This weekend was crazy! Got to tell everyone this story...
A group of American students and I decided to visit the Morro de São Paulo (a tropical island off the coast, photo above) for a weekend get-away. We almost missed the last boat on Friday afternoon because traffic was bad, one friend was late and the line at the ticket counter was rather long. Luckily, we got there in time and got on board. We opted to take a catamará (very fast motorboat) to the island instead of the slower (and cheaper) ferryboat. We had been warned by the language school not to eat lunch before leaving. I heeded this warning, and for good reason. The motorboat was so fast that it cut the waves which meant that everyone inside moved both up and down and side to side. Virtually half the boat got intensely seasick, including myself. This suprised me considering I´ve been on lots of boats before and I don´t really have motion-sickness issues. The beginning of the trip had been full of laughing, talking and jokes about how rough the sea was; after about half an hour, no one thought it was very funny anymore.
Two hours later, we landed at the island. It was incredible. It looked like something from Gilligan´s Island mixed with Jurassic Park-- wild, craggy, and fantastic in the setting sun. Giddy as school girls, the four of us settled into our pousada (little hotel). We had a great steak dinner on the beach by the light of tiki torches and drank ourselves silly. About 2am, our friend A wakes us up in a panic. "What the hell?? There´s something in the bed! Guys, get up!" Naturally, we all leap out of bed and flip on the lights. A´s back and chest were covered with large, red welts. We frantically checked his bed but there was nothing there. As the others discussed a possible case of hives, I took a closer look at A´s back. "Hey guys, these look like mosquito bites, not hives." As we all looked around, it became apparent that little black dots were buzzing from every corner of the room. Stupidly, we had left the window of the room open for fresh, cool air during the night and invited a dozen or so buggy-friends in from the rain. Strangely, they only went for A. Another friend had some Off! wipes which we all used on A and ourselves rather generously before tenuously falling back asleep.
The next day, we all basked in the glory of the equatorial sun and thought our troubles had ended. Eh, not so much. By dinner-time, I started to notice that my cash was running low, as was everyone else´s. Despite having little VISA and Mastercard plaques in their windows, virtually every place on the island did not take a card--of any kind (not even the hotel!!!) There was an ATM near our hotel that had the proper insignia so, I went to get some cash. It kept saying it couldn´t read my card. Damn. So, I went to ask at the hotel where there was another one. The closest one was further in-town so, my friend B and I went on a quest to get money. We went for the national bank of Brazil but, that ATM was out of order. The last one left on the island was the same brand as the one near our hotel that hadn´t been able to read my card. Shit, shit, shit, I kept thinking. If this doesn´t work we´ll have to wash dishes or pimp ourselves out or something to eat and get back. Thanks be to Jesus, the ATM worked on my card. So, I took out a ton just to be safe. Ironically, no one else could get it to work. I became the sugar-momma of the group.
That night, our group went out to celebrate our new problem-free existence. A dinner and a few drinks later and my buddy A was down for the count--- food poisoning. We suspect that the ice or perhaps lime in one of his drinks was dirty. He was vomiting all night long in our hotel bathroom. We didn´t have the heart to leave him there alone and we were tired anyway so, we went to bed early. The next morning we ate and did as little as possible to not tempt fate, got on the return boat and made it back to the mainland intact. Ahhhh.....world travel!!!
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