After our little exploration of the island around Ilhabela we took off to continue our trip along the coast direction Paraty. The coastline (the so called Emerald Coast) is absolutely spectacular, lots of small islands, rolling hills, beautiful beaches .... Gorgeous ..... but somehow we were not too impressed with the towns we passed. They did not seem to be taken care of really well. Yes, there is the occasional great house or villa, but in general everything seemed to be a little run down, many buildings were never finished either. Well, that completely changed when we reached Paraty around 3:00 pm. It is an old, small harbor town, the historic part of town is protected and seems to be unchanged. Little cobble stone streets everywhere, no cars allowed in the old part. We saw a truck deliver fire wood that had to be loaded on horse drawn carts. For some reason many streets were flooded and it seems that in spring (which we do technically have in Brazil right now) the seawater level is so high at high tide that it is basically streaming into parts of the historic district. At low tide everything seems to be fine again until the tide rises again and the streets are full of water in no time again.
My friend Volker and myself on our way to Paraty.
The city seemed to be getting ready for a big celebration, so it will be interesting to see how they cope. It seemed that nobody was in charge of cleaning up the mess and of course given the fact that it would be the same mess again at high tide why bother? It looked like routine and everything was just fine. Tonight we are planning a nice dinner and hopefully tomorrow the weather will be much better so that we can do some sight seeing.
For dinner we went to an Italian restaurant called ´Punto di Vino´. The food was excellent, the wine was amazing (a Chilean Carmenère) but unfortunately they brought my calamari appetizer with my baked fish entree .... well. Afterwards we went to Cafe Paraty for a night cap and some Brazilian live music. I felt bad for the singer, it was freezing cold and there were not many people. We went to bed early because we had planned to take a boat trip in the morning.
Paraty 9/7/2006
The breakfast was excellent and off we went to the harbor, looking for our boat the ´Orphaeu´. Since we had booked through our hotel I was not surprised to see lots of faces from the hotel. We actually got lucky and had only about 10 people on our boat. The sun was actually shining and so we started the day with a cold beer in the sun. Soon later we added a Caipirinha and of course we were in a pretty good mood thereafter. We stopped in several small coves and passed many small islands, some actually have restaurants on them. Unfortunately the weather changed and we did not have much sun for the rest of the day. Lunch was delicious, especially since we have have been drinking all morning .... ha ha ha. Overall it was a great, really relaxing day. In the evening I checked my emails quickly and then wrote a little in my journal. Later we were planning to go to the best restaurant in town ´Merlin o Mago´.
Well, actually once we looked at the menu and saw the prices we decided to safe it for later, when Volker would be over his cold and could actually "taste" something. Instead we went to a small Italian restaurant. The food was ok. I had a very interesting "presentation" of carpaccio. The meat was good, but no olive oil, no capers, the parmesan cheese was in big chunks and not ground and lots of chopped ruccelery cellery as decoration ..gnocchi couldchicould have been a little more "al dente". Nevertheless it was a good dinner. For "desert" we explored the city and fair a little more, especially all the street vendors and the stage around the main square. We went to the "Che Bar", themed after Che Guevarra for drinks and to listen to a pretty good local band featuring guitar, flute and bass. The music was really great. Later on we checked out the stage where a cover band (the "Black Commodores") was playing funk and soul. We ended the in front infront of Cafe Paraty, listening to a blues band (The Doors "Light my fire" and Joe Cocker "Unchain my heart" and many more).
The cobble stone streets of the historic part of Paraty.
The historic district is closed off to car traffic. This pick up truck is delivering firewood, which needs to be moved to horse drawn carts.
The river running through Paraty into the Atlantic Ocean. The water level was so high that the water was flowing into the city.
One of churcheschruches of Paraty flooded by the high sea level.
The sailing boats in the harbor, ready for the cruise around the bay and islands.
My islands .... I wish .... house, yacht, beach, sunshine .....aaahhh!
"Captain Schundel" on board the two mast schooner.
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