kept rising ahead of us with no crest in sight, and we realised we must still be several hours away.

Boipeba is a geographical miracle. You can travel uphill for FOUR HOURS from fishing village to fishing village - with no down bits!! And, amazingly, the soft sand path that is such a drag to trudge through actually goes ALL THE WAY, even on the VERY TOP OF THE VERY HIGH hills.

Night falls. Vibeke has pulled an elastic bandage from her miraculous rucksack for my struggling knee (climbing for hours in soft sand is just about the worst possible thing for a kneecap-less knee), and is now carrying my rucksack as well as her own. We keep our spirits up by laughing hysterically as each new steep hill greets our triumphant cresting of the last one. Then a tractor approaches, groaning with locals, who compassionately offer us a slot between their various armpits. We were almost weeping with exhaustion, but when we discover we are only twenty minutes from our destination, we look at each other, say “no thank you” to their utter amazement, and trudge on. What’s the point of nearly walking across the island of Boipeba?

I started off as the lovingly welcomed guest of old friends, but soon confirmed the eternal verity of that old saying about houseguests and fish going off after 5 days. I pushed my luck to a week and was a nervous wreck by the time I left…never mind my poor hosts.

Every home has its own secret language. How do they feel about windows and doors? Open? Ajar? Locked? What is the Tidiness Factor? How much do they clear up after themselves and how much do they leave to the servants? Is breakfast a Silent Thing? Then there’s me. How much of me is an entertaining variation to their normal routine, and how much makes them want to kill me? One is second-guessing and tiptoeing and pleasing and thank-youing 24/7 and it is not conducive to an intense work schedule.

First, their PC and Internet blew up just by me sitting next to it. I skulked under a guilty cloud for days before the repairman declared me Not Guilty, but I did feel suspicions lurked on. I was told to help myself to the second phone line for the internet but it seemed every time I logged on my hostess would come rushing in saying there was a weird noise on her phone. I decided to keep the lowest possible profile and work in my bedroom, getting up at 6am to get my telecommunications out of the way. I was just tapping through my 7th email and congratulating myself on this magnificent effort when I saw a black ink stain haemorrhaging across the custom-made beige silk bedspread from my uncapped felt tip. I must have scrubbed that thing for 50 minutes, rushing back and forth from my hysterical efforts in the bathroom to my guiltily locked door, putting it in the sun, under the hair dryer, dressing gown at the ready to be tossed in camouflage, listening for sounds of wakefulness and imminent discovery. I’m surprised I didn’t have a heart attack. Eventually I bribed the maid and she performed some miracles, but an incriminating blur remains.

Then there was the little black silk T-shirt Sonia loaned me. We must have spent 20 minutes talking about how perfect it was, how it moulded without clinging, hung without stretching, bla bla bla. Terrified of ruining it, I carefully applied a deodorant for practically the first time this year… which of course left weird red semicircles under the arms. Fighting a losing battle, I tried to compensate: flowers, expensive dinners, little shopping trips for wine and smoked salmon, a new T-shirt, attentive phone calls - but I couldn’t keep up with my own awfulness.

On the last night, against their better judgement, they broke their security phobia and gave me a key. Now, this is a couple whose fear of robbery and kidnapping is such that they actually drive an armoured car. They have the whole ninth floor of a private, guarded building. There are armed guards, double metal gates, they can lock the lift door on their floor. We’re talking secure. I go out on a hot date with an old love, drink way too much, come back, drop my bag in the hall, leave the inner front door open, rip most of my clothes off and pass out in the TV room.

When they step out of the elevator and see the signs of my disordered entry, they assume the worst. My host rushes in heroically to find me spread-eagled on the sofa in the very position he expected, but neither raped nor robbed… merely drunk.

I grovelled a great deal and moved to a hotel. Oh, the relief!! Phones, faxes and emails I can PAY FOR! A room I can wallow in at will! ROOM SERVICE! I stayed another week, and did a month’s work.

I was there to raise a mere $600,000 for my beach club/hotel project, and not much of a clue how to do it other than a determination not to leave town until I had, as it was due in the hands of the vendors that very week. At least if I had it coming I could swing the delay. All I had going for me was a great project, a superb piece of real estate, the loyal backing of my original investors and a very dear friend who felt he could put a small group of investors together, him being one of them, to cover it. I spent busy days writing cash flows and meeting architects and hotel consultancies and lawyers and accountants, and laboured into the nights putting a presentation together in a friend’s ad agency. The big day arrives and I am literally walking out of my hotel room, psyched up to the gills since 5.30 a.m., when the phone rings and I receive the sad news that a friend has just died of breast cancer.

Grieving but practicing compartmentalisation, an on-going requirement of my life, I get to the board room with the millionaires chomping expectantly on their cigars only to discover that the projector and the computer aren’t speaking to each other. I shoo the millionaires away and alternately wheedle and whip the man responsible. Four computers and three disc copies later it looks like we might be ready to go when the sky turns pitch black, a massive thunderbolt resounds one inch above my head and most of the electricity for Sao Paulo blows. I wound up making the presentation in complete darkness except for the glow from my laptop and the tips of their five cigars as the men clustered around me. I nearly fainted from the stress - or was it the smoke? I have a flashback to a summer in Mexico 922 years ago when I inadvertently catch the biggest marlin of the season, strapped into a seat and battling with the 300-kilo beast for nearly seven hours. In the last few moments, every man on the boat gathers around me to bring it in, and I am enveloped in a world of Mexican armpits and testosterone.

Anyway, with two shares confirmed, one looking sure and another seeming likely, I switched compartments and rushed to my friend’s wake. I found a subdued gathering of fifty friends and the widower honoured my shoulder with many of his tears and thanks for kindnesses I don’t remember doing. I avoided the coffin situation because I had never seen a corpse and I don’t know what you’re supposed to do with it, but in the end I had a little sit with Regina and it did feel like a natural way to say goodbye. Apart from the cotton wool in her nostrils.

Do we not have wakes in England? I gather the idea is not to leave the deceased alone, which seems quite nice really, and I look forward to my own. Please dress up, though, I wasn’t impressed with the general style of the mourners. And there was nothing to eat or drink! I promise you, my wake will be catered, and there will definitely be champagne, hopefully pink if there is anything left in the kitty. I suppose if there was ever a time for a whip-round…..

And the circus has come to town! The beach in front of my terrace, so recently occupied by the fairground which brings its perilous attractions every Xmas, is now the site of a beautiful red and yellow striped Big Top, and every night I hear about the balance and death-defying acts below. Tonight I intend to watch the show.

Later

Not impressed. Apparently the magician and the clowns are the best attractions, but I only caught the bit where every female in the troupe puts on a frill or two and shakes her naked Brazilian butt to such classics as I will survive! They were all extremely young, and wiggled with sober concentration and little sensuality under the watchful eye of a large, unsmiling clown. The whole thing stank of child exploitation and I left at the interval where the Evil Clown now monitored the girls as they served popcorn and candied apples to the crowd, their garish makeup only emphasising their tender years. I imagined the beatings between shows and was beginning to recruit assistance for my midnight rescue mission when I discovered that the shameless floozies were all local girls who had clawed their way through a tough audition for the privilege of displaying their buttocks in the glamorous environs of the Big Top. I suppose a career in show business has to start somewhere.

And now it’s time to Pick up Dick! We head off, Jesse and me and Alex, Jesse’s African prince, in a convoy composed of a hired trail bike and our valiant dune buggy, miraculously able to make the journey after only three years of weeping and begging (and shagging the mechanic) and about £500 in invisible parts. Two hours of dramatic driving later, we arrive just in time to see Dick stumble out of the last leg of his journey in a 5-seater air taxi, and careen off with him over the dunes that masquerade as the road. We feed him local alcoholic potions and steaming bowls of sea food, throw him in the sea, make him walk a mile or so to watch the sunset from our land, drag him out for cocktails and pasta, make him share a room with Alex who wakes him twice in the middle of the night with sudden overhead fan action, and marvel as he bounds out of bed the next morning ready for more.

It is equinox time, and the tides are at their highest and lowest, a question of two meters here, so I photograph what this means for our beaches. I walk our one kilometre boundary and discover some suspicious double fencing right on the Point. I hire someone to yank out the new posts placed 3 meters inside the original ones and leave a clear message to the perpetrator, whom I believe intended to then remove my original ones and claim those 3 meters for himself.

I notice also that our beautiful old coconut trees desperately need some care. Some are dying for lack of it as their untrimmed dead fronds attract a beetle that rots the top of the tree until the whole ‘head’ falls off, leaving only a decapitated 40-foot stump bleakly pointing to the sky. I’ve found a man who is the local specialist in shinnying up there and trimming and cleaning them one by one, and I’m going to get him started as soon as possible. It takes at least 15 years for these trees to reach such graceful heights, the Navy just cut 17 of them down because they were obscuring the lighthouse, and I don’t intend to lose any more.

I inspected several beach houses and met twice with our future builder. We set some rough schedules and looked at local materials. I made a new friend in Simone, a lovely woman of about 50 who was head of marketing for the Department of Education in Brasilia until she and her husband decided to leave such things behind, bought a dream plot on our lovely bay and moved in with their plans to build a small hotel. Two weeks later he was killed in a road accident. In her grief she stumbled through the construction just as they had planned and there she is now, sad but busy, running her hotel in paradise.

I took a speedboat to Big Island to offer Jesse up as a sacrifice to Sr Jorge and his family in lieu of the monies expected, but they were thrilled to see me, showered us with exotic homemade liqueurs and juices, and said not to worry, they were fine before and when God was ready, it would all come through. Hoorah! Now I have only to speak directly to the man I actually did the deal with, whom I doubt will be so understanding, finalise the deal I think we’re doing in Sao Paulo, get the money out of their bank and into Sr. Jorge’s and get this worried expression off my face.

Being extremely long in the tooth in the matter of selling creativity, I recognised all the main techniques the Name Architects tried on me, for example:
Attempt to Intimidate: Some people are misguidedly in awe of any form of creative talent and if you can establish that as your domain early on, it makes for an easy ride.
Do the Conceptual Work. It usually takes just a few minutes to get a handle on what’s needed, fall in love with the puzzle and have at least one creative solution come to mind. Once you’re off and running with his problem, the client will get excited and join in and a team spirit is born.
Fish for the Budget. No point in busting your brilliant gut if the client-in-waiting has no concept of the value of good creative work and will never pay your already totally under-priced rate anyway.
If not doing too well so far, try Blinding with Science – although I think I have finally o.d.’d on the Unique Selling Proposition.

Anyway, having failed to find anything of substance to justify the Name’s enormous fees, I was wandering the beach looking for some kind of inspiration when I had the most blinding idea for the position and design of the house. It was a true ‘Eureka!’ moment and I tried madly to capture the concept by drawing it in the sand, with the tide rushing in and erasing my drawings as fast as I made them. Now, if I tell you the whole thing is based on the structure of a fish, using ‘gills’ made of rotating tempered glass (in tints the colours of the local seaweed) to ventilate the house with the prevailing north-eastern breeze, and the piscean digestive system as the social core…you might worry the sun had got to me. But no! This is breakthrough stuff, I’m sure of it, being progressed by the local graduate as we speak.

I was waxing lyrical to him and Geraldo, the builder (and Geraldo’s wife, for good measure), encouraged by what I took to be their awed expression, when Geraldo interjected, with a slightly bitter twist to his mouth “That’s all very well, but I have to figure out what to do with all their shit!”. “Funny you should say that,” I said, “because only this morning as I flushed the loo, I thought to myself - I don’t want a whole bunch of people crapping in my beautiful fish!” This morning he enthusiastically sent me a dozen photos of some shit-processing system, in which I fear I shall have to take an interest.

Still on the subject of poo, the incompetent vet, who nevertheless came to jab the dogs with an autumn cocktail of vaccines, told me the longed-for Itacare sewage system has been put in as follows: piping laid in all the streets, and… nothing hooked up to the houses. It transpires that the hated Mayor Jarbas had the idea that each private dwelling would be delighted to dig up their own floor and lay the rest of the necessary piping from their cistern (? must get a sewage dictionary) to the pipe in the street.

Two torturous years of street mayhem, and I don’t think a single toilet has been hooked up, nor is it likely. Rumours of the necessary pipes being donated to each household by the Council disappeared once Jarbas got re-elected, (I wonder if her ever gave out the second foot of the promised trainers to his voters?) so he won’t bother now. Funding this whole performance was made possible with donations from international charities, loans from the World Bank, and some judicious allocation of sparse state resources… all so Jarbas could pass them on to some cousin fronting a building firm in a distant town. I’m just guessing here.

But I have no illusions at all about corruption being exclusive to the Third World. Look at the walls of traffic cones on road repairs in England. Anyone would think that by making them three deep they would actually prevent a car plowing through. They’re supposed to be markers, as in, one every three meters or so…. but it’s perfectly clear to me that Mr Traffic Cone Buyer in the Government has a son-in-law who manufactures the damn things…I don’t care what anybody says.

Continuing with my theme: today was a shit day, starting with a long-put-off negotiation with my Incredibly Handsome Landlord, who has suddenly become Incredibly Greedy. For my rent, which 4 years ago was £1,000 a year and earned his eternal gratitude, he now expects £4,000 a year and the right to rent it (lovingly furnished by me) during the six months or more when I’m not here. Humph.

Then there was a series of disappointments, demands and threats from and to lawyers and international-paperwork-people which did not lift my spirits, followed by some appalling behaviour from my very own first-born which required Stern Correction. Yay, the job never ends. Next, a text from England on one of my 5 semi-non-functioning phones: ”Bonnie help! Both the toilets in the flat are blocked and we need your credit card urgently” I called and mentioned the fact that I could hardly be made responsible for stopped up loos two months after my departure, but in the end….

Finally, 5’oclock and with the sun already low in the sky, I escape the whole internet/telephone mess with Boyo and Darling. Soon we are in the canoe crossing our beautiful bay and running together on a wild and deserted beach. The dogs have a great new game racing after vultures, who lead them a merry chase up and down the sand, swooping just low enough to give them hope and banking methodically for return flights. My head clears. My spirit soars as the sun once again displays her amazing power, casting streaks and washes of gorgeous colour all over the sky. I’m ashamed of my unusually negative mood and stop to absorb Nature’s glory as she puts the day to bed. And then, squatting on a sand dune against the setting sun - like that fabulous kiss in Gone with the Wind - my beautiful dog lifts his tail and produces three cinematic turds, splendidly silhoutted by the golden rays of sunset. Some days you just can’t get away from the basic facts of life.

We now have a judge, our very own, who is a lady, as is the new district attorney as they call them in America. And finally, Diana, the intrepid head of the Association of Tourist Facilities, has succumbed to flattery, greed or need and agreed to run for Mayor in the upcoming elections. That is quite a line-up of girls for such a wild place, so it will be fascinating to see how the future unfolds with them at the helm.

Culinary update: I gave up on the snails. Following the detailed instructions on the internet, I rinsed, rested, washed, salted and boiled them over a 4-day period, and was just about to shell and simmer them in a court bouillon (all this before even starting on the recipe for Escargots a la Bourgignonne) when I looked at the damn things and realised I just didn’t have enough French blood in me to eat a snail out of my own garden.

I haven’t seen the anaconda again, still recuperating in style at the Sea View Inn after surgery to remove a bullet, but had a good laugh at a hapless tourist peeling a mango in the courtyard. “Do you know if the anaconda is receiving visitors yet?” I asked her. “The what?” she gasped, clearly not having been told about her lethal neighbour when she checked in. I gave her a quick rundown on the 21-footer snoozing in the room next to hers and left chuckling at the horrified expression on her face.

The fishermen told me the snake had been shot upriver by a fazendeiro when caught in the act of swallowing his goat. (The snake, I mean) Poor thing, imagine being shot with half a goat down your throat and slithering to safety in a nice clump of weeds by the river, only to wind up deposited on Itacare’s main beach and providing the evening’s entertainment for two hundred party-goers.

Better to be a snake in need of medical attention here than a person, however. My friend Dulce hadn’t been feeling well since New Year, but assumed it was some kind of extended hangover until three of her elderly aunties suspected appendicitis and decided to rush her to the doctor in Ilheus. They borrowed a car and dashed off dramatically, but the engine seized up after half an hour on the road and the women were forced to hitchhike in four separate vehicles the rest of the way. By the time they reassembled in Ilheus the doctor was long gone, and with no car and no money to stay the night, they had little choice but to stick out their thumbs once again for the 65-km journey home.

Dulce, groaning in a stranger’s back seat, was indeed in the throes of appendicitis, and now has a rather large scar to prove it, which she showed me while laughing merrily at the whole adventure. Apparently her aunts all had a wonderful time regaling their various lifts with local lore and are considering polishing their routine and setting up a tourist bus for the Ilheus-Itacare route.

The town was in danger of lapsing into normal life last week when the 272nd anniversary of its first banana tree sparked off another four days of festivities. These began with an early morning assembly of about fifty women wielding brooms in their best white lace outfits and the usual contingent of bare-chested native drummers to provide the rhythm. The procession samba-ed through the town to the church where a water truck waited, and great fun was had by all as they danced in the stream of the hosepipe and symbolically scrubbed the church steps for another year. (Brooms and water truck kindly donated by Txai, the 5-star resort nearby.)

Terrible bands played right through the next three nights, culminating in a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday, loads of fireworks and a salvo of trumpets on the dawn of Itacare’s 273rd year. London’s millenium celebrations were pathetic by comparison.

Much as I love my daughter, her range of conversational subjects is beginning to wear me down, to wit:
Have you noticed one of my nipples is pinker than the other?
(yeah, honey, it’s a tragedy)
Wow, look at these new muscles on my forearm!
(yeah honey, they’re fabulous)
I’m never going to have pretty feet, am I?
(don’t be silly, darling, there’s nothing wrong with your feet)
Do you think my hair/fringe is too blonde/short/long/wavy/dark?
(no darling, it really suits you like that)

Until recently I felt quite fulfilled in my role as support mechanism, but it’s a bit galling when I have to drag tear-filled eyes away from my own tragic reflection in order to give Miss Homecoming Queen yet another boost. Though she does pat me on the head now and again and tell me I’m looking good. I don’t believe a word of it. After a horrible mishap involving a handsome young Italian and a private showing of my Itacare photos, I have gone back through my entire library and erased all remaining records of me in a bikini. What was I thinking? Why didn’t anyone tell me to get dressed, for God’s sake?

Here is my lyric suggestion for Jessie’s next composition, entitled Rubber Sheep:
Withered husk, withered husk,
I’m just a goatskin after the wine’s been drunk,
A skin bag on the rubber sheep of life.
She’s not too keen on it. I’m working on another one called Alzheimer’s Blues.

I don’t know if it was clutching the back of a scrambler bike for 3 hours yesterday, but my hands were so painful this morning I decided to activate my Marie Curie /Elizabeth Arden plan, whereby I discover natural cures for everything right here in Itacare. I blended some carefully harvested seaweed with papaya, on the theory that the enzymes in the papaya would break down the minerals in the seaweed and…well, all I can say is that making a nice smooth cream is not as easy as I thought. There were green, purple and orange blobs everywhere until I gave up on texture and slapped it on anyway. Optimistically enveloped up to my elbows in what looked and smelled like fish vomit, I was sitting on my veranda when my incredibly handsome landlord came over for a morning spliff.

Elias and his incredibly plain, cross-eyed wife are trying a new lifestyle whereby they actually live together, after years of him basically hanging out with his fishing mates here in his home town and her hanging out in Ilheus where her father is a local politician and their only daughter can get a better education. Now Priscilla is off to university, they’ve had to rent the Ilheus house to pay for it, and Paula is trying to adapt to her husband’s real lifestyle for the first time in 19 years. I asked her the other day how she and Elias got together, and she replied, quite naturally: “Well, I’ve always liked the simpler folk…” She thinks she has a shrivelled leg, which means she can’t really walk very far and needs an arm to lean on, and she thinks she has skin cancer, so she can’t go out in the sun at all, her sinusitis gives her constant headaches, she gets sleepy and goes to bed at 9pm and cries when she reads poetry. I just love her, she’s like a character out of a 19th century novel. Elias treats her like a princess, though she did complain that he didn’t volunteer to massage her feet anymore.

Anyway, I wiped my hands and we sparked up to discuss the way forward now that I have been here 2 1/2 years, NONE OF YOU have come to visit this fully-furnished and functioning paradise I have created to share with you and I have run out of money (again). He just said, “We’ll work something out, you’re not leaving us, you can always come and stay in our house.” How’s that for a landlord?

After two weeks of following Darling around armed with loo paper to dab at her punani and a stick to defend her from hordes of horny hounds, the nightmare of fertility is finally over. Today we will celebrate with a joint swim with the sharks followed by a canine shampoo-and-set, once I get the frog out of the shower. Then off to finally attempt a capoeira class with Jessie. How bad can it be?

A luscious tropical storm rages around me, wind lashing the shutters, a curtain of silver water pouring off the veranda’s sloping roof, thunder shaking the tiles and lightning illuminating the fishing boats cowering in the dusk. Naturally the entire town has been plunged into darkness and is likely to remain so for the rest of the night, a fabulous enforced conclusion to the weeks of Carnival mayhem.

The Diamond Mountains will have to wait for another year, but we escaped the worst of Carnival (or best, depending on where you stand on the evolutionary ladder) to an exquisite coral beach far from the madding crowd. Coconut palms rustled in the evening breeze as Jessie wrestled bravely in the dark with a tent purchased in a rush of enthusiasm after a particularly embarrassing Glastonbury. As we unfolded and attached and toggled things, something rather like the Taj Mahal emerged, with room for a good cocktail party inside and both front and back porches standing proud. The next morning we cringed with embarrassment when we crawled out and saw all the discreet little camouflage numbers around us.

We scuba-ed and snorkelled to our hearts’ content, taking time to chastise the many morons we found walking on the coral, ate a summer’s worth of crab, posed as enchanted tourists while photographing a pair of illegal lobster dealers and their beautiful out-of-season catch, ate some perfect sushi at the end of the world and made an exotic new friend of an Argentinean shiatsu masseuse-cum-beachcomber.

Meanwhile in Itacare the reinforced Carnival police stopped a particularly scabby bus at the entrance to the town to find it packed with twenty-three petty thieves who had chartered it for the occasion, and the mayor excelled himself once again by tossing condoms to the writhing crowds from his VIP stand next to the stage. Every half hour or so (for five days and nights non-stop) the hired musicians, representing his only investment all year, declared the undying thanks and eternal love of the people of Itacare for their great mayor. Aaaarrgh!

It’s going to be some election this October, and I really am sad I won’t be here to document and perhaps even influence it. I had volunteered myself as marketing strategist for Diana and her party, envisioning a Thatcher-like turnaround, but I fear I am unqualified to compete with opposition tactics that include giving one half of a pair of trainers to prospective voters and promising them the other foot upon election. They’ll just have to get along without me.

And so my countdown begins, that dreadful time when you suddenly realise there’s only one more Saturday lunch, only seven more possible swims, only seventy more possible caipirinhas. I don’t know where to put my attention most. My dogs? Soon they will be orphans, swims with kayaks across the bay only a memory, along with the steak, the cuddles and the 24/7attention. I have learned to love dogs and Darling will always be mine. Elias and family will look after her and she will survive until I see her again. It’s always the same question: is it better to have loved and left then never to have loved at all? The answer has to be yes, always yes.

Speaking of Elias, his only daughter Priscilla came home from university last weekend and we shared a few sweet hours together. She’s the same age as Jessie, and there the comparison ends. So modest she won’t go to a beach or wear a bikini, so shy she has never had a boyfriend (though she did once hold hands with a young man) she has struggled through the pressures of being the only child of her mismatched parents and fulfilled their loftiest dreams by getting into university. Some of the immediate glory of getting a place was dulled by the year-long teachers’ strike (understandable after eight months without pay), but Priscilla is now in a respectable boarding house in a distant town starting her studies in agronomy.

She told me she asked God to put good people in her path and He sent me! She also confided the most poignant tale of loving dedication: her mother had been so over-protected by her mother that she was literally incapable of doing anything for herself, including dressing, brushing her hair and boiling water. Naturally the dowager disapproved of The Incredibly Handsome Elias and refused to allow him into the family home for TEN YEARS while she cosseted her daughter and granddaughter until her death. This event plunged Paula into such a depression that she spent two years lying on a bed staring at the wall and weeping, two years of total madness and withdrawal when Elias barely left her side, stroking her constantly, whispering “Don’t be afraid, my darling, you are still loved, your family is right here waiting for you. Come back to us, my love, come back…” During those endless days he cared for her every need, including tenderly shaving her legs and armpits.

I want to be a tragic heroine, dammit!

Romance and drama is everywhere here. Jessie’s boyfriend was born deep in the mangrove and was only five when he witnessed his first murder. They found him and his friend Tico sitting by Tico’s mother with her head hacked off. The father Marcao was gone and a few days later Tico, all of ten years old, disappeared into the jungle too, never to be heard of again.

Until fifteen years later. Somehow this boy travelled over 50 miles to Itabuna and managed to find a home, get an education, marry, get a job and have a small son of his own when one day he heard on the news that a man named Marcao had been arrested for the murder (same technique) of another woman. Tico waited patiently outside the jail until the day for Marcao’s arraignment came, when he stepped forward, cut his father’s throat from ear to ear and calmly gave himself up. Noone could bring themselves to charge him.

So many stories! I’ve just discovered the climactically-challenged Snowball Church, a well-attended little shack with a surfboard for an altar and the motto “The Best Wave is Jesus!’ My ex-boyfriend Duduca is limping around town with his teeth knocked out and his wrist broken, having been set upon by his ex-wife’s son. The sewage pipes are snaking their way through the cobblestone streets at astonishing speed but our water bills have become suspiciously high. The school year began on Monday and every woman in town was queuing up outside the petrol station which doubles as the Benefits Office to collect their £5 per child education allowance. It’s something. An eight-year-old girl was run over this morning and the town has plunged into sorrow for the much-loved gentleman who committed the unavoidable accident as much as for the child and her family. Here, reputation is all.

The avocados and papayas grow fat on the trees and the ticks grow fat on my dogs, so I have many chores before I leave. The plan is to hit Sao Paulo this time next week, train our feet back into shoes and our skin back into clothes and head for your pale but smiling faces March 15th. If the plane falls out of the sky, I hope you know that I will go down pretty damn content with my lot and deeply happy that I have known and loved every one of you on this little mailing list. In my current state of fitness, I’ll probably survive the crash and swim home anyway!

Prepare yourselves for a Brazilian-style hug!

Molnar The Intrepid

My only real decision here today is which beach to go to and how many hours I shall allow myself to wallow in cyber popularity. Yes, friends, your lack of loving emails has driven me to a dating site, and you had just better be nice to me because they love me out there! London is apparently awash with eligible men of a certain age and I may be extremely busy working my way through them when I get back. Three months of looking at near-naked 20-year-olds has done it for me. Give me a happy little paunch, a few interesting folds about the mouth and a wry, lived-in look in the corner of the eye. Yes, Lord, send me a man with history and content and wisdom for lo! I shall appreciate him.

Here’s an example of the wit coming my way:
Hi Bonnie,
Well
What can I say ……..
but… if I were a cabbage and someone cut me in two ..I would give a leaf to anyone but save my heart for you.
Have a lovely weekend and an extra smile from me
Mick X plenty more where that came from

Itacare ripples along, steamy and sleepy, and I have been struggling to break through a crust of inertia, brought on mostly by the Isabel Allende episode. By inertia, I mean of course that I am still running or walking a good five miles a day, swimming another half-hour or so, rowing back and forth in the dugout quite a bit and learning to sail again. Oh how wonderful it is to flail about these three adjoining bays, one river, one sea and one mixed, becalmed but proud as I attempt to jib and tack! Our instructor kept pulling alongside and asking Jessie to lean over and clean the seaweed off the rudder, so she is now sensibly trying to convert his interest into English lessons in exchange for time on the boat.

The sea has just turned impossibly green and I’m going to have to throw myself in it. It’s amazing how much time you can fill just using your body.

Ah, that’s better, though I did fall victim to a vicious attack on the beach. Can you believe, I was sitting cross-legged throwing a few Nam yo-ho renge kyo’s out into the universe, three miles of utterly deserted sand either side of me, when suddenly a cheeky little crab managed to find his way between my legs and give me a good pinch where the sun don’t shine! I jumped about a foot into the air! Honestly, a girl isn’t safe anywhere.

Speaking of crabs, they have about six varieties here and I finally decided to try the local favourite, guiamum. They are so highly prized there are signs on the highway saying Careful! Guaiamum crossing!- like we’re supposed to drive slowly just in case? They’ve got a shell, haven’t they? I bought a dozen big blue ones tied to a pole for about £3, put them in a box with some beer and mandioc flour to fatten them up, and two days later, it’s party time! I conscripted a young man who hitched a lift in my canoe to help me. He was from Maryland, where the inspiring state motto is “Maryland is for the crabs”, so there was nothing he didn’t know about the whole procedure of cleaning and boiling and shelling, and they were indeed mighty fine.

It’s raining fruit here at the moment, little orange seriguelas and juicy purple jambos and tasty miniature guavas and succulent mangos, all thundering down on my roof and paths in squishy abundance.

The most exciting news today is the 15th edition of ITACARE with YOU! the monthly newspaper which I have been nudging towards significance. Under my obnoxious nagging, the brave but amateur two ladies who put it together have taken it from a tourist freesheet to this month’s spectacular, challenging and accusatory account of what’s really going on.

You may remember their original response to me a year ago that they ‘didn’t want to wake up with a bullet in the chest”. Well, each month they have been a little more daring, interviewing and publishing the thoughts (usually accusations directed at our beloathéd mayor) of prominent locals (the doctor who single-handedly saved the hospital, the resort owner who helped raise the funds, the lady who runs the Tourist Association that organises rubbish collection)…and each month every one has survived intact!

Now thoroughly emboldened, they allowed me to spend a stimulating few days helping them prioritise their material (“No, Denise, Dona Benta’s Okra Soup really shouldn’t be on the front page”) lay it out more sensibly and write some real headlines. What a difference! We were able to pinpoint exactly where a lot of this town’s troubles ultimately lie – at the bottom of a pile in the Governor’s office – and put together a compelling indictment and call to action. I can almost hear the bullets flying now.

Unfortunately, the little fable I had written (Paradise Lost – pace Milton) as a call to better ethics (ignorance, greed and need often result in questionable practices towards the tourists) fell by the wayside. But I am so gratified that my years of organising, dressing up and distorting information in advertising, business plans and screenplays have finally been put to constructive use. Maybe that’s a little lesson in reality.

I have also been trying to assess the property investment scenario, which is quite hard going in a place like this. For example, I spent a broiling day on motorbike and canoe exploring lagoons, rivers and beaches on the peninsula, hiking through forest trails to smallholdings for information and locating landowners. All this was a piece of cake, but I was in the company of a Chilean gold miner who had had a complete irony bypass. I never knew how much of my daily happiness is based on humour and how much of my humour was based on irony – I wasn’t even that sure what irony was –until I spent a day in his company. I did see feeble signs of a comic sense – he beeped playfully at the only other motorbike we saw – but he didn’t get a single one of my jokes, comments, analogies or fantasies. He reminded me of a lobotomised maid I had once – but that’s another story – and he was a lawyer, so I guess that explains it.

But oh what places we discovered! In particular, a strip of cocoanut-grove paradise running between a large and lovely lagoon and a magnificent coral-reefed beach, with 500-foot fronts on both. 16 acres of heaven, with fresh water wells, electricity and a road, plus three large farmhouses ready for a lick of paint and sophistication to sleep 30-40 people right away. There is a brand-new tiny airport 5 km down the road because – shhhhh! – the President of Brazil has built a secret hideaway just along the beach for himself and three of his ministers, and a new five-star resort is being finished nearby as we speak.

Anybody got $500,000 to spare? Or $50,000? I reckon between 10 of us we could build a self-financing (yoga holidays, etc) 10-chalet paradise and run it as a private club. And – here’s the best news - Mr. Irony Bypass is in for a share!

I also hitchhiked on a very intrepid truck delivering a refrigerator to a riverside village I thought might be an undiscovered jewel and where I hoped to meet up with a doctor who navigates the waters once a week ministering to the natives. After various mishaps en route I missed the doc and spent five zillion of the longest hours in my life awaiting his return and a lift home. There was absolutely totally and utterly NOTHING to do or see or eat, just mangy dogs (and people) scratching themselves in the heat, and one hopeful little stall selling matches and cocoanut sweets. The only eatery (for want of a better word) in town had stingray stew for lunch, and I’m here to tell you to give it a miss should you ever see it on a menu.

Only a month today and I’ll be landing in London, so I’m having to tackle the future of things like dogs, houses, furniture and buggies, not to mention myself. Jessie is still defying all logic with her sleeping patterns, writing some damn good songs (I think) and having an interesting time with Alex, a magnificent young man who alternates between being an African King and an eye-rolling slave. Carnival approaches fast and I am planning my getaway, hopefully to the diamond mine mountains 12 hours from here. Please write me something before I go, I might get lost forever out there!

Fortunately thinking isn’t high on my agenda for the next few days, what with an absolute dream scenario of a really good rave over New Year on an island a few hours from here. The journey involves crossing the river between me and the Marau peninsula by canoe, catching a lift on a 4 by 4 over 30 km of challenging dirt trails to a two-shack, one bar beach post, maybe walking the 15 km from there by beach (as I did last year) to Barra Grande, a small, isolated beach village at the far end of the peninsula, and then jumping into another canoe to the island of Prataji. Apparently they expect some 2,000 trance fans to make this trek and party for a week - and remember, I’m already in the area, most of them are travelling 2000 kilometres from Sao Paulo to get here! Gregory tells me he’s heard of this party in London, with a good contingent coming from there. You just have to admire the dedication. I expect, as usual, to be the oldest person at the party, dancing through the night on my crumbling knees with the help of party chemicals and catching interested looks in the moonlight which are soon dispelled by the dawn.

I was just tending my two prized hanging ferns, reduced to hanging stubs thanks to Mara’s lack of care, when a yellow and black butterfly as big as my palm fluttered over and rested on my wrist before depositing a pinhead of something (butterfly poo? caterpillar egg?) on one of the leaves. Somehow the concept of butterfly poo makes me want to think about The Meaning of Life, but that just doesn’t go anywhere.

Jessie continues to astound me with her capacity for partying. Although central Itacare is no more than three cobblestone lanes of bars, restaurants and shops emanating from a small triangle called Dog Square, there are always a half a dozen places open at 4 am, including the gas station, which has taken to presenting live music and forro dancing (the new/old lambada) on the forecourt. The aesthetics of enjoying all this while sitting next to a petrol pump are questionable, but when customers are asked to put out their cigarettes as they had “a bit of a leak this afternoon” I, personally, feel its time to go. Not our Jess. The hours fly by with her easy, happy party persona, so diametrically opposed to her daytime self.

Our routine seems to be shaping up like this: I wake up anywhere between 6 and 7:30 and get smothered with love from Darling and her 3-month old son, Boyo. Both of them are marvellous guardians of the house and such good company on the beach. Darling is an excellent swimmer and clearly bred for retrieving from the water. I feel perfectly safe with her even in the most remote places, and all she asks is constant love and attention, beautiful home-cooked food and my best pillow to rest on.

Then I usually check my email and make a list to ignore or do some writing while breakfasting on pineapple, passion fruit, papaya and mangos, all of which pale against the humble banana, so incredibly different from the flavourless, gassed things we get in England. Then I either swim across the bay or jump in a canoe to the endless empty beaches of the peninsula, where I spend a few solitary hours walking, running, swimming, playing in the surf, being creative or philosophical (usually linked with being stoned) or possibly chanting. Now Darling not only heels to command on land, she does the same thing in the water, swimming beside me for 5 minutes or so before panicking and trying to climb on top of me in true drowning man style. If it go over at high tide, the water in the bay is lovely to swim in but the beach can be just knee-killing soft, in which case I make a lean-to with the baroneza plants that drift loose from upriver this time of year, and Darling and I sit in the shade and watch the waves do their heavenly, foamy thing.

Yesterday I found my little shelter the worse for having hosted a Xmas beach party, so I cleaned it up and set about re-building it. I was using driftwood for the structure and had developed quite a technique for spreading the bunches of drying baroneza like a thatch when I hit on something solid, which turned out to be a pair of snakes snoozing in my roof. I was staring at my hand waiting to see if I had been bitten and at the snakes waiting to see if they were going to come after me, when I realised that it wasn’t two snakes but one very large one, head up and watching me. After a boring few minutes trying to out-stare at each other I decided to leave it alone.

Today as we crossed the bay I asked my canoeiro if he knew about snakes, and described it to him. ‘Ah, the Kai-ni-na-na,” he whispered reverently. “one of the deadliest creatures in these parts.” “Really?” I gasped, removing my hand from where it trailed in the water. “As in, it could kill you?” “Ave Maria!” he exclaimed. “Two hours, tops”. I gulped, having been so very, very close. I did have a feeling at the time that death was in the neighbourhood. “Does it paralyse you, or is it very painful? “First it paralyses you,” he said, with some relish, “and then the pain begins.” So you can’t even writhe in agony!

I informed myself carefully for any future such occasions: apparently you need to whip out a knife (carrying one at all times just in case) and cut yourself above the bite to try to prevent the poison spreading up your blood system. You also have to keep moving before the paralysis takes over. If you can make it to the Emergency Post within two hours there is a vaccine to save you, but if I had been bitten, I obviously would have been in no condition to swim back and the canoe wouldn’t have come to get us in time. The truth is Jessie would have had to watch me die there on my beautiful peninsula. I wondered who she would call and what she would do and thanked the universe for my very narrow escape. On the other hand, I do think going out with a snakebite would be pretty damn cool.

I seem to have something going on with the mechanic fixing our buggy. As you know, I have a penchant for men who work with their hands, and a girl with a dune buggy can do no better than find herself a mechanic for a boyfriend. He is quite clever and droll, black of course, and began his courting of me by painting the whole car top to bottom, racing stripes, inner wheels, the whole caboodle, and presenting it to me as a surprise. It put such a smile on my face I had to let him take me to a reggae show in the jungle, where he treated me like a princess.

As I write it is 8pm New Years Eve and he has headed off to Ilheus to try to find a part for the clutch, which leaves Jess and me without transportation to the rave. Solution: we have rented a scrambler bike and are about to head off into the night.

January 3rd

We have just about recovered from our adventure, one of the most memorable 24hours ever. We hopped on the last ferry to the peninsula and speeded into New Year’s Eve, with a black, moonless sky setting off the southern hemisphere’s magnificent display of stars. One of them would fall off its perch and tumble through the heavens almost every time we looked up. The road was soft white sand at times and hard-packed red earth at others, 60 kilometres of delicious riding through darkest country in nothing more than shorts and flip-flops, with the tropical night caressing our skin. We intended to ride along with someone for safety and occasional partygoers did whiz past us in their Land Rovers, but mostly it was just our motorbike, the night and us.

Jessie was team leader and did the driving, having trained with me from a pup on the dusty lanes of Goa and Thailand as well as Brazil, and we arrived at the village an hour or so later, just in time for fireworks and kisses on the pier at midnight. We joined some friends and headed even further down the beach to a completely isolated corner of the world where river meets sea. Canoes were waiting for us in the silent black night, then another 15-minute walk along the beach in the starlight and we arrived! A wonderful sound system, great DJ’s and lots of happy people to dance the night through awaited. Jessie and I ingested half a precious LSD tab each and the combination of that and the natural beauty of where we were made for an unforgettable silver-pink dawn reflected across the waters.

A lazy swim, a snooze in a hammock under the palms, lobster for lunch and cruising back in the open air as the sun slowly set across the exquisite, empty landscape, my daughter and I enjoyed each other and the world around us as never before. Here’s hoping this glorious beginning sets the standard for a new year full of beauty and love.

So with that under my belt I have to figure out what to do about my book. I think I’ll just write another 10,000 words or so and then there will be enough there for someone else to help me decide. I’ll stop this pleasant task of communicating with you and get to work, sending you all my best wishes for 2004.

Love love love, Bonnie.

Unfortunately the most prominent expression of brotherly love around here is that showered by the native stallions on Jessie, bursting with blonde lusciousness and just Brazilian enough to get herself into trouble. As I write we plan our days around which end of which beach to avoid lest Boyfriend No 1, the surfing champ, bump into Boyfriend No 2, the capoeira champ, while running the gauntlet of a dozen other pretenders to the position. I seem to have morphed, possibly due to the sudden appearance of a tummy, ruining that critical waist-to bum ratio, into The Mother. This gets me lots and lots of hearty salutations, hugs and offers of small favours from stunning young men who see me purely as a means to an end-Jessie’s, of course. Meanwhile Darling’s next period (or whatever it’s called) looms about 3 weeks away, when I shall be fending off all the 4-legged studs in this town as well. Whoopee.

It’s a week yesterday since we oozed down the steps of a 29-hour bus trip, a lesson in economy, patience and distance. It was good to see the 2,500 miles of raw countryside go by from a reclining, air conditioned bus seat instead of a cramped and expensive flight, and gave Jessie and me both a good sense of just how far we are from prawn and pork dumplings at the E&O.

One of the good things about Jessie’s boyfriends is that they do come up with regular offerings of cocoanuts, bananas and fish, as well as attending to daily emergencies such as the semi-live chicken Darling brought me this morning, now recuperating beside the sofa.

Mara, the sweet girl I adopted to look after my house and dog these seven months I have been revelling in London, did a pretty good job of stripping me bare, having decreed open house to her 16 brothers and sisters, their children, their friends, their friends’ children and so forth. In the mayhem most of my valuables have disappeared: swimming fins, stereo speakers, machete and other knives and tools, all lamps broken, all rugs ruined, my yoga mat gone (no doubt to become someone’s bed) as well as sheets, hammocks, extension cords, light bulbs, rubbish bins - sigh. Most of these simple things were actually sought-out treasures that had to be found and brought from Ilheus, 65 hot jungle kilometres away.

Mara of course blames it all on Jessie’s boyfriend No 2, who also lived here for 4 months, against my specific instructions, but he did at least repaint the house, recover the sofas and buy 2 new hammocks to make up for those things he was responsible for. The dune buggy I was so proud of and loaned him to take care of is now topless, seatless and motorless at the mechanic, but he swears it will be ready by New Year.

My landlord Elias, who lives right next door, says the rape and pillage of my house was all terribly traumatic for him but did he think to call me and tell me any of this? Of course not, that would be ‘interfering’, in Bahian terms. Hmmm. To top it all off, everyone in town knows Darling as the ownerless dog, as she has literally been running, unfed and free, more or less since I left. Which is how she got knocked up by an unsavoury local and produced 7 puppies she should never have had at only 8 months old, my poor little child bride. The one Mara kept, Boyo, is completely black like his dad except for his legs and chest, which are 100% Dalmatian. You wouldn’t believe the appalling table manners and general ruffian behaviour that give away his lowly paternity. Reminds me of Jessie sometimes.

After three days of meetings with various witnesses, ‘walking on eggs’ as advised by my friend Dao, I told Mara that sadly I could never trust her again and she would have to go. She put her nose in the air and marched off to tell everyone she is taking me to the Worker’s Tribunal for holiday pay, 13th salary, one month’s notice and more, amounting to some £450. And I’m told they always win. This after 7 month’s paid holiday thanks to your friend the idiot here.

On the positive side Elias and family have offered to stand as witnesses on my side if need be, and I have already replaced her with another sweet smiling creature who will no doubt fuck me over at the first opportunity. I don’t know yet if Mara will really take it to the Tribunal, as she hasn’t a leg to stand on or any credible witnesses of her own, but what I have most in my favour is the holidays, where of course everything shuts down for a month - more if the sea is particularly clear. There are dire possibilities of passports being held back and all sorts of shit, so cross your fingers for me.

Nothing is as it seems in Paradise any more than it is anywhere else.

Monday 22nd

Jessie awoke yesterday afternoon unaware of the recuperating chicken situation and walked into the spare room to find it sitting on her guitar. Thinking it mangy and horrible (rather than half-eaten and struggling to survive), and in imminent danger of crapping on her future career, she shooed it roughly out the window into the garden, where the poor thing was found ‘stiff and cold’ by Elias this morning. I would have cooked it, at least for Darling, but Elias is against eating anything he hasn’t killed himself.

After our mad week seeing 29 friends in Sao Paulo, with meals, parties and drinks to match, and a week settling in here, it’s time to get into a routine or I’ll never get my book written. Jessie’s routine has been to be out till dawn every night since we got here, roaming the beaches from bar to bar and apparently singing at all of them. She has been galvanised by the reception she got at her two only live performances in London and has written two stonking new songs in a week to add to the two written in the last four years. Literally everyone here can make music of one kind or another, so she is in the right place to loosen up and work on her repertoire, and is making incredible progress with her guitar. I’m already planning a retirement awash with her royalties.

She finally got an early night yesterday and was up by 7 this morning. I hadn’t seen her in daylight for so long I barely recognised her, but off we went by canoe to the Pontal, an endless virgin beach on the other side of the bay, there to run and play with Darling for an hour or so. We swam back through absolutely transparent green seas for lunch on the veranda: beans and rice and cabbage stuffed with spicy soy mince, washed down with cashew juice. Yum. Passed out in our hammocks gazing out to sea and have just risen to get this Xmas message to those I love before I tackle The Crystal Skull, page one. What a thrill! I have never written a book before but I have about 40 pages of storyboards and notes for the erstwhile film here, so it can’t be too difficult, can it?

On a more immediate financial note, our week in Sao Paulo and replacing the basics here has left us with a hilarious budget of about £14 a day between us for the next 3 months! So I am hoping to give Portuguese lessons to a newly arrived gringo, and Jess is checking out restaurants to work in. We also have hot plans to revive my original Big Blue tourist plan as Guia Girl, girl guides to show you around (and speak English too!) for the many adventurous women who get this far but aren’t too comfortable heading off into the jungle with some big black native they don’t know - though some of them, it must be said, have come up here for exactly that purpose. Bahian natives are renowned for their silky skin, the way they fill out their bathing suits and their accommodating natures.

Horror of horrors, lobster fishing is banned from 31st December until April, so I’m going to put in an order with my friend Dora, who sits all day in a bright blue shack looking out to the sea. Her sign says ‘Almost everything for fishing’, (lest she disappoint), and she seems to be about the happiest person in the world. And she knows the guys who get the fattest lobsters. That will be our Xmas feast, and we have a cunning plan to dye Darling green and decorate her with a red ribbon in lieue of a tree. Photos to follow!

Now, let me see- 1500 words a day, 60 days - does anybody know how many words it takes to write a book?

Have a loving time with plenty of goodies.

Lots of love from moi.

There are floods and wet disasters of all kinds in Rio and Sao Paulo, but here in Bahia the rains have an obvious job to do, and add more interest to the day as we watch the storm clouds roiling across the sea towards us after lunch or listen to it hammering down on the clay roof tiles. Beautiful and airy as these roofs may be, they are not entirely waterproof, as I figured out getting into my very damp bed for the third night in a row. A fine mist filters down over everything, which is nothing a few minutes with the hairdryer can’t resolve, but after a few days and coupled with the humidity, accumulates into a very damp world where everything is clammy and smells of mould. Fortunately we have sunshine every morning, so we dash to put everything on the veranda - bedclothes, sofa cushions, pillows, towels, and clothes - so they can dry out briefly before the arrival of the afternoon storms.

A touch of rain and 2 degrees below the usual fry-an-egg-on-a-cobblestone heat, and the mighty natives drop like flies. They lie about prostrate on canoes, benches and patches of grass, arms bent dramatically over their foreheads, snuffling and whimpering like babies. Men only, of course. As in everywhere, the women just don’t have the time to get sick.

I’m not sure if it’s because of the wet weather, but I was just closing Jessie’s bedroom shutters against the impending afternoon storm, where a forest of green shrubbery shields us from Elias, (or him from us) when I saw scattered among its succulent leaves a dozen beautiful brown and black snails. They looked exactly like the ones gracing my plate many a time at Mon Plaisir, so I called Marcia, the honey-skinned replacement for She Who Robbed Me Blind, and asked her what they were called in her colourful native tongue. Imagine my surprise when she said, “We call them escargots.” “Escargots?” I queried, “What, as in French? Escargots?” “I don’t know about French”, she said, “but some people here actually eat them! Yeuuurgh!” She retched delicately.

Needless to say I now have a dozen of what the internet suggests may be the finer breed of wild Bourgogne snails fasting their little intestines clean in a box on the veranda. And I thought only fruit grew on trees!

For a week now we have been entertained by the sounds of the small travelling circus encamped on the beach below. Regular announcements of the Monkey Woman’s terrifying appearance have punctuated our evenings. Last night, having refined the Monkey Woman cocktail to what is bound to become a classic combination of vodka and fresh cocoanut water, and imbibed several thereof, Jess, myself and a small band of merry makers (they come and go with the tides: surfers, locals, tourists, anyone interesting we pick up in the street) set off to finally see the lady herself. Shock, horror, she had (been?) packed up and whisked away to a more throbbing metropolis. But! She will be back two weeks from now. I have put the date in my diary and nothing will keep me away.

As we clustered in disarray trying to figure out how to replace the evening’s programme, another parade (ho-hum) came dancing down the street, this time led by two quite hideous giant baboons and a hunter, all shaking their bodies in a most primitive and frightening tableau. Sometimes all the dark mystery of Africa is very present here. Suddenly the ‘hunter’ broke away and charged towards me, waving his hunting sticks and giving me such a start that I bolted screaming like a child, much to the delight of all. We joined in this jungle Halloween of course and spent the next hour happily bopping to the exotic beat and frightening whoever dared to cross our path.

We wound up at Forro Night (again) at the Mar e Mel, and I was able to witness up close the fascinating native ritual of Dance Floor Courtship, though I did have to take care to avoid the stampede of rutting males.

The most colourful shirts and tightest skirts are on, the best dancing flip-flops in place, approximately half a litre of ‘perfume’ per male is walloping through the air (I find you can duck out of the worst of it if you pay attention to wind direction) and the fabulous, irresistible music begins. A 4-piece band of impeccable skill notched up the stakes with their increasingly demanding rhythms and the battle was on!

How to describe this beautiful dance, full of exquisite choreography, hands over and under, crossed in mid-air and caught and uncrossed again, the girls turning like music-box ballerinas and the men swooping under their arms and around their backs in perfect synchronicity? They lead their ballerinas beautifully, showing them off to maximum effect and thoughtfully punctuating quite staggering sequences of ten or more different turns with subtle moves like sneaking a sandaled foot between the girls’ and delicately tapping a pointed toe behind her, or lifting a rippling thigh off the ground and just rolling her back and forth on it for a few beats (seems to be very popular, this move). The men are graceful and creative and every step seems designed to accentuate the beautiful curves of their partners. The girls, dressed with incredibly subtle skill in bits of cloth that somehow tease and conceal and stay on through all this, affect a completely passive, almost bored gaze into the mid-distance as they put Come Dancing to shame.

Obviously the town has its star dancers and when enough of them are on the floor, a subtle excitement shifts the band to play ever-faster rhythms until the dancers are dripping with sweat in their efforts to outdo each other.

Poor Jess. She was spun and twirled and thrown in the air and then spun and twirled again, ad infinitum, as each proffered male took her through his best paces. She looked fabulous of course, with her blonde beauty shining in the throbbing sea of darker skins and dancing the forro as though born to it. Only her joyful smile gave her away as a novice.

I managed to force a few guys to give me a desultory spin while I awaited the non-appearance of Boy, who by the way is married, with 3 kids by 3 other women in 3 other towns, all of which he confessed to me as his current wife was on her way from Uruçuca to ‘see how he was doing’. And still only 27! Plus my buggy still sits soggily on his forecourt. It’s been a tough few weeks for him, what with rain flooding his premises, a hundred tourists arriving and leaving in clapped-out old heaps needing urgent repairs, and all these women needing his attention. Bless.

And another day begins. 5 a.m. and I listen as the last strains of music in the town below cross-fade with the dawn chorus outside my window. The dogs whine and paw at the door. My worst fears have come true, and every canine prick for miles around is aimed straight for my poor Darling, now in full heat and sporting genitals swollen to the size of a coconut. We had nicknamed her Vulva for our own private amusement, calling out and cackling uproariously as we sauntered with her down the street, until it became apparent that vulva had the same meaning in Portuguese.

My snails have escaped! Only a starter portion remains, the others having somehow enlarged my thoughtful air holes into escape hatches and made a dash for it, no sign of the sneaky bastards anywhere. How fast can they move, for heaven’s sake?

And my hair dryer, serving as a bed-dryer these past few weeks, has finally burnt out, but the fishermen tell me the weather will change tomorrow and they will cast their nets from my favourite beach. It’s a 10-man operation only possible at certain times in the summer, their net is 200 meters long and they pull in as much as one or two thousand kilos of fish! I shall be there to document it all, thankful that this very abundance is what keeps the sharks from taking a bite of me.

Here’s a bundle of love to you all.