Week 31: Paraty, Ilha Grande, Angra dos Reis

Monday, 8/15

After a long night of travel from Rio, we slept in just a little bit before heading to breakfast and going around the city of Paraty. We didn’t really plan on spending a lot of time in this city so we did as much as we could.

We wandered around the older part of the city then went back to the hostel. Our hostel owner was actually a great resources. We didn’t know what we were going to do that afternoon but he ended up helping us by telling us about some trails and some places we could swim. 

After a quick lunch of microwave lasagna, we caught the next bus on the town and followed it until we saw a few signs of the places we wanted to see. 

One of them was ponte do Tarzan where you could jump off a massive boulder and the other area was Toboga Falls where you could slide down a big slab of rock like a water slide. 

We ended up hiking down a random trail first to see a pretty little area with a stream and a few little ponds of water. Then we headed towards the water slide. It was too cold for me to slide down (I admit, I was a little freaked out too), but Luke went right on down a few times! It looked amazing!

After soaking up the sun and reading a little, we decided to move on to the Ponte do Tarzan. 

There, Luke climbed up a really flimsy ladder and then, after a few minutes to gather his courage, he jumped! I was super freaked out for his safety but he made it alive and well and full of adrenaline. He’s obviously way braver than I am.

We decided to hang there a little bit longer before heading back to the hostel.

There was a walking tour we were trying to catch but both of us were hungry and craving moqueca (fish stew with peppers and onions in a tomato and coconut broth).

We ate at a restaurant serving some delicious moqueca and then tried to catch the walking tour but ended up missing it.

We were both exhausted by that point and decided to go back to the hostel to take a nap. That night, our hostel owner invited Luke to play soccer with a few other people from the surrounding hostels at 10:00.

We went, he played, and we went home after midnight. We crashed completely exhausted!

Tuesday, 8/16

We woke up the next morning super early to go see the sunrise.

It was gorgeous! We spent the morning together, but then split up because I was exhausted and Luke wanted to stay up for beach yoga and reading. So I went back to bed and then he came back and we had breakfast together.

After breakfast, we left to catch the ferry to Ihla Grande after wandering in Angra dos Reis for a while and grocery shopping there since islands are usually more expensive than the mainland. 

We finally made it to the island after a 2 hour ferry ride. It was soooo pretty!

Our host from AirBnb, Claudio, met us at the docks and led us to his home. We was a wonderful source of information and a wonderful host. We stayed in a room in the upper part of his home. 

After walking around the town, we went back, cooked some chicken for dinner, watched a movie together and then went to sleep preparing for a great day. 

Wednesday, 8/17

We woke up, cooked breakfast, and then prepared for a long 5 hour hike. 

Then, Claudio mentioned a boat that would take us most of the way to the beaches where we were planning on walking for only $120 reals round trip for both, so we decided to be lazy and do that instead.

So we loaded up on that boat and headed to the beach!

There were 3 beaches in that area and we spent a little time at each one and spent some time hiking in between. We’ve also been making a habit of eating tuna and crackers or bread for lunch!

Each beach had beautiful waters but they were all pretty diverse! They had different waves, rocks, views, etc.

It was a great day and later that afternoon we headed back to the house to cook dinner. 

We ended up making more delicious dinner and hanging out before getting ready for bed.

This place had a glorious shower with really hot water and I reaaalllyyy enjoyed finally having some truly hot water.

We then went to bed.

Thursday, 8/18

This day we took it pretty easy since it was supposed to be a really rainy day. We left for a little to go hiking around the town and walked to an aqueduct, the ruins of the prison that used to be there, and a few beaches in the area. 

Then when we were heading back, the big rain clouds started heading toward us. We stopped at this house which had a few options for dinner and ordered them as they started raining. Luke got the fish and I got the beef.

After getting some free herbs from the sweet lady at the house restaurant, we walked back in the rain to our house and enjoyed a delicious lunch. 

After that, we tried to watch a movie together and made some homemade popcorn! We fell asleep early since we were going to be hiking and camping the next day and it was raining pretty hard.

Friday, 8/19

Today, we packed up our bags and separated the unneccessary items into another pile which we would leave at the hostel. 
After a good breakfast, we left and started our 18km hike. It was a pretty easy road until we got to the next little town on the island. We spent some time looking at all the beautiful flowers and some monkeys and listening to the birds of the area. 

We were trying to beat the time they told us of 6-8 hours total for the hike. We made the first bit in 2.5hrs. Then, we stopped by the beach in Dois Rios. It was soo beautiful and we enjoyed a wonderful lunch break filled with more tuna and oranges. 

After hanging out on that beach, we finally continued on and tried to pick up some toilet paper on the way (we had a translation problem and ended up having to buy paper towels ). 

Then, the little pretty road ended and the jungle trail began. 

On a worse day, this trail would have taken twice as long. It was smooth at the beginning, but it gradually got worse. The jungle is always trying to overtake the path. Trees are blocking the way, there are roots trying to trip you all the time, slippery ups and downs, little creeks, etc.

But it was beautiful. It brought to our minds the wonderful mystical things like fairies and centaurs and all those things that people would never find in a forest as dense and beautiful as this. We spent a lot of time talking about weird creatures and looking for any wildlife – which we did see! We saw monkeys, armadillos, birds, and more. We even heard something massive a few yards from us even though we couldn’t see it – we decided it had hooves, was big, and had to be a centaur!

After another 2.5hrs of pushing the speed pretty hard, we finally made it to Parnaioca. It was soo beautiful! 

The trail ended pretty much right at the beach and at a very pretty campground. We were planning on camping without paying for a place, but unfortunately, the national park had more strict rules and we could not camp on the beach. Luckily it was only $50 reals ($15 USD) for a campsite which was practically on the beach. We only saw a few people on the beach the whole time we were there. Our campsite was empty and there are only five houses of natives on the entire beach. There is no road, only the walking trail and apparently no regular boat transportation to the beach so we truly had paradise all to ourselves. We were exhausted after arriving and spent some time relaxing on the beach after setting up our tent. For dinner we used a rustic kitchen and cooked an amazing dinner of sausage, peppers, onions, and squash sautéed together, with some slightly squished bread. Maybe the exhaustion and hunger helped but it tasted world class. After dinner we quickly succumbed to sleep in our cozy backpacking tent borrowed from Mr. Paulson. 

Saturday, 8/20

The next day we hoped for a boat to come by that we could bribe into taking us back to the other side of the island. But when no boat came we decided to pack up our things and prepare for a hike back. We ate breakfast of bread and fruit and did some beach yoga and read until we could procrastinate no longer. We started back down the long trail but were soon caught in a rainstorm. A family of monkeys gave us a show during a rain free break. Finally we reached dois rios where we drank a well earned beer and ate some tuna, bread, crackers and fruit for lunch at a covered table. After a nice break we continued hiking up the steepest part of the trail, which was luckily a better trail as it began to truly pour rain. We were very much ready to be done hiking by the time we reached the end of the trail. That night we cooked the rest of the food we had waiting in the fridge, took much needed showers, and relaxed. 

It should be noted that our backpacks and boots became completely soaked with sweat and rain on this hike and did not dry out for days. Once they did dry they still smelt awful and caused us a lot of headaches. 

Sunday, 8/21

The next morning we talked to some Brazilians who were staying in our Airbnb. We learned a lot about Claudio’s Buddhist/yoga world views and finally packed our bags, ate a large breakfast, and headed to the dock where we caught a ferry back to the mainland. We were sad to leave but hoped for better weather. We hoped to travel a long distance that day and so once we arrived we hurriedly hiked to the bus station where we waited two hours for the next bus to São Paulo. We had a nice lunch and bought groceries before getting on the bus. It took 8 hours and was late by the time we arrived. We made friends on the bus and decided to travel to a hostel together. We took the subway directly from the bus station and after a transfer we attempted to walk to our hostel. As my boots were soaked I was wearing flip flops and we sadly found the weather very cold and rainy. Eventually after a very cold hike we reached our hostel and were soon fast asleep. 

It was a fantastic week and we were happy to get out of big city Rio to enjoy some remote hiking and camping! 

*this post was partially written by both Sarahi and Luke, sorry if it’s confusing!