Being bohemian in Paraty

---

Paraty is a small colonial town four hours South of Rio, back in the day it was a regular haunt of pirates who would come here to steal the gold which was shipped from its port. Our stay here was pretty unplanned as we we're now going backwards to our original route which was to head up towards Belem and up the Amazon River. We´d heard so many good things about Paraty and after our stay in Arraial do Cabo we wanted to go somewhere that was going to have both great beaches and a nice town where we dared to venture out after dark. It was definitely a good choice.

We arrived on a Saturday night and it was dark so we got a taxi from the bus station. When the taxi driver pulled into a car park and got out we realised he couldn't go any further because the historical part of the town where we were staying didn't allow cars, they use horse and cart instead. So out we jumped and a few minutes later we found our hostel. Our favourite hostel so far, the owner was an eccentric retired English expat.

We stayed 6 nights altogether in Paraty, it´s such an enchanting place. The cobbled streets and pretty colonial buildings nestled between mountains of Atlantic Rainforest make a beautiful backdrop to the amazing beaches that are a short boat ride away. We took a boat trip to three beaches and its easy to see why they call this part of the world the Emerald Coast. Apparently the pirates buried treasure on some of these beaches!

At night time Paraty really comes alive with street vendors, harpists and art studios spilling out on to the pavements. It´s not surprising that so many artists, writers and musicians come here and never leave. The streets are lined with restaurants and bars catering to all tastes, but unfortunately due our budget we couldn't take full advantage of this and most nights we ended up gorging ourselves at the hostels all you can eat BBQ which also included all you drink Caipirinhas, we soon got sick of sausage and rice.

We took a trip to a place nearby called Trinidade - yes you guessed it more beautiful beaches! Only these you had to work a little to get to. We took a short climb through some jungle and walked over a couple of beaches to a natural salt water pool. This is where we both left our flip flops on a rock to go for a swim and an explore. It was getting late at this point and when the sun sets in Brazil it´s dark within minutes so when a boat taxi came by we jumped on without a second thought. Half way back to the mainland we remembered our footwear sitting on the rocks. It was too late to go back so we had to walk home bare foot. Great excuse for Lil to buy some new Haviannas! On our way back to Paraty we met a odd Brazilian boy who claimed he was friends with the large wild cats in the area and had a 112 year old grandmother, very strange.

Next stop Ilha Grande.

---