Getting lost in Paraty

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Thursday 10th July

We arrived in Sao Paulo bus station at around 9am after about a 15 hour bus journey from Iguazu. It had been a bit of an eventful journey. We had been on the bus for about 2 hours when the military boarded the bus all with fully loaded guns pointing at us. We sat very still as they searched nearly all of the guys on the bus. Poor Rob got a bit of a shock. He’d been in the loo when they boarded the bus and didn’t know anything was going on. When he came out one of the four men pointed his gun at him and had his finger hovering over the trigger. He lifted Rob’s shirt up to make sure he wasn’t carrying a weapon and then searched his stuff as well. The men eventually left empty handed. Apparently because we were so close to the border with Paraguay drug smuggling is common and that’s the reason our bus was searched. I was surprised they only searched the male passengers though - I would have thought they would have searched us all.

We had to sit in Sao Paulo bus station for three hours to wait for our connecting bus to Paraty. The bus took about 5 hours so we arrived late afternoon to a lovely little town. We didn’t really have time to explore that evening and just went out for some food and a few drinks to some random bars. Kristin and I decided we’d had enough and wanted to go home. We left Georgie and Emily to it and attempted to find the hostel. We got very lost. Paraty is a very small place but all the streets look the same - it’s almost like the Bermuda Triangle - you could easily just disappear. Luckily Kristin could speak enough Spanish to make herself understood by the Portuguese speaking locals and one guy offered to walk us back to our hostel. We were very relieved to be back safe and sound.

Friday 11th July

Went on a boat trip today to see some of the other islands around Paraty and to have a swim/snorkel. Really nice relaxing day. Got lunch on the boat - which wasn’t that great - nothing like our fish picnic in Croatia! The water was pretty cold and it was a little bit windy so not perfect for swimming as drying off was a little chilly, but it was so nice spending the day on the water.

In the afternoon we explored the beautiful little town. It’s easy to get lost in day light as well. Lovely cobbled streets - most of them just for pedestrians. Most of the buildings are white and there were banners hanging across most of the streets. I wasn’t sure if that was just because there was a carnival/festival happening or if they were there the whole time. Either way, it added character and colour to the place and I quite liked it. I was another pretty town and had a holiday feel to it. Being right by the coast and being in the warmth definitely helped though. It was great being able to wander around in shorts and t-shirts again.

We went to the carnival in the evening. We watched loads of teenagers doing a very strange dance routine to a very bad song that I hadn’t heard for years. We remembered that the song had been in Robin Hood (the Disney version). It was quite amusing to watch them. There were lots of stalls selling food and lots of people around. It was quite good to see just for the entertainment value.

Bought a delicious ice cream from the self serve place. It’s amazing - bit like a pic ’n’ mix. You can choose whatever you like and can put random toppings on and then take it to the counter to get weighed. You do end up spending quite a lot though because there’s always another flavour that looks good!

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