I know I just wrote a long entry but I am trying this new strategy that is all about not waiting several months between blogging, trying to post shorter, more frequent, less intimidating entries... see how it goes.
From Rio Dave and I had the idea to go to Ilha Grande about 2 hours south west of Rio and do some long treks. We wanted to hike around the entire island camping in different locations each night. Upon arriving we realized that Ilha Grande is more suitable for paying ridiculous fares to take taxi boats to visit the numerous goregous beaches. Hiking around the whole island? People laughed at us..."complicada."
There were trails connecting the many beaches and smaller villages throughout the island, but "legal camping" is strictly regulated... after pursuing this a bit further a tourism guide admits: well you can always pitch a tenton the beach under the cover of darkness and try to hide it. BINGO. We bought a map, enough food for a night or two and set off.
We reached the first beach, Dos Rios, in about 3 hours, had a nice cold beer on the beach and decided to try and reach
the next beach, Paranoica, another three hour hike. We started off at about 3:30pm hoping to reach the next beach by dusk with no problems and camp on the beach... that was our plan. After an hour I, being my usual spazzy self, took a bad step twist my foot, and hear a crack. No problem we'll be there in an hour anyways. After about 30 minutes, my foot looks some thing like a mango and it is getting harder to walk. After another hour it is getting dark and we still have no idea how far away we are. Not to mention we don't know what we will find once we arrive. Paranoica is basically a deserted fisherman village. I will spare you from my over-dramatic tendencies and say only that after it got dark I couldn't stop thinking at the size of the gigantic spiders we had seen along the trail before my mishap...
We arrived at about 8ish, I was in tears, Dave exhausted from basically carrying me the last 1/2 hour, and luckily found a house with people who were kind enough to let us pitch our tent, use their shower, and outdoor stove to
cook. No boat back to Abrão tonight, but tomorrow morning there will be. Despite the past events (the fact that I was standing like a flamingo and using a semi functional stove) I insisted on taking 2 hours to cook "stuffed peppers" that we had lugged all the way from Abraõ.
In the morning we learned that usually there is no regular boats in this small fisherman village. The boat we were about to take had been privately chartered by a group of fishermen on a week get-a-way on this basically deserted beach. On the boat ride back to Angra Dos Reis (actually on the main land, from there we will have to take another ferry back to the island) the fishermen crack open beers, bottles of red wine (mind you it is 9am, they creatively drink from the tops of 2L soda bottles cut in half). We are told we eat fried lizard- but it tastes like chicken. The fishermen and their familes are wonderful and laughing the whole way. There is an old man who looks like he has arthritis or some condition leaving his feet swollen to 3x the normal size. It take three grown men
to hoist him from the row boat into the ferry... but he smiles the whole way which makes me embarrassed about my tears the night before.
Anyways this wasn't really that short but we got back to Ilha Grande that afternoon where semi-rested my foot by playing housewife for a week- I did learn how to gut fish.
After Ilha Grande I decided to try out a week WWOOFing on an organic farm. What is WWOOF? check it out.
http://www.wwoof.org/
It is an "international movement to help people share a more sustainable way of living" aka: a network of organic farms that post jobs on the internet, in exchange for volunteer labor you get to stay at the farm for free food included. The farm I went to was in Rio Grande do Sul in the hills north of Porto Allegre. The farm produced organic jam, juice, and wine, among other things. The area was interesting as well, about 90% German an Italian immigrants. There are some communities in the south of Brasil where the language is completely German or Italian. Example: I stayed near a town called Novo Hamburgo! The farm was small. Only the
family lived and worked there, plus me for a little while. All in all an interesting experience but they did have me sticking labels on wine bottles for about 8 hours a day so I didn't get to see much of the production process. It seemed to me that this farm really needed to just hire more workers, but I guess easier said than done. I'd definitely try it again. I ended up leaving sooner than expected because Leah decided to accept her Peace Corps job and therefor had to move up her flight back to the states and was making her way quickly south from Buenos Aires. Had to see her before she goes off and loses herself in Africa for two years!
Brazil's Flag
Map of Brazil