The Guru and The Rock

To Cumbuco

Somewhere between the golden dunes and emerald sea is a small gem of a town called Cumbuco. Its a sleepy coastal village, one street runs end to end shops and homes on either side. It’s a town so small that no addresses are given. Directions are merely go straight north or south. Everyone knows everyone (in theory) and where everything is (in theory). I have seen small towns like this before and they are anything but. With a revolving tourist population the size of the town itself how could it retain the small town charms? 

I had seen photos of my pousada previously and it looked like a nice extension of paradise. It was as it seemed in the photos, very pleasant and comfortable, a ring of hammocks around the pool, behind that a ring of rooms and around that a ring of concrete topped by an electric fence. Apparently this pousada is an oasis, our little concrete paradise among criminals and thieves. The Brazilian girlfriend of the belgian owner does not let Brazilians in, can’t be trusted. Can’t be trusted or too real to deal with while on holiday? Shortly after arrival I am treated to two second hand stories of guns and robbery, it is merely hazing, stories that travel among the foreigners that serve only to propagate our need for electric fences. We all know better but you have to question whether we would still know better if we didn’t have the fence. If our pool backed right on to the back of a favella would we still feel so comfortable?

My oasis was comfortable but cold, not Brazilian winter cold but european cold. The fence keeps out the criminals and thieves and colour and warmth. A step outside these hallowed walls and life revives. The sun sets early casting a magic glow over the town. There is a mild ambience of street banter, children playing and the occasional dune buggy all mixed together by the howling easterly winds.

The winds bring kiteboarders from all over the world, pros, team riders and hobbyists like myself. This coast is often described as one of the top spots in the world. It is likely only by it’s relatively remote coordinates that it still retains some small town charms. Until the sun sets the tourists will be on the sea, north or south at one of the many lagoons. There are many of us here, too many. Even amongst kiters, once a community, there is no longer a sense of oneness. Our group is too large and with that goal oriented mentality that often comes with destination travel, there is little time to actually absorb the destination.

So during the late afternoon when the successes of the day are being measured up, communities form. At the lagoons the israelis gather, the danes gather, the belgians, swiss, french and in town the locals gather. At this moment there are no tourists and locals, any rich/poor, buyer/seller, brown eyed/blue eyed divide is erased. The walls come down. At this moment anyone is accessible. The long scorching day has melted away all barriers and anyone can participate in lazy lounging on the street. The banter turns to a mix of spanglish (because everyone knows some spanish and no tourist knows portuguese) and broken english with as much communication coming from context and gestures as words. This is the best part and the part that’s so easy to miss.

Then it dawns on me. As we discuss places to go along the coast and how to get there. The essence of the small town charm exists by the sharing of information. It does not exist by ideas or advice, those things that must come from a carefully crafted group of peers but from the minutia of daily information passed on by anyone. A phone number, a bus time, google maps directions, there is no orderly list. Life here has not yet been categorized for easy mass consumption so people must still talk. Contrast this with any world class city and finding grounds to talk about anything is at best forced. Here someone won’t point to to the clock on the wall that you should have seen but will rather call across the street to Jose or Josefina who will then disappear long enough to forget you asked the question only to return with a fairly accurate approximation of the time. It’s these microcosms of inefficiency that are in fact the foundation of everything great that follows. It is the foundation of finding the unexpected. It is a world where you can talk to anyone you never know you you will meet, these changes of information are the harbingers of great ideas. Coming from a world eHarmony and the social networking like threatens to turn every relationship a harmonious and ultimately boring entity it is truly refreshing to step outside that and mix with the incompatibles. And now that Cumbuco is now safely categorized and filed it is time to move on.

Next stop Taiba.