This blog is about our first day in Paraty:
Monday May 14
After an adventurous three nights in the mountains, we
traveled to the city of Paraty with an early morning wakeup call at 4 am due to
the 5 hour drive ahead of us. The drive was through the windy and bumpy
mountains. There was legitimately a speed bump every 200 meters. It was a bit
rough, but we made it to the city rather tired around 11 am on Monday morning.
After arriving to our hotel, Pousada da Corsario we unpacked our things and
walked to get lunch at a local buffet in the center of the city, with an assortment of Brazilian foods such
as; chicken hearts, fish, chicken, pasta, and an assortment of delicious
fruits. We were in for a culture shock
when we were told we cannot flush toilette paper down the toilet.
The food this time
was familiar after being in the country for three days. We finished lunch and
came back to the hotel to relax for a bit before touring the historic square of
Paraty that can only be accessed by foot or horse carriage (which we did not
have). Walking around was an adventure in itself because the city was built in
the 1800s and the streets are still in their original state that consisted of
large waterfall boulders that are filled in with sand. This, mixed with downpour rains made for an
interesting time when it came time to go on our historic town tour. Between having pop quizzes on historical happenings
(clearly we didn’t pay attention in our history classes) and focusing on not
twisting our ankles between rocks, to dodging piles of dog and horse mess and
suffering from hypothermia, we did manage to learn a few things about
Paraty. We learned that Brazil was not a
significant piece of land until its natural resources were minded such as gold,
sugar cane, rare stones, and diamonds.
Portugal was the first to claim
this land, hence why they speak Portuguese (which we are slowly learning along
the way). Specifically, Paraty is a
harbor city used for trading and exporting resources. The town was lined with one-story buildings that had beautifully colored doors and windows. The interesting thing about this town is that
is it flooded for half the year. The
town was specially designed to accommodate the high tides. Once the tour was over, we stopped at a few
stores to see what Paraty had to offer the American tourists. After we were completely soaked we came back
to change into some dry clothes. We then
proceeded to go to our first dinner in the city. We were surprised when we had to pick a
“date” for dinner because the entrees were made to specifically feed two
people. We were entertained when a local
street vendor came into the restaurant and made all of us flowers from
palms. Once dinner ended, we enjoyed the
live band that brought out the Brazilian dancers in us all in the restaurant
Paraty 33. Since we had our Samba
lessons, we thought we knew all there was to know about dancing. Fernando even showed us a few new moves that had
us falling out of our seats laughing. He
is a really good dancer and enjoyed showing us the dances he knew. After a night full of laughter and memories,
we walked back to our hotel for our first night’s sleep in a Brazilian city.
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