Published in this June/July issue of Mens’ Journal.
Mens’ Journal hired me last summer to travel to a small town in Brazil with actor Andrew McCarthy. Andrew was there many years ago to shoot a movie. The magazine had asked him to write on a place that he would go to if he wanted to get away from it all and to “drop” out of society. Well, this place was it. Relaxed and beautiful, it had good restaurants, a nice beach, plenty of activities to do, and of course, friendly Brazilian people to watch and talk to. And no Americans! By day it was a middle class Brazilian family hang out with low rise hotels but at night, the main street turned into a sea of young people who were going from club to club. I went para-sailing, flew ultralights, rode a motorcycle on the beach, drove an ATV up into the big white sand dunes and rode a dune buggy to see the towns down the way via the beach. Fisherman got up every morning to catch the day’s fish. Life was moving fairly slowly. It’s always dry there as the town gets very little rainfall and is surrounded by huge white sand dunes. On top of the dunes the Brazilian government has installed giant wind turbines to take advantage of the constant breeze. A surprising visual at first but something to get use to as we move to a more environmentally friendly way to get our energy. Here’s a link to outtakes from the story or click the photo below:
