You are now entering Springfield, Brasil...

Farewell to Ilha Grande, and on to Paraty (also sometimes Parati, so excuse me if my spelling drifts...). A fond farewell to Angi, Cami, Kita (Aussie) and Catriona (Irish) at the hostel, a rather more hurried farewell to Marija at the docks, and I was headed back to Angra on the mainland, sweltering once again despite the previous night's rain. Once there, I hung around for a while before getting the local bus along the coast to Paraty, which slightly surreally stopped in the little artificial satellite towns built by Eletronuclear to service the plant near Angra - yes, it did feel a bit like a Brasilian setting for the Simpsons.

On arrival, I borrowed a Lonely Planet from what turned out to be a group of German dentists (my trusty Footprint does not have a map of the town), before slumping through the heat across town and over the river to my hostel. I then had to head back into town to get more cash, at which point I checked my mail and got some food, from which I was startled by the beginning of a cloudburst, which left parts of the historic cobbled centre of the town underwater, and me wondering just what on Earth I'd let myself in for. This luckily subsided somewhat, and I ended up going into town that evening with a bunch of other travellers from the hostel - they were due to meet up with a German lass who had been on their schooner sailing trip earlier that day, but she never turned up in the end.

This didn't really matter, though, as there were 8 of us quite happily sampling some of the local wares - I have found my first truly tasty (rather than merely refreshing-when-drunk-cold-on-

a-hot-day) beer in Brasil - it's from the Devassa brwery, and is called Riuva, and is styled as a Tropical Ale. Yum. This was had at the Che Bar (I don't know why, given I'm not sure he ever even came to the country, but Cuba's favourite adopted Argentinean son appears just as popular here), but given that this was very much priced for Gringo tourists, we soon adjourned a couple of doors down to a little cafe on the square, which was doing special offers on Caipirinhas - always works for me! Only downside is I'm having to fanatically brush my teeth with the amount of sugar that's usually in the things, but I'm definitely not coming down with scurvy any time soon...