Ilhabela - or something like that

We were meant to leave this morning at 7:30am. Well.... Anne pitched up here at 10am. Good start lol Then we got lost trying to get out of São Paulo. Gee... this city is confusing!!! I'm so used to navigating from bus stop to bus stop and recognising places from my perch in the bus. Navigating around the intricacies of SP roads and rodovarios is... uh... somewhat beyond my skills lol especially with a friend who makes decisions on where to go long before the spot is found on the map. Well, unlike men (hehe) we asked directions and eventually found ourselves on the road to Santos (that's where she believed we were meant to be headed). Tunnels... tunnels.... The one was 4km long and there were about 5 of them. The on-the-road scenery would have been stunning if it weren't raining. Note here... the weather forcast said 26°C and clear skies over Ilhabela, which is why we persevered.

Blow me down if we didn't get lost in Santos too. We took a ferry (great fun) to Guarulhos (Brazilians out there... please excuse my spelling of these places), got lost in Guarulhos, made our way back and by 1:30pm, we were finally on our way to Ilhabela. The weather report didn't lie.... over Ilhabela - I think a spot of around 4 sq meters - the sky was clear! We took another ferry across to the island. I think I like ferries :) By the time we got onto the island, it was late afternoon and too late for decent exploring, but now we know (I think) where to go next time.

The road home. We took a different road, apparently very scenic. I think the 'powers that be' decided to 'water the garden' and they had one of those high pressure hoses. For most of the twisty-turny pass up the mountain and down the other side, we travelled at maximum 40km/hour as we couldn't see where we were going. Nail-biting stuff. Fortunately, the road itself was pretty good. I need to get the photos off my camera and uploaded still. Will deal with that tomorrow when I can think clearly again.

We arrived home to a closed up house. Jorge was snoring away, so I booted him 'awake' and asked him why he couldn't at least leave the place open for us. He muttered something about leaving a night light on for me (we don't have a night light - turned out to be the pc screen he'd left on). He then turned over and was muttering about fire-flies. Go figure! lol

Sunday - March 27th

We went to Anne's today for lunch and her traditional Easter egg hunt. We actually had hot cross buns and chocolate coated marshmallow easter eggs!! Wow!! She got G to bring them to Brazil when he came over on Thursday. Poor Anne fell on Thursday too and is very obviously sore. For lunch, we had chicken she had baked in a sauce of mayonnaise and chutney. Deeevine! Of course, Jorge was horrified because its sweet and sour and had raisins in to boot lol but he ate without complaining. The Mousse de maracujá and milk tart went over well, except for the kiddo that insisted on mushing his milk tart, mousse (two totally different flavours) together with, of all things, spring onion flavoured crisps!! Eeew!! All in all, it was a lovely day. We paid a fortune in taxi fare though because 'certain people' refuse to use maps... ugh!

Ah... on yesterday's 'entertainment'. I made the Winter pasta recipe. I liked it, but it wasn't rave review stuff. We found out afterwards that Tat's boyfriend was horrified because they've gone vegetarian at home and then to find no meat in his pasta here lol He seemed to enjoy the milk tart, but then who doesn't enjoy milk tart??

Enough for today. In the morning, if the weather is fine, we'll be going to Ilhabela. Better make sure my camera batteries are charged and the memory is clear :)

Quiet Saturday

Tat's boyfriend is coming over and I'm serving Winter pasta - its part of my menu mailer and sounds delish. I'll check in later to give a report. For desert, we'll have milk tart - yummy! I need to make the desert for tomorrow when we go to Anne's for the easter egg hunt. I'll make double milk tart and take the second one with and I'm making Mousse de maracujá or Grenadella mousse. Its delish and so easy to make. You just take a can of condensed milk, same quantity of cream and grenadella (passion fruit) pulp (without the pips) and beat them together in the liquidiser. Pop it into the fridge to set and you're done.

House is tidy... Tat is busy with origami and Jorge is burning cd's. The dogs are sleeping, Maluco is out hunting - or whatever it is that he goes off to do lol and Specs is curled up in her box. Kind of Saturday I like :)

Brazil - 05 March 2005

Good a time as any to have a blog lol

We're starting to clear out the house in preparation for the big move. We got rid of the clothe's horse today and a lot of Tatiana's clothes that she's... uh... grown out of. I need to get my websites updated, but got sidetracked by Pete's blog... thus this entry.

We're full of plans for the future today. Life is good.... barring my aching back and Tat's sprained finger LOL

Hugz
Tint~