Presents, surfing, and birthday lunches
After breakfast, Leticia gave me a present – A lovely little plate with “Ubatuba”
written on it, and a picture of two
little fishes making eyes at each other – And signed by Leticia ! Gorgeous.
It my take me a while to get it home, but I know I will find a great
place to display it when I get there ! Thank you, Leticia !
Soon afterwards we set off up the road, back to
Itamambuca Beach for another
surf. This
time Giovanna came with us as well – Not because she wanted to go surfing, but
because she wanted to just sit on the beach !
She settled down with a fresh coconut drink while Mauro and Leticia went
surfing !
It was lovely to see Mauro and Leticia going into the
surf together, and even catching a first way in together – And I was lucky to
get a photo of it !
After they had had their fill, we went back to Ubatuba
and went down to Giovanna’s sisters restaurant for lunch, where I met their Mum
and Dad as well. On the way home after
lunch, Giovanna bought me a corn (as in “on-the-cob”) ice cream – I wasn’t too
sure about it initially but it was actually quite good ! And even had enough bits of corn in there that
some got stuck between my teeth, just like real corn !!
Later on Mauro took me down to the Tropic of Capricorn
monument in town – It passes right through the middle of Ubatuba, making it on
the same latitude as Rockhampton in Queensland. On the monument it implies that because of
its
position Ubatuba is the first city in the southern hemisphere to celebrate
a new day (or summer time), and this is just wrong – NZ has that distinction.
Still, nice to see the monument. This
means that on this trip I have now seen monuments for the Arctic Circle (Alaska
and Canada), Tropic of Cancer (Baja Mexico), the Equator (Quito, Ecuador), and
now the Tropic of Capricorn in Ubatuba.
I must have passed through Capricorn
somewhere in Peru, but I never saw
the sign ! So the only “line” I have
missed out on on this trip is the Antarctic Circle, so I will just have to come
back and do that one another time……!
On Sunday morning Mauro and I both cleaned the cars a
little –And then it started raining. And
it poured and poured – All day ! So for much of the day we stayed inside and
watched it rain ! Later on we went down
to the shop where there was nothing happening as no one was out in the rain, so
we helped Leticia pack up and then we went down and had coffee and some cakes
down at Tachao, before heading off to their local church in town. This was very
informal, and as it was under a kind of permanent marquee, it was lucky it
stopped raining just about the time it started ! Believe it or not there was a surfer there
from NZ who had just arrived for 6 months surfing !! At least I wasn’t the only person there not
speaking Portuguese !!
Monday was Giovanna’s birthday, and we went down to a
restaurant where we met her parents and had a very pleasant lunch, followed by
yet another visit to Tachao afterwards for coffee ! In the afternoon Pedro, Leticia and Mauro
went surfing down on Ubatuba Beach.
On Tuesday I went down into town with Mauro and he took
me to the ATM to get some money, and to the supermarket to get some supplies
for the road. Sounds simple, but Mauro knows so many
people in town that evert
two minutes we were stopping to chat to people, or going into shops for Mauro
to have a chat with the owners ! I am
someone who has never really spent long enough in any one town in the world to
know people that well, so it was an interesting experience for me ! After lunch and a rest, all the rest of the
family went off to their weekly English lessons, and once they got back we went
downtown for a pizza – Which is what Giovanna REALLY wanted for her birthday
the day before !! After that it was
home to bed, ready for our “mountain walk” the next day !
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