Parati.

Unbelievably, the rain continued. Yesterday I think I broke a personal record in that I watched 4 films in a day. It started raining at around 2pm on Sunday, carried on all through the night and all day on Monday and finally when we woke up this morning it wasn't raining. And when I mean it rained for 2 days, it wasn't a drizzle, it was proper rainforest type rain. Even in the UK, I haven't seen anything like it. So that is the reason for the record breaking day yesterday. We, and I think everyone else in the hostel, just stayed in the front room and watched film after film until it was time for dinner, followed by another film before it was time for bed. We actually enjoyed it! It was a great excuse to do absolutely nothing.

So finally today we had a break in the weather and decided to have a little explore of the 'historic town centre' followed by a trip to a nearby beach. The old part of the town is really very pretty with a nice relaxed atmosphere and an almost european feel to the architecture. It was once an important colonial port for gold trading followed by coffee so I assume there was a fair bit of money about at one point. There's no trading out of here now though I don't think so it's all tourism, although in a nice way. Not 'in your face' at all.

We were recommended the beach we headed to in the afternoon firstly by people on the salt flat tour and the also by a few people on our way here. 'Paradise' was how everyone described it and after arriving I think that especially with some sun, this would be very true. Unfortunately, after a pretty overcast morning the rain returned and put a bit of a dampener on our beach excursion. We met a really nice family on the bus on the way though so enjoyed sharing a few beers under the parasol and running around with the little one.

Back in Parati and we've just enjoyed a classic backpackers pasta dish. We had a nice surprise this morning too when the hostel 'upgraded' us from the dorm room to the private room so we're out of that dingy room I showed you last time. Tomorrow we're catching a 10am bus to Rio, our final destination. It's getting pretty desperate with the weather now. 8 days in Rio. We'd surely be the very unlucky if we didn't get any sun!

It was also with both sadness and relief that we saw the earthquake in Chile. Only 2 weeks ago we were in Santiago so it could have turned out very different for us. We were very glad though to hear that Hubert and Agathe and the family are fine. Let's hope that Chile can get things going again for themselves soon.