But like I said, it wasn't all gloom and doom. Buzios is a gorgeous little fishing village with tons of fabulous shops and restaurants. And after taking a boat tour of the area, we found Tartaruga Beach, which me basically made our QG for the rest of our stay.

The beach was most easy to get to with the water taxis. We would get dropped off at the edge of the water, choose which beach shack looked nicest for the day and install ourselves in a couple of reclining chairs under an umbrella. Then the owner of the shack would come around with fresh cold drinks about every 45 minutes and when lunch rolled around, he would show us what the fishermen had brought in that morning so that we could choose our lunch. One day we were lucky enough to get two lobster, that were grilled for us. Obviously, it cost next to nothing and it was absolute paradise.

I had been told about other beaches that were supposed to be really nice but honestly, I can't think of anything that was missing from this one. The best thing of all was that this beach had the most amazing golden sand. The stone that lined the hills behind us were a dark color with flecks of shiny gold. You can see that the sand on the beach looks quite ordinary, but when you walked in the water and stirred it up, it looked like someone had dumped glitter in the water. I've never seen anything like it. Sadly, we couldn't manage to get a photo of it but it doesn't matter, as I'm unlikely to ever forget how gorgeous that was.

After a day at the beach, our taxi would come back to pick us up and we would wander back to our hotel for a nice sieste before getting ready for a night out. Buzios had far too many nice restaurants and bars for us to have worked our way through them all but we didn't find a single place that we didn't like. Of course, the downside was that the prices were practically the same as in Paris, but you can't have everything, I guess.

The best night out, we were invited by a friend to go to the main disco in the town. While we met lots of foreigners at our hotel and in restaurants and bars, this place seemed to be 100% Brazilian. The music was local pop music which was funny to listen and the drinks were beyond potent- which was unnecessary considering how cheap they were. The highlight of the evening was when a samba band started its show. It was so much fun! Everyone was dancing up a storm and the atmosphere was phenomenal, with the drums and the feathered dancing girls and the open air nightclub. I think my head would probably explode from excitement if I was actually in Brazil for carnival. It was better than I had ever expected it to be. Mostly, if its just B and I at a club, I think its really boring but I think we just got so swept up in things that I felt like I was there with 200 of my closest Brazilian friends rather than just being a tourist, hanging out on the sidelines with my hubby.

That night was also memorable (and I'm just using that as a figure of speech) because it is the most drunk that I have been in years. By the time we left I had drunk a grand total of 2 margaritas over the course of the entire night. I hadn't been drinking because I didn't want to poop out early and then these two drinks were so potent that I was drunk as a skunk by the time B dragged me out the front door. I think that either tequila is more potent in the southern hemisphere or margarita is just a loose translation and really I was drinking something more like lime juice mixed with rocket fuel. I may never know, but rest assured, I had enough of a hangover to convince me to never do that again. Also, B's unmerciless teasing is too too much for a girl to have to live with, when all she wants to do is be left totally unaware of her mistakes. Granted, I went home with the right person, which is very good. I didn't vomit at all over the club or the htoel or any unsuspecting spectators, which is very very good. But I must confess to a hopeless case of the giggles and general drunken shenanigans. First, I started undressing in front of the security camera to get into the hotel. I have no idea why, perhaps a clumsy seduction technique? Then once I giggled my way up all the stairs to the pool area, surely waking up every roomful of people we passed, I decided that it would be fun to get my feet wet. Bruno immediately ordered me to get out of the pool before I got my clothes wet, which inspired me to dunk myself all the way under water, in order to get all my clothes wet. Finally he persuaded me to get out of the pool and dragged me to the door of our room, where he shouted at me for being all wet, because now there would be water all over the place. Which convinced me that he was totally right, I definitely did not want the rooom all wet. So while he struggled with the lock, I undid the straps on my dress and left it in a puddle outside the room. B turned around to find me standing there as naked as the day I was born, although I think he was rather resigned to his role as useless babysitter at this point and could only shake his head in disbelief at how ridiculously drunk and stupid I was that night.

Oh Buzios, will you and I ever share drunken shenanigans again? I still have that 5 year Brazilian visa so once my liver recovers, there is no reason why not.