Chris > Approaching Ilha Grande on the ferry crossing we quickly realized how lucky we were to come here. The wooden boats came into view under the lush, tropical island with no roads and only a small human footprint in the form of a village. The stunning beaches and rainforest trails later solidified this island as one of the most perfect places we have seen on the planet.
On the bus from Paraty we'd met two back-packing teachers my age, one of whom works just across the hills from me at a high school over in Rochdale. It was fun to chat with them about the traveling they'd already managed in their summer holidays and was nice, as ever, to have some additional company for this journey by bus then ferry. We arranged to eat with them one night during our stay on the island.
It is worth mentioning that by this stage of our travels, our bags were packed to capacity and our backs were on the brink of breaking. Any souvenirs we had been able to leave in Lima previously (while we journeyed around Bolivia) we were now carting around with us in addition to the new souvenirs we'd picked up along the way: Chris' cactus bin from the salt flats; my huge leather satchel from La Paz; seven alpacas worth of wool for mum's knitting addiction; books I'd read on my journey and couldn't bare to part with; ten tonnes of dvds from Bolivia; various bottles of booze we wanted to bring home; hiking boots; clothes and all the rest of it. It was ridiculous. To add to this sea of souvenirs and luggage, Chris had insisted on buying two crates of bear from the mainland 'in case it's not available on the island'. For god's sake. How on earth we carried all of this remains a mystery to this day!
View from our dorm room at Che Legarto - I definitely recommend this place.
The room we had in Paraty had barely been big enough for the two of us but when we'd brought our luggage in there had been no floor space left whatsoever. We had decided to head for the trusty Che Lagarto hostel in Ilha Grande which, luckily had large dorm rooms with a lot more floor space for all our stuff. Unluckily, it was a fifteen minute walk along the beach (including two mini river crossings!) from the jetty we'd been dropped at. It was more than our backs could take and it took us so long to make it to the hostel. We arrived there to find the hostel in pitch darkness in the middle of a day-long power cut that was apparently island-wide. All we wanted at this stage was a warm bath to soothe our broken backs, a cold beer and a lot of meat. The lady at reception warned us to only eat in a restaurant that had a generator because otherwise the meat would have been warmed all day - good advice which we took. After sharing a caipirihna or two with our new teacher friends Danielle and Jess, we headed to an all-you-can-eat meat bbq. Amazing. We certainly needed that long walk back along the beach to walk it off.
The next day we headed out on a boat to one of the island's more popular beaches. It was a nice walk to and from the beach through the jungle. That night there was a great live band playing at the jetty by our hostel so it was our first proper Brazilian night out (well, a night out in Brazil with non-Brazilians I suppose) and the effects were quite messy as we danced the night away with Danielle and Jess and copious amounts of cachaca! The following day we were certainly worse for ware and it was lucky that the hostel has an amazing veranda because we spent much of the day there before heading to our famous all you can eat meat bbq again with the girls. We had lots of fun in Ilha Grande and, if Brazil weren't so costly and our time weren't about to run out in just a few days, we could have stayed a looooong time there relaxing.
Chris > It kind of brings back the adventurous kid in you, and for good reason. Ilha Grande was once the place of natives, smugglers and pirates, while today only the monkey residents cause trouble on the jungle island.
I'll never forget the palava we had trying to get back to the mainland in order to make our way up to our final destination - Rio. Of course there weren't enough spaces in the mini-bus and what ensued was a typical Latin American drama which involved trying to fit us all in with our many bags on top of us before tying everything to the roof... gosh - too much drama to really explain but such a typical example of the disorganisation involved sometimes with arranging transfers to and from places. We got there in the end though - and so followed the very last chapter of our adventure.
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