Today we woke up in possibly one of the worst ways possible. Imagine, you’re lying in bed asleep surrounded by beautiful trees and plants, the sound of tweeting and chirping, and then you feel a tickle on your leg. The tickle of a moving creature. I looked down to find a giant COCKROACH crawling up mine and Jakes’ legs.
So as you can imagine all hell breaks loose at this point – trying to find a cup to put it in, debating whether it’s ethical to kill it. The kind of decisions you don’t want to make at 5am. After much deliberation and some screaming Jake removed the cockroach successfully without and further reappearances (yet).
After the snooze that followed we headed over to the local beach. It was hot, too hot. We sheltered under the shade and chilled, watching the crabs emerge from the sand and muddy banks.
Later on in the day we went on a walking tour through air bnb experiences (amazing platform for booking things to do by the way). We walked around the cute little cobbled streets of Paraty, marvelling in it’s beauty. The couple hosting the tour we’re cool, the kind of people you would expect to see playing some kind of exotic instruments on the streets for money.
The history behind Paraty is very fascinating – it once served as an important trading port for gold, sugar, coffee and cachaça (an alcoholic spirit). Slave trade was once rife here, though. The streets were intentionally laid out in a haphazard fashion by slaves as they knew they would have a better chance of escaping – owners would not be able to chase them or lay weapons down to aim very easily.
When the tide is high here the streets flood. This is because the town was built below sea level to allow for the cleansing of the streets with sea water. Our guide explained to us that hundreds of years ago people would go to the toilet outside on the streets as they knew the water would wash their poops away. This only bred diseases such as cholera – not good.
Today the history surrounds and it often felt like we were being taken back. Horses and carriages roam the streets on history tours, and street performers entertain all day long. It was beautiful. We enjoyed a caipirinha (Brazilian cocktail) back at the hostel where the tour guide worked and chatted to some random folk. They were great. I often feel that those who have travelled are so interesting. I hope we will have some stories to tell when we finish our travels.
Alpaca Backpackers 