Well, it's the end if one era and the beginning of another! On Thursday morning I said goodbye to my Dragoman friends (I'll see them in Buenos Aires again so not really goodbye!) and went to meet the GAP lot. There are 15 of us on this tour and guess what? All, except me, are under 30. The next tour I book I might have to find out if there is an OAP special! The saving grace is that Lucio, our Venezuelan leader, is 35. Anyway, we are all Brits and Ozzies; 11 girls, 4 boys - catfight heaven! All seem fine so far though so fingers crossed.

We took a bus and boat and finally made it to Ihla Grande - a beautiful island full of quaint shops and buildings and lots and lots of beaches (it reminds me a lot of Koh Phi Phi). One problem? Pissing it down! Staying in a lovely pousada with fairly new huts and, rare so far in my Brazil experience, hot showers!!! I'm sharing a hut with 2 other girls but have my own room which is nice as I finally have a bit of 'me' space. Went out for a group meal and drinks and arranged to all walk to a beach on Friday. We were expecting a gentle stroll which ended up being a 3 hour trek up and down muddy mountains (I fell down!). Still, very nice when we got there - a surf beach with huge waves over 3m or so high. True Brit abroad, I got burnt (and ladies - for the first time since Cebu, my tummy lips reappeared - ha ha!). Stole Lucio's hammock (well, he did leave it unattended so what do you expect?) and zonked out for a while, naturally looking like a tomato when I woke up! Started raining again on the boat journey back so I went for some acai (check this out if you can, it's delicious - acai berries mixed with banana and crushed ice topped with honey, banana and granola - it's a cross between a smoothie and a sorbet and is fabulous. Apparently acai berries are used in diet pills as they are a natural anti-oxidant but in this form there's so much sugar added I think it probably has the opposite effect!). Am now sitting in a rocking chair (see, I am an OAP) in the cold and wet writing this, waiting to be called for our BBQ of unlimited meat, salad and caiprinhas - yum!

The following day I fancied just pottering so finally got up around11am and headed 'downtown' for some brekkie. Spent most of the day just chilling out in the shops and cafes and then we all met up for another group meal in the evening. I tell you, these 'young uns' just can't hack the pace. They started dropping like flies at around 8.30pm and I ended up in bed at about 10pm after only 1 beer. What's going on?!

On Sunday we got the boat and bus to Paraty, another quite quaint colonial town. I went for a wander on my own to take some pics and was just approaching the town square when I heard someone yelling my name (always an odd one when in a strange country!). It was Ben from my Dragoman group; they had arrived 2 days earlier. I went for a quick drink on the beach which ended up being several caiprinhas and a stagger home in the dark! Later on bumped into Frederic and then a few of us decide to go to the hostel they were staying at as Lucio told us there was a good live band there. Hmm, yeah, on every night except the one we were there! It was a bit of a trek to get there so on the way back, Lucio's mate gave me a lift on his motorbike back into town. Am getting used to clinging onto the back of some random Brazilian while tearing through the streets!