Party with an extra A

PARATY, BRAZIL - 22nd February 2010

It would take very little inventiveness by some money-making entrepreneur to turn a place with this name into a massive clubbing town, complete with corny neon lights and binge-drinking underage English kids. Thankfully, such a monstrous event has not, and seems infinitely unlikely, to occur here in Paraty any time soon.

Having wandered around the streets of Morretes a couple of weeks back with Luis, I largely knew what to expect from a colonial Brazilian town - but it's gotta be said that while Paraty does the same thing, it does so on a significantly bigger, and thus more touristy scale. The "old town" and its cobbled streets begin when you cross some metal chains on the road, and enter into an area that is essentially unchanged in 150 years. Without any traffic except that in human form, you find yourself meandering through a grid system made up of block after block of near identical buildings; colourful and tile-roofed, housing shops generally selling clothes, arts and crafts or other products directly purely at the hoards of tourists - if not they're restaurants (just like the stolen photo, right). We sampled one of the latter on our first night, getting ourselves a good bit of fish that - while good, was not a touch on the previous day's efforts over back at Sobrenatural in Santa Teresa.

The classic combination of general disorganisation and late booking meant we were forced to splash out on a classier double room en suite joint for our first night before moving to somewhere more appropriate (i.e. cheaper and grottier) for the next couple. While this worked well enough, it did involve a suitable awkward morning conversation with Emerson - the owner of Pousada Acquarela - the family-run place where we spent our first night. Fairly enough, we was curious as to why we'd come to the middle of nowhere for just one night... you try explaining to someone that you actually didn't want to stay at his place and it was the only option you had! Still, seeing me wearing the Internacional football shirt commemorating Escurinho that Paulo's family had given me back in Porto Alegre, he gave me the nickname "Moladinho". Hopefully I'll remember to come back to that at a later stage, but it very much appealled to me.

Our two days in Paraty have basically been passed on beaches. The first involved a bus journey north to São Gonzalo - a journey we spectacularly managed to mess up by missing our stop and ending up 20 minutes further up the road and having to wait 40 minutes for a bus back in the opposite direction. However, the São Gonzalo beach was indeed as beautiful and relatively isolated as had been suggested, and better still was Ilha do Pelado - an island planted in the bay facing São Gonzalo beach accessible by one of the flotilla of small boats ferrying visitors from one side to the other. Sun, sand, sea and swimming - the usual beach craic minus any repeats of politico-philosophical discussions made for a relaxing afternoon and beautiful sunset... but then we tried to get home.

Buses run from Angra to Paraty on a pretty regular basis - several times an hour - and São Gonzalo is a stop en route. However, someone somewhere was apparently having a laugh and a half and decided to hijack anything resembling a bus for the best part of an hour and a half - Anna and I arrived at the bus stop where a bunch of fairly rowdy Argentines were having what appeared to be pretty entertaining banter (not that I had any idea - they might well have been discussing particle physics), and after 40 minutes or so the motley crew was joined by an even rowdier (or certainly drunker) bunch of Brazilian locals - cue a fantastic tri-lingual conversation about next to nothing. 40 more minutes, no buses in sight, and the Brazilian locals swan off to the other side of the road and hop on the next bus in the opposite direction - an impressive show of not caring where they went out, so long as they did! As for us... another 20 minutes or so rolled by at it was gone 9pm before an already rammed minibus allowed the 7 of us to cram in. Aside from befriending the Argentines, who were staying at our new hostel ("Backpackers Hostel") as well, it was not one of the better journies, and with my standard levels of hunger kicking in the evening's steak went down a treat.

Day 2 took us in the opposite direction down Trindade - the most famous coastal area in the region consisting of 4 beaches next to one another, but with only the first one accessible. The first one is also that with the biggest surf - its front end had some impressively crashing waves - and thus the main attraction for Anna in her eternal struggle to find somewhere to rent a surf board in Brazil. The only reward reaped from a 2km walk along this first beach was, however, a spectacular stack by yours truly - a stream of water was flowing across some rocks and down the beach, and in my infinite wisdom I planted my right foot bang on the wet, slippery granite. I was down in a second and a mightly splash, plastic bag with camera and books and everything else crashing down next to me, and there was only one way I was going - sliding down on my arse down the steepening rock face, and crashing into the puddle pool formed in the sand at its foot. Imagine all the above in front of a whole bunch of locals... well "embarrassed" sums it up fairly well.

Neither this, nor the total absence of rentable surf boards, was fate's "reward" for walking all this way though - half an hour later after meticulously drying every piece of my camera and ensuring it survived, I discovered my flip flops - the Havaianas I'd finally managed to purchase back in Curitiba - had vanished... nowhere to be seen. I searched all over - even getting the help of a couple of locals to investigate where the stream flowed under some huge rocks, but the damn things were gone, presumed stolen. Unimpressed with adding another name to the ever growing list of Gap Year casualties, leave alone the total waste of time and energy, the trudge all the way back along Beach #1 wasn't a rip-roaring affair. However, some simple munch (pastels - basically little meat-filled pastries) and a bit more walking and we found ourselves slightly lost (you generally are when you're supposed to be an a 1.5km beach but are surrounded by jungle), but in the midst of a cool river and waterfall running down smooth rocks - basically a natural water slide dropping into a tranquil lagoon. Fun times ensued, but the real highlight came later when we actually discovered Beach #3, and thus the rock-enclosed lagoon that sits beyond it off Beach #4. Peaceful and transquil - still, clean water surrounded by massive granite blocks - the photos are great but again, they'll have to wait for another day.

Buses round here don't like us, and we were damn lucky to get on one when we did as half the bloody village was also trying to do the same. All's well that ends well though - after an excellent pizza dinner complete with a selection of 6 olive oils, our dorm room that somehow fitted 8 people in a room the size of a cupboard was the scene of some top drawer shut eye.