Having had a fantastic Christmas and New Year here in London, we’re now extending our holiday by two weeks to go to Brazil to visit the Yawinawa people. A friend of ours is organising for 10 of us to fly to Sao Paulo, then Rio Branco, then Taruaca, (click the link, and zoom out lots with the scale thingy on the left of the map!) where we drive for 3 hours and then travel upriver in a flat-bottomed boat for 6 hours before we reach our destination! It’s the rainy season, so we’ll get wet, and we’ll be in the lower slopes of the Andes in the far West of Brazil near the border with Peru. When we finally arrive we’ll be living with the Yawanawa in their village as they do: sleeping in hammocks, eating their food, washing in the river. It should be an incredible experience. I can’t wait – it feels like a long time since I’ve been on such an adventure.
When I return, it’s going to be straight back into it with a vengeance with a CD of John Metcalfe’s music to record around trips to Abu Dhabi and Holland. I’m recording the whole thing at home, which is a first for me, and I’m really looking forward to doing that in my own time. The CD will be out in May alongside a run of concerts based around John’s music that I’m doing at Kings Place in London.