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Published: March 12th 2007
Paraty; Silence Is Golden.
There's no Gringo's on the horse and carts in Paraty.Sunday 4th March to Thursday 8th March, 2007.
Having bid farewell to Mario I headed to the waterfront and caught the 10am schooner to the mainland swiftly followed by the noon bus to Paraty, two hours to the south. Set on a shoreline of jutting peninsula´s and secluded beaches the town prospered in the early 18th century as a stopover between Rio and the Minas Gerais goldfield´s but had now, since the construction of a new highway, become somewhat excluded.
I arrived at the quiet bus terminal in the heat of day at 2.15pm and set about finding somewhere to stay but yet again my research, or lack of it, meant I had no idea of the town´s geography. There were Poussada´s (guest houses) on every corner but all priced at double what I wanted to pay and each time I mentioned the word hostel to the owners I was greeted with a shrug of the shoulders that said either they didn´t understand me or more likely that they didn´t want to send my business elsewhere and that it was either sleep with them or in a nearby shop doorway.
After 45 minutes I was beginning to feel
Paraty; Silence Is Golden.
The quaint colonial houses of Paraty's lovely ´Old Town´ streets. beaten and was preparing to concede and spend a reluctant night in relative expensive luxury when an open backed Jeep pulled up on the opposite side of the main street and the driver called across to me. He spoke next to no English but there were two hispanic looking girls with him who managed to convey that they were on their way to a hostel so I climbed aboard. Paraty was at the end of a week celebrating it´s 340 year anniversary and as we drove through the outskirts of the old town I could see it was just that, a very old town. Quaint colonial style buildings lining not so much cobbled streets as ones constructed with large rocks simply buried into the earth. Each time we passed over one of the more uneven stones with my body jammed in the back my of the Jeep and unable to move my head thumped into the roll bar and a migraine was just developing when we thankfully hit asphalt, climbed a large hill and then descended the other side to a long straight section of deserted highway adjacent to an equally deserted beach. This would do me for a couple
Paraty; Silence Is Golden.
Diving off the bridge mid afternoon. of days I thought.
The hostel was constructed entirely of timber on two levels and resembled an old cavalry fort more than a place to sleep and as I freed myself from the clutches of the Jeep I was half expecting a lone bugler to announce my arrival. It was run, very lethargically and haphazardly as it would turn out by two Argentinians, the Jeep driver Nicolas and his beautiful girlfriend Maria whose English thankfully was as good as it gets. I took a walk along the beach and an owl flew down to check me out eyeing me up and down from just a few yards away and when I returned a familiar face came crossing the road to greet me. It was Manu, a Belgian guy who´d been staying in the same street in Rio and who I´d also bumped into in Ilha Grande. Small world. He was with six others but after dining with them I neglected their invite to walk the hill back into town at night and spent the rest of the evening with just myself for company.
The following day they all left for pasture´s new and I was left with just
Paraty; Silence Is Golden.
The Witches Coven. The six Argentinian chico´s debate what to wear that evening. two Argentinian couples who were in the large first floor apartment. The dorm´s weren´t so much dorm´s in the conventional sense, more three joined up rooms behind one door, two containing bunks, the other an air conditioned room with a double bed and when I returned from an explore of the town that afternoon Maria asked me if I would mind moving across to the other side as six Argentinian chico´s had arrived and wanted their privacy. This would mean a choice of double bed in an a/c´d room or ten different bunks with bathroom and kitchen all to myself. Would I mind ? I didn´t think so.
Later that evening Maria and Nicolas went out to dinner leaving me and the six girls as the only occupants. Talk about trustworthy, the bar area was left wide open and unattended. ¨Look after the girls for me Matt¨ she shouted as they drove away but any conversation was simply not a possibility.
The following morning Manu returned as arranged and Nicolas took us and the two Argy couples, thankfully in a pick up truck and not the Jeep, into town to take a boat trip to some of the
Paraty; Silence Is Golden.
One of Paraty's three churches. adjacent beaches. The two girls and one of the guys were lovely but the other guy, a chain smoking walking beer belly with dark brown teeth was a beast. He had a large tattoo of Maradonna on his calf and this was his introduction to me on realising my nationality. He cracked his first tinny as the skipper started the engines and drank continuously, throwing in a few Caiprinha´s in for good measure until we returned to port six hours later.
I´d mentioned to him that Manu and I were going to find a bar to watch the Liverpool Barca game when we returned to shore and, having ditched their spouses, Maradonna slurred to me that they would join us and as I tried to concentrate on the game he proceeded to smoke all Manu´s cigarettes and talk in increasingly hard to understand broken English about one topic, hooliganism. He was a Boca fan back in Buenos Aires and I got the distinct impression that he was one of those chaps that prompted the authorities to release visiting supporters from the stadium forty five minutes early.
Around midnight Manu and I were just finishing the last drops of
a rare reasonably priced bottle of Argentinian wine when Maria announced she was off to pick up our new house mates from the bus station and when she returned twenty minutes later we were relieved to see they were two girls as opposed to hairy arsed non English speaking geezers, both from Dublin and both very good company.
After breakfast I packed and was all set for the off, my destination Sao Paolo where Russ had arrived the previous evening. I said goodbye to Manu and the Irish girls who took the hostel Kayak´s out to sea and sat waiting for departure. The bus was 1.40pm and at 12.30pm Maria informed me she was just nipping to the bank and that she would be back soon to take me to the bus station. She returned around 3pm, no great disaster, there was another bus at 4.40pm I could catch.
The others were surprised to see me still at the hostel when they returned and Val, one of the two girls asked me if I´d like a game of pool to pass the time. She was dressed only in a tiny bikini, admittedly not the piece of string combo
favoured by the Carioca´s of Ipanema but tiny all the same so of course I accepted the challenge and perhaps not surprisingly my game went to pieces, missing the sort of simple pots that in the Sea Horse bar would seem a formality. Time always passes quicker when you have something to do or watch and I managed to disguise my accident on purpose misses so well that the one frame stretched out to forty five minutes.
At 4pm I went to ensure Maria or Nicolas were going to be available to take us into town to catch the bus but discovered they´d both gone to bed! Manu managed to get the visiting housekeeper to wake them and the loosely interpretted message upon her return was that they´d be ten minutes. Twenty minutes later time was getting tight and I was getting frustrated so we set off on foot, fully laden like two para´s on manouevres. We set a heck of a pace, heads down and no conversation, up and over the tarmac hill, down the cobbled street into old town then the main street. Every minute I´d glance at my watch and two seemed to have passed and
Paraty; Silence Is Golden.
The Aneamic Pig swimming with the fishies. when we reached the main street we asked a taxi driver to take us the 800 metres or so to the bus station. Completely oblivious to our desperation he seemed more interested in cleaning his windows, perhaps understable given the way we both now looked. As we turned the corner it was 4.42pm and there was no sign of a bus. I approached the ticket office and upon uttering the words ´Sao Paolo´ was answered with a shake of the head and a hand gesture that told me I´d missed it. I sank onto the nearest bench and stared at the floor.
The next bus was 9.40am the following day, no real problem as I wouldn´t have arrived in Sao Paolo until close to midnight anyway and having gathered our strength we, Manu had missed his bus too, set off back to the hostel albeit at a much more liesurely pace. The Irish girls seemed genuinely pleased we were back, not surprising as they now only had each other for company and having phoned Russ to tell him I wouldn´t be with him until the following afternoon we had a night of wine surrounded by the local population of
Paraty; Silence Is Golden.
This was purely a bar in the middle of the ocean. hounds sleeping at our feet.
The previous evening I´d been the main course on an anniversary banquet organised by the local mosquito population despite the application of my usually effective repellant. My face had apparently been dessert and I had the look of a hackneyed teenager, about twenty itchy red blotches across my cheeks and forehead whilst the right side of my chest looked like I´d somehow escaped an attempted twelve bore murder attempt. As darkness fell Maria came over clutching bunches of green leaves which she instructed us to rub all over ourselves. I didn´t get the name of the leaves but whatever they are should be bottled and patented immediately.
At 8.30 the following morning Manu and I found ourselves groggily climbing, fully sacked up, onto the back of two waiting moto taxis, 125cc bykes that went where you asked and when we arrived at the bus station, thankfully still in one piece, I approached the same vendor as the previous afternoon. ¨Billete de Sao paolo por favor¨. I was answered with a rapid volley of Portugese which, even if I´d been awake I still wouldn´t have stood a chance of understanding and another shake of
the head. A frown of puzzlement crossed my face at which he swung his monitor around and showed me a seating plan of a bus with all seats coloured red. My heart stopped as I feared the worst and called Manu over from the adjacent office who confirmed my fears. The bus was full. Sold out. I was distraught, not only would it mean a four hour wait at the station but even worse it would mean that I would not arrive in Sao Paolo until about 8pm and as Russ and his Brazillian colleagues had arranged a trip to one of the local soccer matches for me, even to the point of buying me a ticket that just wasn´t good enough.
Manu caught the 9am bus back to Rio and asked if I´d make my way back to the hostel to wait. My answer, influenced by my fury and the thought of climbing ´the hill´ yet again was probably a little more forceful and to the point than maybe it should have been and after shaking hands and saying farewell I settled down in the now baking heat for the wait. At 1.15pm I heard laughing and squealing
Paraty; Silence Is Golden.
The leg of God. I asked why the number ten was the wrong way around and he replied "because he genius". Huh ? and turned to see the Irish girls approaching. ¨We thought it was you, why are you still here?¨. Reluctantly I had to tell them.
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non-member comment
Bring Val with you next time we play golf mate.I need something to put you off.I much prefer these blogs when you're on the move.Didn't Liverpool do well? European glory beckons.I hope you saw the Chelsea-Spurs 3-3 FA Cup tie.It was a classic.Stay cool.