Seasons on the Move

Paraty Mirim – April 18

Another day, another beach, another municipal bus. We traveled twenty minutes south from Paraty proper to the township of Paraty-Mirim. The ride down had given us a glimpse of rural Brazilian life. Limp palm fronds slapped the side of the open bus windows. Locals crossed wooden plank suspension bridges carrying fruit and chickens and hitched rides further down the dirt road. Others loitered around the lone restaurant drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. A pay phone across from the restaurant served as the township´s communication centre, with various people rushing towards it every time it rang. Kids played hide and go seek in tall blades of grass and swung from tree vines.

The beach itself wasn´t all that fanstastic, littered with driftwood and seashells, but it was isolated and peaceful. We laid on the narrow strip of sand behind the drift wood against the green chaos of the sprawling undergrowth that backed the beach. Juice was drunk from fresh coconuts through straws. When we had sucked them dry, the man from the restaurant hacked them open with a machete and we scraped the flesh from the insides using a sharpened piece of coconut rind. We sat in the sun until our skin ached, swam, and ate fried shrimp, black beans and rice for lunch, all washed down with a large bottle of cold beer.

Trindade – April 17

In the morning, we took a bus full of screaming school children 30km south of Paraty to Trindade, home to more beautiful Brazilian beaches. The gut turning road plummeted through sub-tropical forest before coming to an end near a cluster of beach huts and grounded boats. We had seen the area´s beaches on the descent into town and noticed that the white capped waves were more suitable for surfing than swimming.

We got off the bus, walked down a dirt trail that cut between beach side restaurants and out onto Praia do Meio, two semi-circles of sand, pinched in the middle by a group of grey boulders, that billowed out like sails against the palm trees and bars that rimmed the beach. We grabbed a couple of brown laquered chairs, reclinable, and ordered some refreshments. Fab plugged away at her book while I scribbled notes for a feature film and listened to Ween´s latest, “La Cucaracha” (They still got it).

By the time the album came to a close, dense clouds had rolled in and forced everyone on the beach to seek shelter from the driving rain. Fab and I decided to make the most of our time and ordered some fresh fish and drank a couple of beers before returning to Paraty and treating ourselves to dessert, an açai smoothy and a block of dark chocolate covered Brazil nuts.

Paraty – April 16

The rain clouds cleared overnight so we hit the beach. We passed through the colonial heart of Paraty, up a hill that snaked out of town, across a bridge and back down to where the land flattened out and Jabaquara beach, a long sickle of golden sand, came into view.

We pulled together two chairs and soaked in the sun, looking out at the calm water and tiny islands dotting the bay, all containing beaches within reach by way of hired motorboat. We had the beach mostly to ourselves save for a couple of people who came and went as the day grew longer. Fab escaped to the wintry Russia of “Anna Karenin” and I wrote and listened to music in between dips in the water.

When we were done in the sun, we visited the colonial part of town, an area pushed up against the town´s shoreline that once served as a major Portuguese port for shipping gold back to the motherland. Paraty was declared a protected area in the 1970´s by the Brazilian government and as a result has been carefully restored and well maintained. Palm trees shot up behind the white washed buildings, the doorways and window frames brightly hued in a variety of colours. No vehicles are allowed in the historic centre, so all transport of goods and tourists is done by way of horse drawn carts.

At the port, a line of for-hire boats, all individually painted and customized, bobbed up and down in the water and jettied in and out of the harbour. Portuguese cannons aimed defiantly out at the water. When our ankles became tired of navigating the uneven cobbled streets, we returned to the hotel to sit in the garden, listen to the crazed, late night sermonizing from the nearby churches and rub aloe vera into our pink flesh.

Paraty – April 15

We spent another rainy, tropical day aboard a bus bound for Paraty. In front of me, a man with no teeth molested a guava fruit with his gums, his flaccid cheeks moving up and down like pistons, juice trickling down his arm. Across from me, a woman vomited on the floor, at first trying to catch it with her hands, then using a small plastic bag that she proceeded to fill thoughout the rest of the trip. Outside the fogged windows, moisture clouds sat low, dumping their contents on the green, green forest.

The rain continued to fall in Paraty. Fab and I wandered around lost, soaked, and looking for a place to stay. A kind woman with a dark tan, blonde hair and an umbrella guided us to a pousada run by an ex-pat Belgian man with a flat-top head who spoke four languages.

Fab and I stuffed ourselves with tenderloin steak at a pay-by-the-kilo restaurant for dinner and then walked back to the hotel. Christian places of worship, like shops in a strip mall, lined the streets, lit up inside with green fluorescent light. People praised the lord in the fervent way that only denominational Christians know how. One of the churches had a rock group made up of teenage girls who gently rocked out in Portuguese to the delight of a small group of senior citizens. By the time we got back to the hotel, rapture must have been near because things really sounded like they were heating up. The praising was now replaced with crazed screaming. Fab and I sat on the covered garden patio, surrounded by trickling rain, tropical plants, and stereo sound worhsip, played a couple games of Yahtzee and drank a terrible bottle of vinho that tasted more like fermented grape juice than red wine.

Rio de Janeiro – April 14

I woke up, looked out the window at Cristo Redentor and saw large grey clouds descending low upon the city. I imagined that the clouds had come north from the Amazon interior and were now ready to dump jungle rain on the city before departing the coast and dispersing across the Atlantic.

I had spent the entire night sweating with only faint relief coming when a breeze blew in the open window, no doubt the same winds that had brought the clouds and covered the previous days blue sky in a blanket of grey and white. Fab and I had intended to make our way up the Coronado to Christ the Redeemer, but with the large statue now obscured by clouds, we decided to wait for a clear day. Besides, the jet lag we had ignored at the beach the day before had came back and slapped us in the face.

Instead of discovering the city, we holed up in the apartment, read our books and recuperated. We ate exotic fruits until our mouths were raw, dined on fajitas for dinner and drank cold beer that quickly turned warm in the heavy heat, the cans beading up with perspiration and forming moisture circles on the table. We decided that the next day we would depart Rio and go south down Costa Verde to Paraty, a colonial town of 30,000 with access to numerous pristine beaches.

Rio de Janeiro – April 13

The jet lag forced Fab and I out of bed before 7am. Outside the apartment´s eighth floor window, we could see the Coronado, the hill containing Rio´s most recognizable icon, Christ the Redeemer. The tall statue peered down over the city with open arms. Some what fittingly, the cement Jesus was turned away from us, providing us only with a side-profile.

I tried to fall back asleep, but couldn´t so I went into the kitchen and made a pot of strong coffee. No use fucking around. A pot later, the sun was up, the sky was blue and Fab and I were wired, talking anxiously about our future and preparing to go to the beach.

We went down to Ipanema beach, only two blocks away, and took advantage of the sun drenched day. The crowded sands were filled with cariocas, Rio´s most beautiful, all deeply tanned, sitting on beach chairs in familiar circles underneath umbrellas. The men wore speedos and women of all ages wore string bikinis and thongs. Kids played football on the edge of the water, others body surfed. Vendors trudged up and down the beach selling cold drinks and snacks.Fab and I stretched out our beach towels, pulled of our clothes and laid down in the crunchy white sand. A whirlwind of people, smells and the lilting sound of Portuguese surrounded us.

When I could take the heat no longer, I went down to the turquoise waters to take on the five foot rollers crashing against the shoreline. I swam out into the biggest waves I have ever been in, spotted some twelve year old boys body surfing and decided to join them. I sidled up beside them and tried to make like I knew what I was doing. I didn´t fool anybody. The ocean called my bluff and spit me, tumbling head over heels, an eight foot wave crushing me, making me eat sand, face plant, confusion, brief panic, choking on water, back to the shore. I tried again to make sure it wasn´t a mistake. It wasn´t: twenty seconds underwater, two giant waves, arms flailing, trunks pulled down to knees, mildy concussed, out of the water, eight year old girls laughing, embarassment, frightened of water, rest of the day on the sand.