Without going into too much detail, basically it turned out that Luis couldn't attend the school there as we weren't staying long enough. There are 4-5 small houses that comprise the 'school', and that includes at least one which is perfect for 2yr olds like the wee man. We were disappointed to learn that Luis couldn't spend a couple of hours or so every day playing with other kids of the same age. I found this out the saturday morning after we arrived, after Luis and I had been playing in that very house on our own for an hour or so, undercover. Luis loved playing with the children who were all very sweet, especially when they came to Luis' birthday party, which made us feel very welcome, but Luis is a party animal and needs action 24-7!!
**Spider fans stay tuned....**
This made us change our plans and we decided to move on sooner than planned. Otherwise, the place was beautiful, these beautifully crafted houses scattered in amongst the palm trees overlooking the river, beach and the sea. We had a couple of days of rain, but otherwise our days consisted of waking up around 6, maybe having a quick breakfast ourselves before joining the communal breakfast at 8 (piggies), then maybe heading to the beach and the river to play and swim before heading back for lunch, putting Luis to sleep (he was sleeping like a log, about 3 hrs each day for his siesta), relaxing in the hammocks, me doing a bit of work here and there, then going to see who was around and socialising before heading back for dinner and bed. We came here to Itacare for my birthday on Thursday (thanks for the b'day shout outs) which is proper Brazil, you can really feel it, so we decided to spend some time here. Maria got me some tight swimming trunks, which I won't share with you, well, maybe, as everyone wears them here, except the yut who wear Bermudas. October is birthday month, so happy birthday to Ju, Cath, Scott and Mikey, hope you celebrated in style!
We've met some great people at Piracanga and made friends: Juan, a cool Argentinian guy who's working in the kitchen, and made this amazing chocolate bread for breakfast, and who we'll hopefully see again on our travels; Florian, Laura and wee Sasha, a lovely family from Romania who escaped their lives and media careers in Bucharest to stay in the eco-village, who treated us at their house one night with home made roasted peanuts and pancakes; Sasha and Samadi, an Italian couple who are building a house there but have been coming to Piracanga for many years offering therapies including osha rebalancing, of which I had a session as a birthday treat; and Maiana, daughter Marina and Grandmother Dulce, who were spending a week there away from Sao Paulo - Marina is 2 1/2 and is un amor, and we hung out with them for the last 2-3 days as Marina and Luis hit it off straight away.
Maria's letting me right this now we've left Pircanga, but after our large spider friend dropping in last week, on the sunday morning, after breakfast, Luis and I were still hanging out in the cafe playing while Maria had returned to the house. It had started drizzling, and after a wee while, I saw Maria running back towards us in the cafe carrying her laptop. I made out the words 'Barry', 'help', 'massive spider', 'Belgian waffles', 'honey' (not really), so I gathered we had another large spider back at the house. Maria was convinced it was a Tarantula and was much bigger, had hair and everything. We told someone and headed back to the house to see.....
Yep, this chap was bigger, hairier, the works. Maria had been sitting at the table outside when she saw out of the corner of her eye this thing coming over the top of the chair to her left. She screamed, but we were too far away, so she grabbed the laptop and ran (love how she took the laptop, as that was where the spider was probably headed, to look on t'internet). Daniel, the guy who helped us with the first spider, came again, and even he was impressed with this one, but he eventually trapped it under a bowl, wheeched it outside and flattened it, just in case it was to return. We saw the equivalent of a very large house spider one morning, which I managed to dispatch, but we never saw another one like moby dick above all week, the odd large cockroach here, wee lizard things there, but the main thing was keeping the mosquitos at bay at night, which we did pretty well with nets and repellent.
Muito obrigado y ciao a Piracanga...
After breakfast and goodbyes and one more bumpy bumpy landrover ride yesterday morning, we are now in Casa Za Za in Itacare. We went to Praia do Concha yesterday to get in beach mode again, had lunch on the beach, swam, relaxed, then had dinner out last night, and we'll be doing something similar today. Tomorrow we're heading to Barra Grande, an outpost on a peninsula north of Piracanga, staying the night somewhere then returning here for one more night on Wednesday, before leaving for Trancoso further down the coast on Thursday.
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