Sand

 














Unlike the Inuit, who are reputed to have many different words for snow, the Brazilians have only the one word for sand. 

This is strange for there are many different types: there’s wet sand; dry sand; coarse and fine sand; soft wet sinking sand; compact sand I can ride my bicycle on; soft sand you can leave your footprints in; sand with ripples on from an outgoing tide; sand blown into dunes which encroach on human habitation (reminiscent of JG Ballard stories); crumbly sand; the cool sand underfoot in the morning, and the burning midday sand; moonlit sand; sand with thousands of tiny craters from the rain; sand with a crusty layer; compacted sand with a fine layer of wind-blown sand on top which squeaks when you skim your feet over the surface (one of my favourites); sand patterned by seagulls’ webbed footprints; sand full of sand crabs’ burrows, their spoil-piles and their skittering claw tracks; and the sand which is full of bottle tops, plastic cups, straws, cigarette butts, bits of lime, chips, tomato sauce and mayonnaise sachets, fish bones and cocktail sticks, which is a very common variety around the beach bars here, especially during the Temporada.