Paraty

Our next stop was Paraty!

"This stunning colonial city—also spelled Parati—is one of South America's gems. Giant iron chains hang from posts at the beginning of the mazelike grid of cobblestone streets that make up the historic center, closing them to all but pedestrians, horses, and bicycles. Until the 18th century this was an important transit point for gold plucked from the Minas Gerais—a safe harbor protected by a fort." 

-Fodor's Brazil 2014

We arrived in Paraty late afternoon and headed to the beach. We found a small beach near our rental house and stopped to play. The water was a bit dark and super warm (Dad joked that the water could be used to make tea) and only Aubrey, Jo, and Dad ended up swimming. We headed back to the house not to long after and got ready to celebrate New Years! We stayed up until 12 playing board games and were able to go off the balcony and watch multiple firework shows down on the beach. 

On New Years Day we decided to take a boat tour! We hopped on the boat at 11:00 am and didn't get off until 6:30 pm. The boat held about 30 people and had a bathroom and a kitchen to make us all lunch. The boat took us to 3 different islands where we were able to get off and swim to the shore or play in the water. And let me tell you- the beaches were GORGEOUS and the water was crystal clear!!!! Like you could see the bottom of the ocean floor it was so blue. 

 At the second island Aubrey, Dad, and I ventured a little bit farther to the side of the island towards the end of the beach and found some awesome sea creatures! There were blue crabs and little hermit crabs running through the sand and Aubrey found some neat shells and a dead starfish. The coolest thing were the sand dollars! Every step you took you were standing on a sand dollar! There were thousands of them and they all were alive with little crabs crawling on them. Dad would only let us take the dead ones, so we picked the live ones up and threw them back in the water. 

 Everyone's favorite stop we took was the third. There were thousands of tropical swimming in the water close to the boat and the cooks were throwing in shrimp for the fish to eat, so they were EVERYWHERE!!! We were able to borrow a few snorkeling masks and it was just incredible! 

On our last day we walked through the town. The doors of each shop were painted different colors and the buildings were super cute.

Chocolate anyone?