03/02/2020 – Boat trip around Paraty, Brasil (Josh entry)

Morning was apon us, and it was off to breakfast to meet the others. A lovley spread of homemade breads, pancakes, various fruits and Brazilian delicasies laid out on the bar waiting for us, coffee on tap too! As we scoffed our faces, a couple, Hans and Naomi (from Germany) sat down on our table. They joined us for breakfast and invited us on a day trip to the sugar loaf and a boat trip. we snapped up the offer, necked our coffees and proceded to get ready for the day out. Our plan was to go to the marina, barter for a boat and get taken to the island where the sugar loaf is when as if by magic, and local strolled into the foyere advertising he’s boat and he’s knowledge of the local island groups… result! luckily, Hans is studying portugues and is pretty much fluent, he negociated a decent price and off we went to find to boat.

After a short 20 minuet ride across the fjord we arrived at sugar loaf island, a beautiful lush green tropical island with a 380 meter incline to the summit. We decided to go back to basics and leave our foot ware at the boat… Yes, we were bare foot the whole way. Not the best idea for Dom as she had two hugh blisters on each big toe from our Capawara lesson the week before… a very vocal and interesting few hours was to follow because of this. Off we went, it didn’t take long before we all had beads off sweat gathering around our brows and forming patches of moister across our clothes, after an hour and a half we made it to top of the small mountine and were met with a very tretuorous, near vertical path with a guide rope anckard top and bottom with sheer drop either side! Carefully we all climbed and finally made it up ontop of the sugar loaf!! Once the low cloud disappeared the views of the surrounding area were outstading. We spent 30 minuets or so eating some snacks, takng photos and I, almost having a heart attack due to Jen seeing how close to the edge of the sugar loaf she could stand without falling over the small vertical drop of 380 meters to the shore below. After all this excitement and a comical walk down (thanks Dom!) we arrived back down to the boat, we all gave high fives and pats on the back for the completion of our hike and headed off by boat for some snorkling. Nobody on board, including the captain were prepared for the next surprise. Dolphins!!! 4 or 5 of them, jumping out of the water only 10 to 15 meters away from our boat. This was the first time in my life I had ever seen dolphins like this, and to our amazent the captin was happy for us to jump in and swm with them! Absolutey incrediable, under the water one could hear the clicking noises of the dolphins communicating. trying to keep up with them was pretty impossible and they were gone as fast as they had arrived, we all climbed back onto the boat and continued on. After some snorkling and the captain jumping in to retrieve a hugh starfish he had spotted from the boat, we headed back to the marina and paid for our lovely trip out. We strolled back home via a pit stop for some food at a family home selling local snacks in their front porch (which had been converted into a small restraunt). From here we wandered home, had showers and settled into the chill out area of the hostel with a bottle of red wine and very cute kitten in our laps and played some card games until the power cut dictated our bed time.