Mark on our balcony before breakfast with the morning sun hitting Mantiqueira Mountains behind him
This was the end. After over 2,000 days of traveling the world, our last stop would be at a glorious resort 4,000 feet above sea level in Brazil’s Mantiqueira Mountains. But first a little note about this post.
We were here the end of December 2018, though I write it in mid-April 2019. After over five-and-a-half years of traveling and editing pictures and writing, we were ready to move to New York, find a place to live, and settle down. And then there was that whole pulmonary embolism thing where I could well have died in Rio, meaning I had to find a doctor quickly to see what had happened and whether the doctors in Rio had treated me properly. (Spoiler alert: they did. And I survived.) So when we got to New York the morning of January 2 I had other things on my mind and somehow just never got around to finishing this final post.
Fast forward to April and we’re in London, our first overseas trip since Brazil. We’ve been enjoying New York and found an amazing loft in New York; we closed on it the day before leaving. It will be a total gut rehab, so there will be many months of work before we can move in. In the meantime we’ve decided to post here occasionally, whether on a trip like this (London for a few days and then two weeks in Italy) or just about fun things to do in New York. And I’m sure the good, the bad, and the ugly about a big renovation project in Manhattan. To write those things, though, we first need to finish off Brazil, so here we are.
Every morning after breakfast I’d come out to this comfy lawn chair to read. For a couple hours I would be the only one there. Nothing not to love about that experience.
For our last and final stop on this fantastic adventure we stayed at the Botanique Hotel & Spa, up in the mountains outside of São Paolo. It is really a special place, isolated, beautiful, peaceful. They grow a lot of their own produce and so the food there was special. I suspect that there might have been some great hiking in the area but, as I was recovering from that pulmonary embolism and was under doctor’s orders to not exert myself, I was remarkably inactive. Up early, read on our balcony, breakfast, read out on the back lawn, lunch, nap, read, dinner … you get the idea. At one point, after a couple days of inactivity, I tried to go on a little hike up into the hills with Mark. I got a little way up the hill and just had to turn back; Mark finished the loop above and around the resort but it was just too much for me.
Mark took this photo on his hike above and around the resort. Almost the definition of serenity.
And so it was decided: I would finish our epic adventure sitting around doing pretty much nothing. The weather was beautiful, pleasantly warm but high enough in altitude that it wasn’t at all too hot. The sort of place I would probably love even more if I’d had the opportunity and ability to have been more active, but a perfect place to be inactive.
Fireworks
And suddenly it was New Year’s Eve. The resort, in the middle of nowhere, had its own fireworks, with champagne, of course. The next morning, New Years Day, we were up and eventually headed to the airport in São Paolo for an overnight flight to New York and the start of our new life. Just like that, a new adventure begins.
All around the property there were these raised beds where they grew both decorative flowers and lots and lots of produce for our meals. It doesn’t get more local than that.
Another favorite reading spot. Imagine lounging here in the late afternoon sun reading Lady Chatterly’s Lover. Pretty nice, huh?
A view of the lodge from below. That top balcony was ours.
Breakfast was typically served right here with sweeping views of the mountains
There I am, waiting for breakfast
For the Holidays the resort had hundreds – literally hundreds – of these yellow plastic balls just rolling around everywhere. Festive and cute.
Did I mention that I enjoyed my reading time here?
Relaxing at lunch, reasonably happy that I hadn’t died in Rio
And yes, I know it’s horribly blurry. But what could be a better finale to this amazing journey than champagne and New Year’s Eve fireworks. Late the next morning we were off to the airport and a new life.