We spent 9 days in late October 2025 with
Tofino Expeditions, first
in Rio, then kayaking for 5 days in Paraty. We only added one
additional day at the beginning to make sure we didn’t miss the
boat.
I was worried about the safety of Rio, given my experience
at a conference there in 1995. I was pleased to not feel unsafe
at any time in this go around. The Rio and Paraty story is told
here.
We stayed at the Sol Ipanema hotel, in the middle of the
Ipanema beach area, with a great view of the beach and sea. We
found a very good restaurant for our first dinner on our own and
then all the rest of our Rio meals were with the group and
within easy walking distance of the hotel.
There was only one other couple, Denise and Michel from
Verdun (Montreal). And they were much better kayakers than us.
As usual, Tofino works with a local outfitter, in this case
Paraty Explorer,
who assigned two guides to our cozy group (one of them, Michael
Smyth, a co-owner, and
Guilherme Pereira).
Fast forward to Paraty (23.2 deg S latitude; pretty much
on the Tropic of Capricorn) and the kayaking with a 4.5 hour
drive down the BR 101 highway to Paraty (the Rio portions of the
trip will have their own page). Where it rained. We had a great
dinner at Caminho do Ouro.
The forecast was pretty bleak for our first day of paddling (a
long one), but the local water people predicted no rain and
little wind. They were right.
Michael and Guilherme were our guides on the water. Bahia was at
the helm of the support boat, Antonella. Since all our luggage
had to go by boat, we opted to decant what we needed into 5 dry
bags. You never know.
Deb and I had an unusual looking double, but it handled well and
was pretty fast. Denise and Michel had singles. The kayaks were
all made locally in Brazil. The double was made shorter to
accommodate Brazil’s laws for transporting long objects. The
front paddler is remarkably close to the bow.
We paddled 13.5 miles from the town to a little village and
hotel in the middle of the Mamangua fjord. Along the way was a
small island packed with egrets, cormorants and brown boobies.
And the odd black vulture. We stopped at Lula Beach, all ours
until a pair of party boats came along. So we got back in the
kayaks and headed to another beach on Mamangua where the party
boats don’t venture. After a nice picnic lunch, the predicted
weather hit and the last few km were in wind and rain.
Mamangua is called a tropical fjord, a drowned ancient riverbed
filled by sea level rise. Not made by glaciers.
The Cruzeire village only has about 25 inhabitants and caters to
campers and hikers (it has its own Sugarloaf mountain). The
hotel was spartan and the meals simple, but all befitting a
small fishing village.
Sadly, Michel twisted his back along the way and couldn’t
continue. He was just able to stay with the group (rather than
return to Paraty), using the support boat to follow along. Now
we were three.
On our second day, we paddled to the end of the fjord to
its mangroves and up the small river that feeds into the fjord.
Lots of red crabs to see along the banks. Denise and Guilherme
braved the cold swimming hole. I took pictures.
Then back down the river and up another stream to a remote
restaurant, Dona Gracinha. We had to walk the last bit in the
stream bed, and then afterwards walk the boats further back
along the stream as the tide went out. Great lunch - there is no
ordering: you get what they're making.
On the third day, we headed back out of Mamangua and
continued west along the coast towards Pouso da Cajaiba. Until
turning a corner into big winds, waves and swells. Discretion
was the better part of valour and we called a halt to the
paddling, backtracked around the point, and loaded us and the
boats onto the support boat for the last 4 miles before the
village. Good choice. It would have been a lot tougher to bail
if we'd carried on much farther.
This was where we had to deal with surf to launch and
return, starting with getting off the support boat. Turns out
the locals have their own way of landing in surf with their
speedboats - full speed ahead onto the beach and pull up the
motor at just the right moment. Our introduction to that was
realizing they weren't slowing down as we approached the beach.
Quite the opposite. Here is a very short YouTube
video
illustrating it later in the day.
By this time, the weather had turned and was perfect to the end.
A bit cool for the locals, but we were ok with that.
This village, Pouso da Caijaba, has about 250 denizens and has a
more developed (but still very simple) hotel and restaurant. The
owner of the restaurant is an excellent cook and we had the
place to ourselves. We were reminded by a stack of mattresses on
the beach that everything is delivered by boat.
Deb came down with a cold and could not paddle on the fourth
day. Now we were two: Denise and me, with the two guides.
Michael took Deb’s spot in the rear of the double kayak.
We continued paddling in the direction we’d come towards a point
leading to more open sea. We sensibly turned around when the
going got exciting.
We paddled back along the coast past Pouso da Cajaiba to
Praia Grande and walked to the nearby waterfall. It was brisk
but we all went in this time. The paddle back to the village was
into a stiff breeze and a fair bit of work.
For our last day of paddling, we took the support boat for the
first 6 miles to Coconut Island, where I was the only one to do
a bit of snorkeling. There were lots of fish schooling around me
(I later learned food was being tossed to them). We weren’t
alone here either, but not nearly as bad as Lula Bay.
Deb was able to paddle again and we headed to lunch at the
best restaurant, Recanto Caicara, on Paraty bay. We actually
passed Lula Bay again but I didn’t recognize it at low tide and
in full sun. By this point, Deb and Denise declared they were
done. And then there was one. I took Denise’s single and paddled
with Guilherme for the final leg back to Paraty. What was
promised as flat water with no wind was pretty wrong and I
discovered just how much better a paddler Denise is than me, as
I struggled to make the boat track. But I was not going to be
towed!
Afterwards Denise told me that the rudder never worked in
waves and the boat wanted to point into the wind. And she had
had that boat all week! Wow. A lesson frome Denise was that when
it's windy you can pull your buff over your hat to keep it
secure. Works!
We had pizza at da Cidade to close out the last dinner in Paraty
then unwound the trip back to Rio the next day.
Impressions:
Even though Denise and Michel are stronger paddlers, we were
consistently out front with our double. Two paddlers and not
that much more boat to propel. It had its odd snub nose, so I
was much closer to the bow than I’m used to. It was a good
choice to put us in the double given some of the conditions. Deb
drew several compliments on how synchronized our paddling was -
and that's all on her, as she took the rear of the double. The
kayaking was more challenging than in previous trips, both in
terms of distance and water conditions. We were tired by the end
of each day.
After Michel hurt his back, the rest of us were forbidden
to move the boats ourselves. Don’t touch that!
I’d been hoping for the sort of bird diversity we’d seen
in the Ecuador rainforest, but not to be. Still, there were fun
birds to see. The frigate bird feeding frenzy around a fishing
boat was a treat. Lots of egrets, cormorants. And lots of black
vultures; they seemed to fill the crow niche here.
My snorkeling outing was fun - a lot of fish all around
me. My Olympus waterproof was great at capturing them; and
"fish" mode worked well.
We felt like we got a good view into fishing village life
and how friendly and helpful the people are. And uncrowded. I
was a bit put out at all the people in the restaurant at the
last paddling day’s lunch! Michael knows so many people in the
area - it was good to be “I’m with him” with the locals. Not
surprisingly, there was lots of fresh seafood to be had and
wonderful fresh tropical fruit of all varieties: “everything can
grow in Brazi without really trying”.
And of course the scenery was beautiful. We quickly forgot
about the early on cloudy weather. The Rio coast has many
distinctive peaks due to differential erosion. Giving features
like Sugarloaf and many more like it. The BR 101 highway runs
down the coast, somewhat akin to the US 101 running down the
west coast. Very competitive scenery!
We experienced supercooling of beverages, said to be
“thermal shock”. Cans of soft drinks or beer would spontaneously
freeze when handled. Brazilians want their beverages cold and
can cool them below their freezing point. Then jostle the can
and air bubbles etc nucleate sudden freezing. Neat to see.
Our guides were great. On top of technical skills, they
knew many of the locals and made us feel included. They were
happy to tell us anything and everything about Brazil and Rio.
And gave Deb special care for getting in and out of the boat;
obtaining throat lozenges for her cold (at the Cajaiba bakery),
helping navigate tricky trails and stream portages, and on and
on.
My camera arsenal was an iPhone 14 Pro, Canon SX70 and
Olympus TG4.
.jpg "Mamangua Bay mangroves (credit: Michael Smyth)")
