Pousada do Ouro Paraty

... and he took this as a queue to speed up further! The coach station was in a more dodgy part of Rio, but we made it fine and got an our coach headed for Paraty.

We're staying in Paraty to break up our journey from Rio to Sao Paulo, and to spend a few days relaxing on beaches! It's quite a small place, and is very different to Rio. It's a lot more relaxed and has a historic/old colonial centre, and lots of small islands and beaches dotted around. We made it fine to ...

... Colombia would fall into this same category of countries that are safer than they seem.

Adios Rio, Thoughts on Brasil
We spent our last two days in Brasil, June 29-30, at the beach in Ipanema and taking care of last-minute errands, shopping and exhausting our food supplies at the hostel. We were gifted with two mostly sunny days as we enjoyed our last swims, paddleball games, and walks on the beach in Rio, for now at least. In fact, our last ...

... surroundings, consisting of one to two story colonial buildings, painted in light tones and highlighted by bright colored window trim, which front cobblestone streets. After early economic success in the 1700´s as the primary regional export port for gold to Rio de Janeiro, Paraty has stumbled through a few other sporadic periods of economic prosperity, one based on coffee in the early 1800´s, another on cachaca production in ...

... seriously my bum and arms have taken the brunt of this exercise!! We got up to another lovely breakfast (not as nice though this time as there was another couple in the pousada so we didnt get table service this morning!) We lazed around for the morning chatting to David and his wife Jimena - David is originally from Arizona but his wife is Brazilian. They are really nice and giving us tips on where to go. We hung out in hammocks and comfy chairs ...

... back down again. As soon as we reached Trinidade the sun went in and a cool breeze got up, typical! We walked the length of the beach and through the rainforest, climbing round a dangerous rocky outcrop on the way, to a "natural swimming pool" which was just a bit of sea with big rocks blocking the waves. Very pretty and not too cold, but when it started to dump it down with rain it got a bit chilly. Wanting to keep my only clothes dry, I walked back through ...

... the one attached is as good as it gets. The Cathedral - from the outside possibly the most ugly Cathedral I have ever seen - a 70´s build conical concrete monstrosity - but surprisingly attractive inside with stained glass windows & hanging wooden statues. The Sambadrome - I was 2 weeks two late for Carnival but in time to see the aftermarth! One street is set aside for the parade with private boxes on one side (all individually ...

... crowds of Corcovado and the football game, on Sunday morning I went to the peaceful and quite neighbourhood of Santa Teresa on one of the many hills around Rio. With it´s narrow cobbledstone streets and steep grades, Santa Teresa is like a village within the huge city of Rio. To get back down to the city centre, the best way is to take the Bondino, a century old tramway line where people just hop on and off and hold themselves ...

... barely dressed in Roman togas and sandles, casually strolling around a supermarket. Perhaps they were looking for Caesar´s dog food.

Some neighbourhoods provide fashion guidance for the indecisive by having their own specific costume - for Santa Theresa´s Bloco it was nuns, for Ipanema´s it was jesters. My favourite theme was based on, of all things, beer glasses (the receptical that is, not the slang phrase for when all the ...

... drinks were vodka based), twas funny though her boyfriend was gettin seriously ****** off as we were all gone mad n he wanted to go home but we kept ignoring him, he even stormed off twice saying he was goin home but when no one followed he came back after a few mins, which is when we preceded to make a pure laugh of him great fun. Twas great entertainment. We made great friends wit the barman (lots of high fives etc, did i mention i was absulutly ...

... was better! One of the most interesting things to do while in Rio was a Favella (shantytown) tour. On the morning of departure and before the soccer match I took an organized tour of 2 of Rio’s Favellas that have been built up over the past 35 years on the mountainsides in and around Rio. When visiting a favella it is recommended to go in a group as they are run by gangs and drug dealers. The police are ...