:from the tropics

We are having now a two-week autumn break at school which coincided with Easter. My son, who lives in Barcelona, came with his girlfriend to see the family. Unlike today, which is windy and rainy, the weather was superb ! We stayed Friday and Saturday in Santos, where my parents live, and went out for lunch in Guarujá with part of the family. On Sunday, the four of us drove along the northeast coast, and took the ferry-boat to cross the São Sebastião channel towards Ilhabela (beautiful island), Brazil’s largest maritime island and a diving, surfing, sailing and ecological paradise if it were not by the “borrachudo”, a tiny blood-thirsty mosquito that attacks at any time of the day).

 

On Monday, we covered 25km of a rough rutted track in a Land Rover all the way to Castelhanos, a long, wild and pristine beach on the open sea side of the island. The 1 1/2 hour ride was worth every bump and shake and on our way back we stopped at a waterfall in the middle of the Atlantic rainforest to refresh  after a day in the sun and two hefty and heady caipirinhas.

to be continued