I can't get no sleep

---

Trancoso has also transformed since we were here 2 weeks ago, but the crowd looks a little older than in Arrial and the atmosphere is good. The town is plastered with posters advertising club nights in the towns 3 nightclubs for every night of Reveillon. We're shocked to see the tickets cost R$100 (30 quid) for a regular night, and between R$300 - R$500 for New Years Eve!!! We wonder who the hell can afford it and what we're going to do. We'd heard that Trancoso was the place for free beach parties run by hippies, in the same vein as the full moon parties in Thailand and Goa, but it seems those days maybe over.

We soon find out exactly who it is that can afford over 100 quid to dance on a beach, as day by day more of the rich kids who'd taken over Arrial arrive, clad in Gucci beachwear and dripping in jewellry and attitude. Just as we're beginning to worry that we've chosen the wrong spot, we speak to the owners of a barraca who are throwing a NYE party for just R$25...now that's more like it! By this time we've met some like-minded people and we agree that this is the place for us. French Franc who is staying with a friend that has lived here for 7 years, tells us that last year this barraca's party was wicked and we finally start getting excited about the coming celebrations.

And it is a great party. Everyone begins to gather down at the beach for the midnight firework display, and the barraca has lit up the place with scores of flaming torches...it looks wild and beautiful. We spend a funny night with a bunch of hippies and randoms as the DJ pumps out heavy trance til we sit, exhauted on the shoreline, watching a stunning orange and pink dawn.

Now me and Ritch can party with the best of them, or so we thought before we came to Brazil. But first Rio, then Salvador and now Trancoso beats us down with the relentless all nighters that the Brazilians seem to thrive on. We'd hoped the last few days of Reveillon would be the chill out, but we couldn't have been more wrong. Night after night we're kept awake by the ever increasing tempo from the pumping nightclubs and when I catch myself tut-tutting about how much these club kids must be spending on their relentless Reveillon bender, I have to conceed that we could be getting too old for this!

---