Janine&Chris'GeriatricGapYear: 1/1/2012 Feliz Ano Novo

Sunday 1 January 2012 All is quiet on new year’s day

It rained heavily through the evening last night but we equipped ourselves with umbrellas and ventured out at about 11.15 during a lull. We made our way fairly easily through the gathering crowd down to the river mouth. There were sporadic fireworks from the opposite corner, about 50 metres away – seemingly an amateur effort, although they put up a fair number of rockets. Similarly, there were odd bangs and flashes coming from all directions, including out at sea, where the bloody stockbrokers . . OK the nice persons out there with the big boats. Let me not be accused of Boat Envy.

We had heard (via the French translation of the Portuguese) that the show would start at 11.30 but there was just a continuation of the sporadic show from across the river. Some local band belted out their devotion to Paraty (which they pronounce Parachee) and then in a wry choice, somebody played ”I can see clearly now” during one of the breaks in the drizzle. The mood of the crowd was excited and there was a fair amount of grog about – mostly bottles of champagne for midnight. Notably, there was not a police presence to be seen and no hint of aggression or violence – Perth writhe in shame.

Then at midnight they called out the countdown and the real show started. It only lasted 5 minutes but it was a very busy 5 minutes. They set rockets and other pyrotechnics off at a furious pace and blasted the sky with noise and lights. Other displays all round the bay and at sea echoed the spectacle. They didn’t have any of the very high altitude rockets but they didn’t need them because everyone was close to the action and the impact was vivid. After 5 minutes there was a momentary lull and then a final frenzy of big bangs and spectacular flashes. And that was it. The music started thumping again and most of the crowd started wandering off and we made our way back along the river. Very enjoyable although it certainly wasn’t Rio.

We had thought that we would have the dorm to ourselves with just the Argentinian girls but around 10pm a foursome of f French had turned up and filled us up. This was just about the time that all the young girls wanted to paint their faces for the evening and now the Frogs were impatient to get in the bathroom and clean up. Just as we were ready to go out, I noticed that the toilet would not flush or refill – Fabulous!! But we all got away without a riot. They got back about the same time we did and we were asleep by the time the Argies returned.

We were first up about 9am and the toilet was functioning but the owners were lagging with the brekky. They progressively served the coffee and rolls then the cheese and ham and finally he came back with the bags of oranges and made the juice. Now THAT is freshly squeezed!

We wandered off in light drizzle and headed towards the airport and the local houses beyond. Obligingly, a 2 engine plane hove into sight over the bay just as we arrived and it came purposefully in, crossing our heads barely 30’ up in the air before dropping behind the fence and throttling back to land on the runway. I didn’t like the look of the houses beyond that . . a few people lolling about looking as though they were still in party mood and the place had the feel of a Fevola. We will think about it again after we get some local advice. We also found a medium sized supermarket with reasonable prices much closer to home.

It was a quiet day at the hostel. There were just the 4 of us with the Argentines. We went for another walk about 3pm in pretty constant drizzle and again braved the horrors of The Cake Seller. Only one today but there were not many people coming back from the boats. He parked his cart across the path and did what he could. BUT we had his match and we looked at the cake, we rejected the cake and walked away from the cake. On the way back we watched a pair of porkers loading up with 4 big sticky slices . . . . and it looked GOOD! Ooooh aaaargh I nearly forgot – half way back down the jetty there was a largish woman with no pants on! We followed her (reluctantly) and it was quite distressing. Hubby was overflowing out of budgie smugglers and she had totally absorbed her Gstring. It would have been bad enough on the beach but here on dry land in an urban area it was Wrong.

By the way, we checked this afternoon and when we join the tour group on the 4^th – we are coming straight back here for several days. They are offering dive courses and cruises on the schooners like we went on.