Boat Trip to Other Beaches

We woke up early – thanks to the animals. The rooster crowed well before dawn, which isn’t typical in Brazil since people usually get up around 9 AM. We headed down for breakfast, which consisted of fresh bread, various fruits, and freshly squeezed juice. Our Pousada managed to get us a 10% discount on a boat trip to the blue lagoon and other beaches and islands, so we booked through them. At 10 AM, the boat left from the harbor, and the trip was set to last until 4:30 PM. Unfortunately, no one on board spoke English, so we didn’t understand anything about the places we were visiting. It was a bit of a shame, but they’re not used to English-speaking tourists, so we had to make do with the few words we could catch. The different islands we sailed around were incredibly beautiful, completely covered in rainforests. When we reached the blue lagoon, the boat stopped so we could jump in and snorkel among the many fish and starfish. As I mentioned, no one spoke English, so when it came time to choose what we wanted for dinner from a menu that was entirely in Portuguese, we just closed our eyes and let our finger land on a random dish – it turned out to be calamari rings with rice and black beans, totaling 35 reais. In the evening, we went to a restaurant that had some dishes on special for just 8 reais. It turned out that price and quality are somewhat related. We struck up a conversation with the neighboring tables, one of which was a couple from Russia living in Canada. The man was a math professor and had heard of Aarhus University. At the other table were some guys from Holland who had also experienced an attempted mugging in Rio, so I guess we’ve been lucky. On our way back to our Pousada, we passed a bar that looked really cozy. The island is mostly lively on weekends when Brazilians come out to relax. Inside the bar, we were served some very strong drinks that could knock out even the toughest drinkers. Each glass had about 6 cl of spirits in it!