Paraty Town

Last night Natasha and I landed in this magnificent little town, Paraty. Its center is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the hostel here is the nicest I´ve stayed in so far. It´s got a deck that hangs over te river that flows through the city, and the design of it is really nice. Our ´plan´ if you can call it that, was to stay here just last night, sight-see today, and catch an overnight bus to Curitiba, but things got complicated.

Today we met this guy while we were eating lunch-an Argentino who has lived in Brazil his whole life. He was going to give his table up so that we could sit down, but I told him to just stay with us because there was room. He was a hell of a nice guy and I decided to use him a little for info -basic questions about what it takes to live here-wages, rent prices, etc, and it´s pretty doable-not like I´m going to do it, just to know! But the main point he was trying to make was that this is the year of the Tiger in the Chinese calendar. Apparently this means that plans will be broken, people will break their word due to changes of fate, and chaos will ensue all year. Sounds good to me. He started on with this because we were talking about the unreliability of Brazilian weather forecasts and I said it was the same in the US, and then I said who are we to predict the things of the univers...half jokingly, then he got into all this kind of stuff. Anyway, I hate plans, I hate structure. Every time Natasha and I have had a plan, we´ve broken it.

Back to the story. We caught the last boat off of Ilha Grande yesterday, waving farewell to our transient friends, just like in an old movie. Natasha had a little bandana she waved, it was such a vintage scene-you could make a t-shirt with it and sell it for $80. Haha. Once we got to the town on the other side, we decided to walk to the bus station. Not a bad walk, but with a 50 pound bag, it wasn´t ideal. I was soaked in sweat. We asked a guy along the way to make sure we were going the right direction and he said we were less than two minutes away. Then once we told him we were going to Paraty, he said óh, you could have caught the bus at the boat dock!´. Son of a.... whatever, it was cool. The bus trip between these places is only about 2 1/2 hours, and it turns out you don´t go by a motor coach. It´s the same type as a city bus, so it pulled in, all the back-packers got on, it was crowded as hell, and the driver was speeding like a bat outta hell. For me it was no problem, I actually enjoyed it (with the windows down and air blasting me to dry the sweat, holding on for life) but Natasha gets car sick. Poor girl. I slept standing up for about half the way, then got a seat toward the end. Then we rolled in here last night, and turns out there are no direct busses to Curitiba, we have to go to Sao Paulo, which we were trying to avoid. The buses are full too, so we have (are lucky enough) to stay an extra night here in Paraty and then move on.

So I hear there is quite a snow storm brewing in New York. As much as I am loving this beach thing, I could use some snow. Skipping winter this year was one of the better ideas I´ve ever come up with on my own, but there´s nothing like a snow storm to keep you close to your friends, or chilling in bed all day....... ahh but I can only think about snow for 5 seconds before I wipe the sweat from my forehead, enough! I hate the cold, I don´t know how long I can stay living in a cold climate. Being hot and sweaty, and wearing next to nothing just makes me feel more natural, like a real, comfortable person. One Brazilian kid I was talking to was saying that people in pictures from cold places look like little presents, all wrapped up in packaging. I thought it was funny, but I guess that´s sort of how it feels...

I was stupid for bringing 4 pairs of jeans-they are slowly being massacred-yeah, I made cut-offs. I know there has to be some eye-rolling and OMGing going on, but hey, whatever. It´s hot. In all senses of the word. I don´t look like a hipster or anything though, they´re just regular length cut jeans. I had to do it, and I´m glad I did.

Today we walked around the historic center (it´s an old Portuguese colonial port town) and that´s it. It´s not big, but it was hot enough and we spent enough time out to work up a huge appetite. Natasha is a great travel partner because both our minds operate similarly-and when they don´t, one compensates for the other. She´s good at planning, and we both look for the cheapest, most authentic food we can find, and I´m good at questioning what she´s doing but following her. Lunch was great. Big plate, really cheap, finally got some fish that I had been craving for the past week, and we met that Argentino I mentioned. Also, the guys that worked there were really funny, so we laughed at them for a while. Then I went in search of some CDs, and finally got some Samba and Funk-the only souvenirs I needed. As beautiful as this country is, the thing I´m enjoying most is meeting the people. No one cares about anything, and everyone is so nice. I love it. I´m going to buy something to drink now, and take a nap. This hostel is like a real vacation resort again, so I can actually take time to read here without the pressures of seeing everything-because there´s not much around.