Ihla Grande

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We caught our final overnight bus up to Rio and it was a lot nicer than the previous one thank god! With just under 2 weeks left till heading home we thought we would spend a few days chilling out on Ihla Grande .. I had heard a lot of cool things about it from various people in Argentina who had travelled down through Brasil and it seemed like a good place to relax on beaches and do some jungle trekking.

So we arrived in Rio bus station in the early hours of the morning, and after asking at about 5 ticket booths, we finally found the company that would take us 3 hours west to the town of Angra dos Reis. As far as we knew the hour and a half ferry ride over to the island only left once per day, so we hadn't counted on being able to arrive on the island on the same day as arriving in Rio. However, luck must have been on our side because we were on the island in the early afternoon, lugging our backpacks around the dusty car free streets .. up and down tiny alleys looking for the hostel we had reserved, then changing our mind and staying in the slightly more expensive but a lot nicer HI hostel!

Ihla Grande was very relaxing ... it really felt very safe and very chilled ... we spent 4 days there doing little else apart from hiking and/or boating to the beaches .. the largest of which was Lopez Mendez, a two and a half hour hike away but worth it due to the powder fine sand and huge waves. Another day we hiked the opposite direction out of the main town Abraao to check out a waterfall and deserted prison (which smelt of wee).

As with in Florianopolis ... it being the brazilian 'winter' (it still tops 30 on a sunny day though!) meant the island wasn't too crowded, but the flipside of course was the inconsistent weather. We got one day of pretty solid sun, and a couple of mixed cloudy days. Frustratingly, we left on the hottest and clearest day we had seen there ... never mind ... We wanted to get up to Rio as soon as possible in order that we could be there on a clear day in order to skydive. We were soon back on the bus up to Rio ... hurtling along the coastal road in a coach driven by a beer gutted nutter possessed by the spirit of Ayrton Senna!!

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