Chasing Summer –

February 28- March 2

Tender Hell- Gonna complain here.

Okay, I’m going to take a moment to complain. Our ship, the Odyssey, doesn’t do tender ports very well, and we have a lot of them to do.

Part of the problem is that we only have two tenders that are running, and we end up with really long tender times from ship to shore.

Take our first tender stop, Paraty, in a line up of 4 tender ports. The ship made a schedule for our tender runs based on a 40-minute tender travel time. The trip actually takes 90 minutes.

The tenders are also unequipped to travel in the dark, so the last tender needed to leave the shore by 5:30pm to make it to the boat before full dark. This screwed up the existing schedule, but the modifications to the schedule were not announced to the people on shore from the first tender until much too late. Chaos ensued, and tempers flared.

It also meant that my return tender at 5:15 (that I waited for since 2, when I missed the previous tender by minutes and the next was supposed to leave at 3) was packed, hot, stinky, and people were getting sick.

Rather than taking responsibility, blame was redirected by management on a few residents who complained publicly.

Divide and conquer, so residents shift blame away from the company and onto fellow passengers. At this point, I would absolutely not recommend this ship for purchase to anyone.

This morning, day two at Paraty, we are down to one running tender, and only 45 people were allowed ashore. Some people stayed onshore overnight, and the only reason the tenders are going ashore at all is to pick them up.

On the second day, there were more tender issues. The tenders coming and going from Ilha Grande lasted for about 20 minutes one way and were going continuously all day. Unfortunately, the final tender at 4:30 had great difficulties getting the passengers back on to the Odyssey. It took them multiple attempts of the tender approaching the ship, as well as the lines snapping when passengers were getting off, so some passengers were sick and one almost fell into the water between the two boats.

With these events and a shorter fueling time from the short bunkering at Santos, the company decided to forego the next two tender ports and instead go to Rio de Janeiro two days early.

Okay end of rant.

Paraty

The town of Paraty is cute. After walking down the long pier, past dozens of tour boats that will take people to beaches or on snorkeling trips, is the old town.

The roads are cobblestoned with large rocks, and the streets closest to the pier are flooded during high tide.

The old part of town is several blocks together in a grid that is filled with bars, souvenir shops, and other artisanal shops. There is just enough shade along the buildings to walk comfortably and explore the town.

It is carnival time while we’re here, but tenders can’t go in the dark so we all had to be back on the boat before dark. A few people stayed overnight and joined the fireworks and festivities.

The town seemed to be separated into three sections by the water. In the centre by the pier, was the old part of town. Facing the old part of town on the right was the beach area and on the left is the residential section.

We stopped in to a few artisanal liquor stores to see what was there. There were some interesting flavor combinations like cheese liquor. There was one named Gabriela that I could see on several different bottles of alcohol, so I asked what it was. It is their local rum drink with cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. It sounded very Christmassy to me, but I was told it goes great with passionfruit juice and lime.

The local liquor is a caprihani. This is an alcohol distilled from sugar cane with lemonade and lime.

Ilha Grande

Ilha Grande is a small island close to Rio de Janeiro. There are no cars or other motorized vehicles on the island except for boats. All activities consist of beaches and walking. There are several hiking trails available on the island, and one can even hike the entire way around the island with one short section that does require a boat to get from one beach to another.

I began my morning in Ilha Grande taking the first tender in at 8:30. The tender ride took about 20 minutes and there were dolphins playing between our boat and the shore. It was already 30 degrees Celsius that early in the morning.

There were six of us who caught the first tender in order to do a hike to a waterfall and then the beach. Steve, Angela, Paul, JR, Chuck, and I headed off following the coastline.

When we disembarked there was a variety of shops and restaurants. This was good so we could come back for lunch since the tenders weren’t supposed to run from 12:00 until 1:30. (They did anyway, but we didn’t know it)

The walk to the start of the trail takes about 20 minutes, and you go past the entire town and beaches. Once we entered the park, we needed to go left up a hill towards the aqueducts.

The climb to the aqueducts was about another 20 minutes, but before we reached the aqueducts, there was a small pool of water. It was tempting to hop in, and several other people did. Instead, I planned my way across the rocks to higher ground.

The ancient aqueducts, actually I’m not sure how old they really are, rose majestically out of the forest. They looked imposing and photogenic.

Shortly after the aqueducts, we came to a fork in the trail. One way led towards runes and the other to the waterfall. Looking at the map, I think you could do a loop from here to see both the runes and the waterfall. We went towards the waterfall.

Getting up to the waterfall was a steady 30-minute climb up about 200 meters, but it was gradual. The heat, however, made it seem a little bit longer than 30 minutes. We took several breaks and even passed a family doing the climb in flip flops in bathing suits.

After the 30-minute climb, we started to do a bit of a descent, and I relaxed at this point, thinking the climbing was done. We walked past an amazing bamboo section, which provided lots of shade and even came across a viewing area that showed the ocean and islands.

But I was wrong, after about 10 minutes descending, we reached another fork, one path was leading to the waterfall and the other to the beach. To get to the waterfall, we needed to do another steep 5 to 10 minute climb.

After this steep incline where I was going up on all fours, we began another gradual descent heading towards the waterfall. Here, we ran into another group of fellow residents who had taken a boat taxi to the nearest beach and then climbed to the waterfall from there. One of the residents was having a difficult time, her heart was racing, and she kept overheating.

We continued past them and, in about another 5 minutes, reached the waterfall. It was a smallish area, and there were already two other couples there. So it was crowded, and Paul and JR hopped in to cool down, Angela and I just sat and watched while Steve soaked his shirt and put it back on.

The other group finished their descent and made it even more crowded, so Steve, Angela, and I began our ascent to go back to the trail to reach the beach. We went back to the trail fork and took the trail heading down to the beach.

This new trail just seemed like a washout, and I could see why other reviewers said that if it had just rained, not to take the walk. It was a fairly steep descent and took about 30 minutes. Angela had a slight stumble and fall right before we made it down.

At 11:30, we reached the beach and could see all of the taxi boat stands. They were going pretty much every hour. We put in a reservation for 6 people at noon. What those of us on the beach didn’t realize was that JR was walking Chris (our tired fellow resident) back down the hill slowly, so there were 7 of us. It cost us 35 reales each.

While we waited, Paul and I went into the ocean, and it felt divine.

Shortly after 12, JR and Chris arrived at the beach, and we hopped into our water taxi to take us back to the main town. The taxi ride seemed very short after the long walk.

Once we arrived back in town, we decided to get lunch. There wasn’t anything on the menu for one person except a hamburger, and I had had a hamburger the day before, so I decided to go and find a different place to eat. Instead, I ended up at a specialty liquor store where the owner was very generous with samples.

After trying several different samples of different local liquors and drinking a stout while I was there, I really did need to get some lunch. Angela, meanwhile, had texted me to come back to the restaurant because they had so many leftovers. The meals here tend to be oversized and for sharing

After a little snack to absorb some of the alcohol, I wandered around the small town and then caught a tender back to the Odyssey.