March 2, 2025
PARATY, BRAZIL - The kickoff of Carnival!
Party is a small town backed by the mountains on Brazil's Costa Verde, between Rio and Sao Paula. Its colonial center is cobbled streets and 17th & 18th century buildings dating back to the Brazilian Gold Rush. The whitewashed church was built in 1722. The port was full of party boats that cater to the many tourist and dot the coastline. There are 65 islands and hundreds of beaches. The town was decorated for the first weekend of Carnival and many of our residents stayed in town overnight to part take in the festivities. Which kicked off today.
We took an uber out to Cachoeira do Toboga Falls and watched the more youthful slide down the slick rocks in a variety of styles!
Another great day exploring the South Pacific ! Today as soon as our ship docked in Honiara , and we were cleared by customs, I was off with 9 other residents, to get in 2 small speed boats and head out to Simon's Nature Reserve in the Solomon Islands . It was about an hour long ride across the Iron Bottom Sound but so worth it to experience this special place!
Fun fact - Papua New Guinea is the most linguistically diverse country in the World! It is estimated that there are at least 826 Papuan languages. Some are spoken by just a handful of people, while others by 100,000. (Thanks - Basia & Wikipedia for sharing this information).
Tully is a small sugar mill town about 2 hours south of Cairns and we traveled here with a group of about 20 other residents to go white water rafting in the Tully River at the Gorge in the National Park. It is the beginning of the wet season and the river was running at a high level, so the rapids were class 4 out of 5. We had some trepidation, but were excited for the adventure! OMG so much FUN!!