Paraty - Day 38 and 39

The journey from Buenos Aires to Paraty felt like a long one.  We got up at 3.30am for our transfer to the airport to check in at 4am for our flight to Sao Paulo and once in Sao Paulo we had 2 hours to wait for our bus to Paraty which took 5 hours and for 3 of those hours we were going down sharp twisty bends, I had my sick bands on which is just as well as there were a few times I thought I might have puked my guts up over the lovely smiley drivers back!

We got to Paraty at about 2pm but I went straight for a lie down as my stomach was still on the come down from the twisty bends!  I didn't really get much rest as there was a Brato screaming his head off in the pool which is next to our room but once I felt better we headed over the road to the beach for a big plate of Batatas Frites - or chips!  they went down a storm as did some of Marks beer - I was definitely on the mend.

We headed off into the town - our hotel is about 2km from the main town so we walked up the hill.  Paraty is a World Heritage site and the main streets are car free which is just as well as the cobbles are pretty hard to navigate - not cobbles like we know them but huge boulders cemented into the ground and when it rains its a nightmare to walk on but its a really pretty little town.

The town is surrounded by mountains - which is why we had such a twisty turny journey in...

and the buildings were really pretty and well looked after - here is one of the main streets.   Paraty town is not very big but is full of lots of shops - mostly selling crafty stuff.  I have fallen in love with a wooden hanging monkey so will have to go and find that shop again to buy it to bring home!

I don't know what they were celebrating in Paraty on Friday night but they had music on a big bandstand and also some mad scary puppets dancing around the streets with all the people following - it was nice to sit and have a drink and watch it all even if we didn't know what it was all about.

The next day we stayed by the pool all day and have the sun burn to prove it!! it was pretty cloudy all day and we did have factor 20 on but just shows the power of a sun even behind the clouds!  One of my legs is really badly burnt - you can see where I sprayed the oil but didn't rub it in so I look like I have got some dreadful disease as I am all red and white patches!  Thank goodness for Aloe Vera though, lucky I brought I big tube of it - it will sort out the burnt bits and hopefully we won't peel!

It was nice to sit and do nothing for once!  I have been pretty active for the last 6 weeks with the odd morning to have a long lie so it was great to just not move and we had the pool to ourselves as everyone else at the hotel seemed to be out on tours so it was nice and peaceful and nice for it just to be the two of us.

Mark and his fake smile enjoying the jacuzzi!

and here I am enjoying the pool - so glad I didn't have my bikini on - more bits that would have been burnt!!!!

Later on we headed into town for something to eat - I had spaghetti arrabiata - my favourite and it was delicious.  They had some music on the main stage so we listened to a couple of sets of Ceefax music before heading up the road - we made it back to the hotel before the thunder and lighting started - it was pretty epic, well apparently... I was asleep within 5 minutes of getting back to the hotel, must be the sunburn!!!

We are off on a boat round some of the islands tomorrow so that should be fun.

suzxxx