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.