CATCHING A WAVE

Surfers have a knack for finding the best new beach getaways. On the balmy shores of Bahia, David Amsden discovers their latest obsession: Itacaré.

- PHOTOGRAPHS BY KRISTIN BETHGE

I SURFED FOR the first time 15 years ago, aware of the fanaticism it stirs in many but unprepared for how my own life, already nearing its statistical midpoint and oriented around more urban pursuits, would be altered by chasing a few seconds of hard-earned ecstasy on a wave. Surfing soon dominated my Internet searches, hijacked my REM cycles, inspired a move to California, and spurred a new approach to travel. Paddle out in any ocean where surfers congregate and you will overhear someone waxing quixotic about a spot they just returned from—invariably some far-flung, vibe-heavy, tricky-to-pronounce paradise that you had never heard of but feel a sudden compulsion to visit. You end up, in short, heading to a place like Itacaré.

My stay in the Brazilian town began in a giddy daze. At first, I chalked this up to the delirium of the journey: a 15-hour flight from Los Angeles to Rio de Janeiro, another two-hour hop to the harbor city of Ilhéus, and then an hour’s drive to Itacaré, which sits on the coast in the state of Bahia. My new surroundings, no doubt, amplified the psychosomatic jolt. As salt-laced air blew in through the car’s open windows on the drive in, I stared out at the riotous greens of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest colliding with the azure churn of the Atlantic Ocean.

There were seemingly infinite stretches of golden-white sand. Beaches were carved into jungle-backed coves, which had served as pirates’ lairs during the onset of Portuguese colonization. The setting sun painted the sky a surreal lavender, and then—sunsets being brief affairs this close to the equator—it went inky black and a full moon crested the waterline like an alien spacecraft. There was so little in the way of development that, had a stegosaurus sauntered into the road, I probably would have just shrugged.