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ILHA GRANDE - THE BIG ISLAND THAT LEFT A BIG IMPRESSION
Monday 6th July
With the wind in my hair, sea water spraying up from the boat that was gallantly trying to cut through the waves and the sun starting to go down behind us on the mainland, I started to relax and let the magic and beauty of the Ilha Grande seep into my soul and take over. 150km southwest of Rio, the Ilha Grande is Brazil´s third largest island. Its terrain is made up of scenic beaches that resemble a tropical paradise and forests and mountains that sprawl the rest of island. Arriving at the hostel which had its own private jetty and a natural sea water swimming pool, I knew that we´d find it difficult to leave this place.
Abraao is the largest village on the island; a large beach fronts the area with boats bobbing gently up and down on the blissfully calm Atlantic, cobbled streets meander through the many quaint, colourful and charismatic posadas (guesthouses) as well as little restaurnants and cafes, and children play with their homemade kites in the day and at night they play football on the beach. No cars exist on the island and so every now and then boats will dock from the mainland bringing goods for the shops etc and men wheel the imports on carts to the shops. It´s a peaceful, friendly and simply stunning place.
Our hostel put on an all you can eat burgers and salad dinner with a free capirihana (white rum and other alcholol - tastes a bit like a mojito but stronger!) and with some traditional live music and good company from other people at the hostel, it was no wonder that late on Monday evening if I had been any more relaxed and chilled then I´d have been horizontal!!
Tueday 7th July
There´s lots to do on the island and with an abundance of tour agencies in Abraao, you´re never stuck for something. On our first full day, however, we decided to go it alone and hike through the forest over the (very large) hill onto the other side of the island in search of Lopes Mendes beach. After a fairly tiring hours hike up and then down steep, rocky paths we found a secluded beach; palm trees lined the sand and, apart from the two cafes, the beach was deserted. It was only till 4 hours later when we left the beach that we realised we weren´t on Lopes Mendes afterall and had infact taken a turnoff from the forest too early... we did wonder why we couldn´t see any other hikers on the beach that had taken the same trek as we had! Oh well, we still had a glorious day on a glorious beach with the sun beaming down that warmed our souls (and our skin, but factor 20 was used - don´t worry mum!!).
Wednesday 8th July
Today we were supposed to be heading back to Rio to go on to Petrpolis to see another city in Brazil and learn more about its history... but like I´d predicted when we arrived on the island, that was not meant to be; another day and night of beautiful scenery, fresh air and sunshine (something that probably swayed us the most in decision making) ruled over history.
The Ilha Grande has many beaches and lagoons dotting the perimetre of the island and the tourist agencies take advantage of this; small tours of a couple of beaches to a full days tour of the island ranges. Rich and I decided to go for a half island tour which consisted of 9 stops and the possibility of seeing an underwater helicopter wreck and turtles! It was good to see other parts of the island and snorkelling was fun in one of the lagoons but we didn´t get much time at each stop and since the boat driver couldn´t speak any English (I feel that there is a gap in the market there!) we didn´t learn much about the different parts of the island or any of its history which was disappointing. Also disappointing (and quite annoying) was that the helicopter wreck was just somewhere in the ocean near a point where the driver thought it might be and due to poor visibility, we couldn´t snorkel to see it and so had to take the man´s word that it existed. However, one of the possibilities of the trip did turn into a reality: as we turned into one bay, a large turtle swam past our boat and then sank into the depths of the water. Rich and a couple of others were patient enough to jump in the water and wait to see if the turtle would return (I don´t like open water that much and so took a good vantage point on the bow of the boat to scower the surface for turtles). Rich and the other snorkellers were lucky - a tutle swam under Rich , albeit being fairly deep but still he saw a turtle in its environment (I must concquer my nervousness re open water becuase I´m a tincey bit jealous!). I guess the trip was a success mainly due to the turtles... but I get a feeling that if we hadn´t seen any, the trip would be viewed differently.
The day was nicely rounded off with an all you can eat meat buffet... mmmm mmmm mmmm! Early night was had as we had to leave Thursday morning to make our way to our next major destination.... the Iguazu Falls!
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