Day 70 : Paraty

Aliang decided to join me for the trip to Paraty, and so we met at Rio’s bus terminal to take our 4.5hr bus ride.  It’s nice to have company travelling on the road, especially with a fellow Singaporean in this part of the world, as we seem to be a rare commodity in this region!

The bus ride was beautiful as we drove by stretches of beautiful coastlines.  We were excited and couldn’t wait to arrive. 

We arrived at Paraty at 2.30pm and was welcomed by Matheus, who picked us up at the bus terminal in a cool yellow buggy!  I love his buggy! 

His place is located about 5km away from the city centre and I felt I was in a resort the moment we arrived!  Surrounded by lush green fields and palm trees, his modern bungalow was nestled next to the river and the sound of the running river water can be heard throughout the day. Such natural surroundings!  Amazing!

Matheus subsequently brought us to a small maker of Cachasa.  Cachasa is a liquor made from sugarcane and is generally used to make Caipirinha, and Paraty is known as one of the top few towns to produce good Cachasa,

We didn’t get to see how it was manufactured, but saw for the 1st time a huge range of cachasas and got to taste some interesting variations. 

He next showed us a famous waterfall in Paraty, located just 10 mins walk from the distillery.  The waterfall is also famous for having a rock which functions as a water slide (at your own risk!). 

We subsequently went to a Posada (something like a hotel in Portuguese), which was operated by Matheus’ auntie.  The Posada was nestled in surroundings filled with nature and we were invited to join them for their BBQ.  His aunties and uncles were really friendly and warm and made us feel very welcome.   

And of course the food was good!  We also got to try some local sweets, one made out of coconut (bei-jin) and another from chocolate (don’t remember name) and they were really yummy!

 

We headed back into town to get some groceries and wine as Matheus had invited some friends over for a small party.  Just as we were about to leave one of the supermarket, a car parked next to us and out came 4 Asians. 

We decided to sound them out to see where they were from and if they were travellers and it was of a very strange coincidence that all 4 of them turned out to be Singaporeans!!! 

Turns out that they are working with Keppel FELS and that there is a small group of Singaporeans working in Angra, another town about 30 mins drive from Paraty.  Some of them have been working in Brazil for over a year, and they happened to be in the area as they had been out enjoying their day off at another beach and was driving back to Angra. 

Further coincidence is that a couple of them were mutual friends of another of Aliang’s friend!  What a small world!