Day
5-7: Paraty, Brazil. One minute the left side of my face
was pressed firmly against the window pane, the next my right
shoulder was leaning hard into Karen, nearly pushing her into the
central aisle of the little service bus that was taking us the 200
miles or so from Rio de Janeiro to the old colonial town of Paraty.
Over the
years, Karen and I have been fortunate enough to travel some of the
most stunning coastal roads in the world: America's 'Big Sur',
Ireland's Ring of Kerry, South Africa's Garden Route and Vietnam's
Highway Number 1 to name but a few. But this trip along Brazil's
Costa Verde (Green Coast) was definitely up there with the best of
them.
Leaving
the metropolis of Rio, we were soon in the heart of the 'real'
Brazil. Following the coastline for the duration of the route, the
bus would lurch left and right and then left again as it hugged the
rugged South Atlantic terrain. Down to our left, every turn afforded
a tantalising glimpse of a new secluded bay with pristine white sands
running into a perfect azure sea. In the middle distance countless
deeply forested islands rose sharply from the seas, each surrounded
with their own narrow strip of deserted beach that just invited you
to take a closer look. To our right, the Atlantic Rainforest
ascended steeply and clung perilously to the Serra do Mar mountain
ranges that disappeared out of view into the misty cloud cover that
constantly shrouds this Unesco biosphere reserve.
And in
between, a scattering of small towns and villages provided us with an
insight into the Brazilian way of life: In Angra Dos Reis, luxury
waterfront villas adorned the fjordlike coastline whilst a
multi-story boat park housed a £100m worth of Sunseekers for the
week-end amusement of the rich kids. Clinging to the hillside, the
makeshift shanty-towns of the favelas
overlooked this extravagance; the kids here don't even have the
propensity to dream of the wealth of their near neighbours in this,
the country with the greatest disparity of income between rich and
poor of anywhere
in the world. Oh Brazil, you are so very beautiful and now, so very
very rich – be sure to spend your new found prosperity wisely and
considerately.
Our
destination for the next few days was to be Paraty, a picturesque
fishing village preserved pretty much 'as is' with colourful colonial
buildings and uneven cobbled streets, since it heyday in the late
18th
Century when it became a principle trading port for the gold-rush of
the Minas Gerais. Now it is a sleepy holiday destination and with 55
islands and over 100 beaches you can always find your own bit of
paradise for that afternoon siesta.
It
wasn't the beaches that attracted Karen and I though, it was our
first opportunity to get up-front and personal with the Atlantic
Rainforest. Hiring a couple of bicycles we headed north, deep into
this remarkable ecosystem, where the jungle resounded to the
crescendo of the cicadas and electric blue butterflies the size of
your hand criss-crossed our path as we rode the steep mountain tracks
of the Estrada Real (the original gold prospectors trail). Here and
there we would stumble on mountain waterfalls where the local kids
would use the elevation and slippery rocks as a water-slide, as
effective as anything you'd find in a Disney theme park.
By
the end of the day, fuelled with a couple of cachaças
from the mountain distillery and chased by the oncoming afternoon
deluge we descended those mountain roads in a way that would have
made Lance Armstrong proud! Despite all of our efforts though, the
storm still got the better of us; turning the morning's mountain
tracks into fast flowing rivers of thick red mud and leaving us
filthy and drenched through to the skin – in fact we couldn't have
ended up any wetter if we had ridden the kid's 'Disney slide' fully
clothed. Terrific fun!
The strange things is though,
after all of that cycling across the rough mountain tracks and
through Paraty's cobbles all of my 'bits' are now swollen to the size
of grapefruits. Karen suggested I hire the bike again tomorrow!
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