The day rich got mugged by a racoon and other short stories...

The day everyone started at a&o, I was on a yacht.... hello!

After the madness of brazilian funk clubs in Rio, we headed down the brazilian coast to a town called Paraty which was basically the opposite of Rio- small,calm,peaceful and v v pretty and old. We decided it was like some kind of disneyland/noddy land town - basically too perfect! The houses were white with different coloured shutters, the streets were clean and cobbled and there were cute shops, bars and restaurants everywhere. It was very gorgeous but almost a little bit too gorgeous and perfect?! Worryingly perfect... it felt like the setting for some dodgy horror film where backpackers are lulled into a false sense of security before being kidnapped or something. Anyway! We had a very lovely time here... absolute highlight was the day we spent on a boat trip going around the different islands off the coast. it was definitely one of my favourite days of the trip so far. We had this huge yacht schooner thing basically to ourselves, and spent the day lying in the sun on the deck,jumping/diving/sliding into the sea (yes, it had a slide... aboslutely immense!) and lounging around on various deserted beaches. It was A-MAZING. We even had our own personal brazilian jack johnson serenading us with a guitar all day (honestly!). Iona was so relaxed she even managed to leave her prized silver havaianas on a random deserted island, but realised just in time to be personally rowed back across by a brazilian dude in a little dingy... we all recovered from our laughter enough to take a cheeky photo of the moment!

Our plans for leaving paraty were scuppered rather by a bit of a washing mishap... we´d sent off our washing on our first morning in paraty,having been assured that it would be returned to us that evening. That evening... no sign of the washing. The guy in charge of our hostel promised to call but had too many free caipirinhas at the BBQ that night that... he forgot until about midnight. So we had planned to get a morning bus to Sao Paolo but at 9am... only 3 bags of washing reappeared. I breathed a sigh of relief to see that mine was there but bens had apparently been left in a washing machine somewhere... which left him with nada to wear and us with no option but to get a later bus. In the end we had a productive morning in an internet cafe and ben was joyfully reunited with his washing and it all worked out,but we could all see the panic in bens eyes at the prospect of never seeing his clothes again.. dooooom.

That day we set off on our 24 hour mammoth bus ride to get to Iguassu falls which was rather unpleasant really! We managed to sleep in various bursts (helped by richs nytol tablets) but we arrived in iguassu feeling rather groggy. Our hostel here is FIT though -has a swimming pool and everything! sadly its been rather overcast and rainy (we had proper tropical thunderstorms and serious ran yesterday) but it´s still very pleasant.

JUST GIVE THE RACOON THE FOOOOOOD!!!

Today we visited the Brazilian side of Iguassu falls (bit of background... I think theyre the second largest waterfalls in teh world, and sit on the border of Argentina, Brazil and paraguay... cue much border jumping and serious passport stamp collecting,yessss). Anyway we crossed back into brazil (again!) and went into the park. We´d only been wandering along the river to the waterfalls for about 10 mins when we suddenly saw a racoon pop up from the vegetation beside the path. Now, we´d been warned ont eh bus not to feed the animals, and that the racoons could be rabid. My first instinct when I saw the thing was to step away (due to lack of rabies jab!) but rich , ben and iona got closer to try and get a photo. The thing must have got a sniff at richs packed lunch which he was holding because it suddenly got rather confident and took a bit of a leap nearer. From then on it all got a bit manic- the stupid thing started chasing rich around, trying to get at his lunch. Rich started off running away laughing but as it started jumping and clawing at the bag,succsesfully ripping out the apple int he process, his laughter turned to semi screaming! Ben was snapping away on his camera, apparently unfazed but iona and I were leaping out of the way (theres a brilliant photo)... rich kept running towards us with the racoon in tow which prompted me to eventually shout 'just GIVE IT THE FOOOOOOD' at whcih point rich dropped the bag and legged it! alas that was the last we saw of Ramon the racoon (as we named him) but it was a proper comedy moment looking back now (not quite so funny at the time).

Apart from the racoon run in we had a good look at the waterfalls which are really quite spectacular- absolutely enormous, with so much water pouring over its kind of unbelievable. We walked along this viewing platform which went right over the river, right at the edge of a massive drop (cue the first outing of my sexy waterproof)- it was like being back in scotland-windy and very wet! we got rather soaked but it was worth it- it was incredible standing right at the edge of this massive drop,watching all the water flowing over. Kind of hypnotic!

Tomorrow we´re visiting the Argentinian side and hoping to go on some kind of boat trip... I think the waterproof might have to get a second outing...!

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