So I mentioned that we had a 6 am flight today. Yeah that meant being on the road at 3 am. So instead of sleeping, we had a last hurrah at the hostel bar and polished off the last of their red wine. When I say we, I mean myself, and a handful of others who did the sensible thing and not sleep after arriving at 8 pm from the Missions.
It was then back on the bus to Paraty, 5 hours away. Nathan and I hung out at the back of the bus and had an awesome chat. It was a full on drive with the bus careening around a road similar
It was a four hour trip each way to the missions through the Argentinian countryside. On the way back we had a mad jam session with Fernando, our guide. Best guide ever!
To get to the airport, we had to cross the border to Brazil and then check in at the airport. Both of which left us with about 45 minutes to take off and with people at various states of sleep deprivation. I was a bit manic. Just a bit...
We were heading to Paraty (pronounced Para-chee in Portuguese) which is about another 7 hour drive after a 4 hour flight to São Paulo. I dozed on and off on the plane and then some more on the first half of the bus trip. We stopped for lunch at a rest stop which had tonnes of yummy pie type things.
We stopped at a place called Aparacedia. It is home to the 4 biggest Marian Shrine in the world and the second biggest Basilica seating 45 000 people.
Inside houses the apparition of Aparceida from the 1700s. The story goes some fishermen were having no luck with their fishing when their nets dragged up the body of a statue and then the head of our lady. She was a little terracotta statue and she was Afro-Brazillian. The fishermen then proceeded to have a massive catch and she is the patroness of Brazil and the first black Madonna ever.
That is her there! Tiny! We stayed for mass at the cathedral and it was a lot of fun! The Portuguese are quite charismatic and they sing as much as possible!
To the Bulli exit off the princess highway or the Old Pacific Highway. We were treated to this awesome sunset
We finally arrived in Paraty after and epic trek. I had been away for 40 hours and was delighted with the awesomeness of this budget hotel.
We had fried fish for dinner which was ok. The epic wine drinkers from Iguazu then had a Jonny Walker Black nightcap. It was 20 reals (about $10) and slept!
Jamie's cough had gotten to a full blown chest infection and we both had a horrible night's sleep. But breakfast was awesome with this kind of setting and fresh fruit.
We then had half a day in Paraty where we did a walking tour and went to Sunday Mass.
Paraty is a colonial town built in the 1700s on the gold route to Rio. When the gold ran out, Paraty was abandoned. Then later in the century the coffee industry restarted the town. Then in the 1850s the emperor of Brazil buil a highway bypassing Paraty and it was abandoned again for 100 years. To give you an idea of how abandoned it was, a dude in the 1920s wanted to build a house so he picked the only vacant block, a street corner!
The rest of the town is world heritage listed and is perfectly preserved.
We then went to Mass at the largest of the 4 churches in the town, Our lady of Remedies. It was the last day of a 9 day festival in honour of St Rita of Cascia.
 |
| Funny story about this Church, so it was supposed to have bell towers but they discovered that because the foundations were on reclaimed swamp, the church started sinking so they had to scrap the bell towers and stuck them in the second floor windows instead! |
A church dedicated to her is currently closed for restoration and it looks beautiful already.
The mass was an experience and a half! So much singing and joy!
It was then checkout, on the bus to Rio!
No comments:
Post a Comment