Paraty

The weathered wooden door was propped open allowing the night air to cool the gently pulsing dance floor. Samba played over the speakers and red-orange lights made everyone glow. An evening of wine swirled in my head, making my body feel light and happy. Keeping my feet inside I tilted my head through the doorway to catch the breeze coming down the street. My eyes followed the cobblestone street one block down where stray dogs roamed the grassy plaza. Inside the girls with cotton dresses danced with themselves, maintaining just enough disinterest with the boys surrounding them. A young man sat perched in the window frame, one arm outside and the other holding a cigarette. His hair was tightly combed back and his face was tilted towards the ceiling. He gazed over the crowd with indifference. A couple sitting at a table kissed. I felt like I was away, and I felt like this exact scene was being played out at a million different bars all over the world. It felt timeless and without constraint.

We had arrived that evening. Nate had taken the initiative of booking a room for us, but his ADD took over before he had the chance to copy down the Hostel name or address. I learned that this kind of thing is pretty normal for Nate. We were in Paraty (pronounced: Para-chi), a small beach town halfway between Sao Paulo and Rio. It's a small enough town to be covered on foot, so we just started walking. I wouldn't have been annoyed had I not been so hungry. A young guy, maybe 19 approached us and began talking to Nate in Portuguese. Nate turned to me and said, "This guy is from our hostel, the one I booked." Amused, I commented on our luck. Nate, who has no job, no home and no place he needs to be, offered a classic response, "It seems that no matter how easy I take it, it's not easy enough." It's the kind of thing that someone says when they know that the worst case scenario is still a pretty good time.

The historic district of Paraty has a clearly defined rectangular perimeter. Inside, cobblestone streets, tight alleyways and colorful, uniform row shops give you feeling that you've landed in the middle of a toy set where everything is connected and built from the same set of blocks. We followed our our guide through the maze of streets to the hostel door. As we turned the corner I made a mental note of a prominent restaurant sign hanging at eye level. In the anxious dark I missed the small wooden plaque marking the hostel door.


It was nearly 3am when Nate and Chu decided that they needed to go to the beach. Chu offered to walk me back to the hostel, but I assured her it it wasn't necessary.

I finished my drink and decided I was ready for bed. I stepped out of the bar and turned right. All of the life and color that I had used to mentally map my location was now dark and absent. Warm light and interior scenes had been replaced by opaque wooden shutters. Clothing stores and restaurants were identical without their large wooden signs, now retired for the night behind bolted doors. The streets were silent and empty. The only sound came from the a thin layer of wet sand scraping between the stone and my sandals.

I paused at each intersection, making a mental note of which direction I had come from. It all looked the same. Twenty minutes had passed and my confidence was dwindling. I needed the restaurant sign and it wasn't there. A certain window looked familiar, but where was it in relation to the hostel? I couldn't say for sure. Forty five minutes passed. In the absence of people, unseen dogs emerged from the night and began taking over the town. Every time I turned a corner, five or six dogs would quickly disperse, sometimes running past me. I was clearly walking down the same streets, walking past the same buildings, over and over again. The brisk walking had completely sobered me up. I methodically started at the edge of the town and work my way down each street. An hour had passed. I began to contemplate the fact that I might be sleeping outside. There was a church on the edge of town surrounded by a patch of grass. The air was damp, but warm. It wouldn't be too uncomfortable, at least until the sun came up. I hoped that I might see Nate and Chu on their way back from the beach.


Then I was angry, angry at how stupid it was that I didn't know where to go. My anger cemented my resolve. I began inspecting each and every door, which what I should have done from the start. I had been looking for all the wrong signs. Ten minutes later I was crawling into bed. I must have walked past the hostel door six times.

When I was 8th grade we used to play a modified game of hide and go seek in my friend's basement. It was full of furniture and junk. The person who was "it" would go to the top of the stairs and wait for everyone to hide. Then, before coming down, they would turn off the lights and enter the pitch black, relying only on touch and sound to find a hiding person. It was a game of patience and stillness, your heart pounding when approached by groping hands. If someone were to turn on the lights in the middle of a game, they would see me quietly standing in the middle of the ping pong table. My friend would be hugging an exposed beam in the ceiling, and the other would be barricaded behind a filing cabinet. Light has funny way of changing our experience. In the light of day, while people are going about their business, it's clear that getting lost in Paraty is a bit like getting lost at the mall. But in the dark, late hours of the night, the streets turn into a hallway of mirrors, and the characters on the dance floor reflect the same joy and yearning felt all over the world.