Paraty Free Walking Tour

Another entry in my series "The Horses of Paraty"

It's my last day in Paraty and I have finally gotten around to taking the free walking tour of the city. The music to accompany this walk will be bossa nova, Samba de Verão, Summer Samba, by Marcos Valle (and so many others) (it's just his version is probably the best known).

The tour did not start until 5:00 p.m., which is late by the standards of these free walking tours. I'm not sure if that is to allow the tourists to sleep off all the cachaça they may have drunk the night before, or if it is allow everyone who has taken a boat tour to get back on dry land before the walking tour begins, but the tour is free. And since it is free, the guide is free to set whatever free hours the guide wants.

I had a little time to kill so I just drank in some atmosphere. As opposed to drinking in some cachaça. Paraty, by the way, is known for its cachaça, which is an alcohol distilled from the fermentation of sugar cane juice. That sounds like rum to you? Well, yes. If it is made anywhere else in the Americas, it is rum. If it is distilled in Brazil, it is cachaça. Why? Because the people who decide these sorts of things decided that it would be that way.

The meeting point for the free walking tour was in front of the Igreja da Matriz de Nossa Senhora dos Remédios, the Church of Our Lady of Remedies. This was the "white" church in town back in the old days when those sorts of things mattered.

It is in front of park, thus this being the meeting point.

The free walking tour was not necessary to find those hidden photogenic gems. The whole city is photogenic. You can mosey about the city and find countless subjects for photography. The purpose of the tour is to learn more about the history of the city.

For example, this was the house of a very rich and prominent family:

What are some clues? The iron balcony, imported from England. Drainage pipes shaped like trumpets, which is so much more stylish than a plain pipe. And the use of decorative pineapples, or abacaxí in Portuguese, which are native to the Amazon rain forest. You thought they were indigenous to Hawaii, didn't you? Confess.

Pineapples were very popular in the Old World once the New World was opened up to international trade. This is because of the shipping times. A pineapple in Europe in the 1600s was more rare and precious than the Florida orange we all used to get in our Christmas stocking in the 1960s.

In the middle of the tour, I spotted this interesting-looking bird.

Anybody know what bird this is? Reddish-brown body. Silver head. I probably should have asked the Brits on the tour, since Brits are much more into birdwatching than are people anywhere else. According to my stereotyping. (Could be the male ruddy ground dove. I googled it.)

We next arrived at the Igreja de Nossa Senhora das Dores, the Church of Our Lady of the Sorrows. This not only was for the white population of Paraty in its colonial years, it was the church for white women only.

This is our guide, Luana, explaining that to us.

Our English-language tour group consisted of four Brits, a couple from India, a couple from Germany (furthering my belief that English is the language of international tourism because we needed some other language everyone could to each other everywhere else) (but no one wanted that language to be French other than the French) (so English one) and, of course, one from os estados unidos, who would be me.

You see those white structures high on the hill? It's a cemetery. A lot of the people buried there died in a massive cholera epidemic that hit the city in the early 1800s.

This is an interesting looking house that was bought, sight unseen, by a member of the Brazilian royal family. Brazil used to have a king, It still has a royal family in case the population wants the monarchy back.

We are right near the waters of the bay. Which means there are trillions of these little crabs everywhere.

It would probably take about six million of these critters to make a passable crab cake and, even then, it probably would have a lot of filler. So why try?

At the end of this street is the Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Rosário e São Benedito, the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary and St. Benedict. Which is a large name for a small church. This was the black church back in the days of slavery and segregation.

Apparently, out of guilt, is has the only gold-leaf decorated altar in Paraty. Unfortunately, for me, the church was closed at the hour of my tour and will not re-open until Sunday at 10:00 a.m. Which is after I'm scheduled to depart Paraty.

This is a library. That also serves espresso.

My kind of library.

And, finally, we come to the signature view of Paraty: Igreja de Santa Rita de Cássia. Church of St. Rita.

The streets of Paraty still flood at high tide. In the old days, this was a mixed blessing. It cleaned the sewage off the streets. But it also meant floodwaters a foot or two deep in the ground floor of your home. So the city fathers of Paraty did what they did in Galveston, Texas, although for a different reason. In Galveston, they did this because of hurricane storm surge. In Paraty, is was to limit the tidal flooding of the city streets. 

If you look at the door into the Church of St. Rita, you notice a ramp. The height of the ramp is the amount they raised Paraty. The streets still flood during high tide, but only the highest of the high tides, which happen on the nights of the full moon and the new moon.

By the way, if you're keeping track of this sort of thing -- and people back in the day obsessively kept track of this very thing -- this was the "mixed race" church. If you did not "fit" in with the white crowd at Our Lady of Remedies, or if you did not belong with the black crowd at Our Lady of the Rosary, this is where you worshipped.

This street was known for being the street of romantic trysts back in the old day. "Romantic," not prostitutes, There was a different street (nearby) for that sort of entertainment,

And with that, the two-hour free walking tour came to its conclusion. I tipped and I left.

I was hungry, but not really hungry. What I needed was more of an evening snack than a meal. I headed to the Pizzaria e Esfiharia Pontal, just on the other side of the Ponte de Pontal next to my hotel.

 

No. I don't know what an "esfiharia" is. Google translate is not being much of a help. It appears to be some sort of open-faced sandwich, which would do the trick. I just wanted enough food so I didn't wake up in the middle of the night starving.

The place seems to do more of a take-out business, as the restaurant was somewhat empty, but the delivery guy kept coming and going.

I had the pepperoni e muçarela. No. It's not a personal-sized pizza. There was no tomato sauce. The crust for the sandwich was excellent, which makes me sad that I did not get a whole small pizza. I wasn't expecting that they could make good pizza crust in a beach town in Brazil. I should have raised my sights.

Time to cross the bridge and head back to my hotel for an evening's sleep.

And, with that, I say "tchau" to Paraty. I came here for relaxation in an entertaining and photogenic environment and, Paraty, you delivered. Obrigado.

What Every Tourist in Paraty Does: A Boat Tour

Igreja de Santa Rita, as seen from the water, with a small motorboat in the foreground for added artsiness.

If you look on TripAdvisor, and look for the most popular things to do while in Paraty, ten of top ten things listed are boat tours. It's what you do in Paraty. In Las Vegas, you go to the casinos. In Paris, it's the Eiffel Tower. Munich? You drink massive amounts of beer in the Oktoberfest grounds. In Paraty, you hire a boat and off you go for as many hours as you want to pay for.

First, however, is horses. I promised pictures of horses yesterday and today I deliver. Horse carriages waiting for tourists to take a romantic ride about town. I don't do romance. So off to the boat

But one more pause before I board the boat. This is the signature view of Paraty: Igreja de Santa Rita de Cassia, with water in front and green mountains behind.

The pictures from this point onward features green mountains and turquoise blue water.

You take a boat to visit obscure beaches that can be reached only by boat. Or you take a boat to spend a few hours out on a boat seeing parts of Paraty you cannot see any other way. Either is good.

This is the captain of the boat.

Actually, he was the only one on the boat besides me. Here's a travel tip if you find yourself in Paraty. You can book a boat tour on line, with an English-speaking captain. It will cost you $300 U.S., more or less, for two hours. Or you can go down to the pier, hire someone whose English is not even as good as my terrible Portuguese, and pay 300 reaies, the local currency. The exchange rate is 5:1, more or less, which mean I would have paid five times as much if I booked the boat on line.

Just think of me as your own personal TripAdvisor.com.

At this point, we reached the most commonly visited obscure unreachable-by-other-means beach: Praia de Jurumirim.

This is the only sight we visited that, at this point in time, I can name.

The water was perfect. I swam around a little bit. But the atmosphere took a nosedive when one of the other boats started blasting contemporary tunes at full volume. No. Thank. You.

Perhaps some bossa nova would have been nice. Anything but the monotone drone of contemporary music which sounds the same the world over.

The next beach we visited was not much of a beach. Just some slippery, mossy rocks. But with my swim googles, given the clear water, I saw bunches of fish below the surface. The water was deeper here, however, and I couldn't touch bottom, so, discretion being the better part of valor, I opted only for a few minutes swimming with the fishes at this second beach.

Do I take bizarre chances when I travel? I'm just wondering. I'm not going change the way I do me, but I am curious.

Soon the two hours were drawing to a close.

And there was a Brazil game in the World Cup starting soon. The whole of the country completely shuts down when Brazil is playing a game in the World Cup.

One more pass past Igreja de Santa Rita de Cassis.

And it's time to dock. The two-hour, 300 reaies boat tour of Paraty's bay has ended.

Next up was watching the Brazil game because I am in Brazil and watching Brazil in the World Cup is somewhat mandatory.

It is now the weekend in Paraty and it is a completely different town. People everywhere.

I chose a small restaurant, Vinicius, for supper. It had about 100 reviews on google and everyone was a 5. (TripAdvisor, on the other hand, was far less positive.)

The music was recorded and piped in. But it was classic bossa nova, so that was good. 

The restaurant is known for its fish and considering I am in a beach town, I really should eat some fish. I ordered the fish with a lemon risotto, based on the owner-waiter's recommendation.

It was delicious. Google was right. Forget about TripAdvisor.

Paraty After Dark with Dinner and Bossa Nova

Outside Vincent van Gogh's very own hamburger restaurant

I was going to take one of those free walking tours that they have in all the cities at 5:00 p.m. tonight. You don't pay anything, you just tip based on what you think it's worth. From each according to his ability; to each according to his need. A little bit of communism in Brazil courtesy of the new Lula government.

Anyway, I made no reservation. You just show up. And at 4:30 p.m., the skies opened up and it poured. This was no light rain. This was a cloudburst. It did not end until about an hour and 15 minutes later. When I ventured out for supper, the streets were steamy. So steamy it fogged up my camera lens for awhile.

I decided to go to the van Gogh Hamburgueria. Apparently Vincent decided that the art world was not meant for someone as beautiful as him and he opened a hamburger joint on a beach in the southern hemisphere.

I wanted to see if, on their burgers, they slathered on the condiments extra thick. I "ear" the burgers are delicious. 

It's nice to see the owner on the premises.

Anyway, it's a week night and it's not quite tourist season, so the crowd was modest in size.

I got the "santa" burger with gorgonzola cheese melted on top. The burger was good. But what made the evening was a two-man jazz combo playing excellent bossa nova jazz.

I recognized so many songs from my various bossa nova albums, whether by Jobim or Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto. Right before I left, I requested a song which, although not bossa nova (it's folk), they did in a bossa nova style and it was beyond awesome. The last song they played before I left after two hours: Caetano Veloso "Lua de Sao Jorge." A few people in the restaurant were singing along.

The hard backless chair was reeking havoc with my back, so I decided to go for some ice cream therapy. Across the street, at the Finlandês sorvete artesanal, I ordered a cup of the maracujá, passion fruit.

The bossa nova music alone made it a great night. Discovering van Gogh's upscale hamburger joint made it even better.