Gabriela & Graciela: Two Lovers in Paraty, Brasil

by David Adair

If you've ever felt the peculiar desire to be slowly tortured by excruciating and seductive beauty, then take the four-hour Costa Verde bus ride from Rio de Janeiro, along the lush, curvilinear, mountainside road; observe the unending parade of proud, shimmering, aquamarine bays, the countless, corpulent jungle-topped islands, and the ceaselessly plunging tropical coastlines; then check and calculate, through the interminable hours, just how much more of this you will have to take until you finally reach Paraty, the pearl of Brazilian colonial port towns, where you will meet ...