Winter Holidays

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What's this?? Two blogs in one week??

Fear not, I'm not ill... I'm now on my summer holidays, and have decided it's time to do some retrospective blogging. In my previous blog Mi new flat I gave a very quick run through of some of the major events in the last 18 months, but to be fair, there was so much I missed out. So I've decided over the summer to look back in more detail over some of the things I've done and share them with you all.

As some of you may have noticed, the location for this blog is dfferent to usual...

Brazil

For various reasons, I hadn't done any real travelling since my weekend to Carmelo for a visa run Across the River Plate.... In the Argentine summer I had gone back to England for Christmas, and since then Delta had taken up all my time and then some. Therefore I was adamant that I was going to go away in the winter holidays. The second Delta module was due to finish at the end of June, and with the third one not starting until August, I had nothing to stop me. Delta had also played havoc on my social life, which meant I was able to save money. I decided to put these savings to good use by going to Brazil.

I have to admit, Brazil had never really tempted me before. I don't speak Portuguese, and there are so many other countries and places to visit. However, my housemate from last year, Kiri (who moved in in July) moved there in December, and was now installed in a tiny beach town in Bahia. So I decided to go and visit her. Bahia is in NE Brazil, which meant that the weather would be a lot nicer than anywhere in Argentina, or even other places in Brazil such as Rio.

So off I went to Trancoso. In then end I could only go for 9 days of the 2 weeks winter holidays as I had to be back in Buenos Aires to present at the Share Convention.

Trancoso is beautiful. It's a small beach town about an hour away from the airport in Porto Seguro, and whilst there is a Club Med there, it really wasn't that busy when I was there. Apparently in the summer it gets really busy. I ended up staying with some friends of Kiri, who were house sitting in a beautiful house 2 blocks from where Kiri lived.

I didn't really do much. I didn't want to. I had gone there to relax and disconnect. I had left my computer behind, my Argentine phone couldn't get any reception. I think I checked my emails maybe twice the whole time I was there, it was bliss.

The days soon developed into a pattern. When Kiri was working I would sleep in, go to the beach, pick up a picnic lunch on the way. Then whenever I got bored (usually mid/late afternoon) I would head back to the house, shower and be ready to go and have dinner with Kiri. Sometimes we ate out, other times we'd go to the supermarket and cook at her place. When Kiri wasn't working either she would come to the beach with Sofi, her daughter or we would go and explore some place nearby.

It was brilliant... nothing to do, no deadlines, nothing to study. I was able to read for the pleasure of reading, and read about 5 books in 9 days, in a mixture of English and Spanish. I read a poetry book for the first time in years. And I took a ton of fotos.

As luck would have it the weather was pretty much perfect the whole time. The only time that it really, properly rained was on my last day when I was driving to the airport. What more could you ask for?!

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Photos

These signs were at all the beach towns...
always next to a church by a viewpoint

The church at Arraial
All the churches in the area were built by the Jesuits