Paraty-Ubatuba

Pachystachys lutea

The mosquito coil worked well last night. The coffee at breakfast was strong, but that was fine with me. There were two Scottish backpackers at the next table. I initially thought the woman was American. It turned out that they were waiting for better weather to do some day tours.

I decided to move on to Ubatuba which is just 70 km south along highway 101 but in the next state of São Paulo (SP), partly because there wasn't much more to see in Paraty and partly to have more choice of buses to São Paulo. At the station I helped the Scots buy tickets, bought my own ticket, then did a last round of Paraty. At SP I would change to an overnight bus to Curitiba, so I would only see the inside of the bus terminal.

The roads were better in SP compared to RJ but it was still a bumpy ride which made me roadsick. I saw landslides in places. It was all the Pope's fault for bringing the rain. If this rain continues tomorrow, I thought, I'll spend the day doing my laundry in the pousada.

Ubatuba was quiet, because it's a weekend seaside destination for Paulistanos. There were surf shops, video game shops, restaurants and other signs of beach culture. The long esplanade was probably crowded on weekends, but looked forlorn midweek in lousy weather.

I settled on Tio Sam, a beachside pizzeria, for dinner but to my surprise the cheese was normal salty cheese and not mozzarella. I found this hard to eat and took away what I didn't finish. I fed some to seabirds but they wouldn't touch it. Incidentally the letter X is an abbreviation for cheese in Brazil (because X is pronounced chis), thus X-burger, etc.

But I enjoyed batidas (fruit drinks) in Brazil. I tried caju (cashew fruit) and found that it tasted a bit like apple but without tartness and thus bland.