Paraty, the old city, both beautiful and dangerous.
Visiting one of Brazil’s oldest Portuguese cities can be made into a fun and easy day trip from Ubatuba that is well worth it. Paraty is an absolutely charming city adorn with white colonial buildings lining cobblestone streets dotted with pink flower blossoms. It honest to god feels like you are walking in a vibrant scratch and sniff oil painting. However if you’re in high heels, not recommended for cobblestone street walking, or just don’t feel like huffing it, you can take in the city’s picturesque views by way of water taxis or horse drawn buggies since there are no cars allowed...
Read MoreSkim to Surf: An fun alternative to paddling out.
One of the highlights for me on our Ubatuba adventure was finding hidden or secluded beach in and around Ubatuba. Of course the tourists flocked to the more well-known and larger praias (beaches) of Ubatuba: Praia Vermelha, Enseada, Flamego, Lazaro, Domingos Dias, and Grande, but with 74 beaches and 15 islands, Ubatuba is a smorgasbord of beaches and we were on a quest to find a tiny beach of our own. Since our hostel was 200 meters from Praia do Lazaro we decided to visit the two tiny beaches that flanked Lazaro’s sides. The one to the northwest was practically deserted with water the...
Read MoreFlorianopolis, Brazil
What could make a beautiful city on an island covered with beaches, fresh fish, and oysters better? Meet Paula, our couchsurfing host. Paula has a heart much bigger than I could have ever imagined, she opened up her beautiful condo to Leah and me over the weekend. Couchsurfing has met a lot of opposition from friends and family. For those of you who don’t know what it is, www.couchsurfing.org is a online community of people who open up their homes for “strangers” to come and stay the night. The idea of couchsurfing is much bigger than a free place to stay, its an open...
Read MoreThe Samba Parade, Part 3: The Spectacular.
On Sunday afternoon Ben and I were walking around Rio De Janeiro’s city center and saw that night’s Samba Parade floats still under construction! What… procrastination station! As we walked around taking picture, we joked that they had some major work to do… It looks like they pulled it off… To out stage one another, Samba parade floats often have some kind of mechanical moving part. In some cases a little menacing mechanical shark that emerges out of a pool to eat a Samba dancer will do. Oh no! Oh yes. Or maybe what a float really needs is a mechanical horse that gallops...
Read MoreOddities
Overall, Brazil is a lot more westernized than we expected. Of course we’ve been only in the south, and this is supposed to be the most westernized part. So everything is as it should be =) nonetheless, I’ve witnessed a view things a bit strange. This post is a collection of oddities, so hopefully its possible to follow my train of thought. I did a post on buses already, and how exciting city ones can be. One I thing I noticed is, the buses don’t always stop at the bus stop. They only stop when a passenger on the bus requests a stop, or if someone at a bus stop flags the...
Read MoreThe Samba Parade, Part 2: The Survival.
1.) What to wear? So what does one wear to a Samba parade? Answer: Anything or next to nothing if you wish… as long as your costume is not big. While in line, two Australian guys who looked like they walked out of a Samba parade, were asked to discard their costumes because of their size, heart breaking, but the stands were packed so the request was understandable. We kept our attire low key. Ben in his red and white poke-a-dotted onesie with discarded giraffe, elk hybrid hat… nothing but class. I in a curly purple wig and a silver Carnival mask I picked up at street vendor for 18...
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