05/02/2020 – Ihla Grande, Brasil

Had a slow morning, and ate our eggy breakfast in the outdoor area of our accommodation. We are amongst lush green jungle again and the birds and insects flying around us kept us entertained for the morning. The garden has a small stream running through it. We spot blue bees and bright red birds amongst all sorts of other things. The boys are obsessing over capturing them in slow motion, and so they wander about playing on their phones. We spent the midday heat wandering around the town and doing some souvenir shopping. Dominique is the holiday girl I wish I could be, and buys a top, a playsuit, a sarong and some earrings! James buys some new Havaiana flip flops and Josh and I manage to reluctantly keep our purse closed until I find the PERFECT bunch of hanging wooden bananas, possibly the most awkward thing to backpack around with for the following month and take home, but I just HAD to have them! We got shouted at and chased through a street and realised it was David, the French guy that had worked the bar in the Pucon hostel with us. Such a small world and so nice to catch up! Sadly he was leaving in an hour so we couldn’t do much more than a quick catch up. We went home via the supermarket and had some food. I spent the afternoon trying to catch up on some days of the diary, and Dominique wrote a poem for one of the days we had on Peters farm. We played loads of dice and card games and had some caiprinhas, which are cheaper than water here! Dom, Josh and I went into town and stumbled across a samba band practicing for carnival, great vibes! We soaked in the atmosphere and ended up in a nice beach bar listening to some live music, chatting and sipping cocktails. A dog ran into the bar, jumped straight into my lap, curled up and fell asleep. The temperament of the street cats and dogs are just adorable, it is so hard to tear oneself away from each and every one. By 0100 we were being kicked out of the bar and ushered along the beach to the one and only nightclub on the island. We made friends with a northerner and the four of us danced until the early hours. Those Brazilians have got some crazy dance moves that are impossible to compete with! We stumbled back along the beach to our accommodation and crashed out, the sun wasn’t quite up yet thankfully but it was still boiling hot out!