Paraty, Brazil.

After 7 nights in Rio, we left for Paraty – a Portuguese colonial town. According to my primary source of facts (Wikipedia), Paraty traces its origins back to the 1500s.  The historic centre, together with some of the surrounding areas, were inscribed to the UNESCO World Heritage List sometime in 2019.

The girls love when we walk from the bus station to our accommodation. Mary in particular.

The town is super pretty and there’s a very welcoming and friendly feel about it.  Despite the centre of Paraty being almost entirely pedestrianised, the cobbleboulder streets make it a fairly hostile environment for anyone wishing to walk.  Even for an advanced flip-flop operator like myself, I came close to a plug blow out several times. While Mel, the little people and I teetered around trying to avoid dislocating an ankle, I was surprised to witness a few very brave men riding bikes through the same streets, without any obvious padding.

Lucy practices walking with her flip-flops on the beginner streets. Mel, sensibly, wore hiking shoes.

While we all enjoyed Rio, a part of me was glad to be somewhere where we felt less under threat – real or otherwise.  Other than on travel days, we have settled into a fairly good routine – Mel works with the girls to complete their schoolwork after breakfast and this allows me some time to keep on top of personal admin and work.  Following that, we’ll head out to explore!

In an attempt to bring our spending closer to budget, we’ve started buying cereal for breakfast – at first, a surprisingly time-consuming task.  It seems supermarkets in Brazil impose some type of cereal apartheid; oats do not sit together with their sugary cousins in the regular cereal aisle. Instead, they are relegated to the back aisles absent of signage and advertising. 

The hostel we chose was very central, but it was devoid of cooling. The condensers attached to the side of the building were, it seems, purely decorative.  It was a cruel trick. Our first night in Casa de Sauna was brutally hot and motivated us to book water-based activities for the next couple of days. 

On our final day, we found a relatively inexpensive boat tour around the nearby islands. When we boarded the boat 10 minutes ahead of the scheduled departure time, we were delighted to find only 4 other passengers. Win, win!  Exactly 9 and a half minutes later, another 30 passengers arrived.  Nevertheless we had a great time sailing around the islands, swimming off the side of the boat and visiting a few remote-ish beaches. Mary declared this the latest “best day ever” having had “so so so so so much fun”.

Enjoying the boat ride with 34 other strangers.

While Paraty is very popular with tourists, poverty isn’t altogether absent.  One moment that gave us all pause was when we saw a group of 4 impoverished-looking children singing with their makeshift maracas, begging for donations.  The eldest wouldn’t have been older than Lucy.  Our little people had lots of questions about poverty, how we can help, how we can identify those in genuine need and why poverty exists at all.  As is becoming increasingly common, even with the help of my frenemy Google, I don’t have the answers to all of Lucy’s questions.

Nick, 12th January 2020

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