Twinkly town

As we are giving European equivalents to the places we visit, we´ll carry on here - Arraial is Brazil´s answer to St Tropez. Yes, we are back in twinkly disney-perfect tourist land again. Arraial is very quaint with a grassy, tree-lined town square and dozens of bars, restaurants and expensive boutiques. We did a little scout round to find some accomodation and visited 3 or 4 lovely places - all good sized rooms (some which were actually apartments on 2 floors), with swimming pools and tropical gardens to enjoy for around 15 pounds a night.

Darren on beach

On our first day we did a tour to an Indian Reservation called Jacquiri. It is on an area that is sacred to the Indians, but that used to belong to a land developer who cut down all the trees. The Indians squatted it and reclaimed it in 2000, and it is now used as a place to teach the children and preserve the Indian culture and way of life. Where the Indians live normally they do not have access to the traditional plants, so the adolescents spend 6 months here to learn how to live from the forest. Up until a few years ago it was illegal for them to go to school with their traditional face paintings, so the practice and meanings were being lost. They now allow small groups of tourists in to help fund the project. We trekked through the forest (which is being replanted) with our Indian guide (and german translator!) and saw examples of the traps they make and found out how they use the plants. We also learnt about their courting process. When they see someone they are interested in they are not allowed to talk to or touch their potential partner - only to throw small stones at each other until they decide to get married! At the end of the tour we ate fish cooked in leaves - tasty. We were hoping to see some monkeys or other wildlife but didn´t - only some GIANT spider´s webs which went some way to satisfying us.

Hammock

On the second day we went to a water park just near our pousada. It was ´billed´ as Latin americas biggest water park - it would appear that Latin america does´t have many water parks! Anyway we had paid our $9.50 (english pounds) so we were determined to make the most of it. We did the wave machine, angie got thrown off of the kids water slides and we graduated to the big water slides. There were two big tube slides which were fun and then Darren went on two open air vertical drop slides and being the hero that he is decided that a 70 foot vertical drop was not thrilling enough and launched himself off from the top of the first one resulting in a scary freefall (6 inches above the actual slide) of some 40 feet before landing on the slide with a smack, adding another bruising to his body (having only just recovered from the saddle sore episode). The highlight of the day though was a 400 foot zip line (yes, another one) that ended in a swimming pool in front of the queue waiting to get harnessed up (we´re painting a picture for you here so pay attention). Darren went first and plunged into the pool after an adrenaline inducing zip ride. Angie was next, she came hurtling down the line and splashed triumphantly down into the water at great speed, albeit in a reverse direction. She climbed out of the pool with a big grin and it was only when she turned round to get out of her harness that Darren realised that her bikini bottom had been wrenched off by the splashdown and she was showing her peachy white bum to the amused queue. If anyone had missed it they were soon alerted to the fact by Angie yelping when Darren pointed out her indiscretion.

Indian Reservation

On Friday night we went to one of the vast nightclubs, called Island of Aquariums. We had to get a boat there and thought it rather strange that there were children and an old granny travelling over with us. It all became clearer when we arrived, as it was not a night club as such, but a large (and commercial) entertainment complex. It had 5 dance areas (although we only found 4) one of which was a huge outdoor stage with a band and dancers who were showing the crowd some (quite gay) dance moves. There were also 4 aquariums with a motley selection of fish in. they didn´t seem to be very well cared for and to be honest it was quite depressing, I guess we should have expected as much. Apparently it stays open until the last person leaves, and although we initally planned to test out this policy, we left on the 3 o´clock boat, a little disappointed. We´re still searching for that illusive night spot.

Indian reservation 2

Arraial is particulary magical at night. The main street is lined with trees, which they light up, and drape with fairy lights. The open air bars and restaurants have lovely coloured lighting, candles and live music. Angie continued her semi-adventurous eating habits, trying a banana and mozzarella pancake - and the flavours went surprisingly well.

Tranport round here is by rickety bus, VW camper vans (which you get like a taxi with lots of other people), or motorbike taxi. We took two of the latter to a gorgeous local beach to top up our tan. They also love VW beetles and we have seen a lot of bashed up and cutomised examples... which is nice.

Next stop is the next village down the coast - Trancoso.

Local beach

Moray Eel

Nightlife