Mostly diving and eating – by Karin Jnr.

Hi everybody, sorry that I haven’t blogged in a while but now I am going to, so sit back, relax, and read.

I remember that last time I forgot to tell you that we went to a zoo in Rio. It wasn’t the best one, but it was nice to see strange animals.

After we left Rio for the last time, we went to Ilha Grande, where we really had fun despite school. We went Scuba diving for Father’s day. It was real tough getting to the dive site. Our boat was anchored in a little bay, but between our bay and the big bay on the other side there was this piece of land kind of sticking out like a stick from the island. At high tide it would only show a few rocks where the stick of an island and the big island was connected, but at low tide it was actually a piece of land. We went diving at low tide and my Dad wanted to dive in the bay next door. Now we could one of two things: climb over the low piece of land, or ride with the dingy all the way around the sticking out piece of land. We all decided that it would be better to climb over the piece of land than to go all the way around the piece of land. We underestimated the distance we had to swim to the rocks and were very tired once we reached the rocky place. Now we couldn’t swim over it. It was low tide. The rocky place was a little patch of dry land we had to walk over, and that is no easy thing to do with all our diving kit. But we made it over. I would not have been able to do it without Dad’s help. I fell once, and could not get up. Luckily I have a strong Dad who could help me so I was fine.

After Ilha Grande, we went to two other places. (As far as I can remember.) A place called Paraty, and another place. Paraty was a very nice place, it has cobblestone road everywhere. We went for a walk with a picnic to some fort. The fort was on a hill and it had a spectacular view. At the foot of the hill was a little beach bar and as we walked past it a dog came from nowhere and started to follow us. I say follow, but it was more like lead. He insisted on walking in front and even assumed we would be going up the hill to the fort and not carry on, on the path we were on.

When we got to the top and ate our picnic he only tried once to get a titbit of food till we told him off and then he went away to go lie down in the sun and roll on the grass. Two other people came up the hill and went down again in the time we were there, but the dog waited for us to go down before he would, he wouldn’t even go and see if we dropped something while eating. (Which we did) and just calmly led us down the hill again. When we stopped walking he would stop and wait for us to catch up. We dubbed him Kerneels. He followed us all the way to the beach bar, then he stopped and calmly sat on the sand and went to sleep.

Our next stop was the other place. I don’t know what this place was called, but it was very pleasant there. We rode our dingy into this river, I was super scared. I kept on imagining a crocodile surfacing next to the dingy. Then we left our dingy and walked on a path. We saw a tame howler monkey and two adorable little dogs. At the end of the path was a waterfall, and there we had a glorious swim. It was nice to swim in fresh water again.

After this place we headed back past Ilha Grande and Rio on to Buzios. Buzios was an interesting place. There is random lifelike statues that are made of bronze. As the town didn’t seem overly lively by day we decided to go at night to see if anything was happening. Lucky for us there was some little festival of some kind. So it was loads of fun. There were people selling food of all kinds: bowls of rice with sea food mixed in, interesting pancakes with chocolate sauce and ice cream banana tart with pieces of chocolate hidden inside with more ice cream, and much more.

Once we went to eat at this self-service place. Brazilians seem very fond of these. It was very nice with a view of the bay, we could see all the boats. I personally don’t like their chicken. It is only the breast and it is cooked dry!! And can you believe that a friend of ours (Brazilian of course) actually like it! Well, their fish was much better. They also had beef and lasagne, plus a lot of salads. (But I don’t really eat salad.) They had delicious French fries. This place had a special on buffet, so we could go back all the time.

About halfway through the meal, four police came in and sat two tables away from us. They had all their gear on: bullet proof vests, big guns, strap around the leg with a hand gun, lots of pockets with who knows what inside! Unfortunately I was facing the wrong way, so I could not keep an eye on them, but they had to walk past our table to get to the food, so I saw them often enough. (They all went for seconds.) They took off their bullet proof vests and the vests over that with lots of pockets in them, but kept the leg strap hand gun with them. They always left a guy at the table to guard all the stuff. When the rest came back with plates piled high with food, the other one went and came back with a plate piled just a high as all his comrade’s plates.

We stayed long enough to see them go and take seconds. They came back with plates piled just as high as their firsts. Pudding were these small plastic bowls. Some full of caramel others full with disgusting jelly type things. I admit that I was responsible for quite a lot of the caramel’s disappearance.

On the way out we saw the four police men’s car parked outside it was quite a cool car. For like half the walk back to the boat I couldn’t stop thinking of the police I found them very cool. On the walk back to the boat we passed this restaurant that was roasting whole pigs out in the open so everyone walking on the street could see and smell. If we hadn’t just had a really big meal at the restaurant I would have been hungry.