Paraty

After waiting for a good while for the local bus back to the main bus station in Rio we got the 11am bus to Paraty, a journey of about 4 hours. On arrival there were only a couple of touts for accommodation, both of which we knew about from the guidebooks and both of which seemed a tad overpriced. We ignored the cajoling from the lads, but took their flyers, and strolled away as a third tout guy came up to us. This guy seemed a lot more sedate and genuine (the other two lads were far more brash), and he immediately offered us a room a lot cheaper than the first two lads. So having a good feeling about the guy, I decided his place was worth checking out.

It turned out to be just a couple of minutes walk from the bus station and was a lovely, homely place. It was just outside the small historic town centre, which I suppose explained the cheap price - you pay a lot more to stay in the very centre, even though the centre is small and we were only about 2 minutes walk outside.

Anyway, the reason to visit Paraty is really just that historic centre. It is lovely of course, all white-washed houses and some lovely old churches along mad cobblestone streets. It's full of arty little craft and art shops, very expensive restaurants and trendy cafes, but really I found it all very touristy and not a little contrived. It would be a great place to spend a few days if you weren't on a tight budget and wanted to relax and enjoy good food. For us though we just enjoyed strolling about the centre, but then ate just outside the centre in a cool local restaurant (where we met two very interesting bird-watcher Australian retirees),

Or else we'd eat in the even cooler little market literally 1 minute walk from the historic part of town where we got dirt cheap food that was lovely (and of course, all very genuine and 'local' - both times we ate there we were the only gringos, and the waiter (the son of the 'auld dear owner who we could see cooking away in the back), was really smiley and friendly. These tiny little local places are always far more atmospheric than the fancy-dancy restaurants around the corner, albeit quite a lot grubbier, but than maybe that's part of what 'atmosphere' really is (and strangely enough, even Sarah agrees with me on this point!).

Another little discovery in Paraty was the delicious cakes being sold by vendors on the streets. They had these big flat carts with about 20 different cakes and sweets, and Sarah kinda fell in love with the cakes and the whole concept in fact (she's developing quite a sweet tooth on this trip, which isn't hard to understand given the quality of the bakeries all over South America so far).

Anyway, on our second day we took a day-trip to a nearby beach town called Trinidade (also recommended by Enda and Tracy), which is only about a 50 minute bus ride away through lovely scenery. This turned out to be a great little village with a fantastic beach, and after spending the day there and finding another really cheap hotel right on the beach we decided to come straight back the very next day.