Olinda - Pipa - Sao Paulo - Paraty - Rio - Salvador

Sorry Sorry Sorry... no excuses im sure you have all (3 of you that is) have given up on my blog. What has it been... 2 months? All I can say is that Brazil has had some sort of crazy effect on me where I have become the laziest most horizontal person ever and the thought of sitting at a computer typing and thinking seemed too much like hard work which is a terrible excuse but better late than never I hope...

Get the kettle on I have a feeling this may be a long one...

So after travelling solo and nearly dying on a plane I checked myself into a hotel in Recife in the North of Brazil to await the arrival of Katie. The hotel was rather nice with a pool, a double ac room and a balcony with a hammock. Thank you very much... il stay here 2 nights. Slightly hammered my bank balance but some R´n´R was much needed after BA.

I then made my way to a nice hostel in Olinda (near Recife) where I made myself comfortable with my terribly cheesy Nicholas Sparks book in a hammock feeling very laid back, when I heard "WHAT A CLICHE" yelled from the other side of the hostel... Katie had arrived! We spent nearly a week in Olinda, a dinky little colonial village by the sea dipping in and out of our hostel pool as well as cute cafes and very yocal brazillian bars. In hindisght Olinda didnt have all that much to do but we happily mooched about watching various pre-carnival rehersals and meeting random brazilianos. EVENTUALLY we managed to get off our asses and made our way to a small beach town called Pipa, recommended to us by an English bloke we´d met in our hostel, called Nick. Well Nick all I can say is THANK YOU. Pipa Pipa Pipa... noone has heard us speak about much else since we have been there.

We bundled into a bus that comfortably sat 6 but somehow they´d managed to squeeze in 12 (later we have discovered this is the brazilian way). I found myself on the laps of two strangers... nothing like getting involved straight away! And after a 45min bus ride we found ourselves in paradise. As soon as we walked down the main strip we both looked at each other and said "I like it here already" and we were right... having decided to spend 3 nights it was a slight shock to realise at the end we had actually spent TWO WEEKS there. And what fun those two weeks were. We met some amazing people, sunbathed on beautiful beaches with dolphins bobbing up and down in the water and spent many-a-night dancing away in the 3 bars Pipa had to offer. After a couple of days it felt like home.

Whilst we were there we invested (and you can call it that because they cost a small fortune) in a 3 day surf course. For some reason I have always had an inkling that surfing was going to be my thing, ever since I was 10 and found my first quicksilver t-shirt I knew it was def going to be for me. Oh how wrong could I be?

After a quick chat about waves and all that jazz we grabbed our foam long boards (technical term I may add) and lay on the beach for humiliation round one. So the key is to learn how to stand on sand before water... makes sense... how hard can it be? Well apparently very easy for Katie and the hardest thing in the world for me! CRINGE. I was so special that they had to teach me the spastic way of standing up as I just couldnt manage the "normal" way... I think secretly they were hoping id pick up the normal way in no time at all.... apparently not.

After shaking off the slight embarrasment of my standing up technique we were ready to hit the water. And ill tell you... you would have been impressed - we were standing within about 20mins and I knew my inner surfgirl was coming out. YES... despíte the spastic standing I was def looking pro already.

After the lesson katie and I were both on a high and already planning our proffessional careers... as you do. Plans to go to cornwall and many other surf holidays - how this was going to change our lives. Day 2 the enthusiasm wasnt exactly at an all time high as I think the realisation that our inner surfers werent quite as pro as we thought had hit us. There was a lot of punching the waves and the boards (which is not recommended because you cant really hurt the sea but you can certainly hurt your hand!) and little surfer strops were coming from our direction. But we were not to be defeated and by Day 3 we were ready to hit those waves again. Day 3 was probably the best we were standing up and turning AND apparently catching the waves ourselves. So obviously feeling very confident a couple of days later we were ready to go solo.

So off we went to our surf school to rent some boards and hit the water. After 2 hours of not even being able to balance on the board and a lot of tantrums later - enough was enough. Katie left her board on the sand and went out to sea with me to push me into the waves, as the surf instructors had been doing... FINALLY I catch a wave... oh yes here we go can I stand... oop nearly... one foot forward and OH SHIT fall down and somehow manage to get the fin in my HEAD. Yes my HEAD. Please dont ask for details all I can say was the wave was GIGANTIC (naturally) and VERY STRONG and not only was I in a lot of pain but a rather fit instructor had witnessed the whole show and was laughing hysterically at me. Damn it. SOD the surfing. I hate it and its certainly NOT COOL. I think its time to go back to the hostel, get drunk and forget about the fact that my professional surfing career dreams had been dashed in one swift blow (to the head).

That night we party away and I wake up in the morning and show off my surfing head injury... at which point everyone started to panic and carted me off to hospital... they all thought I was going to have stitches. Luckily I didnt but for a brief moment I nearly panicked. A couple of days later everyone had been telling me to get back into the water... so I took up their advice rented a board within 10 mins of being in the water I got hit on the HEAD AGAIN. I wont repeat what I said... put it this way its going to take more than a fit surf instructor to get me back on a board!

Other than a rather short but sweet surfing lover affair we had such an amazing time in Pipa that as some of you know we extended our trip to go back there. Its hard to describe why it was so perfect but we both had the most enjoyable relaxing time most of which was spent on the beach, in a hammock or in a bar. What more could you want? But after two weeks and Carnival fast approaching we thought it best to move on... 

So we set off for Sao Paulo... didnt like that much. We had one good night where we went to some bars. When we realised we didnt have enough money for more drink (said like the old man in father ted who always sits in the sofa) I asked if I could pay by card, which of course we were told would be fine. Erm... not so fine when your card isnt BRAZILIAN. Hello do I not look like a gringa to you? So we had a rather eventuful evening being driven back to our hostel by two of the waiters from the bar to collect the money that we owed. Thanks, that just saved us a $60 cab ride! Love Brazil!

After that experencia we moved from there to Paraty which we were hoping would be another Pipa... not a chance. The only memory I have of Paraty was that I lost the one card we had between us there. Little did we know this was just the beginning of our financial nightmares. So that tainted my opinion of Paraty somewhat, but luckily I had enough dollars to exchange to pay our hostel and get us on a bus to Rio. How exciting... we are in RIO BABY YEH... oh but hang on... with about $30 between us and its the weekend and the bloody banks dont open on a weekend. Bugger. Luckily we met two English boys (ben and dan) from Landan that let us transfer some money into their account which they withdrew for us. Then we were ready to party on down. (Little did they know that they were going to spend the rest of their 3 week holiday having to do this for us... sorry boys!).

So we hung out in Rio for a few days which involved spending the day doing touristy things like going to see big jesus and things, only to find that when we got to the top it was SO cloudy we couldnt actually see anything, well maybe Jesus' feet.. What a waste of time! BUT we did see the famous tiled steps to a favela that Snoop and Pharell filmed their music vid to beautiful girl to... infact sod writing about that day just watch the vid and you will see what we were meant to see (minus the clouds and the famous people)

Click to see vid! CLICK TO SEE VID

Other than that we had a couple of nights out in Lapa (which sounds like some sort of chav holiday destination) and we had a GREAT night out with a girl who was from Rio that we had met in Pipa, who took us out for a much more authentic brazillian night. Which was great... we met all her really nice friends and spent the night in a gringo-free-zone. Parfet. Our last day we spent the whole day in HSBC trying to withdraw emergency funds from Katies account which is not exactly how we wanted to spend the last day but admin and stuff isnt really Brazils strong point and when we got told at 5pm (after having arrived at 11am) that we werent going to be getting any money and we would have to come back tomorrow... we nearly cried. The poor guy that had been looking after us all day had no idea what to do and ended up giving us 500R of HIS OWN MONEY?!?! beacuse he felt so bad. What a babe! 

From there we made our way to Salvador to meet Ben and Dan who we had decided to rent an appartment with them for Carnival! What a good idea... it would have been AWFUL staying in some rank smelly hostel crammed packed with drunk people. Carnival was AMAZING but I have def run out of energy to write about it... soooooooooooooooooooooorry but this has been the most strenuous exercise I have done since getting battered in the head by a fin!

CLICK TO SEE FIN WOUND

To be continued....