| Paraty,
Brazil |
| Paradise
On The Far Side Of The World |
| by Elienne M. W. Lawson |
| July 2005
It has been
five hundred years since French, Dutch, English, Portuguese and Spanish
pirates began to traverse the Brazilian coast, looking for Indians hot
to trade and the odd white man’s stash to loot. Not much has changed in
the intervening years in that respect. North Americans and Europeans,
gringos if you will, still hit the beaches of Brazil, looking to trade
coins for trinkets and experience their own economic power by finding prices
that are a “steal”. But after so many years of travelers searching
for an undiscovered treasure, one may find themselves grumbling as they
share the “paradise on the far side of the world,” as Brazil was once known,
not with pirates but with spring breakers from Chicago and London. |
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| Paraty, 125
miles south of Rio de Janeiro, is a tourist destination, but it retains
an essence that is quintessentially Brazilian.
History buffs
will not be disappointed by Paraty. The first settlers of this bay were
the nomadic Guiána Indians. They were responsible for opening up
trails through the dense forest along the coast to the interior of Brazil.
European settlers staked their claim with a settlement in 1600, and by
1640 the town moved to its present location and the Indians were shunted
aside. That same year, the town built the church “Our Lady of
Remedies”. The church dedication - to freed mulattos - seems a bit
presumptuous considering the imminent age of slavery that would bring great
wealth and fame to Paraty. 1667 marked the date Paraty became an official
township. Steady economic growth continued in the 1700s, but it was not
until the explosion of the Gold Trail (the Caminho do Ouro) that
Paraty became one of the greatest economic powerhouses in Brazil.
Thanks to some
sweetly negotiated legislation, Paraty was the only port out of which gold
and diamonds mined in Minas Gerais could sail from Brazil to Portugal. |
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| Paraty is
well known for its beautifully preserved two story homes from the colonial
period, an ostentatious display of wealth at the time.
In 1822, Brazil
gained independence from Portugal, and gold, production of which had been
dropping off for years, stopped being shipped off to Portugal. Paraty
remained wealthy through the exportation of coffee and the production of
cachaça, also called pinga, a sugar cane liquor. Paraty at one point
had over 250 distilleries for cachaça alone, keeping pirates well-stocked
and happily sloshed in their local hideouts.
For a town
whose first church was dedicated to freed mulattos, the end of slavery
in 1888 changed its fortunes completely. Paraty’s decline was immediate
and led to a mass exodus. The town’s population fell from 16,000 to
600. For almost one hundred years, Paraty was essentially forgotten. |
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Offshore
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| Like Sleeping
Beauty’s castle, Paraty awoke preserved in 1975 with the completion of
a road from Rio de Janeiro. Largely protected by its status as an
UNESCO World Heritage site, the historic center is blissfully free of cars,
if occasionally congested by donkey-drawn carts.
Although you
will walk around the town center, getting to Paraty requires a car. I arrived
in Paraty well after sundown, much delayed by rainy runoffs and sparse
lighting on the highway from Rio de Janeiro. If you are driving into
town from Rio, be sure to leave early in the morning to ensure safe driving
conditions. The road is narrow and winding, the signage poor and visibility
in the rain next to non-existent. Despite poor conditions and no sidewalks,
locals walk and bike along the road well after dark, and you will have
to take enormous care not to run anyone over. Once in Paraty, finding lodging
if you have not arranged ahead is more tiring than difficult.
The local custom
is to follow a guide on a bicycle who takes you around to pousadas he has
agreements with until you find one you enjoy. After a long drive, the process
was time consuming and left me run down and famished. |
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| I chose the
Parque Hotel Pereque, Av. Beira Rio 70, and trampled to my room through
dense foliage that seemed more appropriate for a rainforest than a pousada
courtyard. Once in my room, I dropped to sleep on a bed piled high with
white linens under the wide wooden beams of a traditional colonial hacienda.
The following
morning, refreshed by sleep and curious at the songs of the birds outside
my window, I stepped out from my room innocently enough. Immediately, I
was taken aback by the incredible flowers that surrounded me, hidden the
night before by darkness. I felt like I was staying in an arboretum.
Flowers in all colors of the rainbows, sometimes more than a foot across,
covered every corner of the courtyard. The walk to the breakfast room,
an open terrace next to a pool, was breathtaking. I enjoyed my coffee and
mangoes in the sunshine, amazed at the beauty of my environment. |
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Offshore
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| After a week
of rain in Rio, I was thrilled to have the sun on my face and joked with
the hotel’s owner about outrunning the rain. His face fell a little as
he told me quite seriously, “It’s only sunny in the morning, miss.
There will
be rain by the afternoon.” True to his words, the rain came just an hour
later.
Paraty’s stony
streets, cobbled together hundreds of years ago by slaves, are apt to flood
during heavy rains and the uneven steps are friendlier to Havaianas flip-flops
than heels.
Rained out
of a trip to any of the nearly 65 islands off the coast, I decided to explore
Paraty’s many art galleries, where you can still make a smart investment
on an “art naif” painting. Translated as Naïve Art, the bold
colors and simple, narrative figures are representative of a Brazilian
style that has become increasingly respected by international art critics
and collectors in recent years. If artifacts are more your cup of tea than
art, shopping for traditional crafts is better in colonial Paraty than
in modern Buzios. The localization of the shops in the small town center
makes a comprehensive shopping excursion easily managed. The Rua da Lapa
is a great place to find an assortment of stores for engaging in the 500
year old tradition of gringo trade. In Tranco Tupi, I found an astoundingly
good collection of Amerindian crafts, including ceremonial headdresses,
spears and jewelry. Nautical enthusiasts and decorators would
enjoy Docas Paraty on the Rua Comendador, which specializes in individually
crafted and painted boat replicas. The Emporio da Cachaça on the
Rua S. Costa does justice to Paraty’s past as a liquor capital, with yards
of bottles for sale and sample, and even dry folks can enjoy the beauty
in the shades of the liquor lined along the walls.
If you are
hungry after shopping, the town center if filled with interesting restaurants.
You will find Japanese, Thai, Brazilian and Italian cuisines, among others.
There are airy cafes that have live music and cold beer in the evening.
But after passing a vendor in the Matriz Plaza selling “American Hotdogs”,
I could not resist sampling the fare to find out what they felt was an
authentic American dish. I was given a hot dog piled so high with condiments
I had to laugh…hasn’t every American eaten a hot dog at a baseball game
topped with beets, carrots, peas, corn and mayonnaise? Experiencing
American cuisine culture, heavily diluted, when abroad can be an adventure
in itself…whether it is potato burgers at McDonald’s in Ireland or beet-flavored
hot dogs in Brazil.
That evening,
as the splash from puddles soaked my legs with rain, I walked past white
colonial houses painted with blue, yellow and red trim to a small building
called Teatro Espaço near the harbor that holds a world class puppet
show. The life that can be infused into inanimate objects through practice
and skill is captivating, and the Grupo Contadores de Estórias bills
itself as the only in the world to use direct manipulation, or hand puppets,
to tell intricate and emotional stories. The show was a poignant respite
from the usual American evenings spent viewing the latest blockbuster.
A word of caution to those traveling with small children: while a puppet
show can seem an ideal outing for a child, the story that night was rather
explicit, so be aware. Ask the staff when purchasing tickets whether the
content of the story that evening is suitable for small children and then
culturally interpret whatever they say to fit your own background.
Although very
small and undeniably quaint, Paraty is surprisingly well equipped to handle
foreign tourists, arguably even more so than Rio de Janeiro, and there
are English language websites, travel guides, doctors and realtors.
Andrade and Cermelli, which specialize in real estate and yacht brokering
around Paraty, speak English and have a very respectable office www.acparaty.com.br.
Paraty’s tourism website, www.eco-paraty.com
can be very helpful and includes listings of apartments, houses, businesses
and ranches for sale and rent.
The name Paraty
originally came from the Tupi Indian word “Paratii” which is a kind of
fish found in the bay, but in Portuguese it sounds like “For You.” No matter
what you are looking for in the far side of the world, Paraty will have
some kind of paradise for you.
The following
are the previous articles Elienne wrote for the magazine:
To contact Elienne
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