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Published: July 22nd 2008
This past weekend I took my first excursion and traveled to a sleepy little beach town called Caragutatuba. I went because we have family friends that are American missionaries there who I wanted to visit.
So Friday after work I hopped on a bus and headed out to Caraguá, about a 3 hour bus ride from São Paulo. At the bus station waiting were our missionary friends, AJ and Barb as well as another guy who my mom knows well from her trips to Caraguá, my Brazilian brother, Felipe. AJ and Barbara live in a beautiful home just blocks from the beach complete with a pool and hammock. I have to admit I got a bit spoiled this weekend :-)
On Saturday morning I wanted to see the city a bit so another American girl who is staying with AJ and Barb for the summer and I headed to the town to do some tourist shopping and walk on the beach. Caraguá is really an amazing place. It is small and friendly, but also has a lot of activities always taking place on the beach. This past weekend they had some sort of regional games that were going on
Caraguá
just a view of how pretty the beach is thereso we got to see everything from beach volleyball to motorcross.
Saturday evening Felipe had invited me to go with him, his fiancé and one of his friends, Ricardo, out for dinner and just to see more of the city. They took me to a famous Chinese restaurant right on the beach (literally sitting in the sand) and afterwards we got the Caraguatatuba signature, açaí smoothie. Ricardo told me after I drank one that it has close to 2,000 calories in one drink, haha...awesome. It was worth it though. The food was fantastic and it was a great time hanging out with Felipe and the others. Both Felipe and Ricardo speak English very well (Ricardo is actually an English teacher) so it was really nice not having to have the language barrier for once.
We all woke up early on Sunday to head to church so we could make breakfast for the neighborhood kids, then had church off and on for the rest of the day. After the evening service Felipe and his friends wanted to go out again so since it was a clear night they decided to show me the aerial view of the city from
Coconut
While Emily (the other American girl) and I were walking on the beach we stopped at a stand to get a coconut. Yum! one of the mountains. As you can see by the picture, Caraguá is small horseshoe nestled between the ocean and mountains. It is absolutely gorgeous. Also, where we went to see the city was right next to the ramp they use from hang gliding....I am going to make sure I do that for my next trip to Caraguá!
This weekend was by far the best time I have had in Brazil yet. AJ and Barb are fantastic hosts and Felipe, Sõnia and Ricardo did a great job showing me all the fun things to do in Caraguatatuba. I can't wait to go back right before I leave in August.
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Carrie
non-member comment
Beautiful
Wow...I love that place. I remember when we went there with the youth group several years ago. We stayed in a hotel near the beach and some guy tried to break in our window one night. Pretty weird. But it still is a gorgeous place to visit! Looks like you had fun!