On the Road to Rio

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Our first stop in Brazil was Paraty. This is a colonial town, one of the first towns colonized in Brazil. We camped next to the beach here but were a little unimpressed with the beach. Apparently it use to be a swamp that they cleared out so the water was a little dirty and a little to warm for comfort. The town itself was really nice though. The streets where all cobblestone streets and all the buildings were really old. We spent one day there then headed off to the beautiful beaches of Brazil.

Our next stop was Ilha Grande, or should I say paradise island. We took a two hour boat ride across the ocean to a deserted island. On this island there is only one small town with no roads or cars. It is pretty touristy so there were a lot of people there but to our suprise most of the time there were very few people at the beaches we decided to go to.
The fist day we arrived we went to a beach nearby because it was late afternoon. We did a twenty minute hike to get out of town and landed on our first beach. We were both really impressed and loved it. The water was amazing, not too cold and not too hot. We stayed at that beach until the sun went down. The next day we wanted to hike a little more so we did a two hour hike up and over a little mountain. When we arrived on this beach there were only a few people there. Once again we layed in the sun and swam all day long. The only down fall was that when we first arrived a sat on a bee and it stung me twice on my leg. It really hurt. We had one more full day on the island so we did a little longer hike the next day, this time all the way to the other side of the island. When we first arrived to the beach we were the only people there. The waves were a little bigger over here and it was really fun to swim in. The highlight of the day was for about ten minutes a group of fifty dolphins decided to come swim close to the shore. We watched them jump around and play with each other, then they left. It was a great sight to see! That night a big electrical storm came in. We were out walking around then all of a sudden it started to down pour. Before we knew it the streets were rivers and the sky was being lit up by lighting and the thunder was shaking all the buildings. We were happy that we had a boat ride out the next morning.

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