GPS? Shortest Route Possible?

My plan was to take an early morning bus to Rio to avoid arriving at night. Seamus had gone to Rio 3 days before me and we had a flight to mexico so I didn't have much time to spend in Rio. Jordan, an american guy from couchsurfing messaged me to see if I would like to travel with him to Rio. He had just bought a Volkswagen Kombi. His plan was to drive from Sao Paulo to Belem over the next few months. So instead of taking the bus the early morning bus Jordan collected me at my hostel in the afternoon for my first road trip in Brazil. We decided we'd spend one night in Paraty enroute to Rio. Luckily Jordan had invested in a Sat Nav as getting out of Sao Paulo was tough. It guided us well and soon we were heading in the right direction for Paraty.

After about 5 hours we left the motorway and started climbing. I don't know what altitude we were at but we were pretty high. Soon we started descending and the at the same time the road started to detoriate. Eventually there was no road, only a dirt track that was in very bad condition and getting worse. According to the Sat Nav we had about 20km until we would get to Paraty. We were having our doubts about how reliable the sat nav was, we knew Paraty was a little off the beaten track but there were lots of buses that went there and we couldnt imagine them taking this dirt track. It was about 12am at this stage but traveling on the dirt track was very very slow. By 1:30am we'd traveled about 2km. At this point we decided that maybe it was best to find somewhere to sleep and resume in the morning. We'd not seen another car in about 4 hours so just pulled over to the side of the road and slept for the night.

Volkswagen Kombi

Around 7am I woke up to the sound of a truck passing, the guy seemed amused at the 2 gringos asleep in the van. In the light of morning we could see how bad the dirt track was, we were having serious doubts that this was the road to Paraty. Suddenly we hear the sound of another car wanting to pass us out, this time a volkswagen car. We followed them downhill for about an hour. We both concluded that if we hadn't met this car we probably would have turned around and tried to get back to the main road.

The passed us out and lead the way!

They'd obviously driven this route many times before...

We met a few more cars, a motor bike and even passed a shop/bar/restaurant where the guy who had passed us earlier was having a beer. We didn't stop only slowed to say hello. Everyone seemed friendly and amused at the two of us in the van. At least we knew we were heading in the right direction.

The guy on the bike was free wheeling down the hill.

A sharp turn just after the bridge.

Interesting bridge...

The dirt track started to improve and eventually we were on a regular road going towards Paraty. We had breakfast by the beach then spent a few hours exploring the old town in Paraty.

Paraty Old Town

No cars are allowed in the old town.

We decided to ask for some advice on getting to Rio in a hostel. Just to be sure we didn't end up on another dirt track. I explained that we were driving (it is very unusual for a gringo to buy a car in Brazil). The conversation went something like this

Hostel Guy: Oh the drive from Sao Paulo to here is very scenic..
Me: Hmm not the way we came
Hostel Guy Laughing: GPS?
Me: Yes
Hostel Guy: Shortest route possible?
Me: Yes
Hostel Guy: Dirt track down the mountain?
Me: Yes
Hostel Guy: yeah it happens a lot of people....