Paraty

Hello, Paraty! After an uneventful 24 hours of travel from Calgary, we finally landed at the São Paulo airport, ready for our Brazilian adventure.

Even though we’d heard great things about the food scene and the nightlife in Sao Paulo, it seemed overly daunting to even attempt to see Latin America’s most populous city in a few short days. Plus, I was craving some beach time, so when we left the airport we headed straight to Paraty.

Nestled into Brazil’s Emerald Coast, about six hours from Sao Paulo, Paraty was once the main port for the Gold Trail.  The gold mined in the Minas Gerais region was brought onwards to Rio, and supplies passed in the opposite direction. Once other routes were secured and gold became scarce, Paraty fell into a steady decline. Luckily, a 19th century coffee boom put it back on the map.

Since then, tourism has been the biggest boon for the Paraty area. With its quaint town centre made up of cobblestone roads, creeping vines, and colourful doorways, Paraty oozes colonial charm. It’s not easy to forget you’re in Brazil though. Being a coastal town, Paraty is surrounded by the aquamarine oceans and lush forests you first picture when thinking of Brazil.

We arrived in Paraty a bit later in the evening, checked into Canguru Hostel and made a plan for our next couple days. Top of my list was checking out as many beaches as possible, eating churrasco, and sipping on some caipirinhas – the national drink of Brazil.

Unfortunately, mother nature had other plans for us, and the next two days were spent taking cover from a tropical monsoon. We lucked out and the rain broke for a couple sporadic hours, so we did manage to sneak into town to do a bit of cloudy exploring.

On our third day the sun finally decided to make a lengthy appearance, and as it turns out, the owner of Canguru was formerly a chef who knew how to grill. For the whopping price of 30 riels (12 Canadian), he threw an all you can eat churrasco/all you can drink caipirinha backyard party. My little carnivorous heart was in paradise.

All-You-Can-Drink Caipi Boat Cruise

Now that the sun was out, it was time to venture out on Paraty’s biggest hit with the backpackers, the Caipi Boat. There’s a couple different options of which boat to go with, but they all follow the same basic model.

The boat provides you with unlimited caiprihinias all while cruising around the bays surrounding Paraty, stopping in four different locations, one that is good for ‘snorkeling’, a floating dock, another that you can go cliff jumping from, and then to a beach to relax. While we did go out, I was left with fairly mixed feelings.

After having done quite a few boat trips (boozy and not quite so boozy) through SEA and Central America, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is nothing better than going out and sailing around for the day, and that being crammed on a boat with 10 more people than the boat is supposed to hold is my version of hell.

So, after we had triple checked that the maximum our boat took out was 17, I was fairly annoyed when 29 people were squished on. However, we met some pretty cool people of those 29, so I got over it.

We ended up drinking quite a few caipirinhas, and Tom spent each stop trying to find the tallest points he could jump off of, while I’m still scarred from a bad cliff jumping experience in Thailand, so I happily floated around watching him jump off the tall things.

Unfortunately, besides the one day we went out on the boat, the rest of our days were fairly dreary and grey. One of our sunnier afternoons we headed to Toboga Falls, a natural waterslide that’s about a half hour outside of town.

By the time we got there it had clouded over and started to rain, so neither of us felt like sticking around for too long. We had also hoped to head to Trinidade Beach, a supposedly beautiful beach about an hour drive from Paraty, but that ended up getting nixed as well.

From Paraty we headed to Ilha Grande, an island with hopefully better weather!

 

The Little Details:

Getting to Paraty from Sao Paulo

We took a hour and a half bus to São José dos Campos directly from the airport, through the company Passaro Marron. From there we took a five hour bus to Paraty. You could also get a direct bus to Paraty from Tiete bus terminal in Sao Paulo. However, the bus in to the city takes about an hour and a half, and you have to backtrack past the airport to get to Paraty.

Bus Sao Paulo to Sao Jose dos Campos – 22 riels
Bus Sao Jose dos Campos to Paraty – 56 riels

Getting to Ilha Grande from Paraty

From Paraty we headed to Ilha Grande. We took a bus to Angra dos Reis from the rodavario in the center of town (the schedules are all posted on the wall next to the ticket window). It was about an hour and a half to Angra dos Reis, and when we arrived we got off the bus at the harbour, not the bus station. You’ll know you’re at the right stop when there’s a mass exodus off the bus.

When looking towards the water, head right, and it’s a 5-10 minute walk to Lapa Pier where the ferry leaves from. We caught the last ferry at 3:30 PM, it takes about an hour and a half and it lands you smack in the middle of Abraao Village.

Bus Paraty to Angra dos Reis – 18 riels
Ferry Angra dos Reis to Ilha Grande – 17 riels

Headed to Ilha Grande? Check out my guide to the island paradise, here!

Where to Stay in Paraty

Canguru House

A clean, well situated hostel just a few steps away from the beach, with great kitchen facilities and a big backyard. Staff were super helpful and quite a few of them spoke english. It’s located in Jabaquara, which was about a kilometre and a half from town proper. There’s a fairly hefty hill in the middle, so you definitely get your cardio in.

A bus does run infrequently from the rodavario in town to Jabaquara (it stops on the main strip) and vice versa, so it is possible to catch it either way. There’s a small market a two minute walk from the hostel, however the large supermarket in town has a much better selection and is much cheaper!