Lost in Brazil

Just before dawn, I woke up. Like the way you're woken up by the smell of bacon being cooked in the kitchen. But for me on this morning, it was the faintest tinge of red appearing on the horizon that made me stir. I slinked out of bed and tip-toed up the creaky wooden stairs to the rooftop terrace of my hostel.

I settled in one of the hammocks and started to eat.

The sky was a never-ending summer trifle. The first layer was red jelly, the red colour of childrens lollipops wrapped in squares of plastic, bright and a little transparent. On top of that was a pale tangerine mousse, perfectly smooth. Next, there was an ivory white, like good quality whipped cream. Immediately above this summer trifle was the blue sky, like He had picked the two most beautiful shades of blue He knew; one light, one dark, and brushed them across the sky with one steady sweep of his palm.

And the strange thing about all of these colours was that they were so distinct - one vivid colour would stop abruptly and the next one would begin. I felt like I could reach up to the sky and peel the blue from the white, the white from the orange, the orange from the red.

As I savoured this magnificent meal of a sunrise, the sky began to change.

The colours which were pressed close together at first started to spread vertically, as if someone had seized the sky with both hands and was slowly stretching upwards. The indigo retreated over my head behind me, and all the layers of colour lengthened and slowly followed the night. Then, as I watched, the low lying clouds turned into an amazing, soft purple, as if He was churning lavender ice cream for dessert.

Last but not least, He added a final touch - He added the sun, which knelt between the two peaks of Sugarloaf mountain, splitting into the sky and glowing a deep, dark scarlet.

And at this point, as I sat on the roof, breathing in the cool January air of Rio de Janeiro, watching the living masterpiece He had made me for breakfast, I could not help but cry.