Jan 15

Riki and I awoke early and went and got bread for the boys for breakfast and we did as the Brazilians do - and had our first Brazilian in Brazil! We then managed to rouse the boys and drove the half hour out to Sao Conrado beach where we kitted up and drove up the hill to throw ourselves off a cliff attached to some aluminium poles and even less fabric than the parapenting in Mendoza Argentina. Riki and Gigi went first and Pieter, Nadine and Alex dorve to a shopping mall to withdraw cash as the HangGliding people manage to have DVD players in their car yet somehow cannot seem to make Credit Card facilites available.
After we arrived back with cash in hand we drove up the hill and saw Riki prepare for her flight, and all admired her running style. She got strapped in and then she was off, into the fabulous view and towards the beach accompanied by some squeals.
Nadine was next and showed everyone how to run off a wooden platform properly - haha. Again the flight was accompanied by squeals and constant photo taking on the digicam.
Upon arrival at the beach we landed this time - Riki even managing to run. We then all drove down to Barra Shopping - Brazil's biggest shopping mall to buy our Ben Harper tickets - except to find that they don't accept credit cards and that we had to pay cash except we didn't have any left! So frustrated we ended up trying to buy icecream at Bob's Burgers, only to find our plans were foiled when the Eftpos/Visa machine decided not to work. So there we were munching on icecreams getting more and more frustrated at the retardedness of it all.
In the end Tomas had to sponsor with some cash and we left Barra - Riki and I wanting to come back for the shopping but also irate about the Ticket situation.
We arrived back at Alex's flat and packed up our stuff ready to leave for Buzios.
The drive out took 2hrs and by the time we got there it had started bucketing down with rain to Riki's delight as it always seems to rain when she is in Buzios- well the province of Rio really. We had a yummy pizza - Riki's namesake flavour, and one with chicken and tubed cream cheese- 'catupiry' and after asking for various juices and liqueurs that they didn't have, we settled for the quintessential lime caipirinha. At this stage the rain had intensified even more and we ended up skipping through puddles and waterfalls with merely a thin blue piece of umbrella fabric protecting us from the elements to Zapata - an apparently happening bar in Buzios. However when we got there it was empty so Riki and I just decided to dominate the D-Floor anyway, requesting and receiving the ultimate - Justin Timberlake 'Sexy Back'. Yea!
After burning up the floor we sang and danced our way back to the car belting out such classics such as 'Singing in the Rain' and 'I'm such an Ugly Bug'. Riki managed to slice a very gorgeous 25yr old Argentine Lawyer called Ignacio. She completed Team Challenge number one given to her by Nadine. Bedtime consisted of coating ourselves with Repel Deet bug repellant and laughing about Tripods.