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A great day trip from Paraty took me to the nearby village of Trindade. The village itself has just one road going through town lined with restaurants and small pousadas, but the beaches around the town are incredible. Trindade is surrounded by national park land part of Serra da Bocaina, a UNESCO World Heritage site, making it a very undeveloped place.
Getting There
It’s possible to get to Trindade by public bus from Paraty’s bus station in about 45 minutes. I decided to take a tour instead. Most of the tour offices in Paraty offer a day trip to Trindade. A tour should cost about R$130 (as of June 2023). I was picked up and dropped off at my hostel.
Cepilho Beach
Our first stop was at Cepilho Beach (Praia do Cepilho). Due to a storm the night before, the waves were unusually large and dangerous. The tide was much higher than normal and swallowed much of the beach. This beach has a rock formation that juts out on the left side of the beach. A lot of people come here to watch the huge waves crash up against the rocks and pour over onto the beach.
In the middle of the beach are a collection of large boulders that a few people were watching the waves from. Usually, these rocks are not covered by the ocean, but today the occasional wave washed over them and covered my feet. You can see the village of Trindade in the second picture below.
Meio Beach
We took a quick ride through Trindade town and stopped to walk through a small field. On the other side was another, more beautiful beach, Meio Beach (Praia do Meio). It also had large waves that crashed up against a large rock formation covered in trees. This beach had the most sunbathers of all the beaches I visited in Trindade.
On the other end of Meio Beach, the ocean rushed about 100m into a small stream in the sand. We had to wait for our opportunity to cross this stream to continue the tour on a trail. The guide had everyone wait until the tides sucked the water back out into the ocean and it was safe to pass. I started at the last few moments of the water receding and could really feel the force of the current. It was much stronger than I had imagined. It could easily knock someone down and drag them out to sea if they aren’t careful. I could understand why we waited.
We walked about ten minutes on a path through the rain forest. There were a few really nice views of Meio Beach from a clearing in the trees.
Caixadaço Beach
At the end of the path, we found ourselves at Caixadaço Beach (Praia do Caixadaço). It seemed a little calmer than Meio Beach, but the waves were still too dangerous even for surfing. There were a couple restaurants at the far end of the beach.
After a 15 minute walk down the beach we came to a set of rocks that had to be crossed to get to another trail. The guide said that normally the tides are much lower and people are able to reach the trail via the sand, but the waves caused by the storm gave us a unique adventure. The tide rushed in very quickly and covered many of the rocks.
When it was my turn to cross, I ran as fast as I could and reached a rock seconds before the entire section of the beach was underwater. I continued along a few more rocks until it was impossible to go any further. I waited for the tide to recede again to pass onto the next few rocks at the beginning of the trail. Again, the force of the water rushing in and out was simply incredible.
Caixadaço Pool
The second trail took about 20 minutes. At the end we reached Caixadaço Pool (Piscina do Caixadaço) a natural pool. It’s a shallow pool protected by huge rocks. The first part of the pool is a bit rocky, but in the middle is a very large rock that we climbed onto. On the other side of that rock was a sandy part of the pool. I was able to stand and keep my head above water for the most part, but the current was really strong. After swimming around for a bit, I laid down on one of the huge rocks and got some sun. It was a cool experience and worth the adventure to get there.
Back to Paraty
Our group left the pool and began to make our way back to Trindade town. We could have stayed longer but the guide said it was best to leave before high tide set in, otherwise it would be totally impossible to cross the rocks again. We safely made it back to the van, drove to a waterfall nearby, and had lunch before being dropped off in Paraty.
