After a marathon stretch of hours spent finishing up this work meeting inside a stuffy conference room, all the delegates to this conference promptly boarded a couple vans that took us to a somewhat distant beach, outside of the city of Salvador... Someone told me today it was the Praia do Flamengo, way up north of the city, but we both might be mistaken... Regardless, it was a much different scene from the closer beaches, and although it was probably 9:30 at night before we got there, it was still gorgeous in darkness... Awaiting us was a beachfront restaurant overlooking the ocean, a swinging live band, a nicely crafted dancefloor, tiki torches along the beach, and a bottomless supply of caipirinhas and local beer... relieved to be finished with the bulk of my responsibilities, i got completely sloshed in a very short span of time... had some great conversations with Gisella Campo from Lima and Katy Martinez from Santo Domingo, about recent Latin American history, politics, and movies, which eventually dovetailed back into talking about music, as it so often does... before long i up on the dancefloor trying on some samba moves i pilfered from Wilson, our tour guide, who was shaking up a storm as the band played through its set... had a brief couple moments of insightful advice bestowed on me by the ever-stylish and always elegant Sergio Rodriguez, before it started to rain and we were herded on to the vans, drunk, disorderly, and largely under-nourished...except for the booze... so apologies for the handful of horrendous, completely out of focus pics i got that should've never made it off the memory card, but i'm posting them anyway. i'm hellishly hungover today, and nothing i could rhyme or write can possibly convey the feeling of completion, accomplishment, relief, and deliverance i felt last night...except maybe an undecipherable image of blurry lights & a band you can barely see.... i wish i hadn't drank so many caipirinhas, and crashed so early - didn't say proper goodnights to anyone, and passed out in a dizzy stupor bordering on nausea... not a good way to close out a week given the friendships i've made out here... anyhow, sorry for the shite images. i was too far gone...
the restaurant from down on the beach by the water...
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