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Yesterday I sat to down and wrote a lovely long blog entry about everything that had happened in the couple days since I`ve posted. Did I type it into Word and then paste it into the blog software? No. Did I at least copy it in case something went wrong when I hit the publish button? What do you think? It was very sad to see the Portuguese “we couldn’t find the page” page and realize that all the words were gone forever. Very sad. Gmail’s autosave feature has completely spoiled me. So I didn’t have the heart, yesterday, to try again, and went out to a samba club instead, which cheered me up a great deal.

But now I’ve left Sao Paulo, and it’s Christmas Eve even though it doesn’t feel like it at all, and I realized this morning as we began our drive toward Ilhabela and left the city behind that for the past four days although I thought I was in Brazil I wasn’t. This place is amazing. It’s GREEN! Greener than any place I’ve ever been! You can’t see the ground anywhere except where it’s been paved or the beach, because the vegetation is so thick everywhere. In Sao Paulo, you’d never know it.

I haven’t the courage to retype everything from the old entry about the last days in Sao Paulo, but when I get back and talk to you please ask me to tell you about the sweaty packed Samba club O Do Bodogoda and the old men playing and the college kids singing along to every word and dancing as one big mass of happy flesh and making out in corners. Also ask me to tell you about my favorite language moment in Villa Paris, the french cafe a few blocks away from Cristiane’s.

This morning we got up and had brunch with Cris and Venesius and they drove us to the car rental place (we did decide to get a car after all, as V. assured us that it would be much easier than trying to bus it).

——–I saved this entry and left for the day. Now I have resumed, and it’s Christmas. Merry Christmas, everybody!——————

Anyway. Leaving the city felt amazing. I had this notion, as we drove through the humid countryside, that the whole place was covered with an enormous mold, and we were bacteria making our way through it–it’s not as groos as it sounds, that thought. It actually made me feel more kindly towards mold. But I digress.

We made it to Ilhabela and checked in to our cozy and pretty hotel (Poussada dos Hibiscos); had a terrible dinner on the beach (on the whole, not impressed with Ilhabela cuisine so far) and explored a bit. Today, woke up around 11 and tried to go to this beach on the other side of the island that you can only get to via a dirt raod. But there are apparently no road maps at all of the island, and we drove around looking for it with this tourist map we had, but no luck–and of course, it’s Christmas, so all the adventure places and so forth are closed, and there aren’t many people around. We gave up and were about to turn around when we saw the sign for the Toca waterfall. Figured it couldn’t hurt to give it a try, so we drove up this other dirt road to a building that had “Toca” and an arrow painted on its side. We went in and paid 5 Reals each for…what? Through the building there was a dispenser leaking foul oil and half a dozen people standing around slathering themselves with it. We were given to understand that this was bug repellent and it would do us well to put some on, so we did, liberally, and walked down the path.

Coolest thing ever! We emerged onto a rock hill, and there’s a long, not-too-steep waterfall tumbling over it. Not super impressive. What was impressive was the succession of kids running at the water and SLIDING DOWN THE WATERFALL–basically, they treated it like a huge stone waterslide. It was totally insane. Some of them did it standing up and surfed all the way down, doing flips off the final rock as they cannonballed into the pool at the bottom; some of them went down on their bellies–I couldn’t stop laughing for amazement. Eventually, they convinced us to try it, and that’s what we spent the afternoon doing–jumping down a waterfall. I did go down on my belly once, and both Sean and I tried to surf down it, but neither one of us were successful. These kids were hot. We hiked upstream to the bigger waterfall, the one worth taking pictures of, and this very nice Brazilian fellow who clearly was in love with the place gave us a tour with his limited English and showed us a low rock outcropping that you could get underneath and watch the water falling all around you–it was perfect. People here are ridiculously nice and the country is ridiculously beautiful. I’m starting to feel like I’m truly on vacation–

It’s a grey day here, and after diving down the waterfall we were both a bit chilly, so no beach lounging for us today. We read books by the pool instead, had another underwhelming dinner, and I am thinking of friends and family who are far away and wishing you all marvelous Christmases. My love ‘cross the ocean! Be well!

Alissa