Saturday - Paraty

We love it here.  Our hotel is amazing and the little historic district is so quaint and interesting.  Saturday morning we woke up and checked the weather.  We had two trips picked out that we wanted to do (one each of our days here).  The first trip was taking a boat to a few different `secluded´ beaches in the area and the second was a hiking trip through the jungle to a hidden waterfall.  I write ´secluded´ because you have to bear in mind that the ship holds a maximum of 50 people and as you walk down the pier to find your boat out of about 50 other boats just like it you realize that we probably aren't going anywhere these other boats aren't going or haven´t been.  But anyways....we checked the weather and it said 60% chance of rain.  :O(  We are only here in Paraty for a total of 2 full days (and the 1/2 day when we arrived) so we decided to take our chances on the weather and book both trips.  The boat tour for Saturday and the rain forest trek for Sunday. 

Man, did we luck out.  Saturday turned out to be an amazing day to be out on the boat.  Its not overly hot here, I´m guessing mid 70´s which is slightly chilly for me but perfect for Ryan.  We spent about 6 hours on the water on the boat/swimming and stopping at 3 different beaches.  It was a really really relaxing day for both of us and we met some really nice people.  There was an older couple who were so excited when we said we were on our honeymoon.  They had been married 27 years and insisted on sharing their yummy lunch with us, taking millions of pictures for us and generally helping to translate for us.  The entire tour was in Portuguese so we really had no idea what was going on but we made the most of it.  At one point we realized that they were loudly calling our number (3) over the microphone.  Apparently they gave us all a number when we boarded and they used it to make sure that everyone returned to the boat when we stopped.  We didn't know what was happening but just heard them calling Tres, Tres, over and over before we realized that we needed to raise our hands that we were there.  I am sure they made a joke or two at our expense but what can you expect....we probably would have done the same if the roles were reversed.


We got to the boat early to be sure to get a good seat.  Too bad it filled right up minutes before we pulled away.



They look like sail boats...but they aren't. :O)





Oh Ryan....



The tour was amazing and the sun shone the entire time.  They dropped us off back on shore around 4pm and we went home and showered and ate a little snack.  People eat dinner really really late here and Ryan and I have spent the entire trip trying to figure out when places start getting crowded.  I love people watching and although I love Ry and he entertains me most times,  he just doesn't count as people watching.  We decided to wander the city a little bit looking for a store we found our first day and finally gave up when we came to a little outdoor cafe.  We had a few drinks trying to kill some time before dinner and then headed to eat.  We were still early!!!  Hahahaha!!  We will get it before we leave. 

Ry just told me our rain forest trip was canceled for today because its down pouring (not here) so we are doing a Jeep tour instead.  More on that later but for now its time for Breakfast.


UPDATED 11/10/10:

Now that we are  back and I'm slowly going through adding some pictures to the Blog I wanted to add a few words about our hotel and the town of Paraty.  First, the hotel here was amazing.  The people were great and we loved the quaint historic feel of the city.  Here are some pictures we took from around our hotel.



The view looking into our little balcony.  The pool sat right below us



One cool thing about this hotel was that they really supported to local artists.  Every decoration they had you could purchase from one of the little shops in Paraty.  Ryan really loved the artwork by this artist



It's hard to see here, but the roads were made out of HUGE cobblestones.  You could seriously hurt yourself if you weren't paying attention as you walked. 



Ryan was SO sure there were monkeys is Rio.  When we finally saw this guy in Paraty I knew he needed to be included in the blog.



A cool old church.  I am sure there was tons more info about this but it was all written in Portuguese so we couldn't read it :O)



Every door in the downtown area was painted differently.  I have TONS of pictures like this, and plan to make something artsy out of them but here are just a few for you to see.



I think their liquor stores are sooooo cool looking.



Another door picture....