THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

WEATHER: HOT and 35C

HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Getting all my shit organized

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Zeme should have been leaving today

WORD OF THE DAY:  Sweaty Betty

Up at 7.30am this morning.  I wanted to get a start on all my gear before everyone else arrived at 9.30am.  The purpose of the truck clean besides getting it ready for the new group joining us in Rio we had to take everything off the truck from the overheads and also from the lockers underneath so that everything could be present and accounted for and people are less likely to forget things.  Once we hot Rio tomorrow, out hotel is on one of the busiest streets if the city, so we literally get off loaded and then the people leaving the tour, 11 of them, don’t see Rosita again and for those who need anything that are staying on don’t see Rosita again till they leave next week.

So I pulled everything off, I had 7 bags and it did look a lot when I sat down to work out what was postable, what could stay on Rosita, what I needed for Carnival and what I would need for my return to Africa.  It took me nearly 2 hours but I ended up with my big backpack and my little backpack and handbag for my flight and I have left my postable bag and an overnight bag of things that I won’t need for the next 5 weeks.  I do have the thinking if I don’t use it in 5 weeks do I actually need it at all, but I have left the camping stuff and also a lot of my winter clothes, so with my big pack running at 90% capacity, I have no idea how I am going to get it all to fit again when I finally leave the tour in May, but I will worry about that when the time comes.

So the truck was cleaned from head to foot, with pots, cutlery and plates all getting rewashed, the food stores gone through and re-arranged and Rosita getting a thorough clean out inside now that all our belongings had been removed.  So once this was all done, we were able to put all our stuff back on the truck and had the rest of the morning and afternoon free.

The lure of the cool sea breeze was too much for me to pass up.  Some of the crew went to some nicer beaches of the islands that were supposed to be just beautiful, but involved a sweaty 30 minute bus ride and Kate and I just couldn’t be bothered, so we headed back to where we were yesterday and pulled up the same seats and deck chairs and wiled away the afternoon reading with the wind ruffling out hair.  The food from the beach café in hindsight was MEGA expensive with a plate of hot chips costing 10AUD, the drinks weren’t too bad at 2AUD a can, but for South America standards that is extortionate.  But we hadn’t spent much over the last few days and for the convenience it was worth it.

I made a dash to the hostel to check messages from Zeme and Beth and good news on both fronts.  Zeme is able to get the time off work and handed his car back into today for another driver and Beth was able to get me seats on flights.  They weren’t as cheap as they were back in Foz, they had gone up nearly $900, but this just can’t be helped and I just need to suck up the cost.  Dang it.  But things are now moving forward and this makes me happier.  It was a little sad to think that Zeme should have been leaving Ethiopia and on a plane today, but only 8 sleeps and I will still be seeing him, so things have worked out okay, short of the emotional stress and the loss of money, it is a good Plan C.

The mozzies in Paraty are by the millions and they seem to only like a selected few.  I have escaped pretty much un-bitten but Helen and Liz have been munched on big time and their bites are red, massive and some of them pussy.  I wonder if it is because I have been on anti-malarial medication since the 7^th July.  That’s 7 months of malaria tablets and I still have another 4 months to go on the suckers.  That’s approximately 205 tablets.  I would damn hope that they work.  I know they don’t stop you from getting bitten but hopefully I won’t get Malaria.  I have been carrying around bug spray for the last 4 months since leaving London, so it was nice to be able to finally use it here.  It is 50% deet and a small tip for the non-experienced don’t let that stuff anywhere near plastic, like watch faces or headlamps as it outs a cloudy coating on the plastic and it doesn’t come off.

Dinner tonight was at the hostel and paid for by Tucan.  All you can eat pizza.  It’s a busy hostel and there were 2 other Tucan groups eating there as well, but they had staggered us over three times, but as they only have one oven, the pizzas were a little slow to come out and over a period of 3 hours we got 4 pieces each.  They started to come thick and fast around the 10pm mark, but we were starting to get full by this time and all the flavors seemed to taste the same, but it was nice to listen to a live band talk and be out of camp chairs and the mozzie infested camp site.

So we leave calm of Paraty tomorrow and head to the craziness of Rio and Carnival.  The actual Carnival Sambadrome is going to be one of the many BIG highlights of the whole Bernie Odyssey and I am sure it is not going to disappoint.