Arrived in Paraty after a scenic bus ride. Should have been an easy 10 minute walk to the hostel but with Beccy's incredible map reading skills it took us about an hour and a close encounter with some hungry looking stray dogs before we found it. The hostel was lush though, had a bar right on the beach looking out to the bay.

We dumped our stuff and went to look around the cobbled streets of the old pretty town. Were enticed in by a samba band to one restaurant, had a lost in translation moment when the waitress presented us with boards of portuguese writing so we picked three things and hoped for the best! Ended up with just two meals and a bottle of wine but we can't complain at that!

Discovered the best thing we could imagine.. a cake stall on wheels - it kept us occupied for the rest of the night.

Next morning we had breakfast on the beach and then went to get a schooner boat around the islands. Phoebe bought the biggest hat in the world with big plans to keep hold of it until we get to the Peruvian beaches (lol). The harbour was gorgeous, littered with loads of little brightly coloured boats and brazilian sailors playing eurotrash techno. One guy shouted "wanna come for a ride" when we said no thanks he seemed so confused and said "but i have a boat..!" if only English boys could use that as a chat up line.

We found our boat and settled in on the top deck, with a guy serenading us with a guitar. We sailed out to sea, caipirihnas in hand, and spent the day snorkeling the island shores and exploring the beaches and jungles. We met New York Mike who became our friend and tour guide for the next week! We knew we'd be friends after he played the baywatch game with us and convinced us that after two caipirihnas it was a good idea to swim from the boat to the beach.

Sarah managed to turn a hearty shade of red, so much that the locals were laughing at her.. at night. Good work on the tanning front Gringos.

That night we had the best burger in the world from a street stall and met New York Mike for gelatos and beer. Mike had a similar route planned so we decided to travel together until Buenos Aires where he'd been living for a while.

That didn't last long as we missed the bus the next morning so Mike had to go by himself.. sorry Mike see you in Sao Paulo! We instead had a lazy morning shopping and eating in Paraty. Had another meat feast for lunch, starting to make a habit of this, at least we're preparing ourselves for Argentina. The restaurant was very authentic with it's Michael Jackson shrine and the waiter in his boxers. We've been coping well with the lack of Portuguese until a low point today when we had to make animal noises to find out what meat we're eating. Avoided the "literally married fish" "eat ribs till you drop" on the menu though..

When we finally got on the bus we were entertained most of the journey by a couple making a PDA gone too far. Fairly sure they were trying to make babies on the way to Sao Paulo!

Sarah got carried away reading Game of Thrones and threw her phone on the floor, she had to crawl under a sleeping man to get it and fell onto another man's lap who was definitely awake, one way to make friends...!

After 6 hours we finally arrived in Sao Paulo, and had a slightly terrifying ride with a jolly (stoned) taxi driver to Lime Time hostel. Phoebe offered him biscuits in the hope of satisfying his munchies and make him concentrate on the road instead of staring at us in the wing mirror!