Paraty - March 8th

Last night when walking back from dinner I noticed a red line painted at a funny angle on the road and footpath.  A quick guess that this was the Tropic of Capricorn was confirmed on Wikipedia, so this morning we walk back down with cameras to take the obligatory on foot in the tropics, one foot out photo.  This, plus a very pleasant waterfront along which we walk further, makes Ubatuba a destination with a lot of promise.  The best thing is that the natural beauty, with green mountains right behind the town, hasn’t been ruined by high-rise buildings everywhere.  We do see a McDonalds, but I guess it can’t be perfect.

Unfortunately we were only staying here for one night, as I really only wanted it because of the name.  It is handily located for our next destination, Paraty, which is only two hours away.  Or so we were led to believe, but the bus driver flies along making it in just over an hour.  We did get some gorgeous views of this coast as we sped along, but they were only glimpses.  Maybe our getting here so fast explained why our bed and breakfast was closed when we got there.  It was slightly worrying but a phone call sorted everything out and the lady came along to open up for us.

Unlike Ubatuba which is a more recent town, Paraty has been here for 300 years, so it has a load of colonial buildings in the centre, which is closed off to traffic.  And rightly so because the cobblestones would be murder on suspensions, they are pretty bad on our feet.  But it is a nice place to look around and take photos.  Unfortunately for me (fortunately for Dorota) it also has a number of designer shops for the tourists, so we look around them as well.  The beaches near town don’t look very good so we settle for just sightseeing today, getting most of it out of the way to leave tomorrow free for the beach.  We do see one of the cool things about Paraty, the tide coming in and flooding some of the streets.  I think this is a deliberate design feature of the town (unlike when we saw similar in Hoi An where it was caused by silting up of the river), although for what purpose I cannot say.

In the evening we go for another French meal (a very good crepe and croque madame) and we have our first caipirinhas.  These are the national drink of Brazil, but we have waited here until Paraty to have them because the spirit cachaca with which they were made was once called Paraty because it comes from around here.  We have some and they are very good, although a bit expensive, our four drinks cost more than our meal.  I guess there is a premium for the location, a nice quiet cobblestone street in the old town.