From
Bahia de Todos os Santos: A Guide to Streets and Mysteries
by
Jorge Amado
The Principality of Itapoan
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I remember the time before Itapoan was chic and elegant place to live, when it wasn't a place to which the rich and famous migrate. In the middle of 1939 I took part in the making of a documentary about the then unknown beach, an appearance which marked my only foray into acting. I was a fisherman who pulled a donkey, or maybe I was riding one, at a more salubrious time in my life when I was thin and the village of Itapoan was a mere resonance in Caymmi's remote corner of the world. Nowadays Itapoan is a place of expansive and expensive residences, home to artists, and to the rich and powerful, but even so it hasn't lost the enchantment of a place in the interior, of the sweet tranquillity of a fisherman's abode. The beautiful houses begin on the lovely beach of Pedra do Sal, where the Cardinal built his summer house. This is the line in the sand marking the end of an epoch, and the beginning of a new Itapoan.
Poet and composer Vinicius de Moraes used to like to have a whisky in Itapoan's Praça Dorival Caymmi. He built his own mansion -- the place where he would work together with Toquinho -- nearby, across the street from the house of his friend Elsimar Coutinho (a celebrated medical scientist).
Vinicius and Toquinho
According to Vinicius, Itapoan is a principality where Calasans Neto (painter and engraver) rules, sovereign and uniquely powerful. I'm not sure about the uniqueness though, because Prince Carlos Bastos (painter, muralist, illustrator) and Duke Altamir Galimberti (painter) also live there. They all threaten the ruling order. And chieftain Sante Scaldaferri (painter) now makes Itapoan his home as well. Artists of stature, important, they've turned Itapoan into a fishing village-cum-intellectual neighborhood par excellence. And of course there's Elsimar Coutinho, another Prince and long-time resident. A bit further on, but still within the limits of the principality, is the residence of the venerable Hansen-Bahia (a German engraver who made Bahia his home) and his wife Ilse.
I wouldn't get involved in this argument about who really is the true sovereign of Itapoan if I didn't know anything about the subject, but I do. And for me the person who really lays down the law, gives the orders, administrates and directs the kingdom of Itapoan is Auta Rosa, wife of the previously cited Calasans Neto. He may be a prince, but she's the one who rules, queen by virtue of her own kindness and her generosity with the wonderful creations of her sensational cook Aíla, Aíla of the chicken empanadas. Divine!
Lagoa do Abaeté, Black Lagoon Completely Surrounded by White Sand
 Dorival Caymmi in Itapoan, 1957 |
Having arrived in Itapoan, let us go to the Lagoa (Lagoon) de Abaeté, elogized by our poet and composer Dorival Caymmi, master singer of the graces of Bahia, he who makes music for fit for both fishing and lovemaking. Itapoan's principal public square bears his name -- a very just homage -- because it was he who spread to the four winds the name of this beach, who first sang of its beauty. He also sang of the Lagoa do Abaeté:
"In Abaeté there are dark waters
Surrounded by the purest sand..."
At any time of day or night the lagoon is beautiful and deserves a visit. By day the washer women undertake their heavy chore of beating clothes clean on the rocks. By night the chores of the couples there are much lighter and sweeter. Euá spends time at the lagoon, Yoruban goddess of calm waters.
It's best that the traveller sees Abaeté by moonlight. It's lovely! The silver light of the moon on dark waters, murmurs of Caymmi's lovesongs in the wind. Come when the stars are out, and bring company.