Corumbê beach is a few minutes below the house: a few hundred meters of calm sand on the bay, a couple of simple restaurants, fishing boats at anchor, water that barely bothers to make waves. It is not the most famous beach in Paraty. It is the one you will actually swim at most mornings, because it is right there — and by the end of the week it will be the one you defend in arguments.
The easy days
Jabaquara, on the town's north edge, is a wide, shallow horseshoe where the water stays knee-deep a long way out — the small-kid beach, with barracas for lunch. Pontal, across the footbridge from the historic center, is where you eat with a view of the colonial skyline. Both are minutes from the house.
The boat day
The bay is scattered with islands and coves that no road reaches, and the schooners that leave Paraty's pier string three or four of them into a day — snorkeling stops, coarse golden sand, water in greens you'll photograph badly and remember perfectly. Private launches do the same circuit faster. Either way, book a morning departure; the sea is calmest before lunch.
The trail day
Praia do Sono is the one people talk about years later: a long arc of pale sand backed by forest and a small caiçara fishing village, reached only by boat or by a forest trail of about an hour and a half. Twenty minutes' walk past its far end is Antigos, smaller and emptier still. Carry water, wear real sandals, and accept that you will not want to leave.
How to plan a week
- One schooner or launch day on the bay.
- One trail day south — Sono and Antigos, or the natural pool at Trindade.
- Corumbê for every unhurried morning in between — it's at the bottom of the hill, and the beach chairs in the garage are yours to take.