Paraty

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Hi all,
Ilha Grande was fabulous-only one way to describe it-paradise! amazing beaches, miles of jungle, no cars, everyone moving at such a slow pace-if you need a completely relaxing holiday-its the place to go! We hiked through the jungle for 2 1/2 hours one day to get to Lopez Mendez-this beautiful beach. In the jungle we saw a crocodile-scary but amazing! Luckily, we didnt bump into any deadly cobra snakes, which live in the heart of the jungle. the sand on the beach was so fine and almost white-it was like snow to walk on. The island has a fascinating history -there were 2 prisons on the island -the last of which was blown up in 1996 . Our host in the hostel, a native told us how her mum and brother were held hostage by a prisoner, who broke out in the early 1990s. The natives must have lived in fear for so long!

On Wednesday, we took the ferry, followed by bus for 2 hours further south to Paraty-a small historic pretty little city. Beautiful quaint cobbled streets-almost like a maize with lots of arty little shops. Unfortunately, it rained on and off whilst we were there so we didnt get to spend much time on the 300 beaches cloase to the city. It,s surrounded by about 60 islands and 300 beaches -many of which are privately owned. We took a boat trip yesterday to visit some of the beaches and luckily we had gloriuos weather. We had escaped the dreaded mosquitos up until Paraty but we felt their presence bigtime in paraty-must have been the damp weather! There were lots of theses little lizards who dine on mosquitos, hanging around the hostel. One of them made their way into our room last night (and onto Pearse´s leg-the screams!!!) so you can imagine we had a very sleepless night..

Having arrived in Sao paulo a couple of hours ago, our first impressions are not good-slums, high rise buldings, lots of dodgy looking characters.. As a result of talkin to others, we´ve decided to stay away from the centre and close to the airport. Our hotel is 27 stories high-Aghhhhhhh!!!Will be leaving Brazil behind early Tues morning to head to Cusco in Peru and The machu Pichu trek (cant wait!)

Having trouble loading the photos but hope to have them up asap....xxxs

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