The night of Liz's birthday we headed into town and bumped into some Belgian guys we'd met in Ilha Grande, we met up later at Torre de Pizza.... coined the best pizza in Parati as it was also one of the guys birthdays as well as Liz's. After yummy pizza we headed into the historic centre of the town where we discovered self service ice cream parlours. This is a very bad idea with people such as myself and Liz. Liz especially has a killer sweet tooth! We had dark chocolate, ginger, coffee, hazelnut, and marshmallow flavoured icecreams. They are lethal!
After overdosing ourselves on silly amounts of sugar we walked into the centre where there seemed to be some sort of organised party thing going on in place of the market from the night before. Upon talking to some random people in the crowd we discovered it was a Uni Congress for people studying postgraduate studies in something that mainly involved the study of Algae... strange. Anyway there were interesting people doing dances and there were free shots of Cachaca liquor, which tastes like concentrated fermented banana syrup which we weren't expecting.
The next day the sun came out! The lady at reception told us it would be hotter tomorrow so the falls would be better the next day, so instead we ventured into town and caught a bus to Trindade beach. It's quite a popular surf beach, and popular with the locals as it's surrounded by little bays and there is a natural swimming pool there which is lovely. We spent most of the day on the beach and having a look round the town and generally trying to dry out after our time in Ilha Grande. In the evening we spent another night having a look around the old town and visiting the cake men that line the streets to get Liz's sugar fix. They wheel round carts with chocolate, coconut and dulche de leche sugary treats in them.
The next morning we decided against taking the bikes and took a bus from the centre of town up to Penha, Tobaga which is where the water falls are. The falls as you walk down to them seem rather huge, cold and neck braking... the large expanse of dark rock is covered in different moving currents which crash into a small... rather rock filled.. pool at the bottom.
However from the top, and after watching a strange Danish guy chuck himself down, it seemed much more fun. You sit on one side of the rock at the top and then push yourself down the flattish section, before being taken over the edge by the current and crashing into the pool at the bottom.. instantly filling your nose with cold river water! It's so much fun and the sun was out which was lovely and hot, so that the moment you step out of the water you are refreshed and warming up again... then running back up the slopes for round two!
We then walked up river and saw a proper little rope bridge over the river which was very thin and wobbly! And had a proper piratey looking sign which warned in red and white paint that the bridge could only hold two people at once, which was promptly ignored by everyone else there much to my dismay. When we got back the sun was still up and we swam in the pool at the hostel and soaked up some more sun. We decided to cook ourselves a veggie version of the Brazillian national dish of rice and beans, which was yummy, but more food than we'd eaten in days! Our stable food is bread rolls out here! Then last night we again headed into town and braved the huge uneven cobblestones of the historic centre again in flipflops, and tried some amazing dulche de leche/cake/flan/mousse thing which was really yummy! However we then promised ourselves we'd try proper Caiprifruta which is condensed milk, sugar, fruit and vodka or cachaca - we had been offered some before in Rio but turned it down. So upon trying it this time, we discovered that it was basically alcoholic strawberry milkshake... and therefore disgusting! Our sickly adventures promptly ended up in the bin.
Today we decided against kayaking after words of 'friendly sharks' and high recommendations of boat trips, to take a boat around the Costa Verde and the bays of Parati. We definately didn't regret our choice! We spent 6 hours in the sun on the top deck of a gorgeous boat reading and looking at the stunning scenery. We stopped to snorkle in several bays, one of which was stunning. Under the water as we swam into the shallows, we passed over deep chasms of rock filled with plush pink corals and a variety of different fish. We saw angel fish, stripey fish, long electric blue fish and big shoals of large silvery fish ... Liz even saw an eel! The light streamed through the bluegreen water in only ways you imagine in disney's 'The Little Mermaid' and nature documentaries... It was breathtaking! We were on the boat with an Israeli couple that were our room mates on Ilha Grande and they joined us for snorkling. Also on the boat there was music and free fresh fruit and drinks. The fresh pineapple here is beyond anything from home, all the fruit and veg tastes different here. In England we would have beautiful, ripe, uniform tomatoes which however taste bland... but here, they may all be different colours and shapes and sizes.. but everything has more taste here!
Tonight we are joining the Israeli's after dinner to go into town for a bit, before an early start tomorrow. We are catching a 6 hour bus to Sao Paulo and then a horrendously long over night bus from Sao Paulo to Foz de Iguazu.. joy! However the falls should be incredible so it should all be worth it.
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