Ihla Bela and Joao Paul...

Hello Everybody!

 

I am sitting in the airport in Johannesburg, South Africa waiting to board our flight to Cape Town!  It is very nice to be in Africa.  It is my first time here and our second continent of the trip.  I am trying to get caught up on the blog posts that have been pretty sparse the last two weeks.

 

You may recall that Chris and I met a Brazilian named Joao Paul when we were in Floripa for Carnival.  Joao Paul lives in Sao Paulo, and we met up with him again our first weekend in Sao Paulo after leaving Rio.  Joao Paul is a charming and generous guy.  He is also very popular and seems to have multitudes of connections.  I don't doubt that I will be somewhere in Australia in a few months, and someone will know Joao Paul-  he has the Joe Ro syndrome.  Lol  ;)

 

We were thinking about going to the coast near Sao Paulo for a couple of days during the week.  After learning of this, Joao Paul told us he knew of a guy who owns a pousada overlooking the straight between the island of Ihla Bela and the mainland.  We decided to take him up on his offer and invitation.  Chris, Ozell, and I joined Joao Paul and traveled to Ihla Bela.  The pousada was very nice and had 3 bedrooms with 3 baths, kitchen, WIFI, and a 60 foot long balcony with dining table and sitting areas.  All of this overlooked the lush vegetated hillsides and the water.  Because of Joao Paul, we did not pay anymore for this fantastic place than we have been typically paying for a dorm bed in a hostel.

 

The weather was not perfect, but we did hike to a tropical island waterfall, have a great candlelit dinner, drank beer, and had fun watching Ozell and Joao Paul have a mini (black versus Latin) dance off while also trying to teach Chris and I how to move different parts of our body to different rythms.  Lol

 

Chris and Joao Paul also hit it off and enjoyed each other's company.

 

The pic attached is from the dinner we had on the balcony which Joao Paul cooked for us...  Check out the other pics in the photo album for Ihla Bela.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean