the clouds cleared and paradise emerged. having not booked a hostel we landed on our feet finding a lovely little pousada called 'Yes Pousada'. private room, en suite and cracking breakfasts set the tone for what was meant to be a five day detox after the delights of carnival. these intentions were good, until two litre bottles of vodka and two bottles of red wine were consumed on the first night between the five of us (the additional two being the two katies, who we had met in Rio). there was no real reason for this as we were just sat in our pousada playing cards. on returning to our room in a drunken stupor, Clam man was the first to sleep (not before some very unwelcomed nudity). myself and Ste saw our opportunity and Ste steadied the camera to capture a perfectly executed People's Elbow upon the Clamster, with the impact of the world famous finisher extracting a rather amusing groan from the sleeping Clam. whilst readying for the second elbow, i thought it would be a good idea to create a makeshift elbow pad (a la The Rock) out of one of my only pairs of socks by cutting the toes out of it. didn't seem like such a good idea in the morning.
our time on Ilha Grande was pretty action packed. we hired kayaks and snorkels one day from a rather eccentric and unusual man who we pegged as a retired p.e teacher; as he communicated solely through the use of a whistle. the best day for me was our day on Lopez Mendes beach, definitely the most beautiful beach i have seen and one that is renowned as the best beach in Brazil. the beach was located on the opposite side of the island and so we had the option of either a twenty minute boat ride or a two and a half hour trek through the jungle - the choice was obvious. it is safe to say i have never sweated so much in my life, but upon seeing the white sands and crystal clear water it all became worth the wet [pun]. you would have thought that the day would have been pretty chilled from then on, however further exercise came in the form of a hundred metre race to the sea, a serious and almost life threatening battle with the waves, and a beach kick around that escalated into an 11-a-side football match of all nations. top day.
that evening another two litre bottles of vodka were consumed. this time we ventured out for a stroll around the pretty sleepy island. on our travels we came across a group of weirdos sat in a circle on the beach drinking, with a pretty dead looking dog in the centre. we concluded (possibly rather drunkenly) that they were playing the lesser known game of ´soggy dog´, and so decided to leave them to it and continue with our tour. the fun did not end here though as i thought it would be a good idea to sneak the biscuit tin out of our pousada´s kitchen. going for the classic under the tshirt to look pregnant technique, i casually walked out of the hostel and rejoined the gang. i thought i had got away with it until i was accosted by the night porter on my return later that night. lets just say they turned out to be the most expensive biscuits i have ever eaten. good though.
our next stop was Paraty; a quiet, colonial-esq beach village. a very enjoyable boat trip around gorgeous islands and blue-green waters was the highlight of a pretty uneventful couple of days.
Florianopolis was next on the agenda and after five buses and twenty four hours, we arrived. our hostel was great, situated on top of a hill overlooking the bay. Flori itself was pretty non-descript. we had a quality few days there however including a music video style pool party called P12, a very enjoyable day on the beach with Holly and Emily (where Clam got turned into a rather voluptuous and uber gay sand mermaid), and a disappointing but very heavy day in the pub for the carling cup final. our hatred of "Man U fans" was cemented on this day as the pub was full of them and yet not one of them even cheered when the final whistle went, they just carried on tucking into their prawn sandwiches. the most eventful night came on the last night which also happened to be the night that Ste would be turning twenty-three. it all started with a very civilised and quite delicious sushi dinner. the birthday boy took a shine to the karate kid style headbands that the sushi chefs were wearing and so after some enquiries, myself and Clam purchased one from the waiter as an early birthday present on the condition that Ste wasnt allowed to take it off for the duration of the evening. he looked quite simply ridiculous. back at the hostel at around one a.m, the night security started ushering people out of the hostel bar and ordering hush amongst the revellers. with exquisite timing just as he began herding our group out, Ste threw up into the recycle bin that stood next to our table. this did not go down well and the karate kid was man-handled out of the vicinity. we took the party a safe distance away down to the pool but with one too many raised voices, Colonel Gadafe was back and with an even angrier look on his face. at this point Ste broke the condition of the headband purchase by removing it, later telling us that he didnt want the big guy to recognise him. however even with his disguise removed, Ste´s cards were marked. with everyone ignoring the orders of the Colonel to lower the volume, he reached boiling point and took it out on the drunk and vulnerable birthday boy´s ribs with a stern but fair knee shove. it was all rather amusing, but everyone decided that this was some major offence and a huge fuss was kicked up, with drunken complaints flying into the hostel management. about thirty minutes later in the midst of the complaints, Ste turned to me and whispered, "i dont even remember getting knee´d". classic.
all in all, Brazil had been amazing. next, we were onto bigger and cheaper things - Argentina.
21.02.10
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