Archive for: Brazil

A few days after visiting Ubatuba and chilling at home in Massaguacu, Rose and I headed up to Paraty, just across the State border in Rio State.

Paraty is an old colonial settlement and port with amazing architecture and old colonial charm. We spent 2 nights there and really enjoyed strolling around the old streets and taking in the sights.

Unfortunately for us the temperature soared to 39.5 degrees on our second day, and although I like the heat this was a little too much even for me. Paraty was definitely one of the highlights of my trip.

Today Rose and I headed up the coast on the bus to Ubatuba, about an hour away from Caragua.

Our previous plan was to hire a car and cruise up the coast, stopping off at different places on the way to Rio. As it turned out, hiring a car in Brazil is a bit of a hassle. The roads are sh*t, the drivers are mental, and there is a pretty useless insurance policy that comes with all hire cars, meaning that you are liable for the first £500-750 of any accident that you incur, whether it is your fault or not. Anyway I digress! We ended up taking the bus EVERYWHERE!

We had a nice day checking out Ubatuba, it was scotching hot day, so we didn’t over exert ourselves and just took in a few sights and rounded it off with a nice meal on the beach front in the evening!

On our way back from the beach today we stopped in at the padaria (bread shop) to stock up on a few supplies. On our way out we spotted a truck full of fruit. Yep you guessed it, the fruit man was in town.

Rose had a quick word with the owner of the van and a few minutes later we were checking out the mountain of fruit he had stashed on his truck. The results of our purchases can be seen in the pictures below, and yeah, the whole watermelon must of weighed at least 10kg!

We were invited out one day by a friend of Rosana´s to join them on a boat trip up the coast and over to the nearby island of Ihla Bela, a nice idea for a hot summer´s day.

I was expecting either a rented dingy or small wooden boat with an outboard motor. Well, we couldn´t have been more wrong (see the pics below).

We cruised around to a few neighbouring islands in the morning and then over to Ihla Bela to an exclusive beach club for cocktails and sunbathing in the afternoon.

It just goes to show, if you know the right people you can go anywhere!

Our third day in Massaguacu was spent relaxing on the beach and enjoying the glorious sunshine, check out the pics below, they came straight from the camera, although from the colour of the sky you’d swear they’d been through PhotoShop.

I awoke on our second full day in Massaguacu to see desmonds out front and had a pretty good feeling that there might be a wave to be had up the coast somewhere.

I convinced Rosana that I had to get to a surf shop asap so we spent the morning hunting down a new surfboard. Before travelling to Brazil, I had checked out a place called Breeder surfboards (more on the cool folk at Breeder later on), based in Massaguacu. It turned out that is was only a 20 minute walk up the coast road, or a 5 min drive. Rosana’s mum leant me her car and I cruised on down with Rosana to check out what they had. After looking around and seeing some nice boards, we decided to go to Lagoinha up the coast to see a few other options (it is always good to see what the options are).

After going to 3 shops I bought a second hand 6’3 fish (with leash, board sock, fins and wax for £130.00). This wasn’t exactly the board I wanted, I should have gone for a more versatile fun board, but I was so desperate to surf that day that I bought it.

The afternoon was spent at Lagoinha testing out the fish in the 3-4ft surf. I got a few nice waves and was stoked to be back on the board.

Our first full day Massaguacu was spent chilling out, doing a little shopping and walking around so that I could get a feel for the local area. A trip to the supermarket, a stroll along the beach and some sun bathing and a churrascaria (BBQ) in the evening with a few beers pretty much rounded off the day!

We set off from Sao Paulo on the 24th February and took the Rio-Santos highway up the coast and through the Serra da Mantiqueira (mountains) to Caraguatatuba, a medium-sized beach town on the northern Sao Paulo State coast. The journey took us about 3 hours and with Rosanas’s mum doing the driving, we could sit back and take in the view.

Rosana’s family have a small apartment just outside Caragua in a place called Massaguacu. They have been coming here (to escape the city for the beach) for the past 20 or so years. Massaguacu is a pretty low-key place with a few small supermarkets, apartment blocks and a surfboard shaping house, amongst other things. The apartment itself is situated on top of a hill (morro) with a view over the sea. Unfortunately there is no surfing here in Massaguacu, as the waves break directly on the shore, but you can get an idea if there is a wave to be had up the coast in neighbouring Lagoinha (small lake) if any swell lines are showing.

Our first evening was spent relaxing, having some food and playing cards.

On the way back from Ubatuba tonight we came across a Beetle in the foyer of our hotel, which I can only describe as being the size of a small horse, it was huge (I am told they get bigger than this), check out the picture below to see the evidence!

Yep it was a pretty intense birthday afternoon today, the footage was a bit poor as I was mainly concentrating on trying to not get a severe pounding, but I caught a few waves in what was a very crowded Brazil line-up of 100+ surfers.

Here is a pic I took from the shore just before sunset of a surfer getting some evening action.

Will update tomorrow with a bit more info (if I make it back from the surf).

Cheers

Birthday boy!