Subtle voices in the wind. Hear the truth they’re telling. A world begins where the road ends.
Far Behind, Eddie Vedder

Introduction

After one year of hard work, besides all concerns caused by the pandemics in 2020, I decided to take a one week break to rest. I even promised to myself to not think about work anytime during the break.

My target to visit was Paraty, a small city located in Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil. This choice was directly motivated by its notable citizen, Amyr Klink, the first person to row across the South Atlantic. It was a hundred day journey from African soil, more precisely Luderitz, capital of Namibia, to Salvador in Brazil.

I admit that before I read Amyr’s book. I rarely heard about Paraty. After the reading. I looked for more information. I found out that Paraty was a core city during the Brazil colonial times, mainly in the gold extraction period. Besides that, it is located in a very beautiful spot of the Brazilian coast with the presence of many bays, islands, and mountains around.

Currently, Paraty is one of the Brazilian cities with the most preserved colonial architecture. You can find a large vicinity with many blocks of houses and churches from the century 17 to 19. By the way, one member of the former Brazilian royal family lives there.

Hitting the road

Day 01, Jabaquara Beach

Sunday, the arrival day. Paraty is a city with an intense presence of tourists. To avoid the crowd, I chose to travel on the weekdays. After a long 10 hours travel from Macaé to Paraty, five of these hours were between the Fluminense capital, Rio de Janeiro city, and Paraty.

First day, I visited some tourist agencies to learn about the possible adventures in the city, their duration and expenses. Afterwards, as it was almost at the end of afternoon, I stayed the rest of the day in one of the central city beaches, Jabaquara. The central beaches are the weakest side of Paraty. They have a dark color because of the mangrove presence. Also I used the time to plan the following days while enjoying the comfortable sand coast of Jabaquara.

Next day, time to explore a famous neighborhood of Paraty, Trindade, the last piece of Rio de Janeiro before São Paulo state begins.

Day 02, Trindade

Trindade has a sequence of wonderful beaches side by side, among them, Cachadaço beach. Cachadaço is one of the few spots for surfing in the quiet bays of Paraty. Following Cachadaço beach into an easy hike for 20 to 30 minutes. There are the natural pools, a peaceful spot with crystal clear water.

It is early in the morning and I almost stay too late in bed. I start my day running to the bus station. Getting there and still recovering my breath, I see a young woman using a backpack bigger than her body. Clearly a backpacker. I asked her where I could buy the bus ticket, and from then on, I had a campaign to explore Trindade and get to the natural pools.

When we got to Trindade, we were surprised by a rustic but very charming and prepared village for tourism. On the way, crossing Meio and Cachadaço beaches, we suddenly got to the natural pool. The day was cloudy, dimming the water. However not stopping the fish visits.

Day 03, Cachaças and Waterfalls

Cachaça is a traditional Brazilian distilled drink. That comes from the colonial times with the extensive plantations of sugar cane.

Cachaças and waterfalls are a combination that the most cautious people would not advise. However, not in Paraty. Where the hills are next to the city. In the hills are located the waterfalls, and the farms. The farms are usually called Alembics.

This day, I did a basic tourist trip, going to visit the hills with a local tourist agency. I went with a tourist group by Jeep. In total, it included three Alembics and five waterfalls. Among the alembics, Paratiana is the most known because one of its founders is an heir of the former Brazilian royal family, and they are the most rewarded.

Cachaças usually have an alcohol rate of 39 to 45%. Some liquors from cachaça vary from 20 to 30%. Paraty was the origin of the famous liquor Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon. In Portuguese, it rhymes, which sounds cool to say: “Gabriela, Cravo e Canela”.

Each alembic makes their own production of famous recipes like Gabriela, Labareda, cachaça Gold and so on. Quality is key for the alembics, which use only the heart of the distilled liquid. If you are used to taking shots when drinking, forget it. These cachaças are for tasting, drinking a bit like birds.

The waterfalls are five falls in total from two rivers. The main falls are the White Stone and the Tarzan. They are small falls in the middle of a well preserved Atlantic Forest. Although they look bigger than in the photos.

Day 04, Islands and Colonial Downtown

Keeping my journey as an agency tourist. I arranged a boat tour, which it would pass by three islands, and sail across some bays or, as the Caiçaras (the locals) like to say, Bags (Sacos in Portuguese).

The islands are completely wonderful with crystal clear and peaceful waters as a swimming pool.

On the way back, I could see the harbor of Engenho, which belongs to Amyr Klink. Besides, I could see the legendary Paraty ii, which Amyr used on his first trip to Antarctica. There he moored by one year alone. Following the Arctic on the next year. A pole to pole trip. Paraty ii is the highest mast boat.

Paraty downtown is entirely conserved with houses, churches and other historical monuments from the 17 to 19th centuries. At night, I had the luck to know Mr. Pipoca, which gave me a lecture about Paraty history. The city was founded in 1530 or 1590. Historians had doubt about its foundation. We stayed almost one hour only talking in front of this fountain. Curiously, the fountain has attrition signs, highlighting the old Portuguese saying: Soft water hits hard rock so many times until it drills. In Portuguese it rhymes: “Água mole em pedra dura tanto bate até que fura”.

One of the natural phenomenons that occurs in Paraty are the tides that advance over the city. The city was purposely planned for it. To help clean the city streets, where there was a high circulation of people and animals as Paraty was one of the most important commercial entry points from Brazil.

From the city harbor, coffee, sugar, and gold were exported. Paraty was the endpoint of the historical Gold Path or Royal Road.

One of the notable Paraty dweller is a member of the former Brazilian Royal family, João de Orleans e Bragança.

Paraty has a large annual agenda of events. The most popular are: Cachaça Festival, FLIP - International Literature Festival of Paraty, and the Bourbon Festival (Jazz festival).

Day 05, Orange Trees, Sleep Beach and Dark tip.

Already on my fifth day in the city. I decided to adventure by the trails. I left the hostel aiming to get at the Saco Bravo. Saco Bravo is an amazing waterfall that falls in the open sea. It takes 12 kilometers to get there. Hurry!

After one hour in the easy hiking to Sono (sleep) beach. I got at the first paradisiacal spot. Sono beach is odd compared to other beaches around because it has a long sand coast and more presence of waves in the sea. There is a fishing village there. Fishermen came there generations ago, and today there are around 100 households living there.

After thrity minutes crossing the long Sono beach, besides 10 minutes of a steep rise. I got at this belvedere. The landscape is beautiful.

From there, the hiking continues, crossing Antigos, Antiguinhos, and finally Ponta Negra (Dark tip) beaches. From Ponta Negra, it has the last four km trail to get to the waterfall. Planning to conclude the journey step by step, my total focus was to get to Ponta Negra first than anything else.

After leaving the belvedere, I started downhill. I just see what I’d face from now on. A snake of 1 meter of length, black with green stripes, just crossing on my path. And I crossed its path.

This trail from the Laranjeiras (Orange trees) neighborhood had just reopened on that exact day. Maybe I was even the first person to cross there after five months of lockdown. Therefore, the forest has started to advance on the trails and maybe there was the presence of animals on the path.

The beaches of Antigos and Antiguinhos are uninhabited. After Sono beach, there will be dwellers only at Ponta Negra, which stays more than 8 km from the trail beginning. Thus, they only go to Laranjeiras by the sea with motorboats. On the other hand, the first trail to get at the Sono was constantly used by the Sono inhabitants.

The path from now on was abandoned. I stopped and thought for fie minutes to decide to whether keep going or to return back. In the end, I decided to continue. In the pic below, the snake appears entering the forest.

After one more hour hiking, I crossed Antigos and Antiguinhos beaches. Two more kilometers of abandoned trail to Ponta Negra remained. Surely, after I saw the first snake. I started paying ten times more attention where I was stepping in. This slowed me down a lot. Besides the effort to keep walking with much more attention.

In the end, I walked almost two more hours in the tropical forest, when I suddenly heard human voices. Oh it was so good to meet my own specie again. Next to Ponta Negra village, there is a waterfall named Galheta where I found some of their inhabitants. They welcomed me very well, and were stunned when I said that I came from the trail. Most of the tourists that get there go by motorboat straight from Laranjeiras to Ponta Negra beach.

I stayed in the waterfall for a while, bathing in the cold water and enjoying the company of the locals. Close to noon, it wasn’t possible to follow to Saco Bravo as it would require two more hours of hiking. It’s obligatory to hike from there with their local guides, and they leave at 9 am at the latest.

So, I had the rest of the day to enjoy the beach, and to talk with other tourists there. By the way, there was a group that came from a four day trekking, Joatinca Trail. They camped in reclusive beaches along the way.

Day 06, Mamanguá “Bag”

Last day in Paraty. No more time to lose. What I wanted most was to see this special spot, Mamanguá Bag. The unique tropical fjord of the world.

I wasn’t sure if I could get to the summit of the hill close by, Pão de Açúcar Peak, as I would depend on going by bus to Paraty-mirim, a far neighborhood of Paraty. From there, I’d get a motorboat to Cruzeiro Village, where the trail begins to the peak. From the top, you can see the entire fjord passage of 8 km long.

Fortunately, the trip didn’t have any complications. Everything worked perfectly. I got the bus at 7 am at Paraty downtown. When I just left the bus in Paraty-mirim, people were offering a boat trip to Cruzeiro village. I paid a pilot 150 BRL roundtrip, and beforehand the way back was scheduled at 3 pm. The exact time to get in Paraty-mirim to enter in the bus back to Paraty downtown.

The hiking to the peak requires a moderate effort of one hour. Although it is not that long, the path is steep almost all the time. The peak is 400 meters. I got there at 9 am. It was already hot up there. I stayed at the top for 20 minutes, and left to enjoy the rest of the time at the Cruzeiro Village beach. Where I could rent a kayak, and row across the fjord.

The kayak ride was amazing, I could enjoy the landscape exactly from the middle. The fjord has such calm waters. I got a mixed feeling of Carib and Thailand from there. If it was not the most beautiful landscape that I saw, it fiercely competes for it. This kayak ride lasted 2 hours.

Getting to the bus back to Paraty on time, I felt melancholic about leaving. At night I hung out one last time downtown to say a “see you soon” to this precious Brazilian city.