When It Rains, It Pours in Paraty

I fell unexpectedly in love with Brazil’s biggest city, but it wasn’t long before I felt the ocean calling me home.

Leaving São Paulo, we made our way towards the sea, where we’d planned to drip along the coast all the way to and beyond Rio de Janeiro. Tucked along this so-called Emerald Coast is a turquoise jewel — the colonial town of Paraty. As we planned the trip, it was one of the stops I was most looking forward to. In fact, aside from Rio, it was where we’d scheduled to spend the most time.

Photo by Heather Holt

Paraty is widely hailed as one of Brazil’s most charm-soaked towns. With an exquisitely preserved colonial center, a mountainous jungle backdrop and an endless array of tropical beaches and islands in the bay, it’s almost painfully picturesque. The lack of cars in the historic center makes it pleasant to stroll aimlessly, and easy to imagine you’ve traveled in time.

The town is a magnet for creatives and a popular getaway for both wealthy Brazilians from both Rio and São Paulo and in-the-know travelers, primarily from Europe. As two bumbling American gringas, we certainly broke the mold.

While some travelers breeze by in a day or so to soak up the white stucco, others — like us — linger. For those that do, there are a dizzying array of ways to entertain yourself. Schooner cruises of the archipelago’s islands are the most popular choice, though a SUP tour, a beach-hopping hiking trip, a cooking class, yoga and spa treatments, horseback riding to cachaca farms and waterfalls, whitewater rafting and ocean kayaking were also on our wish list.

When the sun shines, it would be shameful to find yourself bored in Paraty.

So how did this dreamy place come to exist in reality?

Paraty was already inhibited by the indigenous Guaianás when the Portuguese first rolled up in the 1500’s. Within a hundred years it was a popular stopover on the gold rush route between the mines and Rio de Janiero, though a new route later saw the city decline from greatness. Later, the coffee boom gave the city a boost, and since a new coastal road from Rio was extended to the city in 1960 tourism has been the name of the local economy game.

Paraty is a photographer’s playground. Heather and I went crazy with our cameras, roaming the cobblestone streets looking for the next hit of colonial charm to capture through our lenses. Our options were truly endless.

For the first time in a long time, I longed for a sketchpad and watercolors, for some of the scenes were just begging to be painted. Paraty might just be the most scenic hamlet I’ve come across since my travels to Luang Prabang in 2012.

Photo by Heather Holt

Photo by Heather Holt

Pretty amazing, right? Well, here’s the truth. Almost every single photo above was taken in our last three hours of our five days in Paraty. The rest of the time, it rained. Rained, poured, or simply threatened to with dark, ominous skies.

The scene below? It looked like that for our last morning, as we frantically scrambled around town trying to get in every last blue sky click we could. The rest of the time, it looked like this.

As a photographer, I embrace the challenge of trying to find the beauty in every day and destination, regardless of the weather conditions. Yet as a storyteller, I struggle sometimes to paint an accurate picture of how bleak it is to spend day after day fruitlessly checking the forecast, heavy-heartedly canceling your plans one by one, and staring frustratedly at dark angry skies when the photos I take paint a sunnier picture.

Yes, we tried to make the best of things. But as these behind-the-scenes iPhone snaps reveal, we spent much of our trip in makeshift garbage bag rain coats, laughing so we didn’t cry, or taking advantage of breaks in the downpour to jog off our frustration along stormy cliffs.

While Paraty is a beautiful city regardless of what the weather is doing, it is a teeny tiny one and cancelled boat trips and flooded beaches left us wondering how to fill our days. We did find a few gems, which I’ll cover in an upcoming guide on where to stay, eat and play in Paraty.

At times, we found ourselves wondering if we’d done ourselves a disservice by pre-booking our accommodation and transportation so that we had little room to be flexible. We were reassured however by the fact that we would have been more or less stuck, regardless: the storm blowing through the area was vast and covered any other destinations we could have easily reached by bus, and the steep prices of last-minute domestic plane tickets make spontaneous state-hopping hard to swing, anyway.

So after sunny skies and deliciously warm temperatures in Itú and in São Paulo, it seemed our good weather luck had run out. Even Paraty’s animals seemed a little glum, after a few days.

Photo by Heather Holt

Photo by Heather Holt

Sometimes when it rains, it pours. Weather is the one thing that simply can’t be predicted when planning a trip. We were visiting at the tail end of the rainy season but even locals agreed that arriving in the midst storm of this length and determination was a stroke of bad luck, on our part. Looking at a historic weather chart for the month we visited, it’s almost comical how the temperatures stayed steady throughout the month, our five day visit aside — they plummeted the day we arrived and soared again the day we left, while precipitation levels did the opposite.

You can’t win ’em all.

I feel a little sad when I think back on my time in Paraty, only because I think back to how frustrated we felt and regret all the activities we missed out on. I felt a bit trapped by our rigid itinerary, and panicked wondering if we’d be stuck shivering and wet for the rest of our trip. But in spite of that, I have many fond memories from Paraty as well — which I’ll share in upcoming posts.

In the end, there are worse places to be stuck in the rain.

Stay tuned for where to stay, what to do and where to eat in Paraty!