Caldas Novas

On Friday we left for Caldas Novas, which is a town similar to Bath in that it has natural hot springs. The State of Goiás is in the central regions of Brazil (and incidentally is larger than the entire British Isles) and as such you really have to get on a plane if you want to see the sea. Caldas Novas is sort of a replacement - it certainly had the feel of a seaside town and had a permanent fair, stalls and shops selling cheap souvenirs and even pony rides. 

We travelled by car and it was a long way - four or five hours on an incredibly hot day, in a car without air-conditioning, sitting in the backseat with a two year-old and a five year-old, who think the best game in the world is "it's mine", "no, mine", "no, mine", "mine!", "mine!", "MINE!" etc etc. But I read half a book and we got there eventually! We stayed in a small bungalow in a sort of gated holiday place - loads of houses all the same and several pools that made use of the hot springs. I shared a room with Julia, which was fine except that she gets up quite early! 

On the first day we went to the pool on site and that was great - mostly relaxing and playing with Helena and Julia. Afterwards we went into the town and had caldo (a kind of soup that the place is famous for), which was nice and then some pizza. The guy who owned the restaurant gave us some free tickets to a club for the next day, which was cool. I'm not really sure why, but I usually go with things rather than questioning, because it's just too much effort. Then we went home, but on the way back we passed through a square with fountains coming out of the ground and I got caught in them. Which did produce a hilarious photo at least! Luckily the water was hot so it wasn't too bad. 

The next day we used our free tickets to go to the club, I think there was some kind of catch to them that meant we had to be shown around a load of holiday apartments that we were clearly not going to purchase, but that was fine. The club had a fake beach made out of white concrete with a wave machine which was quite cool. And another pool that was as hot as a bath and you really couldn't swim in without being uncomfortably hot. There was a bar in the pool, which was pretty cool and seats in the pool too. After that we went home and tried to make Helelna take a shower, at which point she fled and hid in a cupboard - I have quite a good photo. 

Finally on the Sunday we went to the pool on site in the morning, before piling into the car to return to Santo Antonio. We looked everywhere for a place to stop for lunch and pulled in at a dodgy-looking shop/restaurant straight out of hicksville that seemed to attract every fly in a five-mile radius. I didn't need telling twice when Adriana warned me not to buy any of the food made on the premises, so we escaped clutching our branded goods instead and found a more platable rest-stop further on to eat pastries and drink sweetcorn juice. Yeah, you heard right: sweetcorn juice. As in apple juice, orange juice or sweetcorn juice. Beyond weird. 

In English class on Monday we covered family members and refreshed colours and past/future tenses of regular verbs. On Tuesday we made posters on the topics covered so far (photos to follow) which were really rather creative. They now adorn the walls of the back room at church. On Wednesday we did clothes and played a game with flash cards. I made a load with different colours on, and some with different items of clothing. I picked one of each and read the combinations out (for example: "blue" and "skirt"). They had to draw said item of clothing in the correct colour. The best moment was when Silmara, after weeks of trying, finally learnt the difference between red and green. It's not that she got confused - she just literally couldn't hear or pronounce the difference! 

After English class we had a prayer meeting, which was nice and we read one of the Psalms (113 or 133 - sorry that I can't remember!). When I got home, I walked through the gate and was greeted by Helena shouting "Bella!" (those of you who have skyped me will know how loud she can be) and running up to me with outstretched arms. It was very endearing. 

That's enough for now - I'll post more in a couple of days. 
xxxx