Round The World: September 2011

The typcal view of Paraty

Having travelled for a long time, I find that it is important to pinch yourself every now and again to remind yourself that you really are half way around the world on a grand adventure. But there are certain places in the world that immediately capture your imagination and are so amazing that you don’t need to pinch yourself. When you round a corner you come across another treasure. Paraty in its tiny way was a treasure.

Boats and bridges and lights

There is so much to do in this tiny town – from the mountains and the waterfalls to exploring the literally hundreds of beaches on this jagged coast that is full of islands.

The beach in Paraty

This is a small Brazilian town that reflects the influence that Portugal had in this area of the world. It is about a 6 hour bumpy bus ride Southwards of Rio. On the way, there were subsistence farms, tiny towns, jungle, kids flying kites and tiny islands surrounded by ocean moving past my window.

I slowly watched everyone on the bus get off at various tiny towns along the way until I was virtually the last person on the bus. It’s a bit nerve racking to wonder if you missed your stop and you can’t really communicate with the all-Spanish-speaking bus driver. I’d learnt enough Spanish to ask if a person spoke English, the problem was when the answer was “No”. Luckily a person on the bus helped me out and said Paraty was straight for a while before she got off.

Dancers

So, my hostel was in the old historic centre of town. This is a couple of blocks of cobbled streets, where only people and horse drawn carts are allowed. It really is a beautiful, idyllic place full of interesting shops, crafts and restaurants and pudding carts. Yes, it does cater to tourists and holiday makers a bit. But that makes it lose none of its charm. Paraty has about 300 beaches around it, on islands and along the coast. Some you can only visit by kayak.

The saxophonist

It’s is also known for its art festivals. And yes, there was one on while I was there. I obviously wouldn’t have understood any plays, but I did follow around a dancing group for a while which led us to all the different art galleries in town. I think it was opening day for them as they were serving food and drinks. So I got to see some good art and much I didn’t understand and I got a free dinner for my efforts. There was a band that walking the streets with the dancers which was great – they had a really great saxophonist.

Getting bananas

Kayaks - the beach it started from

It wasn’t great weather when I was in Paraty. So, not being blazing hot, I decided to go sea kayaking with a guide. There ended up being about 8 of us going. It was really windy when we set off and the swells were sometimes so big that they ended up in the boat rather than the ocean! I was rather chuffed with myself for not capsizing for the whole 5 hours of paddling that we did. This was one of my absolute highlights of my world-trip so far!

Lunch with the Kayak people. Matthew is in blue.

The feeling of being out in the middle of the water where it’s so quiet, surrounded by islands and sea birds and its only you and your boat and the noise your paddle makes in the water. And then you round some coast-line and there is a tiny beach waiting for you to explore it.

We did at least 6 km of paddling – 5 hours, sometimes stopping on a beach. It was wet work and I’m grateful that I did it on a reasonable, if not sunny day! (The next few days were colder and rainier.) The guide, Matthew, also took us through the local mangroves.

Me and my kayak!

So, we turned from the open water and paddled into a narrow river between the trees (we were completely surrounded). We had to guide our boats through and around branches. The water was freezing and crystal clear. Many times we had to duck under a branch or make a tight turn and let the river current pull us through to the next bay.

We stopped for lunch and pulled up our kayaks high onto the sand where a beach bar waited. Not everyone had brought food with them. But those that had shared what they had and Matthew treated us to beer. This was truly stunning, an absolute highlight of mine. If you head to Paraty, look Matthew up.

Typical flooded road scene

I also spent some time wondering around the town and little shops, sitting on the local beach and taking photos of this stunning town. It’s all white-washed houses with a little colour around the doors and windows. Also, being on the sea, for some reason the cobble stone streets flood with the tide probably about once a week. Well, they flooded while I was there! Check out the photos.

How special. To the locals its nothing and they just avoid the streets for an hour or so, leaving all the camera armed tourists to enjoy and compete for photo opportunities.

The natural water slide!

Also, the mountains are near Paraty and tours are offered to go visit the waterfalls. Have to say the day I went was freezing and raining, but that didn’t stop us from swimming!

The waterfall crowd

Ok - this one's just pretty

We swung on Tarzan swings and fell into the pools below and even slid down a natural water slide about 30 meters long. That was rather scary as once you are coming down you notice this large rock in the pool in front of you and you feel like you’re going to fly into it. But all well and good, the waterslide drops from under you and you plummet into freezing water far from the rock.


The jeep that took us there.

Local wildlife

So six waterfalls later and shivering I made my way back to the hostel to warm up and meet people.

River view

Tarzan!

Local flower

I made some friends at this hostel, in particular a brother and sister, Felipe and Ana from another part of Brazil. Felipe was such an interesting person to talk to. He knew 7 languages fluently and by the time I was leaving he started e-mailing me in Afrikaans! He was so hospitable too as he suggested that if I got stuck on my next leg of bus trips that I come spend the night with them.

Ana was in Paraty for a conference on I think physics which was drawing an international crowd of people. Really interesting. We became friends over the hostel barbeque and caipirinhas. Caipirinhas are the main alcoholic beverage of Brazil – really good cocktail that is rather on the potent side. It’s made with sugar cane rum and lime juice and sugar.

So Paraty was amazing. The kayak a definite highlight of my trip – wow I would love to do that again!

The locals

The pudding cart - full of all sorts of ultra sweet things - most have some coconut in them.

Sunrise

Art work - a team of artist and graffiti artist

Maria and I made it to the bus!

The trip back to Rio de Janeiro was an interesting trip. Maria and I ended up on the same bus. The way back to the bus station was far more uphill than down and as the hostel telephone was out of action we couldn’t call a taxi. So, we took up the adventure of panting and puffing upwards for about 30min with backpacks on. I have to mention that my backpack is between 16 – 18kg at the moment with hand luggage of at least 5kg if not more. So I’m now fit! It’s official. I made it to the bus station with breath left! I would not have been able to do this at the beginning of the trip.

Bot gardens

It was a daylight bus back so we got to enjoy the scenery. I sat next an older German man who was really interesting to chat to and had been travelling everywhere in the world. That is to say it was fascinating for about the first 15 minutes until I discovered that this was not so much a conversation as a monologue. It was an 8 hr bus trip back to Rio... lol.

So after an hour, I have to admit I was not a very good audience - I had taken some travel sickness tablets and promptly fell asleep on his rambles. So the portion of rambles that I heard included how he’d been stuck in Pakistan or some such when the country was over thrown and there was gun fire on the streets. Instead of flying out of the country with the other expatriates (for some reason he couldn’t) he got stuck on a farm in the middle of the country and had to hide away in a barn for two weeks. Anyways, the bus trip went really fast after my medicated sleep.

Arriving in Rio, my hostel was in the Santa Teresa area of Rio. This area is a big party scene each weekend, but is not exactly the safest area of Rio. I’ve been taking more taxi’s in Rio than anywhere else for safety sake. So, we found our way to the hostel which had stunning views of down-town Rio from various balconies (which had hammocks).

As I walked into my dorm I found that Rachel had already arrived. She had just come back from the jungle and was really happy but full of red welts! It looked like the mosquitoes had gone to war on her and won! But she said it was still the highlight of her South American trip. So we toured a bit more of Rio together again while Maria headed off to Ilha Grande.

We visited the Botanical Gardens of Rio, spotted monkeys in the trees, tried to find humming birds in the humming bird garden (I’m still on my mission to find a humming bird!) and just generally wondered around chatting.

We then moved on to swimming on Ipanema Beach, obviously making sure that we had beer and coconuts on the beach. Yum. Then it was back to the hostel for an evening of cooking dinner and chatting with a beer in hand.

Coconuts and beer on Ipanema beach

Lapa steps re-visited

The next day was bright sunshine and warm weather. A stunning day that we took a little easier, lying in the hostel hammocks admiring the view, taking the tram over the aqueduct in the Santa Teresa area, posting postcards home and re-visiting the Lapa steps where we met the actual artist that made (and is still making) the steps. Very cool!

Rio the second time was great. There were still areas where I didn’t feel all that safe, but people in the city were great and helped us out of potential situations before we knew about them. A quiet word by a local to move on and not dawdle looking at scenery when we were making the homeless a little restless. But now I knew how to get around and a bit more of the lie of the land, it was a lot better. Of course touring with Rachel was lots of fun again. Thanks Rach! You made Rio for me!