We're Sitting Doing Nothing .... Happy The Whole Day Through

Wednesday 14 March

Another elongated breakfast (Colin has moved on to two fried eggs now), eaten in the cloister colonnade under darkening grey cloudy skies, which eventually emptied as more heavy rain, with only a glimmer of the sun. But it was still very warm and humid. Although we have time in Buzios to relax – that was the purpose of booking that venue – the huge armchairs and footstools looked so comfortable and enticing, we decided to stay in for the morning. Salvador is not a city bursting with sights to see – we could take a boat trip around the islands, and we could explore the inland deltas on tours, but felt that we had seen most of the wildlife to be seen at Sandoval Lake and in the Pantanal, and we would not see a lot cruising the islands in the dank grey mist. A much better option seemed to be to relax, have a few drinks with our feet up and watch the wildlife around the pool where hummingbirds fluttered in and out of the large leafed plants – flashes of peacock blue, green and yellow – as well as plump quail sized pigeons and other smaller birds, pecking for morsels amongst the marble tiles.

Midday seemed to arrive very quickly and I had hardly written half an entry on the blog – I think I must be slowing down - while Colin was listening to his book – or was he really snoozing – do you make zzzing noises as you read? It had showered a few times during the morning, but later as the sun came out and everything sparkled, I enjoyed continued to enjoy the scene from the comfort of my armchair – whilst supping beers and puzzling – the batteries had run out on the computer, and the only plugs were by the sofas closer to the bar – but I felt a bit like Ronnie Corbett, enveloped between two huge arms and was too snug to move. Knowing the pool was an illuminated fountain at night, I didn’t feel that I could intrude into the water. The mattresses – and they were the old-fashioned striped variety with buttons - on the wooden loungers closer to the pool, were “mucky” and didn’t look at all inviting to lay out on – one of the only faults with the hotel. We whiled away the afternoon – practicing for our time on the cruise – well that’s our excuse, relaxing and taking advantage on an excellent bar service. Back in the room I managed to edit the blogs I had written so that I could publish them later.

For dinner we had decided to sample the hotel fare once more. When we sat down we were served with the hot coated olives and garlic oil again as an appetizer – I am not sure these flavours work when all together. I chose what turned out to be a crab filo pastry pancake roll with salad and a fruity soy sauce dressing to start with roasted saddle of pork (it was stuffed with black pudding and strong salami) sitting on a haggis sauce (which included rice and was extremely rich) accompanied by manioc french fries (very dry to taste) covered in parmesan– this time all there was a raging war going on as all the different individual strong flavours competed in your mouth. The meat was good – crispy on the outside and soft and succulent inside (but then again pork is my favourite meat) – the salami overpowered the centre – and I didn’t even try the small portion of black pudding. Colin chose a rice of duck – with a confit of leg! (he did ask about the dish and the waiter explained it was duck and rice). When it came it was a tall drum-like cylinder of risotto style rice with strands of duck and onion through it and the bare leg bone protruding from the centre. It was garnished with small cubes of black pudding and truffle. When Colin excavated through the rice part, he found the confit of duck leg in the centre. He said the dish was delicious, but too much rice. We couldn’t face puddings – both dishes had been extremely rich and filling - so finished with teas. The menu here explains that it offers a fusion of Brazilian and European food – this is a favourite phrase of many of the restaurants here and seems to mean they use a lot of rice and manioc, alongside mainly Italian style flavours – and the choices all used a large number of over-complicated ingredients, which didn’t always seem to work. But we enjoyed the experience. A large tour group of mainly smart West Indian women had arrived this afternoon, and they were busily trying to separate their bills into individual amounts and count their reals – we have been there at much lesser hotels than this, but it was causing great confusion amongst the waiters. We wondered if they were cruising to avoid the Cricket World Cup in the West Indies.

Back in the room, I published three entries on the blog, before sorting out our cases for their last journey in the air on this trip, we hope. It will be good not to have to worry about them being overweight any more. Despite doing almost nothing all day, we were surprisingly tired and sunk into the sumptuous bed for the last night.

This hotel has been one of the best of the trip – extremely comfortable and very relaxing – and we didn’t even venture to the spa. We would probably still rate the Kempinsky in St Petersburg (all that time ago) as THE best hotel overall (it has definitely been the only one to supply me with a silk nightie), with the Metropole in Moscow, Hotel Los Nires in Ushuaia, the Copacabana Palace in Rio and this hotel in Salvador as other highlights. All have offered fabulous comfort and service, and helped us to become great hotel aficionados. We hope Buzios will be added to the list.