Grocery shopping in Valenca, Bahia

The town we are staying in is pretty remote and small so we need to travel to another town to do our grocery shopping.  There are a couple small markets in Garapua but their selections are limited and the prices are high.  That said, Brad, Maile, Hannah and Amparo (our friend) traveled to Valenca to do some grocery shopping.  The trip started at 5am by riding on a trailer pulled by a tractor down a sandy road about 1 mile to the river.  At the river we loaded on to a wooden boat that went about 15 mph.  Two hours later we were in Valenca.  Once there we did some shopping at a pharmacy, stopped at an internet cafe because there has not been internet at the house for 4 days, and then went to the supermarket to buy groceries for the next month.   We spent R$ 700 which is about $350 US.  We all thought it was pretty inexpensive considering we spend that much in one visit to Costco.  The boat waited at the dock for everyone to do their shopping and then left to head back around 2pm.  The boat was filled with everyone’s groceries and didn’t move quite as fast on the way home.  We got home at 4:30pm with a total round trip of 11 1/2 hours to do the grocery shopping.  It really made us thankful for the conveniences we have at home like reliable cars parked in the garage and grocery stores within minutes of the house.  

Video of our boat trip to Valenca

Maile and Hannah on the boat ride to do our grocery shopping.

Hannah and Maile are happy because we found a restaurant in Valenca with wifi.