Two Beers and a Pretzel

After the Catamaran ride, we found a bus to Paraty.  It was a local bus, and we had to stand for the first 45 minutes of a 2 hour ride.  Up and down the mountains; hairpins and switchbacks.  It was exhausting.  Then when we finally arrived, the town was a muddy, dusty pile of dung.  Literally.  Only 2 days before, a dam upriver in the mountains had broken and completely flooded the town.  It was a mess.

We had booked a hostel outside of town, but tried one closer to the Colonial old-town center.  Yuk!!  We eventually made it to the hostel we originally reserved and it was much nicer, and 2km away from the mess.  Although the beach was still a bit dirty from all the mud that had recently washed into the bay, it was much better than the town.

The biggest dissapointment for me was the water restrictions, but in lieu of the suffereing in the town, it was a minimal concern.  I was in dire need of having laundry done; so much so that I took a few essentials in the shower with me and improvised a clothesline.

Going back to town there was a nice route that avoided most of the mess, and since the colonial center is the tourist draw, they had cleaned that up before anything else.  There were a few old churches, a ton of cafe’s and shops, old cobblestone streets (ankle breakers).  The city was founded by the Portuguese in 1667 and became a huge exporter of gold after the nearby discovery of one of the world’s richest gold mines in 1696.  This church is right on the seashore where the river meets the bay…

…and the opposing view.

Apparently somewhere in that tranquil water there are a hundred or so cars and a number of sunken boats that washed out into the sea with the flood.

The next day we took a local bus to a town where Rafa lived for a few months 8 years ago…  Trindade (trin-da-gee).  It was very nice, but I was ridiculously tired from a sweltering room with no AC and being eaten alive by mosquitoes all night, so I just slept on the beach while she went to find her old house and friends.

On the 14th, we took a 6 hour bus ride to Sao Paulo (on a nice, executive bus) and caught another 18 hour overnigt bus to Foz do Iguacu, where I am now.  On the first bus I sat next to a stunningly beautiful girl with haunting blue eyes, Ulane, from Estonia, who had lived in Cincinnati for a few years, so it was fun to talk about home with someone who knew the area.  I think I have a place to crash in Estonia now, as she hosts travellers on hospitalityclub.com.

She told me that the previous day in Paraty someone tried to assasinate the mayor, and did kill the water minister.  Even though you saw the trucks constantly going back and forth, apparantly only the friends and family of government officials were getting water delivered, and after a few days of that a few people cracked.

So today we’re relaxing all day and catching up on internet time.  Tomorrow we tour the Argentine side of the falls and take a boat ride under the falls, then the next day we tour the nearby Itaipu Dam – currently the 2nd longest hydroelectric dam in the world (7.7km) behind the Three Gorges monster project in China.

I don’t know about you guys, but I just love a place where the primary vehicle in the law enforcement fleet is one dune buggy… followed by a few golf carts and motorcycles.  That’s Ilha Grande…

On the 10th we took a 2 hour bus trip from Rio followed by a 2 hour ferry ride to reach Ilha Grande.  We arrived on a dock near the hostel associated to the hostel in Rio, but they were full, so we had to walk about 1/2 a mile on the beach (very loose sand) to get to town and find a campground.  I was carrying my regular pack on back, day-pack on front, and all of our camping gear on my shoulders.  Roughly 120 pounds.  Once in town, we walked about another mile on dirt roads and up a hill that seemed like Mt Everest at the time to the Hostel/Campground.

The new hostel’s grounds were very cool, and they luckilly had an open double room (thus negating the need for the big blue bag and everything in it)…

The rooms were all separate bungalows that looked like a little Hobbit town.  Luckily, they had awesome bathrooms – even without hot water (which you really don’t want here anyway).

After being completely exhausted and drenched in sweat, we took showers and rested before dinner, then headed back into town along what proved to be less Mt Everest and more like a cute little path down the hill.  In town, the Christmas and New Years decor was still up.  We never saw the Reggae festival – must have been on another side of the island.

That didn’t matter.  It was a beautiful night with a full moon.

There were a lot of Hippie artists along the main street.  One had some really cool looking incense smokers made of carved and painted bamboo and local jem-stones for about $40 each.

When we got back, there was a guy playing guitar on the porch of the main building.  I joined him and we played until about midnight (when they kick you off the porch).  It turns out that he was Brazil’s national Judo champion, and had represented his country in 3 Olympic games – and a darn good guitarist.

Anyway, that night we booked a boat tour of 4 locations on the island for the next day.  The boat was a lot of fun.  About 70 people comfortably on a big boat with fresh fruit, live music, and a very fun staff…

We snorkeled at Lagoa Azul (blue lagoon) where I proved that my indestructible camera is still waterproof.  The previous problem was obviously sand in the seals and had nothing to do with alternate use of the camera as brass knuckles back in Argentina.

Lots of fish, some large polyp stony coral, and a few sponges.  More than I expected with hundreds of tourists and a dozen large boats right on the reef.

I’ll spare everyone in the freezing midwest the beach pictures and simply let you revel in the fact that I somehow managed to reaquire a sunburn.  Then I realized that I’m right around 20 degrees South of the equator, and the summer sun is almost directly overhead.  This is literally the closest I’ve ever been to the most direct sunlight of my life.  My next bottle of sunscreen will be factor 45.  However, on a side note, sunscreen is ridiculously expensive in Brazil.  Roughly $20 for 8 ounces of any decent uva/uvb factor.

Our tour to 4 spots ended up being only 3, so Rafa negotiated a discount on some sweet travel back to the mainland…  The next day we set out for Paratay (par-a-chi) on a very smooth catamaran.

Last Friday (Jan 9th) Rafa and I went to another really nice beach for lunch on the outskirts of Rio.  Some famous Brazilian soap opera (and they all watch soaps religously here) actor was playing volleyball, so she was happy.  Lots of eager young female fans were all over the place, so I was happy.

Anyway, we left there to see the 200 year old botanical garden.  The main walkway is lined with imperial palms, and it give you the impression of walking in the dwarf mines of the Lord of the Rings… albeit sunny and tropical.

For everyone back home into fish ponds, they had natural streams diverted all over this park into waterfalls and a beautiful Japanese themed Koi pond.

And of course, some nice flora…  Not that different from the Franklin Park or Krohn Conservatories back in Ohio, except that this is about 50 acres, outdoors, and runs right up against ancient Atlantic Rain-forest.  So yeah, I guess it is a bit different…

On the way home, I finally took a picture of some of the street art that is all over Rio.  This is really street art versus graffiti (which there is also plenty of).