We hadn’t originally planned to go to Brazil at all on this trip, but a few weeks ago a couple of things happened: First, we realized we might never be back to South America. No offense to an entire continent, but we were doing some really awesome adventures and at no point did we feel a need to go back and “see xyz properly” or say things like, “yes, but I wish we had time to do abc”. Second, the kids watched an Amazing Race episode that took place in Rio and that was enough to convince them they must go there. So, mostly for the first reason (sorry kids!), we went.
We flew into Rio and immediately hopped in a van to take us to Paraty, a small beach town about four hours south of Rio. We stayed in a nice resort owned by a couple of dutch brothers. We have a family saying about the dutch when we travel, “everywhere you go, there they are”. Seriously, for a small country those people get EVERYWHERE! Does anyone actually live in the Netherlands!?
The brothers were an impressive pair. They bought the land and built up the resort over the course of several years, successfully navigating the Brazilian government and some opportunistic officials looking for bribes along the way. Note: Apparently the best way to deal with would-be bribers is to say, ‘this doesn’t sound right, let me call my lawyer.’ They’ll be gone before you even get your phone out. The brothers had done some European camping in their youth and this reminded C a little of camping in France. The boys loved it as C did all those years ago in France.
We were about a 30 or 40 minute walk from the downtown area itself, but we were able to take advantage of Uber (yes, Uber! In small town Brazil! Europe take note) to get there. The downtown area was beautiful and we enjoyed a few nights strolling around there.
Before going to Brazil, we lazily thought that knowing Spanish and French would set us up fine with understanding Portuguese (another latin based language) and that we could try some ‘Portanol’ to get our point across…wrong! We were grateful for the dutch brothers’ impeccable English and Portuguese fluency and took full advantage of it in booking a couple of tours.
The first was a jeep tour to some waterfalls. We had absolutely no idea what was going on all day. The guide only spoke Portuguese (quite common in Brazil – a big, well-populated country where they don’t need to speak another language…unlike the Netherlands, fortunately). There was a Brazilian lady on the tour who spoke Spanish and a young Brazilian guy who spoke some English but for whatever reason, unless we specifically begged for a translation they didn’t help us. Where was this famous Brazilian hospitality!? So we were on our own and clueless when we visited not one, but two rum distilleries.
Finally, we got to the first waterfall. It was full of people, but we had fun chilling out in the water, which felt great because the day was HOT!
Early on in the tour we ordered lunch from a guy standing on the side of the road with a few menus and a clipboard, then inexplicably drove off. It was getting late in the day and we were wondering when (and where and what) we were going to eat. When we arrived at the next waterfall and headed straight towards the water instead of one of the restaurants by the parking area, we assumed we were going to eat after we swam, and happily left the group to hang out in the water. Once again, however, we’d misunderstood! While we settled in to enjoy the waterfall, unbeknownst to us the rest of the tour had gone to a restaurant in the middle of the jungle, about a ten minute walk past the falls. We were soon reunited when the guide came back and found his silly, missing foreigners.
The meal was decent and the second waterfall was fun. The best part was watching the locals slide down the rocks, sometimes standing up. The tour was a good day out even though we struggled with the language and may have missed some of the nuances of the tour. It was strange, possibly a first, to be on a tour where we didn’t know the language and the guide didn’t speak any English. That’s Brazil though!
Our second tour in Paraty was the highlight – a sea kayak tour to the mangroves and a remote beach – and our guide spoke English! We kayaked out from the beach about 6km to a remote beach. It was beautiful and the water was very warm.
After the beach we kayaked to a lunch spot, but they only took cash so we had some drinks and shared a plate of fries as it was all we could afford with the cash we had. Then we kayaked through the mangroves. The water was very shallow, but we just managed to navigate our way through. We went very slowly so it was a nice relaxing break and we saw tons of crabs along the way.
Overall, Paraty was another hit. A very nice town, good accommodation with lots of stuff for the kids to do and a couple of fun tours of the local area. Time to move on. Next up Rio!
