Blogs from Paraty, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, South America - page 15

Tony & Karen say Paraty The colonial centre of Paraty or the 'Historic Centre' as it is called is beautiful and has not changed much for hundreds of years. The buildings are small, painted white and adorned with latticed windows and colourful painted borders. The cobbled streets and lack of traffic (no cars allowed, only horse and carts!) make it a lovely town to stroll around, especially at night as the cafes and restaurants are lit up with candles. Paraty has become the home to many artists, poets, writers and other arty farty types so it is full of lovely artisan shops, galleries and bookshops - you could spend hours browsing here and we both kind of wish we were finishing our trip here as we could imagine filling up our backpacks with lots of trinkets ... read more

We finally got to Paraty, a beautiful colonial town by the ocean, after catching two coaches. First stop was Curitiba then Sao Paulo and then finally Paraty. There was no way I was getting back on the cattle truck the tour uses so two of us booked a coach. We were told by various bus lines that there was a direct bus every hour from Curitiba to Sao Paulo but that was not the case. We had to wait at the Sao Paulo bus terminal for eight hours. We were warned that the Sao Paulo bus terminal is one of the most dangerous in the world but we were fine. Some of the young men were obvious in their staking out of your luggage but we kept ours close to us. Our hotel in Paraty was ... read more

So people its been a couple of weeks since I last bared my soul to you (and for those of you who saw my facebook profile my pasty rear!) With about a week to go before Carnaval, we decided to head along the South coast of Brazil to the small colonial town of Paraty. Other than the cobbled streets, quiet bay and plentiful seafood restaurants, there´s not much here to do, but baring in mind Carnaval is just round the corner it´s probably for the best! The proverbial calm before the storm. Well you´ve pretty much established by now that we like to freestyle and ´wing it´. This time however we did do some forward planning and Brad spoke to the hostel in Paraty too see if they had availibility...´yeah no problems we are quiet at ... read more

This final blog is loooooonnng overdue as we have been at home for about 6 weeks now! So will try and get it finished. After Rio we caught the bus down to Ilha Grande (the big island) off the coast between Rio and Sao Paulo. This was a pretty easy transfer compared to some we had on this trip, and only a few hours later we arrived on the ferry to the island. Ilha Grande is a beautiful island, with no cars, and no ATMS, just beaches, a few shops and restaurants - the perfect place to relax before heading home. We stayed at a hostel called Aquario - seems to be the place where most people stay here, right on the beach with a natural swimming pool made by building a few stone walls into ... read more

Hello! Well, I’m off exploring again after my quick jaunt home. I really enjoyed being back home and strangely enough didn’t want to leave again, but now I’m here, I’m definitely getting back in the swing of things! Typically I found myself starting this new leg of the trip sitting behind the devil child from hell, who insisted on throwing her chair back at every opportunity, then climbing on to the back of it to shout at her friend who was behind me - she was so close that I couldn’t look forwards otherwise I would have head butted her - god I love children!! We started our journey in Rio, arriving early in the morning with warnings of ´bag slashers´ringing in our ears, it was not without trepidation that we left the airport and hopped ... read more