Everyone I had met had glazed eyes and sighed when I said I was going to Parathy. Ahhh…Parathy they all said knowingly. You are so lucky.

4 hours later, driving from Rio, the road to Parathi is still riven with rain. Rain, rain everywhere. But even through the rains bars, I can see the beauty of the mountains, the curvature of the islands and the crescent sweeps of beaches. In sunlight it would be breathtaking. In stair rod rain, it is elusive and tantalising. We arrive in Parathi midday  and it is waterlogged. Great rivers whoosh down the colonial streets. We have nothing with us, except for one umbrella and our sandals. That’s it. And the rain, as in everywhere else in Brazil, is extreme. And here in Parathy no one walks the rain the Rio way. There are too many floods to cross..

The meetings which are meant to happen here, don’t happen. The rain seems to have swept everything away with it. So we have impromptu ones instead.

I get back to the hotel that night at 10pm. On the road since 7am, I am dead to the world, dreaming of Parathy during festival time in July, when the trees in the square drip with books hanging on ribbons from the branches.