Sand blindness on two continents

Since our last post we have left the developing world and entered a month of sea, sun, sand and surf all wrapped up in a package of nice little guest houses, comfortable beds and creature comforts. Backpacking for grown-ups. The budget has suffered.

After Uganda we flew to Zanzibar and after a little blip where I had an adverse reaction to something, broke out in a rash and spent a night having involuntary convulsions in my sleep due to the itchiness while Mike lay awake working out how to spend the insurance pay off when I popped my clogs, we had a lovely time there. We paid a bit more than usual for accommodation and spent an idyllic week at the Blue Oyster Hotel on Jambiani beach lounging around and doing very little. The highlight for me was swimming with dolphins. We woke at the crack of dawn to beat the crowds, set off in a rickety little fishing boat and had the dawn -and the dolphins - all to ourselves. We swam with a school of 50 or so and it was truly amazing as they scratched their backs on the coral and signalled to each other through the water, as they zoomed out to sea for their breakfast.

After Zanzibar we popped back to London for three nights, enjoyed the cold weather and the Christmas decorations and ignored the doom and gloom about the economy before jetting off to Rio via Terminal 5. We were expecting sun, surf and caiprinhas, the fabled itsy-bitsy bikinis on Copacabana beach, and the beautiful people of Ipanema. Instead we got interminable rain, deserted beaches and a dengue outbreak. Still, it is to Rio´s credit that is an alluring city even from under an umbrella and we spent a fantastic few days exploring the sights, dancing all night to Samba with some lovely Brazilian friends we made at the friendly Tupiniquim Hostel and eating countless delicious cakes in picture-perfect cafes (this seemed to be a bit of a theme - we have no idea how the mouth-watering array of sweets on offer converts to the mouth-watering array of beautiful bottoms on the beach).

We have also enjoyed a particularly warm welcome wherever we have been due to our name. Porreta (pronounced Por-hei-ta) means ´really cool´ or ´awesome´in Brazilian Portugese, as in ¨this party is Porreta¨. People find it absolutely hilarious that this is our name. In our hostel every single person staying there knew who we were and we were instantly popular as soon as we arrived. In Paraty a Brazilian guy we met stalked us around the town popping up and shouting ¨PORRETA¨at the top of his lungs whenever he saw us.

From Rio we made a small detour to Paraty, a breathtaking colonial city on the coast and spent a lovely few days there wading along the flooded streets and splashing in the surf in torrential downpours. For a few hours we even got to put the umbrella away.

From there we returned to Rio and flew further south again to the island of Santa Catarina, more commonly known as Floripa, to spend Christmas and Mike´s birthday. And the sun finally came out (except, unfortunately on Mike´s birthday when after a lovely lunch of fresh oysters and prawns on a sunny terrace we were hit by a massive storm and it rained for the rest of the day). This is where Brazilians and Argentinians come to spend their summer holidays and though a breathtakingly beautiful island it is choked with guest houses, tourists, and associated traffic. We managed to get away from the crowds when we wanted and also to get right in the midst of them too for some first class people watching (I won´t elaborate on which part of the people Mike seemed to be focusing on, but let´s just say the bikinis in Brazil are somewhat smaller than we are used to, and about 40 pictures of pert bottoms seem to have appeared on my camera, not taken by me.). More about life on the beach in a separate post.

That brings us rapidly up to the present where we are preparing to head up to Salvador for New Year. It will be a huuuge party so we are told. See you in 2009!