Blogs from Paraty, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, South America - page 12

Paraty is a small coastal town between Rio and Sao Paulo. The first night we stayed in a hostel in town, the next day we took a few kms walk to the coastline where the hostel was right on the beach - hammocks, sea kayaks and table tennis. Felt like a dream holiday. We rented the kayaks and headed up a small stream which circles back through the town and then our into the 'harbour' area. There was a small island off the coast so we aimed for that. About an hour later we touched the island and headed back as I was starting to get sea sick. We hit the sand and I tumbled out the boat and lay on the ground until the world stopped bobbing. The next day we did an island hopping ... read more

After spending about 6 days in Ubatuba Asta and I have moved to Paraty, - just a small town about 80 km north East from Ubatuba. During the whole time in Ubatuba, there were only one and a half days of sunshine, otherwise the weather couldn't be called bad but couldn't be called good either... Overcast most of the time, with a bit of rain now and then. But even in that weather we've managed to have some time at the beach and to see the surroundings. One of the days we've hired bikes and went discovering,- a bit of a rain forest, few far away beaches, of course a sunset with couple of beers at a beach... Comparing to Ubatuba, Praty is a very small place, with most of the beaches reachable by boat. That's ... read more

It takes 30 hours to get from Iguazu to the Brazilian coast. A couple of buses, switching in Sao Paulo; we don´t hang around...the city just looks to big and the ocean is calling us. We have 5 days before we meet up with Sharif, Emelie, Jason and Nathalie and we plan to spend them near Paraty on the Costa Verde. Our bus from Sao Paulo drives us through thunderstorms as we head for the coast. Monsoon like rains fall then clear to sunshine like someone´s flicking a switch. No wonder it´s called the Costa Verde...it is so green and lush with rainforest. I get my first view of the ocean as we round a bend and start descending towards a small bay, totally surrounded by green hills. It´s totally tropical :) The sun comes out ... read more

Well its a week now since I finished the Inca Trail so now the pain has gone Ill probably reflect on the experience more positively! The first morning we were told to wait in our hotel lobby at 4am to be picked up, when we were still waiting at 4.45 in the freezing cold reception I started to doubt my decision to tackle the Inca Trail! Eventually we were on our way, clapped on the bus by our porters (this was to be the first of many times we were clapped by them, in fact they pretty much did it everytime we left, returned, finished breakfast etc!) We arrived at the start of the trail and had our group photo and got on our way. The first mrning was fine and we stopped for lunch where ... read more

I write to you today from paraty...which is an old colonial town on the east coast...about 2 hours further south from Ilha Grande. Paraty is very picturesque....all cobbled streets and white buildings, and small enough to wander around in about 40 mins. It looks very much like colonial towns in the caribbean. Other than wandering around the streets haven´t done too much whilst we have been here....which may be due to the several caprinhas last night...which are the local cocktails... The food and drink in Brazil is about the same price as that at home...so this part of my trip hasn´t been overwhelmingly cheap so far....but the food has been good. They have these fried fish cakes which they sell on stalls which are particularly good. Other than that there is a lot of tapioca and ... read more