Day 64 – The clouds of Paraty

The first thing I noticed about Paraty is the clouds. I love the clouds. I think I have always loved them since I was a child. St. Petersburg is so rich on clouds, and its sky is so low, you can almost touch them. Here, too, the clouds are spectacular. As if made of cotton, they hang from the sky readily accessible to touch. I think I like clouds not only because of their undeniable beauty, but also because they hide the sun, and I certainly dislike the sun.

It's very tranquil here. Our pousada (bed and breakfast) is super-cute. The Brazilian breakfast spread is spectacular! The usual continental breakfast cold cuts and cheeses are supplemented with tiny meat pastries, cheese balls, miniature omelets, jams, and a great assortment of… cakes! Various fruits are delicious: I have never tried a sweeter pineapple in my life. We cannot stop eating.

Then, our group – Marcela, Melanie, Tanya, Dima, Tom, Camilla and I – sets out for a boat ride around the bay. Wow! What unbelievable views! We are having a lot of fun jumping off the boat, swimming, snorkeling, sunbathing, chatting, playing, and of course drinking refreshing Skol beer. Ah, another activity that we opted for on our boat ride is arm wrestling. It started as a competition between the Brazilian sisters – Marcela and Camilla – but then somehow I got brought into this tournament, because my “arms look strong”. Our stake – free dinner. Fine, I thought, I really don’t care if I lose in this game, who cares. And then, Camilla won the first round, and totally unexpectedly, I won the second. Who would have thought that I have such muscles! Of course, then the same people who brought me into it without me ever expressing any desire to participate in this battle, disqualified me post-factum because apparently Camilla was already tired from the first round, etc. So in the end I didn’t get free dinner. But I do have the pictures to prove that I won fair and square according to the then set rules of the game, whether they were appropriate or not.

In the evening we order pizza and stay in. We occupy every possible common space in our pousada – dining deck, a little stand-alone couch area that we assigned to reading, garden. There is nobody else around and the whole place seems to belong to us. A nice feeling.

I have never even known that there’s such a thing as Brazilian pizza, but it turns out to be absolutely spectacularly delicious: thin crispy crust and tasty toppings, including but not limited to boiled egg (on a pizza called Portuguesa). Yum. Our dinner conversation ranges between the possibility of asexuality, healthcare issues around the world, and “he said she said” gossip. Oh, how I missed that kind of talk for the past two months! At the same time, Tom is trying to make my new Bluetooth headphones work with Skype. I missed that, too!!