Gully and Elise's Travel Blog: Par(a)ty Time

It didn’t take long for Vanessa to get fed up with our poor-backpacker habits, and she soon had us jet-setting around Brazil on airplanes and in rental cars. After all, she has a real job and a steady income. No more bumpy bus rides on dirt roads for us! After our stint in Caraiva (or butt-f$#^ nowhere, as Vanessa affectionately calls it), we hopped on a 3:30 AM flight (the cheapest one) to Sao Paulo, then rented a car so that we could zip along the coast between Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. And zip we did… at least for about 250 kilometers, until we were 15 km from our next destination, Paraty.

And then – we encountered the bumpiest dirt road that has ever existed. The irony!! We found ourselves in the classic navigational blunder: “The Google map directions says there should be a road here!!!” Google forgot to mention that only 4x4’s could possibly get over the massive craters, streams, and giant boulders that the road is comprised of. Being in the middle of the jungle, and the shortest detour being 100 kilometers, we foolishly decided to give it a go. Well, we made it (eventually), and it only took us 3 hours to finish the last 15 kilometers, with the sun steadily sinking and the jungle around us getting more and more ominous. Our little rental VW Gol (no that’s not a typo) didn’t get discouraged at all, and did a great job even with the giant 4x4’s speeding by us every little while, only slowing down to tell us we were never going to make it.

I guess it was all worth it, because Paraty is a lovely place, full of …. you guessed it – beaches and palm trees and cobblestoned streets. We’re here for a couple more days, until Gully’s complaining about the lack of surfable waves becomes too much to handle. We’re also beginning to mentally prepare ourselves for what comes next… Rio, baby!!!

-E