Trindade

The next stop was a more secluded coastal town named Trindade, about an hour from Paraty by local bus. The trip there was another opportunity to pass through the Atlantic rainforest covered hills, and gave us our first taste of the winding mountain roads that we're sure we'll become accustomed to - although we doubt we will ever get used to the speeds with which the bus driver took the blind bends.



Once we got down to the coast we could see a horseshoe shaped line of coast about 3km long, split into a series of beaches and bays, and shadowed by a line of tree covered mountains. The town itself followed the contour of the longest beach, and consisted of a straight stretch of road lined with restaurants, pousadas and bars, as well as a few strets branching off in both directions.



We noticed that there were a number of oddly dressed people walking around the town and thought that it might be some kind of colonial era museum of something, however on arriving at the hostel we found out that there was a film being made on the Beach! Over the course of the week we found out that the film was based the book Rouge Brésil written by Jean-Christophe Rufin, about a failed french attempt to conquer Brazil (Did they ever really have a chance?).


The distraction of the film provided a buzz of excitement, with a number of locals and tourists taking the opportunity to get some extra work in the production - which mainly entailed standing around wearing lots of hot leather clothes in the heat of the day, not something we fancied! When we got bored of sitting around on the beach watching the director swear at the cast and crew, we did a little more exploring and went to some good rock pools at the end of the bay, as well as taking a hike up (and over) through the jungle to a beach hidden from most tourists and beach-side vendors.

By far the best thing about our stay was the hostel, and the people
there. The owners were a couple of Argentinian guys not much older than us, and their extremely casual approach to running the place made it feel more like staying at a friends house than a hostel. As well as giving us a lot of advice for our trip based on their extensive travels around the continent, they also invited everyone staying at the hostel to join in with a lot of their activities. These included watching the Brazil Vs Argentina game with them and a group of their friends who owned local hostels, and having a Argentine-style barbeque when one of the owners' family came to stay - basically a constant supply of meats from 10pm til midnight, hopefully a taste of what we can come to expect when we get there.

We were going to write a little about going out to the bars on the beach at the weekend, but after trying a drink called Gabriella (about 4 measures of Cachaca spiked with honey and cinnamon, served from what looked like an old bottle of turps) we can't really remember...