Catching Up

Tuesday 13 March

After our late night enquiries into the misuse of my card, we were not up too early this morning, in fact, we were almost the last people to arrive at breakfast and definitely the last to leave. Colin had his usual enormous feast, while I stuck to smoked salmon, brie and croissant.

We had several tasks this morning, the first being to investigate the laundry advertised. almost opposite the hotel. We each had a large bagful of washing. The lady – short and black African with braided hair and lots of beads - beamed at us all the while she chatted away in rapid Portuguese and pointed to five on her watch and seemed to be saying “today”. One problem solved. Having decided to try and pay cash from now on in restaurants and shops – we had deduced that my card had to have been cloned in one of the two cheaper restaurants we used in Rio as at all the other times, when it was used, it had not been out of our sight - we set off to find a Cambio de Exchange for the travelers cheques and an ATM, both of which we found in the modern plaza on the other side of the hill to the Historic Centre. We also found a pharmacy, so were able to stock up on chemisty bits and pieces which were running low. It was a very warm and sunny morning and we explored more streets in the Historic Centre on our way back to the hotel. We bought postcards and looked at souvenirs, but still have one flight left to get our cases through the weigh-in at the airport, so was not tempted by the souvenirs – but I did by a Tshirt to wear on the cruise – some of my smarter tops are now getting a bit tatty – or too small!!!

We returned to the hotel, very hot and damp, and assuaged our thirst with a caipirinha and a beer – guess who drank which drink! The waiter also brought along a dish of cashew nuts and I immediately thought about the fifty or sixty fruit that these had been attached too in a different life on a tree and wondered who had devoured them. We have not seen cashew fruit anywhere else before or since Rio Negro. I spent the afternoon exploring the internet for options on how to get home from Barcelona in the middle of April - but not getting very far, as I helped Colin with his puzzles and people watched. There was a large tour group staying here – European definitely, but could be Spanish or Italian – as well as a couple of family groups probably from Brazil, and a few couples. Several other groups came in and were shown around – possibly for forthcoming wedding or birthday celebrations (one group were silver wrinklies in at least their seventies). Surprisingly the hotel advertises that it has bedrooms for three hundred guests – I am not sure the facilities would stretch that far if that many guests were here – but as it is it is quiet, friendly and very peaceful – it’s a wonderful place to relax.

Colin collected the laundry on time – all neatly folded and packed in two huge white plastic bin liners. We had some clean clothes again. For dinner we had decided to return to Al Carmo - the Italian restaurant we visited last night – we knew that the food was good and the atmosphere great and we hadn’t seen anything else in town that offered anything more tempting – in Salvador they eat a lot of dishes with rice and potatoes and sometimes pasta as well – very strange. Tonight I had salmon and Colin decided on a fillet steak with mashed potatoes – whenever he sees “mash” on the menu it is very hard to get him to look at other dishes. The food was again first class, and it was only as we were leaving that we realized there was a terrace outside, overlooking the bay, where we could have eaten under the stars in the warmth of the night – although it wouldn’t have been a good place to sit last night. We wandered back up the hill to the hotel, and checked our emails before falling into bed – not sure if it was the late night last night, or the red wine tonight, but we were both feeling very tired – perhaps it was the just languid day we had enjoyed.