Paraty

Paraty

Chris and I had known to expect huge expense when we arrived in Brazil - in fact, this had been one of the main reasons we had cut our time here short; our remaining budget just wouldn't have carried us through a month here. However, despite so many travellers having warned us of the excessive costs we could expect, it didn't stop our shock at just how much we were spending on mediocre accommodation. The trusty website "HostelBookers.com" that we had used throughout our trip revealed still more expensive prices in the cities of Sao Paulo and Rio when we planned our stay.

We had hoped that such costs would be reduced when outside these world famous, exciting cities and that we would have a greater chance on our mission for cheap accommodation in the cobble-streeted town of Paraty around three - five hours drive away from Sao Paulo: our journey inevitably fell into the longer, five hour category. Following two unnecessary half hour stops a Brazilian passenger on our bus became very ill so we had an additional emergency stop in the middle of the rainforest at a tiny hospital - crazy!

Imagine our surprise when we realised our arrival in Paraty had coincided with their annual international literary festival which was in its seventh succesful year. For a book geek like me, this was just too exciting. Especially when we saw the programme of speakers was full of huge names like Salmon Rushdie, Isabel Allende and Terry Eagleton. Wow. While this obviously didn't help our chances of finding budget accommodation (in fact, this whole town had been booked out months, if not a whole year, in advance) we were both excited to be here during such an important festival. Luckily for us a couple of German girls had converted an old farm into a hostel very cheaply - it was around a 20 minute walk from the town centre and only offered triple-decker bunk beds but suited us just fine on our budget.

Chris: Paraty was once squarely on the gold rush route as the main port where the gold was then shipped off to Portugal in the 18th century. It was also the main hub of the cachaca trail into the jungle from here. When these two booms were to Rio and elsewhere then began it's deep freeze in time. Today it is preserved as wholely colonial, cobbled and entirely stuck in time.

The town was alive and buzzing with literary types. Something of a shock to the system for those of us who had been backpacking for the last 352 days. The cobbled streets and old, colonial buildings would have taken us right back to Colonia de Sacremento in Uruguay except for the fact that there was so much atmosphere here we could never have mistaken this town for it's silent and sleepy sister across the border. After dumping our bags in the tiny room that was supposed to have enough space for six backpackers and their stuff yet whose floorspace wasn't even large enough for our bags alone, we headed into this wonderful town and immediately checked out the schedule. As luck would have it, Isabel Allende was speaking at that very moment and we were able to sit and watch her on the big screens as she was interviewed. What an atmosphere. Everywhere we walked there was some kind of stall with a different kind of bookish theme:

There were children's books hanging from trees the next day outside the children's reading tent...

After wandering around the huge book shop which sold mainly books and novels written by those authors and critics attending the conference, Chris and I headed for our first caipirinha of the night outside one of the many bars whose tables spilled out onto the cobbled street so we could all listen to the music being played by the barber shop band. (It was then that Chris revealed he'd always thought my dad had been in a barber shop band and was convinced that I or someone else had told him this years ago - the image of this kept me giggling all night!). Strolling around through throngs of middle-aged people who were here for the festival as well as the teenagers of the town excited that their town was on the world map (in the literary world at least), we of course had one of our typical hour-long moments of being unable to decide on a place to eat. This time however, it didn't really matter. There was such a great atmosphere and we could easily procrastinate our decision making by going for caipirinha after caipirinha!

Chris: With 65 islands and 300+ beaches at your doorstep, what a laid back contrast this was to the big city.

The following day, I strolled into town to catch Salmon Rushdie speak - unfortunately for me, his interview shown on the big screens was dubbed in Portuguese. It's fair enough, really, just a little disappointing for the anglophones like me. I rushed back so Chris and I could take a bus out to Trinidad beach which we both agreed deserves a place on our 'Top Ten Beaches of the trip" list. Sipping yet another caipirinha in the dazzling sunlight we just couldn't believe we'd be back home in Europe in just one week.

We really wished our budget (both time and money-wise) could have stretched far enough to spend more time in this town so we could have explored more of it's nearby beaches. What luck though to have stumbled upon an international literary festival!