A Great Arrival

Friday 2 March

We were awoken around 07.00 this morning with both phones bleeping with a message! At last! Andy had texted to say he and Kerry had had a little boy last night – Timothy (second name maybe Louis) arriving about 22.30. Both were doing well. This was great news. Just as we were sending a reply, Andy rang – he sounded exhausted, but he had been unwell for a couple of weeks, as well as being up for most of the night. Let’s hope Timothy is a baby who likes his sleep. We sent our congratulations to them both and look forward to having a cuddle when we get home.

Breakfast was outside again today (our last one as we are leaving extremely early tomorrow before the restaurant crew are up!) and so we tried all the goodies on offer – the boiled eggs are not for me as they all seem to have that uncooked runny white! We then decided to hit the money exchange next door to get some more reals and some US dollars. Wrong – they would not give us dollars in exchange for our travelers cheques – despite being an American Express exchange, the same as our cheques. They said we could only have reals. On enquiring at the hotel they said that they couldn’t understand it, and suggested we try again later. (We later found out that the information was right, and you can only get US dollars – or any foreign currency from the Bank of Brazil).

From here we crossed the road to the beach – a vast arc of several miles of fine yellow sand – burning hot on the soles of the feet in the brilliant sunshine, and already busy – men offering towels and small folding garden chairs like you buy in B & Q, bodies lying stretched out in the sun, sizzling in the heat and children playing at the water’s edge, jumping in and out of the foaming waves. We went down to the waterline, and I walked out only a few paces, as the waves were quite large, and the undertow as the water receded back to the ocean (this was the Atlantic after all) almost dragged you over. My feet sank in the sand if I stood in one place for more than a few seconds, so I had to keep moving. The waves were super and the water warm, and I was seriously tempted to plunge in – but the beach is not Colin’s idea of fun – he doesn’t like the sand and would not be tempted into the sea – so we returned to the hotel for a dip in the pool. Here we were treated to the same service as yesterday – a man rushing to provided mattresses, pillows, towels and even an umbrella today – he said it would be hotter than ever later. I swam in the pool before blogging and by midday needed some refreshment. We decided to toast the arrival of young Timothy with a couple of cocktails.

The rest of the day passed much like yesterday – swimming, blogging, reading and puzzling – it would be so easy to live a life like this – there are lots of older men with young dolly partners here, dripping in jewels and money no object, who probably do just that. Later in the afternoon we had a call from Nick to say he had got a new job. It sounded great with better benefits and should suit him fine. We had more drinks and tea before going back to the room to pack our cases once more! We are off to the jungle again tomorrow and which will be a real change from this luxury.

We got dressed up tonight for our special meal at the Cipriani Restaurant, giving our gladrags another airing. A man and a lady showed us to a table at the far end of the restaurant, almost in a separate room, but still overlooking the pool area (more people came and filled the tables here while we were eating). A waiter in a white dinner jacket and pink bow tie brought the wine menu, and another dressed in black took the order. The “white jacketed” waiter also brought the food menus and but the maitre d’ came wrote down our options – crab papiottes and guinea fowl for me and a spicy vegetable soup and teal for Colin. The bread basket contained sticks more than two feet long! – as well as about a dozen varieties of mini rolls. The food was good - although we both agreed that the hotel at Ushuaia produced equally excellent fare – at a fraction of the price - and the service here was not so friendly as in the restaurant we used the first evening. Colin chose a soft plain chocolate spongy concoction surrounded by runny crème caramel (the pattern on the plate was a work of art in cream, eau-de-nil and milk chocolate) while I had a passionfruit mousse containing soft walnuts with a large triangular brandy snap. We finished with tea. The bill turned out to be not quite as expensive as we had thought, so we still have a few pennies (or reals) to squander in the next few weeks.

We booked an alarm call with the concierge – he had phoned earlier and I had declined his services, but Colin thought it better to have a back up for the alarm clock as we were getting up at 04.00. We settled our account – again not as large as we had expected – another pleasant surprise. There was just time to send a couple of emails and post a few entries on the blog before climbing into bed just minutes before midnight – only four hours left to sleep – hopefully we may be able to snooze on the flights.