It is a 6 hour bus trip from São Paulo up to Rio de Janiero so we decided to break it up. We met a ‘merican (Mike) at the São Paulo Che Lagarto hostel who had just come back from a place called Paraty & Trindade which he recommended. That was all the motivation we needed 🙂
By my maths with it being half way between São & Rio it would take 3 hours. No. It took 6. That’s Brazilian roads for you.
We arrived at the historical center of Paraty around 17:00 & caught a taxi across to Jabaquara, a beach on the other side of town where our new airBNB was situated. The taxi driver couldn’t find the place so I was grateful we hadn’t decided to walk across. ….Louise takes over blogpost from here –> NO I WAS GRATEFUL we didn´t have to walk… Nick loves the challenge so don´t believe him 😉
We were driving around in our taxi which seemed like in the middle of nowhere when a friendly looking face waved to us from his house – this was Alfredo our host. Phew thank goodness he spotted our taxi driving up and down the dirt road a few times! He welcomed us in and showed us around. This was our first air bnb and it was so homely. Clean, tidy and with everything we needed.
Paraty air BNB
Outside our accommodation
Air bnb´s are a great way to find out where the best local restaurants / pubs, attractions are. Alfredo and Gulia were incredible hosts, they told us what beaches to visit and Alfredo invited us to his carnival celebration in the town the following night.
We had our first experience of Caipirinha´s – this is Brazils National cocktail made with cachaca (Sugar cane hard liquor) – YUP that should explain it all!! This stuff is hardcore!! This first night we each had only one each and we started seeing strange things on the street! (See Nicks previous blog post – It´s dry but you can drink it)
The following day we caught a public bus to Trindade beach. We attempted a walk through the one island jungle but failed #lostagain, so we headed back and discovered there was literally a path which was about 30metres long right there taking us to the beach we wanted to go to. We relaxed, swam and enjoyed some local food which we got TOTALLY ripped off for. We both thought we were being so clever ordering from a little trailer on the beach, but little did we know no menu = they can charge whatever they feel like. And so we enjoyed a small plate of crumbed prawns and hake to share + 4 beers for just under R400 EISH!
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We then got to enjoy a local carnival / festival in the town, the locals dressed up and danced and played instruments all through the town. Alfredo our host was apart of the band playing the drums. It was such an awesome experience to be apart of where people would just join in and dance and sing. You could definitely see who the true Brazilians were the way they moved was quite something.
N & L
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