23rd-26th Jan - Parity

After a couple of 14 hour truck days and a few hours sleep in a hotel, we arrived at a very muddy campsite in Parity after dark. A large Brazillian family were clearly starting their carnival celebrations early, with loud music and horn blowing for all bar about 2 hours so a few folk scurried off to hotels the next day. My ear plugs and I were fine though.

Lush scenery abounds in Brasil. Here with some spooky clouds.


The first day was spent meandering round the beautiful old colonial town, a town you can only walk around slowly due to the huge-cobbled streets. Still very hot. I was amused to see a policeman patrolling the harbour......on a paraglider! Not a bad job.






After sampling the fruit cocktails at the main square watching a band perform, we got our first taste of how Brazilians love to dance. Fantastic. Then, a carnival group came marching through, with a full brass band and crazy dancing folk in huge costumes. We saw them a few times in the night and they were at it for 2.5 hours. Who needs the gym! We then meandered home to a different campsite. Apparently, the noisy family from last night had been asked to keep it down and rather aggressively conveyed that they would not be doing so, so Pete and Kirsten and whoever else was at camp that evening, grabbed all the tents, stuffed them in the truck and relocated us.

Our 2nd full day in Parity was spent lounging on a boat, going round the islands off Parity. With a guitarist/singer on board and some beer/caiparinha's to lubricate the party, it was a great day.



The water was lovely and warm, albeit very salty, and we spotted one our group, who had instead gone scuba diving for the day.






I missed the manta ray but saw some beautiful fish in the green sea (it's known as the Emerald coast round here). The rain started as we swam in from one of the islands and got progressively worse. Being fairly warm, that was ok until we started back and the wind and rain made it a bit chilly. A few of us grabbed some small children under the pretence of keeping them warm and dry but with the added benefit of getting a bit of warmth back.





Walking through a pretty flooded Parity was amusing, and Lisa, Vanessa and I felt that a brief visit to the beach bar opposite our campsite for a cheeky caiparinha was in order.







A pretty soggy cook group