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Published: September 5th 2008
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Here we are in Paradise!
Travelled from Rio to Paraty,300km down the coast, aiming to sleep a little since our excitable hostel-mates kept us up screeching at Facebook outside our door till very late! However, sleeping was impossible knowing that at any moment we might have to adopt the brace position, despite v comfortable luxury coach.
Arrival in Paraty was marked by despair at our rubbish Brazilian-Portuguese again, since they don't make the same sh, Zh sounds here which we had mastered, making our first communication at the Tourist Office and Hotel feel a bit back-to-basics and blank looks :-(
Our Poussada (meant to be a state-run guest house but in fact seems to be run by a couple of eccentric ladies with their many pet dogs, cats and giant cockroach) is fabulous. It is a huge old colonial portuguese style place, typical of the architecture for which Paraty is celebrated and which has led to its UNESCO listing. We lay down in our beautiful wooden room, shutters (there are no windows here) open onto the scenic Praca, all tranquillity after Rio, and then...extremely loud band soundchecking right outside our room, followed by fireworks, again, immediately out front,
then a 2 hours soft-rock sing-along catholic church servicein the marquee, yes - just ouside our Pousada, then a full-on parade replete with brass instruments and percussion and an earth-shatteringly loud crap rock gig to end the evening.
We have stumbled across some kind of religious festival here for the town's Saint - Nossa Senhora dos Remedios-also the name of the church which is being refurbished alongside the marquee. The above pattern has been duly respected every night until 2am with our room enjoying a particularly high-volume due to reverberation around the old square. The gig is sometimes interspersed with CDs of rubbish rock covers in Brazilian - not to our taste, shall we say!
Ah, the perils of travelling! But we have stayed here coz a hummingbird greets us in the breakfast garden, the Pousada has rustic charm and the old town is truly gorgeous. Apparently the Portuguese built it so that the tide would clean the cobbled streets at high tide/full moon - we haven't actually seen this in action but it is always very clean despite the hundreds of stray dogs out there. one thing - the Brazilians seem very kind and attached to their
canine friends - quite unusual in my experience - good!
First evening we were spoilt for choice with restaurants but chose one which seemed lively - good Brazilian folky music and some stoner-surfer stylee waiters who were friendly! It was a cachaca specialist-seemed to be about 2,000 different bottles of the stuff (sugar cane spirit 45%), and we tried a few or rather were made to drink a few - bit yuk except in Caipirinha - yum! Things got sticky a few cachacas in when our long-locked waiter friend calmly confirmed they didn't take credit cards - about 10pm in a small town with no cash, and our v bad experience of banks to date- this did not look good. We are dumb-asses. Anyway, we remained ostensibly very calm whilst fretting inwardly and the evening turned out very well - a crazy dash to Banco do Brasil (Laurent), forced kissing of a snake (Martha) from a cachaca bottle (a la worm in tequila, we spose - there was giant cockroach too), cassava stew, many laughs!
Aside from the rubbish full-on catholic celebrations going on (then again, I suppose this is part of the charm too), it is difficult
not to use superlatives when writing about Paraty (pronounced ParatCHi) and its bay. Parati itself is a stone-throw away from the waters and about 600 beaches and 250 islands can easily be reached by foot or boats from here...
Naturally, we took it easy on the first day and walked about 1.5km to the nearest beach north of Paraty - Jabaquara. A little bit of twitching there and also witnessed local folks catching crabs on the beach - may be to sell them to local bars? The trick seems to be to let a line with a bit of alguae in the water and sudenly pull the line with the crab attached to it and into the net. Seems very skilled! Then, just some tanning and a few beers on the beach with Grilled fish. ahhhh...
Next day, we got a schooner to take us to the islands on a 5 hours trip. Lying on the decks (on cushions) the boat then anchored on various gorgeous' beaches bay, a dive and a spot of snorkeling (tropical fish and sea urchins), then swimming to the beach for the sun. Our favourite beach was Lula beach, 'Squid beach'. Look at
this picture postcard - jealous yet?
Tried to top Lula, the next day by getting a hair-raising bus ride to Trindade and its beautiful beaches! Trindade is lost at the end of a winding 4.5km road surrounded by the lush tropical forest. The forest is real lush, banana trees, coconut trees, palms and giant ferns all around. Very thick!
Trindade didn't quite top Lula, but not far behind. Four main beaches from there, all paradisical with the fourth one only reached by foot over a hill and down. Great waves, about 11 people on the 1.5km of sand!
On the way back, the bus went through small villages, one of them being a Seventh day aventist village. Other seemed to be dominated by baptist churches and shops and we noticed, back at Paraty, a variety of different churches, rather on the evangelical side. Seems to cater for the variety of the population. Our friends the Brazilians are surely very religious...
Right, we need to go now - can't concentrate anymore for the sing-along Nossa Senora de los remedios soft-rock mass. Need a Caipireihna!
Bye bye all.
L&M x
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Chris
non-member comment
hey!
I'm so glad to see that your trip is, so far, so detailed in its fauna-related research - "water bird" - is that the latin? Sorry - just jealous. Loving reading the entries so far. Keep it up! That's if you can fit it in amongst the sunbathing and snorkelling. I'm sure Cliff Michelmore didnt work this hard in his pursuit of bringing news from far-flung climes back to blighty! Have Fun!