Paraty

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We were told Sao Paulo doesn’t have much to offer and isn’t the safest of places so we decided to get the bus straight out. After sitting in lots of traffic, seeing the heaviest rain we’ve ever seen then squeezing onto the metro at rush hour we got to the bus station to find that the tickets were sold out to Paraty. After a struggle with our lack of Portuguese we managed to get a bus to somewhere we hoped was in the right direction. Luckily it was, however we got the timings wrong as what we thought was the arrival time was actually the duration of trip! So the bus dropped us off at 1am in what looked like the middle of nowhere. Having woken up feeling half asleep we looked around but there were no taxis and no sign of a town. Luckily the driver was still there and he pointed us to where town was. So we walked a couple of miles hoping we wouldn’t come across any unsavouries and found a hotel. It turned out we were in a nice seaside town and we managed to get a bus to Paraty later that day.

Paraty was a tourist place with cobbled streets and quaint buildings. We were hoping for nicer beaches so we didn't stay for long. Highlights of Paraty: sea kayaking; visiting nice beach in Trinidade and watching Spurs beat Liverpool (thanks to Aaron Lennon we didn't mind paying their extra taxes for sitting at a table and listening to music - I guess we could've put our fingers in our ears!)

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