Hangin´ on the beaches of Brazil . . . paradise

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Hello everyone!

Well, we can officially say, WE LOVE BRAZIL!! Let us just set the scene for a moment . . .

The landscape is green, lush and basically a rainforest, the beaches are strips of white sand with warm, inviting water and the whole atmosphere just kind of tells you, ¨grab a drink and kick back for a while¨. The drink of choice, of course being 'caiprihinias'...what else....We obliged.

Our first taste was the really cute town, Paraty. It is an old colonial town on the beach surrounded by lots of little islands. The whole atmosphere is charming and many hours were spent wandering around and having the occasional ice-cream. It was a beautiful antidote to our 24 hour bus ride.
Oh, we didn´t mention the 24 hour bus ride??? How negligent! Brazil is a big country, which means, if you want to travel overland, be prepared. Our first trip was 16hrs. All was going really well when we realised that we actually had a pretty fantastic bus. It makes flying economy seem like madness as the seats almost go back into a full recline and there is a lot more space to curl up. This ectastic buzz that ran through the bus was soon turned on it's head however, when four miliatry police entered. Normal you may think?? No . . . they entered in full gear, bullet proof vests etc. carrying guns. We know, we know, everyone carries guns right? Well these ones weren't in their holdsters, but instead out and ready for action. One moment we were calmly reading our books, the next minute we were wetting ourselves. They were obviously looking for something, or someone. Some bags were searched and one of the guys from the group was also searched. When they left, the bus errupted in nervous/hysterical giggles. Alberto (our Intrepid guide) assured us that this was not regular, and he looked pretty nervous too. The rest of the bus ride went fairly smoothly, but everytime the bus stopped we were half expecting the Brazilian army to climb on board. After that we had a 3 hr stopover in Sao Paolo (This is the 2nd biggest city in South America, after Mexico. we had to stay in bus station . . . too dangerous outside apparently, and we were in no mood to argue). We then had a ¨two hour¨ ride to Paraty, which was actually 6 hours . . . go figure.


I think you can see why we derserved a nice beachside relax . . .

We left Paraty to catch more buses and ferries to the beautiful island, Ilha Grande. Talk about magic. The island is quite big, but it has only a small little village and a lot of great beaches and beach side bars. While we were there, there was a little festival, so that was heaps of fun to be a part of. We spent two perfect days beach hoppping, we went to the Blue lagoon (Brooke Shields eat your heart out... and snorkled in the ocean) and the the last day was spent on one of the famous beaches, Lopez Mendes. It kind of reminded us of a lot of beaches down south (WA), which was nice. The water was warm, the sand was white and squeaky and the surf was fun to play in. big waves, woo hoo. Paradise.

Needless to say, we also enjoyed a lot of great food. The beers were cold, the pina coladas were strange (more chocolate and strawberry syrup...) and there was a dessert cart on every corner. Handy. We have defintiely been living the high life and loving every minute.

So- there are a a few reasons why we love Brazil. Next stop . . . Rio!!

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