Day 7 - Tues 4th Nov - Ihla Grande to Paraty

It was a horrendously early start to the day after the previous days activites as we had to catch the 9.30am ferry accross to the mainland which took about 2 hours. We then took a public bus to our destination of paraty, which was also about a 2 hour journey but was a good experience of Brazillian life.

Paraty is an old colonial port town and is the first port that the portuguese royal family arrived in when they landed in Brazil. Its a very small quite quiet town with cobbled streets.

We arrived about 3pm and headed straight out for lunch - another all you can eat restaurant!! This time you just helped yourself to a hot and cold buffet and bbqd meat and they weigh your plate and charge you by the kilo. it was great though and really cheap, about 3 pound for a large plate.

After that we had a few hours by ourselves to explore to the town by ourselves before meeting up in the evening for dinner at a Thai and Brazilian fusion food restaurant, which was absolutely fantastic!! Its a shame to say that one of the best meals I had in Brazil was Thai but it really was excellent.

They were filming a Brazilian soap opera in the town and we had seen them all day around the town putting up flags and bunting in order to decorate it for the cameras. When we were in the restaurant the crew kept coming in and asking us to be quiet for a minute as they were filming people walking past outside. Then an argument errupted between the owner of the restaurant and the crew as they started moving all the the tables outside and closing the patio doors. The owner stormed out in the middle filming and put them back again - it was very entertaining.

After that we headed out to a local bar and met up with another group doing the same tour in the opposite direction. The tour leader was a girl in her 20s from Rio, who started doing a slow salsa with the waiter in thisbar and it looked incredible. I dont quite understand how everyone in Brazil has got such good rhythm and most people in the UK have absolutely none! There´s no way any of the guys I know could have danced with her like that (fellas, dont take offence).

Day 8 - Weds 5th Nov - Paraty

Today we got a public bus to a beach area called Trindade which took about an hour. Yet another interesting experience of Brazillan bus driving - they are absolutely crazy, lots of overtaking on blind bends.

The weather was quite overcast that day but still quite warm, some of the others wanted to try surfing again but I just chilled out on the beach for a while and it was nice not to have to worry about the scorching heat. There were actually two separate beaches, the first bay had a couple of beach bars and a restaurant on it but our tour leader said it was only a ´short walk´ to the other one (we´ve heard that before), and whilst it didnt take too long to get there it was another vertical walk up rocks and hills but it was a nice beach when we got there.

We were also told that there was a natural rock pool around the next path so at the end of the day we decided to walk round there and have a look. And this time it really did involve climbing over rocks to get there and it was much harder than any of us thought it would be! They were quite pretty but not really worth the pain of the walk. Luckily there was a small boat there to take us back to the first beach without having to walk back over both hills. It was a small rowing boat sized boat with a small engine on the back of it, so with 7 people in it and quite large waves it didnt feel particularly safe! As we were coming into the shore he turned the boat around (presumably so that it would be easier for him to get back out again) but as soon as he did that a big wave came along, over the side of the boat and soaked all our bags (more on that later) and some of us. Then we had a slight crash landing into the beach, so it was quite an experience but still better than doing the walk back again!

By the time we had got the bus back and showered away all the sand it was dinner time so we headed straight back to the kilo restaurant for more all you can eat food! followed, of course, by a few drinks in the salsa bar with the other group.

Day 9 - Thurs 6th Nov - Paraty to Iguassu

We checked out of the hotel about midday (most of the others had very bad hangovers but I had sensibly gone home quite early after learning the lesson of not going out the night before a big journey in Ihla grande!!), and set off for a 5 hour drive in a minibus to Sao Paulo. We got there just in time to get our 15 hour overnight bus to Iguassu. An absolute killer of a day!!