After almost inviting a relapse by eating two slices of pizza for dinner (but still no beer), I woke up this morning feeling 80% better, and looking forward to a day in the saddle.

More beautiful scenery as we pedal through the kilometres, and still the hills keep coming. Chris (tour leader, and Baby Bear Grylls) is trying hard to manage our expectations with the hills, but Brazil keeps catching him out and there always seems to be more than we are expecting.  At least today there was only one hill where I had to get off and push – I’m not sure if it was because it was a true Bastard Grade, or whether it’s because I still feel a little under the weather, or because the sun only shines when we are going up hill and so you get knackered more quickly… who knows, it’s could be any or all of the above.

The unequal balance of bling on all the bikes was redressed today as tour leader Baby Bear managed to find some plastic tat really great superhero toys to attach to his bike and those of Douglas and Morilo our (fabulous) local crew.  I think he did rather well, although they were probably made by a seven year old in some favela sweatshop as one of the arms came off during the process of using cable ties to fix them to the bike, and by the end of the day Douglas’s had lost an arm and a foot.  Still, a valiant effort by the DA crew. 

We finished today’s cycle with the most fantastic ride along an almost completely deserted beach that was just so beautiful it took your breath away.  
Just us cyclists and a few vultures who were more intent on eating their supper that had just been washed in by the waves than worrying about us; seeing a pack of vultures at the waters edge was a sure sign that some unfortunate fish had been thrown ashore by the tide and not made it back in again.  As the vultures were already there, the fish were beyond the rescue that we had managed to make on day 1 when we came across a fish literally just washed ashore and still flapping about attempting to breathe.

The empty beach provided the opportunity for some formation cycling and generally messing around and spirits were high.  And then we arrived at our campsite.

With the choice of tents or dorm style beds in a bamboo and corrugated iron hut (a little like BBC’s Tenko set, but with Caipirinhas and no Japanese guards), it really didn’t take us long to decide on the Tenko option.

After a quick swim in the sea and a very cold shower in the dark because the lights do not work in the shower block (the hot water doesn’t seem to work either, perhaps there’s a connection?), Douglas demonstrated how to mix the perfect caipirinha with just limes, sugar and the special Cachaça rum.  

Jackie managed to capture a video of Douglas doing his thing – we are especially loving our cycling playlist you can hear in the background – who needs surround sound when you have a phone and an ice bucket for amplification?!

Douglas Demonstrates the Perfect Caipharinha
Bearing in mind we were in the middle of nowhere and drinking them out of plastic cups, they were on a par with the best we’d had so far in a bar or restaurant. So good the guys had to go out and get four more bottles of the stuff to make them with. 

From there it was a pretty rapid downhill slide. The weather turned a bit damp and chilly, people were getting bitten by mosquitos so badly you could almost join the dots to find a map of Brazil and a bicycle, and we were told off for singing too loudly to our cycling playlist.  How can we be too loud when it’s only 7pm and there is no one else staying at the campsite?!  When you are not staying in a cosy hotel, you need a caipirinha or two and a good singsong to keep your spirits up!  Maybe if we’d bothered to learn the words to Copacabana and the Girl from Ipanema instead of just making noise it might have helped?

Highlights: Beach cycling at the end of the day, the crew pimping their bikes, feeling better, world class Caipirinhas.

Lowlights: Tenko.