Rainy Colonial Town
Trip Start
Feb 24, 2010
1
5
8
Trip End
Mar 07, 2010
Where I stayed
Paraty, State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
This morning we woke up early and took the 8am bus out to a small colonial town of Paraty. This town, according to lonely planet, has plenty of cute old colonial building and pretty beaches. The bus ride took 6 hours and we stopped twice along the way for bathroom breaks and snacks ( Salgados). We first stopped around 10 and then 1230 pm, I was surprised how huge the appetite the bus driver has for eating a massive plate of rice and beans and a bowl of stew meat. If I were him, I would have been sleeping by then, post -prandial.
Unfortunately,the rain just won't let up. So as soon as we arrived at the bus station at Paraty, we walked around and found a nice Pousada to check in. After some quick planning, we head out to tour the city despite the rain. We saw some nice churches and some beautiful houses. I had my poncho on and my camera in the bag to snap photos. But the rain was just too much and was soaking through the camera ..... We went to a nice Italian resturant for Pizza dinner. I was pleny surprised how good the pizza was, thin crust super good. After dinner, I ordered some Gelato for snack and the chocolate gelato has some incredible hazelnut favor that bursts in your mouth bite after bite, probably one of the BEST gelato I have ever had. We then booked the natural slide tour for tomorrow. I found my expensive camera mal functioning and the inside lens completely fogged up and I opened it up and set it out to dry overnight.
We woke up early in the morning and found the sun to be out !!!! David and I went out for a long walk to the fort. Along the way, a dog followed us for a 4 mile trek all the way to the top of the fort and back until I told it to go away for it follow us to our room.
At 10 am, we went on this tour that visits the nartural water slide called Cachoeira do pedra blanco. There is a large bed rock that slants downward and people can go on it and slide down. The tour operator took us on a jeep ride to various destinations include 3 distillery, sugar cane processing plant and 2 waterfalls and one liliac garden. Unfortunately my camera broke for good after the first waterslide, so I have no additional photos to show for the day. We met some other nice traveller on the jeep. Barbara and Ben are on their honey moon from France and Gustav and Philips are "hanging out". We tried the infamous sugar cane distilled alcohol called Cachaca, very strong and a refinery wher sugar cane juice are been transformed into raw sugar. The natural waterslide was really fun, but the water was freezing cold and as soon as we hit the bottom receiving pool, we must swim ashore before the water swipe us away. For lunch, we had some really delicious but pricy pasta dish. My dish has these super thin pasta mixed with pesto sauce and finely chopped walnuts, just delicious. After a nap, we visited another water fall and the garden before we head on back into town.
For dinner, David and I tried the per kilo dinner piled with a nice mix of Brazilian food, what else, rice and beans and grilled meat. We had some nice gelato Acai flavored before we hit the sack.
