21st April 2011 - Parati and Bike tour

ratCATcher
Andre and Alison Stroebel
Thu 21 Apr 2011 13:46

23:13.660SÂ 044:42.398W

18th April 2011

Parati

As you can see we are back in Parati and living the cruising life. J

We have a few of those days when you plan to be busy, then we motored past the Germans; Tom and Suzie and they invited us for coffee, need I say more? .

The afternoon before, it was an early dinner with the Yacht Iza family. The day before that it was Miss Ninaâs 4th birthday party on the beach and âAunty Aliâ was in her element with the kids. J The previous night a barbeque on the beach!

Tomorrow we plan to do a cycle route in Parati, sadly we left our bicycles in Angra, having been told that no cycle tracks in Parati! Itâs awesome for cycling so we are hiring bikes. Tomorrow we do waterfalls, a distillery for Cachaca and a farm where they make a speciality of coffee and sugarcane brew.

Parati was originally in habited by GoianÃs and Tamoios Indians; it became an important port when it was used to offload slaves to work on the surrounding plantations.

The old city, the colonial architecture remains intact, was built at sea level; it is partly flooded at high tide and almost completely flooded at Spring tide. The receding waters were used to clean the streets and acted as a sanitation system. The slope of the ground is so carefully calculated that not even the slightest puddle is left at low tide.

The homes were built raised two steps so the waters didnât run inside.

21st April 2011

We did the bike trail on Tuesday. Man what a ride! The trail leaves Parati into the country then it forks , the left fork goes to the Distillery and the right the farm. At the end of both are waterfalls. We had been told the distillery route was the harder one so we decided to do that one first. It wasnât bad just one very steep hill near the end where I walked. The distillery is still running on the old techniques. They make the Cachaca (cu sha sa) from sugarcane and then it is aged or flavoured and bottled by hand right there. The wife sits and hand pastes all the labels on the bottles.

There is a two and half year aged one. It wasnât our favourite. Then two aged for 1Â years one in Oak vats and one in a Brazilian wood. We preferred the oak.ÂÂ They also have one that looks like light coloured meths. I must say tastes quite good but young and sharp. The aged ones are smooth. They also make liquors with various flavours being sugarcane, figs and about 5 other fruit indigenous to Brazil.Â

Right across the road from the distillery is a church built high up on top of a rock. See the photos its quite amazing.

Just a little way down a path is the âCachoeira do TobogÄ (Toboggan waterfall) Smooth rock into a small deep pool. The local boys have perfected the sport of sliding down them on their feet! Doing jumps and turns and twists on the way down, all the time staying on their feet. The youngest one doing it while we were there looked to be about 12yrs. They warn you to stay in the middle if you try it and to rather stay on your bum, for obvious reasons. The pool they slide into is only about 2 meters square, on either side shallow rock. Well Andrà did his bit and slid down but I chose to miss that one. J Chicken yeah!

One part of the waterfall you can climb through and there is a protected dry area behind the water. Itâs quite amazing to sit behind it watching the water gushing down. Getting behind it is not too easy as the rocks are very slippery and the force of the water is incredible. But we did it. Pity we couldnât take the camera in with us.

We spent an hour or so swimming in the pools and watching the games and then set off back towards town to take the right hand fork of the trail.

Oh my goodness what a ride. Steep hills, one after another!. Each time you get to the top (yeah I walked my bike up them) and it turns and starts to go down, itâs like âOh yeah at lastâ. Then you round a bend and the next hill is bigger than the last. There must have been 10 hills like that, by the last few Andrà was laughing because he said he would just watch my face as I turned the corner and saw ANOTHER hill. J

But it turns out the ride was worth it. High up the mountain in farmland amid pure jungle are the most beautiful falls, tumbling into natural pools. Pure, cool, fresh water. At the top of the section we were on are 3 âpot holesâ (like at Bourkeâs potholes in Tvl) perfectly placed in their setting. Of course we had to swim there too.

We saw the farm on the way back but it was already late. We had set off at about 10h00 and it was now 4pm. We stopped in but did not get a very warm reception and there was a cover charge so we decided to give it a miss.

We took the long scenic route back to enter the town from a side we had not yet seen. Horror of horror there was another huge hill. J J

By this time it was getting dark and we could not leave the rubber duck on the quay after dark as they grow feet. J Not that we could have gone on any longer we were both exhausted.

I was sure I would be crippled by today, but so far so good.

Yesterday we went into town to get signed out of Parati by the Capitania dos Portos as itâs a long weekend and being a religious holiday we believe EVERYTHING is closed. So we will probably leave on Sunday back to Angra where we have to extend our visas.

More news from there:

 

 

 

 

The beach âbarbequeâ

Parati flooded at high tide:

The distillery and church on the rock

 

Toboggan falls

 

 

 

Woohoo Go Andre

Andre climbing out of waterfall

 

Pot Holes

 

 

 

 

Religious âAuto tellerâ J in the street