I remember it clearly. That night as we were dining on a little wooden terrace by the beach somewhere close to Taiba, I saw something that I then later labelled as the most stunning scene from my whole experience in Brazil. We had just finished our dinner and were enjoying our last sips of caipirinha before heading to our lonely pousada when I spotted some microscopic coloured dots out at sea. It was already pretty late by our Brazilian standards as we had to wait a long time for our food. The problem seemed to be that we had ordered fish. We were alone in the little restaurant. The owner – and cook probably – was just going back and forth from the kitchen not bringing any food to us. We then asked what was the problem “quale é o problema? Porque está a demorar assim tanto tempo?”, he never answered clearly; he kept on saying for an hour or more “just five more minutes”.
I was hungry after a whole day spent in the water and the caipirinhas were already causing some effects on my brain. I was probably a little drunk when the food finally arrived. I ate my whole dish in a couple of minutes. It was good but quite different from what I expected. I ordered some grilled fish, while the guy served me some kind of fish filet with curry. Never mind. It was good anyhow, and I was hungry. But it was not fresh fish as I expected.