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When we arrived in Paraty we had only planned to be here for 2 nights but this quickly turned into 3 the minute we stepped off the bus!

Partay is about 2 hours west of Ilha Grande and easily reached on the local buses. It´s the most fantastic town which consists of classical 18th century Portugese colonial buildings in the historic centre where our hostel was found. This part of the town has no vehicle access and the roads made up of huge cobbles which are actually quite difficult to walk on.. god knows how people bike across them as they must have really sore bums by the end of the day! You also see the odd horse & kart going by every now and again which adds to the charm.

The historic town has loads of little shops and cafes along every street as well as street traders selling loads of lovely hand made jewellery. Sophie had to be physically restrained from going in all the shops otherwise our budget would have been blown in a matter of hours! For those interested in the Havianas they were even cheaper here at only £2 each... bargain!

Our hostel the Historic Centre Hostel is lovely and run by an English ex pat so we didn´t have to muddle through with the language. He also owns a bar round the corner which we visited on our first night with another couple we´d met in Rio, this bar has all you can eat BBQ & all you can drink Caipirinhas so we made the most of this which resulted in sore heads the morning after!

We woke up to pure sunshine on our first day so a trip to the beach was in order to sleep off the hangovers. The best beach around here is in a little fishing town called Trindade so we hopped on the local bus and made our way. Like most of the beaches on Ilha Grande the access isn´t just a matter of walking straight to it.. a hike through some dense forest was needed again but the beach was worth it when you got to the other side. The water here is so warm it really is like a bath, Dale also managed to do a bit more hiking to a natual salt water pool while Sophie slept on the beach.. life is hard here you know!

We have to add about the bus journey back to Paraty which was similar to a rollacoaster at Alton Towers... mum´s you would have been scared to death.. even Sophie let out a scream at one point! Just imagine a local town bus driving up and down the mountains in Scotland at 90mph with steep drops to one side and you get the picture.. it made for an interesting end to our day!

There is lots to do in Paraty.. walking, jeep tours etc but unfortunatley our 2nd day was a little cloudy with some rain too so we opted to stay in the town and take a good look round. Dale had other ideas in the afternoon and thought a sea kayak trip would be a good idea. Now please bear in mind how scared Sophie is of the sea so yet more screaming as this thing tipped this way and that as we ventured futher and futher out to sea... we didn´t stay out long!

So our time here has sadly come to an end.. yet again this is somewhere we would come back to and recommend to anyone in Brazil but we must now make our way towards São Paulo and Iguazu Falls....

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