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Sunday 28 November 2010

Further south in Bahia.

Sitting in a little bar sipping my coco water whilst waiting for my new beautiful friend whom I am having a ¨holiday week ¨with: Sophie,  I contemplate about how fortunate I am to have followed my dream to do this trip. I am slowly coming to the end of the trip, and it feels unreal. In a way it almost feels like I have been in a dream for these months, did it really happen?

I have met the most incredible people I could imagine and really, the trip has been one of the best things things I have ever done in my life. It scares me to think how I would have wasted all these months had I not decided to buy the ticket. All the moments, all the meetings, the converstations, the sights and the feelings that I would not have experienced had I stayed in London.

 It will be with very mixed emotions I am leaving this continent. Apart from longing to see my closest ones, and of course to celebrate christmas in the snow, I can not think of much else that I am looking forward to encountering ( maybe the Swedish bread and yoghurt a bit).
I try to live in the moment and appreciate it to the fullest and not to think about the day that is getting closer, but then I hear about the rain in London, and then the snow, and then of course the cancellations of any sort of transport in London and then oops, I did it again, I left the now!
 How can this paradise exist in a parallell universe with London? How will it be possible for me to continue living in London when I am confronted there, every day by  people struggling  to be happy; complaining about the weather, living standards,  their commute, their salaries etc
I have seen people living under such poor conditions but being far happier than the average Londoner.  But maybe I will come back, and slowly fall back into the rythm of the city and forgetting the happiness I have encountered. Forget that there is a much bigger world that is so easy to get to....

If it was not for my loved ones being so far away, I could stay here in Itacare for a long time. It really is my kind of place. Surfing in paradise beaches, chilled atmosphere with hippies everywhere, drinking coco water in the beach bar hammocks, the music and the dancing and of course the rainforest comes straight down to the beach so I fall asleep every night listening to my favourite sounds of the jungle. Too good to be true.










I have mixed feelings about the Brazilian author Paulo Coelho; some books I love and then others I find too self indulgent but whilst reading some of his short stories ( ¨Like the flowing river¨) I came across this that I would like to share:

-People don´t think very much about death. They spend their lives worrying about absurdities; they put things off, and fail to notice important moments. They dont´t take risks, because they think it is dangerous. They complain a lot, but are afraid to take action. They want everything to change, but they themselves refuse to change. If they thought a little more about death, they would never forget to make that much- postponed phone call. They would be a little crazier.
So many people do everything on automatic pilot, unaware of the magic moment that each day brings with it, not understanding that the next minute could be their last on this planet.

Paulo Coelho also writes about an elderly  Brazilian lady he met whilst living in Madrid. She had energy in abundance and one night he asked her for the secret recipe:
¨I have a magic calender she answered and if you want I´ll show it to you. So the next night she showed him a much scribbled calender:

¨Right, today is the day they discovered a vaccine agains polio¨she said, ¨we must celebrate that¨, because life is beautiful.

On each day of the year, the lady had written down something good that had happened on that date. For her, life was always a reason to be happy!

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