An important lesson was learnt today - rubber flip flops are apparently NOT suitable footwear for walking through the Brazilian rainforest. Its good advice - trust me! Today has been an amazing day - we went on the waterfalls tour from Paraty. It was mildly concerning at the beginning when we realised we had two guides for just the 3 of us, and that neither of them spoke English, but its amazing how far you can get with Spanish, a few words of Portugues and a lot of gestures. But anyway, any concerns we might have had evaporated as soon as we saw our first waterfall. I kid you not, this place is like paradise. Deep, clear pools with crashing waterfalls surrounded by lush green rainforest. I feel like I'm living in my own personal holiday programme! The water was alarmingly cold when we first got in but we soon warmed up and made sure we got some nice photos of us sitting in the falls looking like tropical goddesses (!). The second pool we went to was a real experience, called Tobogãn it was basically a very large rock that had got smooth and a bit slimey with all the water over the years, and you had to slide your way down it into a pool at the bottom. A few of the locals were taking massive run ups and going down standing up - unsurprisingly we decided to give this a miss! Nikki managed to go down fairly slowly and sedately, it looked like fun so I thought why not? I however, seemed to go down at the speed of light, couldn't keep in a straight line and hit the water flying! Sarah seemed to follow pretty much the same path as me, how Nikki managed it I do not know! Interestingly enough, as we left the area we went past a sign advertising "Danger: Do Not Surf On The Rock". Whoops. We then went to a Cachaçaria, where they make the rum that goes into Caipirinhas. Odd choice in the middle of a waterfalls tour, but it is just next to Tobogãn. We couldn't understand everything our guide was trying to tell us, but we did managed to buy a bottle of Gabriela Cachaça for 6 reais, so I'm sure that will keep us amused! Our final waterfall of the day involved a bit of a trek through the jungle (here's where the flip flops come in) and I'm sure our guides must have been laughing at us the whole way there. It was crawling with insects, Sarah and I both managed to get some new bites to add to our collections. I stopped walking to try and get an ant off my foot and one of the guides pushed me forwards - knowing me I was probably standing on top of the nest. The path we were taking then took a turn uphill, and seemed to be suffering a small identity crisis as to whether it was a path or a stream. The flip flops just couldn't take the pace. At one point I lost one completely and was stuck in the mud with the other - started to fear I was going to have to crawl out on my hands and knees cos I was walking at the back at the others had gone on! (the guide that had been walking behind me had given up by then and turned back to get the van to pick us up - think he felt sorry for the pasty English girls who weren't used to Brazilian bugs!) I did eventually manage to get myself out, but not before I got totally filthy. I jumped straight in as soon as we got to the last pool, but I think the others had had enough by then - specially when I pointed out a little fish who was trying desperately to nibble at my feet! A quick stop at an Orquidarium on the way back completed the tour (Dad, you would have really enjoyed it) and that was enough to wear us out completely! It was so nice though - tours are definitely the way to go around here as they are a real bargain and there's not that much to actually do in the town once you've done the scenic tour. We're hiding in the internet cafe at the moment cos we're fully expecting it to rain - tropical thunderstorms seem to be the done thing around here! We managed to get caught smack bang in the middle of one yesterday - we tried to wait it out but when it didn't appear to be that keen to stop and the streets of Paraty began to flood incredibly quickly, we decided we'd be better making a run for it! We got lots of whistles and shouts as we charged through the streets, probably the locals thinking "what are those loonies doing, it'll stop in a minute" and even though we got soaked to the skin it was absolutely hysterical. And best of all, it has helped bring the humidity down a bit here, so we're not sweltering quite as much, which is a real relief! We're planning a boat tour and a trip to a nice beach in the next few days, and we're hoping to stay in Paraty until Saturday to see Carnamar, which appears to be a warm up to Carnaval that takes place on boats. We've been invited on to one boat, but its owner, Nei, showed us a picture of his boat last year and it seemed to consist of lots of animal heads and what we thought looked a bit like a dead cat on a stick so we're not so sure........ Should be exciting!