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Published: November 14th 2006
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Curitiba
Described in the Lonely Planet as an 'urban success story'. Our overnight bus from Foz to Curitiba was a relatively painless experience despite clearly having the worse seats in the house. Everybody else enjoyed fully reclining seats while our seats over the stairs were of a semi reclining nature.
Curitiba is a relatively dull city - we were using it as a stop-over for our trip to a small island off the coast called Ilha do Mel (Honey Island) so we weren't expecting much. Its clean, tidy, has a very good public transport system and cars even stop at traffic lights(!) but there's not a lot to it from a backpackers point of view. We stayed the night at the HI hostel. We haven't had many rants, so here's one now. To call yourself a hostel you need to have a common area for relaxing (can't be seeing sites 24hrs a day), chatting to other people. You need information - posters, leaflets, Internet access, staff who can advise you about the area your in etc. A lot of places that call themselves hostels are just budget hotels, and the place in Curitiba is just that. Must work harder to avoid these. We ate that evening at Saccy's restaurant on Rui
San Francisco which was very nice. Not a lot else to say about Curitiba. It rained a lot.
Next morning we were up early for our trip down to Paranagua on the coast. We planned to stay there a night before catching a boat out to Ilha do Mel. The train journey is supposed to be one of the most amazing in South America, travelling through the mountainous Atlantic rainforest. Sadly though it was raining and very misty so we didn't see a lot. It didn't stop the Brazilians enjoying the ride though. This is one of the last remaining train lines in the country so the novelty value was high. South West Trains have numbed us to such pleasures.
In Paranagua we booked into the Hotel Ponderosa which was nice enough. But it continued to rain! Not used to this. We hoped the sun was shining on the Ilha do Mel, so despite not being able to secure accomodation on the island before we left, we headed out on the boat early the next day, hoping the HI on Encantadas beach would have space. Yes it was sunny on the island but no there wasn't any space
at the HI. It turned out that this was a Brazilian long weekend, celebrating 'day of the dead' so there weren't many rooms available on the island. Luckily for us there was room at Pousanda Coraco de Ilha (www.pousadacoracaodailha.com.br) at the end of the beach. This place looked excellent - basically a beach hut. Exactly what we wanted. The owner - Ariel - was very friendly and even spoke English. We booked in for a couple of nights - after all we probably got one of the best places on the beach! After a quick look around Encantadas we settled into the hammocks for the afternoon and read our books. We listened to some live Brazilian music at a bar on the beach that night, mixing it with the largely Brazilian crowd on the island.
Its possible to walk from Encantadas beach at one end of the island to Nova Brasilia in the middle, about 4km along the beach, and this is what we did the next day. A high tide and rocky outcrop gave us a few hassles and sent us scrambling into the jungle above us trying to find a way round. Slightly later than expected we
reached our destination, Nova Brasilia. We got a lift back to Encantadas on a very small open topped boat, the wind, rain and crazy driver ensured an exciting trip. It had taken 30 minutes to do this leg of the trip on the way out, it took him about 4 minutes 12 seconds and I don't think it was a new P.B. Back in our hut Paul switched on the TV and caught the end of Manchester United whipping Portsmouth 3-0. We're in a small wooden hut, on a remote beach, on a small island off the Brazilian coast and there's English premiership football on TV and it happens to be the team you support. Crazy. We enjoyed another night out on the beach despite the continuing rain which brought the front down on many of the bars and restaurants.
On our last day we got the 10am boat back to the main land. We then got the bus back to Curitiba from Paranagua rather than the train. Quicker and cheaper. We decided to stay another night in the rubbish hostel in Curitiba because it was convienent and we don't hold crudges for long. Next day we caught an
overnight bus up to Rio de Janeiro, and then changed for another bus which took us on further north to a small resort on the coast called Buzio.
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John
non-member comment
You don't need me to tell you that this one's not as interesting as the rest, but I suppose it must be difficult to maintain the level of ignazu and machu. It's raining and pouring here too but at least we can enjoy seeing England being whipped yet again at rugby, this time by Argentina !