brazil

by

Relaxation Time

Imbassai, a small village on the Coconut Coast, about an hour north of Salvador in Bahia. The last destination before flying to São Paulo to pick up our flight to the UK. Warm sunshine, a Pousada set in gorgeous tropical gardens with its own pool and only 10 minutes stroll to a golden sanded beach backed by a line of coconut palms. What did we do? We chilled. The girls spent every hour they could in the water. They were not fans of our enforcement of the no sun exposure between 11.30 and 3pm rule!

We all enjoyed the delights of dozing in a hammock, watching the monkeys playing in the trees.

Slightly less fun were the biting insects at dusk. We managed to get nibbled despite long trousers and shirts, repellents and bed nets. Thankfully there was no health risk, just nuisance value, but it did make me appreciate that bite avoidance tactics are not infallible.

We dined out at the local restaurant, then walked home in the darkness, serenaded by the chorus of frogs in the nearby river.

by

Back from the Pantanal

We’re back from five days spent in the Pantanal. We have a ton of photos, but the hotel internet connections we’ve had since are not going to cope with my trying to upload them all. So they’ll have to wait for now. We stayed in a lodge which was really in the back of beyond. By which I mean an hours drive on an unsealed road from mains electricity. The girls found it slightly difficult at times as the temperature in the middle of the day was getting up in the high 30s and there were a few beasties around. But our guide, Roberto Queiroz, was excellent and we saw a giant anteater, a couple of anacondas, rheas, jabiru storks, coatis, capybaras and more cayman than you can imagine. The food at the lodge was also better than at our hotel back in ‘civilization’ in the city of Cuiabá. We had trouble finding any decent accommodation as there seemed to be a couple of conferences in town. It’ll be interesting to see how they cope when they host World Cup games in 2014…

by

Chilling in Rio

We’ve been enjoying our time in Rio. It’s just like you’d expect. The traffic is a bit crazy, the beaches are lovely and there are lots of beautiful tanned people jogging along them. We’ve had no problems with beggars and haven’t felt unduly worried about crime. It’s fun just relaxing, having breakfast in a juice bar and shopping for Havaianas. So much fun that it looks like we will be cancelling a side trip to stay in the city and do more of the same…