Morro de Sao Paulo

We’re taking a day trip to a nearby island, 1hr 50 mins away by hovercraft. At least, that was the plan. Particularly choppy sea meant that the journey took over 2 ½ hours, we’re all feeling a bit queasy by the time we eventually arrive and no one feels like going back in 3 hours time for a repeat performance. But we’re all cheered by the sight of 3 or 4 dolphins gracefully gliding in and out of the water nearby as the boat docks and decide to try to stay overnight. Our first task is to change the return tickets over for tomorrow’s boat and the second is to find a place to stay for the night. We manage to find a cheap pousada with a room for the night, even though it only has 3 single beds. Ruby’s not impressed, but since we are also having to pay for our place back in Salvador, she’s going to have to put up with Harley’s feet in her face for the night.

Morro de Sao Paulo is a gorgeous little island with no roads (and therefore no cars) and streets that are just made from sand. Transport here is either by horse or wheelbarrow, or there is one tractor that can drive along the beaches, if you’re really desperate.

From where the hovercraft docks, you walk down onto 1st beach, along to 2nd beach, keep walking along the water’s edge to 3rd beach until finally you come to 4th beach. Each beach is different, facing a different direction or with a different type of wave and three out of four are almost deserted. It reminds me of Koh Samui in 1990, before they built an airport there. Mostly unspoilt, laidback and very relaxing. All except for Ruby whose major worry is that we’re unexpectedly staying overnight and she doesn’t have Scruffy, her lifelong favourite teddy with her.

The island is surrounded by coral reef which means that the waves break a long way off the shore and leave a 3 foot deep natural swimming pool, which makes a nice change from the huge waves we encountered in Rio.

With no change of clothes or even any toiletries, we’re really feeling in backpacker mode, but it’s a welcome relief not to be laden down with baggage and even more of a relief not to have to pack up again in the morning. The kids obviously aren’t feeling quite so relaxed as us since they spend the entire morning arguing, pinching and poking each other. After several hours (in fact, several days of this), we’re at our wits end and just can’t decide what to do. We’ve tried everything over the course of the last few weeks to stop the bickering (admittedly, it’s mostly Harley hitting Ruby and being generally annoying) and, on a whim, I tell Ruby to hit Harley back, something we never normally endorse and which she never normally does. For a couple of minutes, all hell’s let loose as we stand by and watch the pair of them scrap like cat and dog. An elderly couple walking past look first at us and then at the kids and can’t believe their eyes. Only when Ruby draws blood by scratching Harley on the chest do we step in and declare her the winner. Ding ding. Ruby’s shocked and embarrassed in equal measures by the fact that she scratched him so badly and he’s screaming, mostly from shock. Will and I are looking at each other in that “did we really just let them do that” way and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Something must have worked, be it guilt on Ruby’s part or fear on Harley’s, because they spend the rest of the afternoon playing happily together in the sea whilst Will makes a deal on 10 caiporoskas and some acai berries (Amazonian wonder-berries, meant to be an aphrodisiac) before we have to take the 3pm boat back to the mainland. The dolphins are there again and give us a lovely send off, whilst I keep my eyes firmly fixed on the horizon for the next 2 hours to avoid a repeat of the queasiness I had on the way over. Not everyone seems to know the eyes-on-the-horizon trick and there’s a few green-faced people who get off the boat the other end.