Of Playing Pirates and Catching the Sun

Well after the horror of the first day in Rio, I was hoping for some better luck on the sailing boat, but I was not to be granted this minor wish. Unfortunatley, the weather was still bad, so we had to spend the first night in the Mariner at Rio. Fortunatley this meant that we got to go to a practice of some of the Samba Schools for the Rio Carnival which was great, but I am glad that I am not going to be there cause the crowd was insane and it was only a practice.

The next day we sailed out and it was quite rough and the majority of people got seasick. I thought that I was fine until I went below deck to use the bathroom and just made it back to the deck before I almost threw up. Luckily I kept it down and got some sleep and was fine the next day. Sadly, the weather still was not giving up and it poured rain for the first 3 days of the sailing trip, so there was no sun and no actual sailing. Just when we were all about to crack it, the sun came out and we got some time on the beach and got to actually do some sailing. There were some princesses on the boat who refused to do any work and lay on the deck in the sun while we were trying to raise the sails around them, not that they were the least bit concerned about the sailing that was trying to take place around them. It was such a sense of accomplishment though and we were all happy and excited about getting the sails down and getting to the beach for a BBQ. Sadly, I hit my arm on a window wen I was pulling down a sail and now am asporting a massive bruise on the back of my arm. To make matters worse, when taking down the main sail and trying to fold it, when the person holding the top of the sail accidently let it slip and the wod came down realy fast and hit my knee. Luckily it is just really swollen I think with no real damage done, but I am now hobbling around like an old lady. I also can´t carry my pack as it is to much weight for my leg and it swells up more when I walk, but hopefully in a few days it will be better. It was a rather injury prone boat, I think that everyone walked off with at least one injury to some part of their body, I was just lucky and got all the damage on my left side. Have photographic evidence which I am sure that I will laugh at in a few weeks.

Anyway, am back on dry land in Paraty now for the night and then heading back to Rio to fly into Quito, Ecuador where I will get 6 days rest before the next part of my trip, so am looking forward to some relaxing and no more swaying in the night.

Mwah x