Ihla Grande

Day 1 (Saturday) - Ihla Grande looks like something out of a movie, specifically Jurassic Park 2. The water is a bright green; the terrain is mountainous; and lush green foliage covers everything. Getting off the boat I had no idea where I was going. I had the name and address of the place I was staying but that was it. The place was a little difficult to find as the streets didn’t have markings. But finally after asking a few people, I had walked my way up the hill to my night’s lodging. The people working at the Mata Virgem Hostel were likely the most laid back hostel workers I have met thus far. I explained that my travel companion would not be coming and they agreed to waive the fee, should someone else come to take his spot, which seemed likely as the island was crawling with tourists looking for accommodation. After unloading and locking my stuff, I headed down to the first floor, which had a common room. There I met Helen and two Romanians now nationalized Canadians, whose names I will not attempt. We all had a drink at the hostel, and then went out in search of food. I was very hungry and thought I could eat a lot but got talked into sharing a pizza four ways, which actually did do the trick. Dinner was quite pleasant. We were back off the beach a little ways but perched up on the second floor, we had a nice view of our shopping alley then the promenade of the beach. After dinner, we ran into four friends of the Romanians. We spent the night aimlessly looking for the supposed nightlife but all we found were 15 year olds. We were all tired anyways, so we decided to call it a night earlier than expected for a tourist location.

Day 2 (Sunday) - There were lots of things to do on the island but I wanted to check out the surfing beach, which I heard was rated one of the 10 nicest beaches in the world (though no one could ever tell me where it had been rated such). To get to this beach, one either had to go on a 2 and half hour walk or take a 30 minute boat to a dock, from where you have to walk 20 minutes. I chose the latter and the lazier of the two. The beach was gorgeous. There was surfing there but the waves were very weak and the boards were very expensive, so I chose to just enjoy lying on the beach. The water is amazing. The water is a bright blue and clear as glass. I have never been in water up to my neck with such visibility that I could see the variances in the bed for each next step. It was remarkable. I stayed there for a while then walked back to the dock to catch a boat back to the main town. That night I had dinner with Helen again who was taking off the following day. When we got back to the hostel, lots of others were sitting around watching a movie. I was tired, so I called it an early night.

Day 3 (Monday) - Most of the hostel goers that I had gotten to know left in the morning. They were replaced by a new crop, including Daniela (the girl I met in Rio a few days earlier). After talking about Ihla Grande with her, she got interested and made her way there. I had no real plans for the day, so I accompanied her to the beach I had been to the day before. There were much fewer people than the day before. It almost felt as if we had the beach to ourselves. I think all the hustle and bustle of my trip caught up with me because laying on the beach was about all I could muster the energy for. Fortunately, Daniella was in the same boat. We left the beach in the evening and were both pretty famished by the time we made it back. She is a vegetarian so we tried to find something that could work for her and I remembered seeing a per kilo place, so we went there. I don’t think I have ever seen a girl eat that much, especially a tiny girl like her. I thought I ate a lot but she put me to shame. The rest of the night, we spent walking the beach and the main drag before heading back to the hostel for some much appreciated sleep.

Day 4 (Tuesday) - The Mata Virgem was booked for that evening so Daniela and I both had to find new accommodations for evening. After finding new digs, which were actually quite a bit nicer but the same price, we had surprisingly little light left in the day so we decided to try another beach for the remainder of the afternoon and early evening. This beach was just down the road from town and had black sand beaches. It was quite pretty though the shore was thin and trees made it hard to get any sun. It was quite a pleasant though more rocky in the water. Afterwards, we got a pizza at a restaurant that us as its sole patrons. It was good but too greasy. We again walked the shore, this time stopping to watch an expanding group of people playing instruments and singing on the dock. It was a cool little impromtu. As there wasn’t much to do in the town at night if you weren’t 15, we found our new hostel and I was quickly on my way to slumber land.

Day 5 (Wednesday) - Breakfast was good but there were some Brazilians with odd humor that made the meal a little less than pleasant. After eating, Daniela and I checked out the rooftop deck that had a great view of the island. We then packed and headed down to the harbor. I thought the boat was at 1:30 but it was at 12:30 and we just missed it. Fortunately, we caught another boat that was not listed but took off around 2:15.

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