Sailing from a paradise-island!

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Ubatuba was great! Our main-pupose was to have a relaxing time there, which didn´t occure though...Instead we kept busy almost every day (can´t imagina this is called ´holiday´, i´d say travelling is quite tough!). Annika was our contact in Ubatuba (Lahib´s friend´s mum) and she had organised a house for us to stay in on a very nice beach.

Just a day or two after our arrival we decided to go out to Ilha Grande, a paradise island not far from there. And omg, how cute it was! Lucky we didn´t arrive in a tourist-ruch so it wasn´t too busy there. We met some nice guys staying in our poussada and headed to a hostelparty on teh first eve. Well ther we met four French guys who were staying on a sailing boat. Turns out two of them are sailing around the world fro two years! Imagine what a cool adventure! Te other two were just visiting them for a few weeks. The next day we met up for a dinner on their boat, they were going to sail to Paraty on the Fri (same day as we were going there so we asked if we could join them, the dinner´s purpose was for them to see that me and Lahib are quite normal girls and no maniacs...;-)). We had a great eve there and enjoyed some Capirinha on the boat in warm night. Later we and two of them, Guillame and Yohanne, walked back through the jungle in the darkness with flashlights...It was a great adventure and we arrived safely to our street. Well there I looked down on my feet and realised i had been walking all that way (on 30 min) in two right flip flops!!! I haven´t laughed so much in my entire life as we did then!:-)

Our two full days on the island was spent on a boat-tour to the green lagun where we were snorkling and swimming (and getting burnt, first day of real sunshine...) teh first day and the other one we walked through the jungle to a famous beach called Lopes Mendes (beautiful, but freezing cold water!). We had a brilliant time there and early on ri morning we walked to the beach to sail with the guys to Paraty. We had a first stop at the blue lagun this time and relaxed in the sunshine, then we headed towards the city and it took longer than expected because the wind wasn´t that strong. I didn´t mind at all, first time sailing for me and i so loved it! Just being out on the sea the whole day was wonderful! We had a lovely dinner that eve in Paraty (very cute town btw) and spent the night on the boat (because the last bus to Ubatuba had left...). What a great time we had with the guys, thank you so much again Hughes and Siril!

Back in Ubatuba we had a busy schedule. We had tried surfing before we left to olha Grande actually and that was a new experience for sure. I can say i enjoyed it now aftrewards, but during the time, i´m not so sure...The waves were pretty high and i don´t know how much saltwater i got into my system. Nice catching the waves, but i never really made it standing up (before i fell into the water, my record was perhaps a second...:-( Very difficult indead!)). We went to an Indian village one day and that was great! We got to see how they lived, ask questions and even get two performances from them (brilliant dance and song!). I bought a pearl bracelet as a nice memory from them.

Another day we went out to an island where we spotted a lot of animals, like monkeys, capivaras, aguties (sorry for my spelling, i only know them in Swedish now...), lizard, nose-bear (????) etc. We had a brilliant time and relaxed in the sun. Annika was with us on both tours explaining about the history, culture and so on - a great personal guide! We had a capoeira-lesson on our beach one eve, in the light of a flashlight (really great atmosphere!) and that was so much fun! All the kicking was ok for me, but when they moved on to standing on their hands and flying around i wasn´t at all in the same league...Great work-out though (first one since we came!) and i could feel it in my legs many days after...:-)

In Ubatuba we tried everything traditional Brazilian you should if you go there, many different exotic fruits, acai (delicious juice!), tapioka, manioka (haha), pastels etc. It is not good for your health travelling if you want to explore the best from every culture when talking about food. Quite always the specialities are fatty and very sweet (we are only human, right?) so I´m so much looking forward to the Incatrail in Peru now so i can get some real exercise done!

It was very sad to leave Ubatuba and Annika, a place we have grown quite fond of. We had a little panic organising accommodation in both Sao Paulo and Lima when we laft but managed in the last minutes literarly! We had a loooong day yest with 7 h spent on Buenos Aires airport (and that place is small!), two long flights and late arrival in Lima where i am right now. We will go out exploring the city now and tonight our tour starts. Will give you a report how Peru was in about two weeks!

Have fun until then!

Many kisses!

Astrid

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