I really don’t like the winter here. It rains more and the trees lose all their greenery leaving everything feeling very bare and soggy. It doesn’t snow hardly ever when once it used to, and the daylight hours are horribly short with the sun rising at somewhere between 7-8am and setting between 3-4pm. Yuk!

With that in mind I decided to post some pictures my friend Paula took on her summertime visit to Brazil. I was going to post these back then but time got away from me. But actually I’m glad I didn’t post them then as seeing them now brightens my day a little and feeds my daydreams of warm sunny places.

As you can imagine Paula took a ton of pictures while she was in Brazil visiting her friend, but these are the ones I think are the best. They might not be her favorites but from my perspective they are really great pictures for their composition and color.

The top one (of the boat) is really beautiful and should be blown up and hung on a wall somewhere. Paula took it at the Island of Tinhare when she was on a 4 hour boat trip that cost just $15 which is about £3.50 ($6.92)! The picture is of the place where they stopped for something to eat.

“The sunset picture was taken on an island I went to for 3 days. It’s a two hour boat trip from Salvador, where I was staying. Called the Island of Tinhare, its better known as Morro of Sao Paulo. There we sat on the fort that used to protect the island from the English and Dutch and watched the sun set.” Said Paula.

I’m pretty sure Paula would love to be back there right now, who couldn’t find such pictures inviting? In fact it’s pictures like these that inspire me to travel and maybe next year I will myself head to South America. I’ve been chatting with my friend Jeffrey about going to somewhere in South America to raise corporate support for a local charity much as we did when we went to India.

Whatever happens, that sunset picture is just a superb picture that I can’t help but lose myself in. I wasn’t there, but just for a few moments I like to let my mind take me there for a little respite, a little essential ‘time-out’.