Let’s start with the journey to Paraty. Most travellers will take the boat from Ilha Grande to Angra dos Reis and then a bus to Paraty. After a boat ride and a hellish walk in the midday sun from the pier to the bus station, the bus arrived. The bus for this 2 hour journey is literally a regular, degular local bus. People are just minding their business, running errands, alongside sticky travellers with their big ass bags. The angels and I were like, não obrigada, and Kate started to frantically google other ways to get to Paraty. As I’m getting onto the bus she says ‘Uber is 200 reis, how much is that in pounds?!’, edging closer to the bus driver and hesitantly motioning for 3 tickets, I convert it, ‘about £30’, I shout back. We all look at each other and collectively decide we’re going to get an Uber. It was a tight squeeze but our driver, Wilson, (the cutest little guy to match his cute little car), got us to Paraty in AC, quickly and safely.

We stayed in a super cute hotel called Pousada Rumo dos Ventos. The people on the front desk were lovely and breakfast was included, (dreamy!). On our first full day we went on a waterfall (cachoeira) and cachaça distillery (alambiques) Jeep tour. Cachaça, the drink of Brazil, is made from sugar cane, but much like champagne has to come from France, cachaça has to come from Brazil, which I believe is the only distinction from rum. We learnt about how it’s distilled, walked through, what is basically, a cachaça museum and got to try a shot, (or 4), of it.

Our next stops were the waterfalls! Including Pedra Brana, where we jumped off rocks, Tobogã Waterfall where we got thrown down some rocks and Tarzan’s pool where we swam between some rocks. The tour ended at a random cheese shop. We couldn’t stop saying, ‘what a day?!’, afterwards because we had sososo much fun frolicking in the natural beauty of Paraty. Our guide, Tarzan, (real name Jetson), was great and only charged us 90BR, (some £12) for the whole day!

The second day we did a ‘free’ walking tour with Luana. She was incredibly insightful and gave us a little history of Paraty and the Old Town. Paraty actually means ‘fish in abundance’ in the indigenous language and was a marshland where fisherman settled. It was one of the first places to be colonised and some 800k, (out of ~4m), slaves were brought here too. There are 3 main churches in Paraty: one that was for the white people, one for mixed people and one for black people. Ironically, the church that was for the black people is the only one that actually has real gold in it. After the abolition of slavery, Paraty was essentially abandoned with only about 3/4k people living there by 1903. Whilst people were leaving the city, Rua da Fogo, (where people would come to get a light for their fires), became dark and a perfect place for sex workers to conduct business. In response, people planted trees, plants and flowers to hide the activity going on. Now, it’s one of the prettiest streets in Paraty.

I walked around the centre, dipping into shops and grabbed a cookie from a bookshop café. I tried to get a cab back but with there being so few Ubers in the city and the rain pouring, I couldn’t get one. Frustrated, I messaged back one of the girls I had met in a random bikini shop in Rio, telling her about the weather. She said she had just arrived to the centre and asked if I wanted to get dinner and drink. We spent the rest of the evening together and suddenly I was grateful that Uber had failed me – the universe really and truly knows what it’s doing.

Eventually, I picked up my things and headed for the bus station. Next stop, São Paulo…