Flat hunting in Barra
Topic: Brazil
Today was allocated to finding an apartment for the next three weeks which includes carnival time. I have had enough of crap hotels. the first stop was the Pelorinha tourist office. They gave us addresses of three agencies in Barra, the beach area of Bahia. We grabbed a taxi bound for Barra. the driver asked us where we were from. David said Irlanda (I said nothing - I cannot be bothered bringing up Pais de Gales as no one has ever heard of it). The driver stuck his thumbs up and said "Ah! Irlanda! You chew!". Eh? "Yoo Choo! Yoo Choo!" he said enthusiastically. What what? "Ewe Sioux, Bono!". The penny finally dropped. "U2! Yes, great band.".

The first agency was owned by Senor Mendez (of Spanish decent). He showed us three very grim places indeed.. The bedroom in one place contained nothing but a metal bed and thin grubby mattress like something out of a Victorian mental asylum. The sitting room contained nothing but 2 brown matresses on top of each other instead of a sofa. One place would have full view of the carnival procession but I would really have to be desperate to take it and the horrid smells that came with it. We told the amiable Mr Mendez that we would think about it and give him a call.

There was no sign of the second agency but it was located in a crumbling oldmallwhich looked like it would be pulled down any day.

The third agency was really difficult to locate. The street numbering system is a mystery. 1292 was located between numbers 19 and 38. The taxi driver ended up calling them for directions and we eventually got there. It was a block of flats with no sign of an office. The doorman told us to wait as she would be back in 10 minutes (Who? we wondered). After about 15 minutes Concepc?u arrived. She was about 35, smartly dressed and carrying piles of papers and a well stuffed 2004 diary. We sat in the lobby and we told her what we were looking for and our budget while she scribbled notes. She invited us up to her flat and she showed us around. We spoke to her in Spanish peppered with a few words of Portuguese while she babbled on and on in Portuguese. We caught about 40 percent which was frankly too much. It turned out she was completely mad. She babbled on about how busy she was and how she would like to decorate the flat and about previous flat mates. Apparently, she was willing to share her flat with us (for a huge rent). We were not on for that and tried to subtly encourage her to drop the subject and show us some other flats. Eventually, she got the hint and started making phone calls while we sat on the sofa wishing we had not found the place after all.

Each phone call lasted an age and at the end of it, there was always something wrong with the property -something that she could have established in under 30 seconds. It was not free or it was out of our price range etc. We had been with her for about an hour and a half and were keen to escape so we made some noise about having to go for lunch and perhaps we could meet later when she had some apartments to show us.

She ended upcoming to lunch with us and talking non stop to anyone who would listen and taking ages to eat. The Mendez flats were awful be at least he was no a time waster.

Finally, we went out to see some apartments. Each viewing was torture as she walked so slowly, would stop to talk at everyone she saw and insist on giving us a presentation on the benefits of the particular neighbourhood before going inside. Both were unsuitable - very expensive with no fan or air conditioning. We said we would think about it and give her a ring if we were interested. She tried to detain us and showed us contracts and so on, but after over three and a half hours of Concepc?u, we needed to escape. We ran away to the mall to cool down and think. Would we get anywhere? had we made a mistake incoming to Bahia?

We went to the Barra tourist office in the mall in case they knew of anywhere. The guy on duty, Pedro, did not seem hopeful and started to give us some phone numbers for hotels. His friend, Virginie, had overheard our request for a flat and mentioned that she worked at some serviced apartments and thought that there might be some free ones. She gave us the address and name of her boss.

We went there right away and within an hour we had sorted out a lovely apartment for a reasonable rent. The building has security, a gym, a pool, Internet access and a lovely restaurant. This is where we will be until we leave Barra - relaxing.