left isla grande after an impressive 24 hour downfall of torrential rain. too many gringoes and nothing like it was in 2002 when i first went there. it pains me that cruise ships now stop at the island. beautiful beaches out of the main town though and well worth the 12km trek to the isolated beaches. (we studiously ignored the fact you can get a boat there and maintained a sense of self-satisifed smugness for having walked there)

7 hours bus ride to Sao Paulo. Little expectation of staying for long but met some Paulistas (that´s residents of Sao Paulo to you and i) in a bar and are off to their home this afternoon. hopefully they weren´t just drunk but will remember us when we rock up. there´s no shared language between us but we managed last night so hopefully can follow up with more sign language today.

steve is currently too stricken to write as its half time in the Villa Man U game and we´ve trudged over the city looking to watch it with no joy. live streaming isn´t working either. me checking facebook isn´t helping his mood much either...

other highlights:

monkeys in the tree while we had our breakfast

being rescued by a dog on our walk back from the beach. (it was getting dark, we´d lost our way and were both walking faster and faster, neither of us willing to admit we were getting anxious when this dog appeared out of nowhere and walked us home. any time either of us stopped for water, he would wait for us, nudging us along. I was convinced we had a friend for life when two more walkers trotted past us and he gave us up for better walking companions).

being poked by a man with a hot loaf of bread

doing a ´donna´ - (donna, we thought of you immediately as we booked our accomodation for March and not February. a little less expensive to resolve for us mind).

xxx