The road from Rio to Paraty follows the winding coastline, with some spectacular scenery over forested hills and islands with beautiful blue bays. We had a crazy bus driver who hammered along, throwing the bus from side to side, making one of our backpacks fly off the rack onto a poor woman's head! Apologising was difficult without speaking the language!

We pulled into Paraty in the late afternoon, checked into our room, and wandered into the Centro Historico. The historic centre of town is a grid of large and roughly laid cobblestones in corridors of white colonial style buildings. There are countless shops and restaurants with tourists and locals alike awkwardly navigating the streets. One of the first things we saw was a cart selling a variety of sweet treats including our favourite Brasilero dessert, brigadeiros!

We made our way through the historical centre, eating our chocolaty treats, to the pier on the other side, which was jam packed with colourfully painted schooners. As night was falling, most of them were packed up for the day and being cleaned off. There were still a few skippers hanging around trying to get us to hire them for a private boat ride the next day. Privacy is a luxury we couldn't afford!

We wandered to the end of the pier and back, before continuing to zigzag through the town looking at some shops and restaurant menus. We ended up settling on a Thai restaurant which was delicious! The restaurant had creatively painted walls, and each table was themed differently, such as zebra, cow, cactus or watermelon prints. We shared each course as this place was well over our budget! A fresh salad with beef and chilli for entrée, green curry and rice for main, and fried banana for dessert.

The next morning we were setting off from our accommodation, which was a room within a lovely camp ground, when one of the owners asked if we needed any info. He gave us a map and some great suggestions of what we could do on a budget. One of his suggestions was to go to a nearby town called Trinidade, so after some breakfast at the bakery across the road we took a bus there.

The bus took about 45 minutes, heading up and over a steep hill before dropping down to the beach side town. We jumped off the bus at the end of the line. We hit the sand, put down our sarongs, and Lindsay snoozed in the sun while Fergus watched the passing bottoms in skimpy cut bikinis.

We swam in the cool water and baked a little more, then found a no fuss burger joint on the main street for lunch, instead of going to one of the overpriced restaurants on the sand. The slightly tourist "fishing village" had some cool little hippy stores selling beach gear and crafts, but a bus came by shortly after so we jumped on back to Paraty.

We walked through town that night trying to find a Turkish place we had read about for dinner. We thought we had looked everywhere, but we just couldn't find it. Instead we went to a restaurant in the historical centre that offered a parmigiana for 2, while being entertained by a lovely singer playing her acoustic guitar. As per standard practice in Brazil, the cost of the entertainment was added to our bill ($5 Reais per person), lucky she was good! We ended the night with a brigadeiro from a street cart for the walk home.

For the next day, we had booked to go on one of the schooners out to the beaches and islands outside of the bay. We walked along the pier and spotted our boat, Netuno II, one of the larger schooners and brightly painted with blue and yellow. We had arrived early as per the advice of Wado (from our accommodation who booked it for us), which meant we were able to nab a couple of the limited number of sun lounges on the upper deck.

The boat took a while to fill up, then finally made its way out of the bay. The first stop was a lovely little beach, Praia Vermelha. We jumped off the boat and swam ashore. After walking to the other end and back, we had a bit of time to lie in the sand before the boat signalled for us to return.

We ate our subway sandwich while the boat chugged to the next stop. They served meals on board, but they weren't cheap so we were glad we took our own. We stayed on the boat at this stop, Ilha Comprida, an island that didn't have a beach. You could snorkel there, but snorkels cost a fair bit extra so we just soaked up the warmth of the sun on our sun beds.

The third stop was Lago Azul, a bay near an island, which didn't have a beach but was lovely for a swim. The waters in that area are usually more blue, but that day the ocean was apparently a bit rougher so the water was churned up. It was lovely nonetheless, and we had the water to ourselves as all the other passengers were served their lunch here.

Stop 4, Praia da Lula, was another lovely little beach which we swam to off the boat. This was the final stop before the boat made its way back to the pier. Upon arrival, there was a gap between the other boats about half the width of our boat that we had to fit into. With some very skilful skippering and the deckhands pushing the other boats back, they managed to squeeze it back into place perfectly.

We went from the pier to the bus terminal to book our tickets to São Paulo for the next morning (and found the Turkish restaurant on the way!). There was quite a queue at the bus station. Of the 6 or 7 buses the next day, they were all booked up so, we decided to stay another night in Paraty. We couldn't even get on the 2 or 3 earliest buses the next day, so had to go around lunch time.

When we got back to the Camping Portal we asked for another night, and after some initial confusion about our room being available, we ended up being offered space in their 6 person dorm or they could give us a tent all set up.

After a shower we hit up the Turkish place for dinner. They made amazing kebabs (far more refined than the old Paradise Diner where we grew up). There were some other backpackers in there who had come back a second night in a row! After, we went for a walk, heading to the old town for a brigadiero for dessert, and stumbled across a bar on the way with a sign saying "Happy hour caipirinhas, 8-10pm". Don't mind if we do!

The bar looked like it had been put in someone's front yard. Behind a big wall and through a doorway, the ground was gravel, the walls were covered in flags, memorabilia and other paraphernalia, and the furniture was a mishmash of plastic, old couches, wooden stools and our choice, a table made from a surfboard bolted to a barrel. There were 5 or so people inside, seemingly all staff, but it was otherwise empty.

The caipirinha list was hugely extensive, with about 20 options including the standard with lime, and just about every fruit selection known to man. Lindsay chose lime and Fergus chose acai. The drinks took a while, lucky they weren't busy, but when they arrived our mouths dropped. They were served in 700ml cups, which is a pretty huge caipirinha! It took us some time to finish, and if there is enough demand we can load the 3 minute video of Fergus trying to suck up the remnants of his cup through the crushed ice like a 3 year old!

The next morning we moved our bags to our new digs in the dorm room, currently unoccupied by anyone else, then set off for Praia do Jabaquara, a beach about 2kms walk from the main part of town. It was a bit nicer and bigger than the town beach (Praia do Pontal), though we walked via the town beach anyway to check it out. Although warm, the day was a bit cloudy so not many people were on either beach, making the beach side restaurant/bars very quiet.

There's a bit of a hill in between the two beaches, and on top is a fort. As we started up the hill we managed to pick up a dog who we called Raggedy Anne. On the dirt road up to the fort, RA kept darting into the forest and back out again to check our position, before darting back in again. The fort wasn't very exciting, in fact there was little there other than a museum.

RA continued the same behaviour back down to the road, then walked alongside us along the footpath until she decided she wanted to walk on the road. Cars were swerving around here, and we kept calling her back to the path, but she would wander onto the road again where she decided she might do a poo! One poor guy in a pick-up just about mounted the gutter to avoid hitting her while she went about her business! We kept our heads down so as to indicate no association with her.

As soon as we hit the beach she ran off never to be seen again. We walked along, past the wild(?) horses and restaurants and found ourselves a nice little spot to relax. Just as we did the sun managed to poke its little head from behind the clouds which was perfect timing! We soaked it up for a while, until it got warm enough to warrant a swim, though the smooshy, muddy ground under our feet turned us off that idea pretty quickly.

We then walked to the far end of the beach to check out "the mud". Wado had told us how there is mud at the end of the beach, and once a year during carnaval, people go and cover themselves in it then dance their way through town. As we got closer, we noticed a group of people coming towards us who had decided they would test out this tradition. They were a mix travellers from the UK, US and Australia from the accents we heard, and were completely covered!

We took a pic of them as they passed then continued to the mud ourselves. Where the mud met the shore, Fergus decided to put his feet into it and he immediately sunk to his knees, almost falling in and having to throw what he was carrying onto the sand rather than fall into the mud with it. He managed to recover his footing and clamber back onto the sand, though knowing now what to expect, we both went back in to our knees just to say we did.

We walked back along the beach for a bit, detouring through the water to wash the mud off, then headed back over the hill to the main part of town. There were a few spots of rain as we made our way along the canal, but it didn't last long.

That night for dinner we went to a restaurant where we had seen "Fish and Chips" written on their specials board out the front and sat in the awkwardness of an otherwise empty restaurant. We ordered one fish and chips and one spaghetti bolognese just in case the fish and chips was no good. We thought this was a good decision when we heard the microwave running, as it seemed we might be getting frozen fish fingers, but when it came out it was acceptable for $10.

In the morning we packed up, grabbed some breakfast then a sandwich to take on the bus with us. The bus was close to an hour late but it did arrive eventually. A fellow traveller concerned as to whether it was still coming or not asked us if we were waiting for the Sāo Paulo bus. It turned out he had been one of those covered in mud on the beach the day before!

Once again the bus trip was along a winding coastal road for most of the way, with beautiful scenery and past some lovely beaches. We drove into Sāo Paulo as the sun was setting, which through the city smog created a lovely looking pink smudge in the sky.

LAPFWT