Day 299 to 307 - Paraty - Friday 10th to Saturday 18th August 2012

Ah the picture perfect paradise of Paraty! We arrived early evening, after travelling for twenty six hours, to the hustle and bustle of the little bus station and jumped into a waiting taxi to take us to our new place, Pousada Guarana. We'd read quite a bit about the little Pousada and how great it was and it more than lived up to its reputation. The place was gorgeous, with simple designs but lots of lovely colourful decorations scattered around the place, David the owner was the most welcoming and helpful host we've ever come across in over ten months of travelling, the various cats and dogs and chicken were very cute and friendly and the breakfast was absolutely delicious - a winning combination! The old town, which was just ten minutes down the road on one of the pousada's bicycles, was quaint and characteristic with cobbled roads and beautiful buildings housing cute and quirky little shops - and to top it off there are over three hundred lovely beaches around the area!! It really is "pinch yourself" perfect, so perfect in fact that our original six nights quite quickly got extended to nine nights and even then, we didn't want to leave. We spent the majority of our time completely chilling out on either one of the many local beaches or by the pool in the Pousada and this was only interrupted the occasional walk around the town or boat trip over to some of the less assessable beaches. We spent our evenings eating at the local restaurants followed by a walk around the town and then a leisurely ride on our bikes back to our place. All in all, it was a perfect little holiday within our holiday!

On the first Sunday we were in Paraty it was the closing ceremony of the Olympics, and so we headed to a little local bar / café to watch it. We settled down with a beer for Ad and a caipirinha for me and got to feeling very proud and British as we watched the closing ceremony, after an hour or so we ordered some more beer and another caipirinha for me and that's where it went wrong……… Now I knew that caipirinha's are Brazil's national cocktail, made with cachaça (sugar cane rum), sugar and lime and that they are very tasty and easy to drink - what I didn't know is that Paraty is famous for its locally produced and very, very strong cachaça! Well I knew quite quickly after finishing my second drink - I felt so drunk I had to sit in the bathroom for ten minutes to try and stop my head spinning and me being sick. To be honest the end of the closing ceremony was a bit of a blur and I'm really not sure how I got home in one piece, on a bicycle with no brakes!! The next morning I felt rough and was explaining to David and Ad that if I had felt like that after two drinks at home, I would have been sure that someone had spiked my drink - that's when David explained how potent the local cachaça is and that most people can only drink one! Oh dear…….Talking of cachaça, it seemed we'd timed out visit to Paraty well as the second weekend we were there, on our extended days, it was the annual festival of cachaça. I was concerned about going near the stuff again after my previous experience but with a brave face (and a full stomach) we headed into town to join in the celebrations!

When the time came to leave Paraty and our lovely little Pousada we were both really upset and a bit sad that it wasn't our last stop on our travels. It was such a perfect little place!