Monday, February 2, 2009

paraty para toDOS

location - PARATY, RIO DE JANEIRO
duration - FRIDAY TO SUNDAY
who - CIEE SAO PAULO GROUP+ CIEE STAFF

SATURDAY - mergulhando nas praias
we woke up at this very nice hotel, we had breakfast - lots of pão de queijo, fruit and the cereal - and then we went to the port. during the day, we visited different beaches in different islands. paraty has 365 islands, so theorically, one could go to one island for an entire year. the beaches are amazingly beautiful and much of the area is declared protected areas. it is a very beautiful place and until now i had seen nothing like it. now i understand a little better how beautiful Brazil may be and no wonder so many people fall in love with it.

CIEE rented one boat for everyone in the group. the boat took off from the port early in the morning and we came back in the afternoon. the first stop we had was a place near the rock where we jumped in the water mostly because it was a good place to snorkel in. there was a guide that came with us. we jumped in, swam around and got to see cool fish, starfish, sea cucumbers and other cool animals. we were there for about an hour and then they took us to this other place. in between these places, it was just nice to sit back, look at everything and relax. the nature is amazing, the sky was bright blue and the water too.

when we got to the second beach, we had to jump off the boat and swim to shore. once we got there we snokeled along the beachside and saw some cool stuff. we even saw a ray!! it was not dangerous and it was really cool. we didn't get to touch it of course but we were able to stand maybe 1 meter away from it. we went a long way along the coast until most of us got tired so we decided to come back. we got back to the beach, walked for a little bit and then swam to the boat to go to a different beach. you should all know that boat time = 'putting-sunscreen-on' time. everytime we swam and got on the boat, everyone would put sunscreen on again and again because the sun can be pretty mean down here.

after our second beach we went to a third one but had lunch first. we had options - fish or chicken. place you bets on what i decided to have, i'll tell you at the end of this entry... all i can say is it's pretty good and i had to have some Guaraná with it, it's simply the best soda/pop i've tasted. we got to the third beach and i decided to just swim close to the boat. some people swam to the beach while i swam nearby a little and then i decided to join them and go to the beach with them. they were playing with the sand and burying some people in the sand, so i decided to go over there and give some of those people some nice sand-bodies and siren tails. it was good fun!

after playing with the sand for a while, we aksed for a ball and decided to break it down brazilian style ... play beach 'futebol'. it was also fun! after winning the game - although the other team might think otherwise - we came back to the boat only to return back to paraty. just when we thought fun and amazingness was all over, we were on our way back to the city and guess what se saw... DOLPHINS!! that's right, we saw dolphins, and they were a lot of them. they were swimming and jumping towards our boat, they swam underneath the boat and came up on the other side, behind us. those dolphins are more difficult to photograph than i thought, by the way. we got back on land all merrily and happily. it had been a great day and most of us were a little tired so everyone went back to the hotel to meet later on for dinner.

next entry...
SATURDAY - jantar e parque
SUNDAY - cachoeira e peptobismol...

p.s. i had the chicken with this pink sauce and fried potato strings... it was soo goood!!

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