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Published: July 12th 2009
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I'm sorry about yet another Paraty/party pun in the title, its just that it seems to be the done thing in this little town. Every hostel claims to be a paraty hostel, every bus is a paraty bus and every church is a paraty church. Or something like that.
So, after the debacle of the previous blog, we only arrived in the town fairly late. There were 4 of us tourists on the bus, and due to my slight misfortune we stopped for a bit of a chat as we got off the bus. Rhys and Anne, an Aussie/German couple had one hostel booked, Nak, from the Basque Country had another one booked and me? Well I had nothing booked of course. Obviously, I was just going to follow one of them like a sheep, and I went by my rule of letting couples go their own way and followed Nak, to what turned out to be the priciest hostel in town. Damn.
The next morning, we scouted round, found a cheaper place to lay our heads then went on a bus followed by an hour long walk to a beautiful beach, Praia de Son. This was more like
it, long stretches of deserted white sand with crabs scuttling all about it, the Atlantic roaring in, and all backed by beautiful forest covered mountains. Knowing that I'd be along this coast for the next 3 weeks was a pretty good feeling.
Back in town, I went for a little wander around the historic centre of the town, which was a little like Colonia in Uruguay, in that it was all little cobbled streets and colonial houses, lending it a "going back in time" feel. Unlike Colonia though, there was plenty to do around the place, meaning that it was a lot less boring. They also had a strange obsession with Pirates of the Caribbean, and no matter what time of day you went for a walk, you could guarantee bumping into a chap dressed as Jack Sparrow. It was rather strange.
I think I can credit Paraty as the first place I got the laziness that followed me round the rest of Brazil. See, I'd kind of planned for a couple of days here, then scoot on my merry way. However, a combination of perfect weather, beaches and a very pleasant boat ride out into the bay
meant it was nearly a week later when I eventually managed to direct myself north. I was accompanied by a German bloke called Hannes, who knew a sneaky money saving trick, halving the cost of the trip by changing buses at a town about 2 hours north of Paraty rather than going straight to Rio. I did protest, and say no, I'd much rather pay full whack, but he was having none of it (I suspect you didn't really believe that last sentence).
And so we landed in Rio. Would I be mugged, dragged off to the nearest favela and shot? You'll have to wait until next time to find out.
Stewart
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