Just 236 km away (4.5 hrs by bus) from Rio, Paraty is another popular getaway for cariocas or a good stop off point to break the trip up from Rio to São Paulo. It’s hard not to like this beautiful colonial town with its cobblestone roads (watch out for twisting an ankle, especially if you have had a couple of drinks), historic buildings, which is surrounded by beaches. The town dates from 1667, when the Portuguese colonised Brazil. Paraty became a port town to ship gold found in the mines of the state of Minas Gerais to Rio before going on to Portugal.
Days in Paraty are spent relaxing on the beach, enjoying a coffee or nice meal at the numerous cafés and restaurants that line the streets, buying trinkets from souvenir shops or adventuring out on day trips to explore nearby islands, waterfalls and towns. While you are relaxing at the beach you are able to do a DIY mud mask using the sand and mud from the shore. If you rub it all over your body, leave it on for a while and then wash it off, your skin is left feeling nice and smooth from the natural exfoliation.
As we had just been at the World Cup for the last four weeks, we thought it would be a good idea to go on a detox. Turns out Xave and I had two different ideas when it came to the detox. I thought we were just going to give up drinking alcohol for a week but Xave wanted the full package. No alcohol, no carbs, no meat except fish, litres of water a day – it was going to be a full liver cleansing process. We went into it with good intentions eating fruit for breakfast, salads for lunch and stir frys for dinner. However by day 3 we were both feeling irritable from lack of food and by restricting ourselves so much, it made me crave meat and carbs even more than usual! Needless to say, we canned the idea and celebrated by having a juicy steak and a beer.
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