duration - FRIDAY TO SUNDAY
who - CIEE SAO PAULO GROUP+ CIEE STAFF
SATURDAY - jantar e parquewe came back to rest for a little while after swimming by the beaches all day. before we all went to our respective hotel rooms, however, we celebrated the birthday of one of the people that came on the trip, our professor, Carla. she is the professor for the brazilian culture class - on which i will elaborate later - and she is a very vibrant person. we ate cake, drank guaraná and chilled by the pool for a little while. some stayed longer than others but all of us ended up going to our rooms to rest before dinner. it was a nice pool and a cool place to hang out at night.
-siesta!!-
after our siestas... we all gathered in front of the hotel i was staying in and decided to find a cheap place to eat at. the night before was too expensive for my taste - my parents can testify what kind of prices i like or don't like. we went to this place in a very popular street where they sold a lot of shared plates. by that i mean that you could order food for two people and that the restaurant was so full and tight that sabrina -one of the girls in the group -
had to sit down in some sort of hockey pockey style... 'you put your right foot in, you put your right foot out...' as you can tell by the pictures. anyways, Karla and i ordered some chicken which would later become my nocturnal stomach ache. anyways, these are some of the pics form sabrina's interesting seating position...
the meal tasted good and afterwards we walked around the city. we got some ice-cream and talked for a little while. we went into a photography exhibition of an italian guy who had come to brazil and fell in love with paraty so he stayed. he had some really good pictures in black and white and there were other photographs from different themes - society, history, nature, culture, etc - which were also amazing. in the end, we all gathered at the town plaza, some people had some sketchy street caipirinhas - for example; a green one called 'HULK's pee - and others had some cachaça. some people ended up at my hotel and everyone made it to bed at different times but relatively early. we had to wake up early the next morning because we had a very nice day planned ahead of us...
SUNDAY - cachoeira e peptobismol...i did not have such a good night -food poisoning- but was ready to feel better during the day and so i did thanks to some peptobismol i got from one of the guys in my program. we got onto these jeeps and were given a talk about what we were doing. first we went to one cachoeira - waterfall - that was up in the mountains. it was pretty cool going there and when we got there we had the chance to swim in it and jump from the sides. it was good fun except it took me a little while to jump in because of my delicate stomach situation. one lady that was a tour-guide prepared a tea for people who had drunk too much the night before and she said it could maybe
help with my stomach ache. i underestimated her warning regarding the taste and ended up drinking it. i didn't want to make a face and look tough but i ended up doing it because it was hard not to react. after i drank that horrible horrible water, i felt better and decided to jump in. the water felt great and i ended jumping from one of the sides too. i enjoyed it a lot.
also, during our time there, everyone was exposing their different skin colors and most of the people that had gone snorkeling had a red back side -including back, behind the legs, butt, shoulders, calves... - so it was funny to compare that to the people who had their frontsides burnt because they didn't go snorkeling as much.then we went to this other place with another cachoeira - very beautiful as well - where we ate lunch and i took a nap. i wish i could tell you what happened there but i was not awake enough to do so. all i know is that Jill -another girl from the program, that likes to take pictures of people sleeping - took a picture of me napping. not my sexiest picture! therefore it shall not make it to the blog. finally we finished eating, i wet my feet with the water from the
cachoeira and then drove to a fazenda called FAZENDA BANANAL where they used to make traditional cachaça and the tour-guide talked about the process through which they make it. cachaça is the drink made from sugar cane and it is the one used to make caipirinhas. there are many many types and there can also be cachaças with flavors - i.e. chocolate, caramel, etc - so people got to try it as samples. it was a nice tour and would recommend it to many people who are interested in the history behind different liquours and their tastes...
after the tour, we went back to paraty, packed and came back to São Paulo. it was a long trip, since we didn't stop on the way back except for one place to buy something light to eat. we got home at around 9 or 10 pm and some people still had time to go watch the superbowl.now that i think about the trip, i realize that the level of tourist infrastructure is very good here in brazil in comparison to guatemala and that can make a huge difference. of course, this ought to be done carefully to prevent invasions into protected territories, poorly managed trash management and services that might disturb natural cycles/life. the main reason why i liked the place was because nature was great and sea life
was accessible and seemingly healthy. hopefully that is the reality too, and not only an appearance. all in all, the trip was great, people were fun, the beaches were amazing and friends with peptobismol turned out to be incredibly helpful.what are you people waiting for?, get your butts over here. 'Paraty is here for you!' - that would sound so much cooler in spanish...
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