I fly 21 hours on four planes to reach Porto Seguro, Bahia, Brazil, where I attend the International Telephony Union Study Group 16 meeting in Internet Telephony and related internet multimedia standards.  We take a short bus ride from the airport and then are picked up the the Paradise Resort's ferry the cross the river from the main town.  The river meets the shore are an acute angle and so the hotel lies on a narrow strip between the river and the beach, seen here across the river from the town.

The hotel operates its own ferry to bring guests across the river.

The dining room has a wonderful view of the ocean.

Each room has a verandah with a hammock.

Mine, unfortunately, does not face the ocean but has a nice view.
 
 

I can hardly decide whether to sleep in my bed or in the hammock.

Surprisingly few insects but I have slept inside (so far).  The hotel has a wonderful beach

We have days of sun and days of clouds.  Many days have a shower, but most have at least some periods of sunshine.  After all this is the rainy season but the temperature is 85-90 F in the day and 75-80 at night with about 99.9% humidity (this is about 15 degrees south latitude).  It's very late Fall here (equivalent to Thanksgiving in northern hemisphere).  Even the nights are beautiful

The conference center with our meeting rooms beside the hotel and we do manage to find time to attend meetings in spite of the beauty around us.

Most evenings we take the ferry across the river to Porto Seguro for dinner.  Porto Seguro is primarily a resort town and each night, even in this off season, vendors setup stalls to sell arts and craft items and other things of interest to the tourists.

Most of the items are hand made locally (I saw no "made in China"). Most nights we would eat in one of the many sidewalk restaurants.

On Sunday some of use walked to the "upper town" or "old town".  The original town was on a bluff above the harbor for better protection from the Spanish and Pirates.  There is a steep stairway leading up the bluff.

This stretch of coast is where Pedro Alvares Cabral landed in 1500 and the upper town contains the oldest (European religion) church in Brazil, Igreja Misericordia (1526-30)

Igreja da Misericordia - oldest church in Brazil

as well as a marker erected by Goncalo Coelho commemorating the discovery of the area

Since it was nearly winter it was often dark by the time our sessions ended and we would see the moon rising over the sea as we returned to our hotel rooms.

On more cloudy evenings the moon provided dramatic scenes though the palms.

Some evenings we eat at the hotel for dinner rather than going into the town.  Many evenings the hotel had barbecues beside the pool and provided a band for dancing along with professional dancers to demonstrate Brazilian dances

But most of us still showed up for the closing Plenary sessions

On the final evening we were all invited to a dinner at Barramares, a local dinning/dance pavillion.

After a productive and enjoyable two weeks in Porto Seguro, Brazil we return home to our regular jobs.