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Room with a view
View frommy balcony Tim Version:
* Took the lazy transfer to Ilha Grande, the giant fairly tropical really beautiful island.
* Lazed around mostly, did one 4 hour decent hike to the other side of it to check out the surf beach, and mentally finished my time in Brazil here really happy with what Ive done!
The happily lazing in the hostel version, with some beach time thrown in:
Lazy but loving it. Ilha Grande I thought I may or may not go to but after a lot of time in Rio and a strong feeling that I need to get out of the city and back to some uncrowded beaches the choice was made. I'm very glad I went =)
You can get there by a taxi to the bus station, bus over, then a bus, but as I was having so much trouble leaving Rio it seemed I booked into a shuttle service there. Factoring in the taxi for a single person travelling, the difference in price is minimal. You go by bus from your hostel to a dock near the island, then take a 30 minute speed boat ride to the island. Its a huge island
so to me it felt more like going from one part of the mainland to the other! The speed boat ride was awesome, with pretty calm seas but so much speed that we still got a bit of air time now and again (to the horror of a couple of Brits and a Canadian on the boat who seemed to be gripping onto the boat for their life) That alone to me was worth taking the transer service for, and after an awesome ride over with a little adrenaline pumping, we were at a small dock outside Aquarius hostel. I planned on walking the island, checking out all the options, finding something quiet and cheap... but that didn't happen! I walked to Che Lagarta, right next door, got talking to the reception girls who were a hell of a lot of fun and then they showed me a room for a good price with a killer view of the dock area, so I was sold!
4 days there turned into 5, which turned into 7. Even as a large island, because it is so isolated, time doesn't really seem to exist. Each day is kinda like the last, with
the weather being the changing factor.
There is a walk to a beach called Lopez Mendez that I wanted to do and after 4 days I decide I'd better do it before I leave. Very glad I did! The walk is more of an easy hike I would say, with a lot of slippery uphill and downhill parts due to the clay ground and a lot of rocks around the place. It took me 2 hours to get there but I tend to walk pretty fast and another guy there took almost 4 hours to get there, so to do it, go early. I'd heard there was surfing on the island and was really stoked to be getting back to some waves but arriving there I found out that they were at this beach Lopez Mendez and some others but all on the other side, with Lopez Mendez being the closest! The surf there, not bad! I didn't see it on a great swell but it looks like you could get some serious barrels there! After the walk I couldn't be bothered surfing as it was pretty mushy and board hire was expensive, but a good bodysurf can be
just as good and it was! I also sat for a good while on a point there where you can sit solo in peace on top of some rocks watching the waves crash in. When leaving the beach to hike back I found some other Aussies who had attracted a whole bunch of ____, damn cute animals that had a real taste for the banana cake this couple were feeding them! Not so good that they were feeding wild animals but they knew that, as they kept sayin "oh I know I shouldn't be doing this... but they're so damn cute" every minute or so while continuing to feem them!
The only other real activity, besides wandering into town to get food which is a 2 minute walk, was a long walk around another point to the right of the dock when you enter the main harbour. We checked out a few more beaches, some I returned to other days for more lazy time, and an old home that was converted to a prison and is now in ruins. A dingy little place that you really wouldn't wanna be stuck in, but that at least has the sea air
and noise of the ocean. Besides that I simply enjoyed doing not much, catching up writing this blog, watching TV with the awesome girls from reception, and getting some good quality alone time.
The island is a good place to wander around without aim, checking out the tropical mountain walks up to its various points of interest, heh most of which I think are pretty uninteresting but the walking itself is really why you go. The region itself holds that same feel as Rio with the islands and mainland all jutting stright out of the ocean rather than the flat tropical island style of the Carribean areas in Central America, and is awesome just to boat around and look at. I definitely came out feeling totally recharged and ready for a bit more madness in Sao Paulo and then onto Venezuela, although I ended up staying on the island so long that all I had time to do was to get to Sao Paulo, sleep, go change some money for Venezuela, check out the main park in the fading daylight before making my way to the airport where I had 8 or so hours to kill before liftoff. (I
could go later, but it would cost me $120 more with accomodation and taxi etc... so I opted for the spend-more-time-in-the-airport option!).
Brazil is incredible. A really beautiful country with a big mixture of people and very very small variety in music. With lots of happy nice people and more than its share of the opposite too but populations that leave you with plenty of choice who you spend your time with, its a very social country and there is always someone up for a drink and a dance. Charged with a music player (Reggaeton can only be put up with for so long...), some Portuguese, and a little more cash perhaps than the average South American countrys, theres little you can't do in Brazil... I definitely have to return here!
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