Bus to Paraty

I tried not to over-eat at the awesome breakfast buffet at the hotel.  We had some time to Pakill before checking out at 1045 to make our way by Uber to Sao Paulo’s Tiete bus station for our 1215 bus to Paraty.

We got to the station an hour before departure, in case the station was large and unwieldy, and in case of queues.  Well, the station was large but we found the bus company’s counter easily and there were no queues.

We killed 30mins before going to the boarding gate before waiting briefly for boarding.  We pulled away on time but a late-comer turned up as we were reversing.  The staff kindly stopped and loaded his luggage before he boarded and joined us for a departure in earnest.

The ride was largely built up for over an hour.  We did one pick-up at San Jose dos Campos before stopping for late lunch break of 30 mins about 2h after departure.  Everything was reasonably priced compared to at Tiete station.

Continuing the ride, we descended the highlands on windy roads.  I got a stunning view of the steep mountains over Caraguatuba city.  It looked a bit like Rio!  Once on the coast, the resort towns were quite nice.  Some developments were very tastefully built while others were just functional.  We especially liked the seaside setting of Praia Grande near Maranduba.

Just when we thought we were on the last stretch of the drive, we stopped for a second 30 min break and a change of driver.  It was another 1h30 on faster roads before we arrived at Paraty at 1845, about 50 min behind schedule.

It was already dark but Paraty seemed quite bustling at this time.  The Pousada Maravilha was an easy five minute walk away.

We dropped our stuff and went out for a light dinner at an “per kilo” restaurant before taking a brief walk to the edge of old town.