More precipitation

It seems my weather luck has followed me from NZ to South America! Arrived into Paraty yesterday afternoon to glorious sunshine, so went straight down to book up a day´s sailing for the following day. Needless to say the following morning produced grey clouds, which finally deposited their load mid-afternoon. The snorkelling and lazing on beaches just weren´t quite so appealing as they´d been 24 hours earlier!

So having decided that we might be better on land than water, we hired some bikes the following day and ventured a few kilometres out of town to see some waterfalls nearby. Again, having reached the furthest point out from town, the heavens opened. So got thoroughly soaked on the homeward journey. Hey ho. The waterfalls were lovely!

Paraty itself is an attractive old colonial town, with some beautiful old buildings arranged on a grid system along cobbled, traffic-free streets in the old town area. It´s a major tourist resort, so is fairly easy to get by without speaking Portuguese here. And although the weather has been a let-down, it´s been a relaxing few days here, just what was needed before the next leg of the journey - two successive overnight buses, one from Paraty to Sao Paulo and one from Sao Paulo to Foz de Iguazu. Not good.

As a slight aside, I´ve noticed South Americans make the French look positively uptight when it comes to PDAs (public displays of affection). Everywhere you go there are couples draped all over each other, engaging in most acts of affection bar actually stripping off and getting down to it. I can assure you that there´s nothing that ruins an appetite quite so much as seeing a pair of septuagenarians nibbling each other´s ears at the neighbouring table!

written by

phileasdogg on January 7, 2009 from Parati, Brazil

from the travel blog: Planes, Trains & Taxiwallahs

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