After a few days, we’re now getting more into the swing of things. It turns out our first day was extra specially loud - lots of entertainment for a Saturday in Carnaval week; and now I’m feeling less overtired, I’m more resilient to it all.
We’ve also found our place within the frenzy - our quiet cabana, which I reserve, German-style and unapologetically, every morning; the lunch table one room away from the band; which bits of the buffet are the best (the grilled meat at lunch, done in huge pits outside - Kevin says it’s like the best roast dinner ever, with beautifully rendered fat and lots of salt).
There’s been a lot of reading, and snoozing, and eating, and not much else. Which has been very welcome, as Kevin and I are both under the weather - he’s had a cough since the last day at Atacama, and he’s now given it to me, alongside a lovely cold.
Part of the reason I chose this resort is because of all the activities - from sandboarding to kayaking to a high ropes course - but we haven’t felt like doing any of it! And I’m relaxed about that - there’s been a lot of “doing” over the last few weeks.
Observations about the resort, now I’m not completely overwhelmed:
- It’s enormously family-friendly: big multi-generational Brazilian families eating or swimming together. There’s lots of babies being breast-fed in a relaxed way - the attitude to kids is very welcoming, just like Spain (one of my favourite moments - a little baby crawling at high-speed around the buffet tables, with her father and later grandfather standing over her as she raced around, to stop her getting trodden on - waiters and guests just deviated around her - very cute)
- Food is a priority: the buffets are huge, varied, and excellent. One thing I’ll miss from living in hotels is having fruit cut up for me for breakfast, and a variety of lovely salads at lunch-time. (The white wine, however, is rubbish: it’s a sweet Muscat or a sickly Chardonnay only - we had lunch one day at the paid-for beach restaurant with different options and shared a bottle of a Verdejo, our Mallorcan favourite, and it was a very nice change).
- It’s nearly all Brazilians - we’ve heard one Spanish-speaking family, and one couple that were either German or Dutch - that’s it. Definitely no other English people (which is a bit disappointing for Jemima - all these kids and she can’t communicate… But she’s still hoovering her way through books so she seems ok).
- Hardly any staff speak English, and most don’t even speak Spanish: this has been a real eye-opener - there aren’t many places in the world where no-one speaks at least SOME English? We’ve been getting by on my rudimentary Spanish, hand gestures, and the help of one man in Guest Services who speaks English - I visit him at least once a day…
- The staff are all lovely: we’ve had one young waiter from Venezuela who did speak English and wanted to talk about football (he watches all the European leagues); more surprising was the young waiter with a Joy Division obsession - he said he wants to go to Macclesfield (we honestly thought we hadn’t understood - Macclesfield seems an unusual choice for someone in southern Brazil?!) - it turns out, because there’s a Joy Division museum there. The majority who only speak Portuguese are enormously patient with our attempts to communicate and if they can throw in a “thank you” or “goodbye” in English, they’re thrilled, it’s very endearing.
- As Kevin observed, I am the palest person here, by quite some margin… And as I rarely leave the shade, that is unlikely to change!
That’s it for now - back to the cabana…
Cabana time:
Mealtime:
Carnaval entertainments time:
No comments:
Post a Comment