Curitiba - Paraty - Trinidade

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I am in love - Brazil is such a fantastic country! To be fair I have only seen such a small part of it, but it is so beautiful and everything so far seems so great - the weather, the scenery and the people...

This blog is about a few different places as we have done a few days here and there. Firstly we left Foz and went to Curitiba. We were going to go slightly lower to Florianpolis which is supposed to be really nice, but we just didn´t feel like the extra time on buses!!

We got in quite early to Curitiba, and decided to splash out a bit and stay in a hotel. The hotel was lovely, nothing overly fancy but newish, clean great breakfast AND afternoon tea! Also the staff were great and very helpful. From Curitiba you can get a train to the coast which is supposed to be absolutely beautiful. But to be fair we were fairly exhausted from travelling and couldn´t get up earliy enough to try and get it!! But we did explore the city a bit. It was a lovely town with some great colonial buildings. Also along that part of coast there was a bit of German and Polish settlers so there are some influence definitely there. the main being Christmas markets in the squares! Except instead of sausages and beer, it was empandas and coconut milk!

Next we headed to Partay which is several hours south from Rio de Janeiro. We had to swap at Sao Paulo so got to have a look at the town. Must admit it did not look too appealing, so we were glad to keep moving. It was also during this drive I really fell in love with Brazil. Now already I had loved the falls, then our few days in Curitiba we were both so happy to be getting so much great fresh fruit and this country really knows juices! Believe me when you have been travelling so much and not getting the healthiest of choices this stuff is very important!!! Anyway the drive was through some of the most lush jungle/rainforest. I just sat staring out of the window. it was beautiful.

Anyway finally that evening we got to Paraty. By this stage the weather had changed and it was wet, very wet. I guess that is the tropics for you! We booked into a pousada (run once again by a great local, who was very willing to chat and for breakfast would do these different things for us to try and invite us for coffee in the afternoon to show us something else to try) and went for a wonder. Obviously due to the rain and darkness we didnt see too much, but the cobbled streets. Now this is not the best term for these streets - more like bouldered streets!

Paraty is a bit of a resort town (you can easily tell this with the price of things there!) and is a very old town, with a an old and new town. the old town has these streets but the cobble stones are HUGE! You cannot stroll down these street! you can´t really look up and around you as you need to keep checking where you put your feet as to not break an ankle! The old town is also right on the coast, so much so that the streets are build so that when the tide is up the water washes into the street and they are build on an angle for drainage.

While there we caught a local bus to the next town to check out a cachaca (Brazils national drink) distillery. That was nice, nothing to special but a great setting and the cachaca was really nice - and so many flavours; the pumpkin was good as was the chocolate (of course). Also it was funny to watch the pea-hen there attack Matt´s shoe (sorry to busy laughing to take photos).

So after a few days in Paraty with its wet weather, we decided to head to Trinidade; a beach town and hour out of Paraty. This used to be a bit of a surfy/hippy community, and while the weather wasn´t the best, it was warm and I love the beach sun or rain. So off we went.

Well what fantastic weather!!!! We got a pousada meters from the beach with windows that opened up to it, the beach was great and so close! each morning we were brought a breakfast basket to our room so sat by the window and had it each morning. The town was literally one street. and again very friendly and relaxed.
So for the last week our week has consisted of the following:
- wake up
- have breakfast
- head to one of the beaches- there was several to choose from
- work on tan
- go for a swim
- work on tan
- get a juice from beach bar
- swim
- have a snack from beach bar
- have a beer from beach bar
- work on tan
- go home and relax (all the hard work we´d been doing really wiped us out)
- go to main street and have dinner

Very hard!! the town was basically the beach the street then tropical rainforest all around. You could easily walk to 2 beaches, and then to get to another you walked through a jungle trail (not long) to another. Then if you kept following the path, you got to this natural rock ´pool. Basically ít is this huge rocks that separate a part of the beach creating this calm pool. Very nice indeed!

Anyway next is Rio and further beyond. Very excited to see Rio!! Oh just quickly too - the beaches here are amazing!! they are ´real´beaches, with gold, soft sand and proper waves!!!! they also love Aussies here. Everytime people here ask where you are from and you say Australia they get so excited and go on about the surfing!!!

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