Our last full day here and once again it’s a cracker. Hot, slight breeze and no sign of rain. It won’t be long before we are all complaining how hot it is back home. We have decided that it’s going to be tough going back to having to sort our own breakfast out again, and not having the selection we are used to. I am definitely a convert to cream cheese on toast for breakfast. It hasn’t been offered since our Rio hotel and I’ve been missing it.

Our first task today was to get tickets for the tour boat trip around the bays and a nearby island (middle of the photo below). We spotted a couple of tourist type shops and was welcomed in by one. After some discussion in Portuguese the agent wrote some information onto a piece of paper and we were lead away from this shop down the road into another one. Here the bit of paper was given to the agent there, we wrote down the same information on another piece of paper, we paid and were given our boarding passes. It seemed a little convoluted but it worked I guess. Like a lot of things here, it’s not always the most sensible or efficient way, and sometimes it works.

We had an hour or so to fill before the departure so we wandered down the waterfront again, me getting some good practice in for the sweating world championships. A time / temperature thing said it was 37c but I think it’s a little off, but it was at least 30. We spent the next while sitting in the shade, enjoying cold drinks and watching the odd tartaruga (turtle) swim about.

I really hope they bring this to New Zealand, it is so good. I still can’t pronounce it properly but I’ll be delighted if they bring Guaranã as well. Over the past couple of days there has been a couple of confusions with ordering Guaranã and Corona due to my accent / pronunciation. Glad to be back in NZ where any old drawl will do.

These views will never get old, we spent a good amount of time today just enjoying them one last time.

This colourful rabble were our fellow boat passengers, and it turns out they were mostly from other South American countries. This ended up being more of a middle aged party boat so there was loud godawful Argentinian & Chilean music being played the entire time. At one point a whole bunch of them started doing a conga line around the boat. It was an experience.

The boat trip consisted on heading to a beach that we’d already been to, stopping for a bit too long for people to swim then heading off to the next beach we’d already been to. The first stop also included a whole lot of people being given goggles and snorkels and going for a snorkel. I was hoping for some shark action to quieten down the rowdiness but we were out of luck.

After a couple of stops it was announced the next one was the last so it was time to go for a swim! This was in reasonably deep water, definitely couldn’t see the bottom despite it being so clear. I was kind of assured that if something wanted to eat us, we could at least see it coming. Please note that the photo below is not of us, I didn’t want to risk dropping my camera in the water – it wasn’t coming back if I did.

After 2 1/2 hours we returned and went for a drink by the shore. Just a fantastic way to end the day and end a holiday full of unforgettable experiences.

It was still too early to head back to the hotel so we walked through the main streets again. This shows the crazy amount of footpath restaurants take over.

Our final dinner and it was pretty average, serves us right for falling for the “artisanal hotdogs” sign. A hotdog does not need breadcrumbs cooked in bacon with house made cheese sauce.

Tomorrow morning we are on a bus from Buzios to Rio, then a flight to Santiago, Chile then the flight to Auckland, landing at 5am on Monday morning. Some time during that period I’ll try to do an update on our travels and thoughts of Brazil.