Ilha Grande and Ubatuba

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After a 4 hour bus ride that ended up 3 as our bus driver had no
concept of speed, we arrived in Agra Rios a little fishing village
where you catch the ferry to Ilha Grande. We booked our ferry and
hotel in the bus station then walked to the harbour. We had been
warned about Ilha Grande not having any cash machines or banks so we
got out quite alot of money not knowing how long the sun would keep is
there.

When we got off the 40 minuter catamaran (R$20) it was pouring down in
Ilha Grande, we were not best pleased. The only thing that put us in a
better mood was the woman from our hotel was waiting with a brolly.
The hotel itself made us happy, Yes Posada was it's name and we had
paid abit more than usual (R$58) about a tenner per night. The place
was spotless, the kitchen was big, the rooms had ensuites, plasma tv
and the bed was comfy. We didn't do much that night apart from eat
hollies vegetable rissotto (very good), played cards and had a few
Brahma.

Day 1

We woke up and found out straight away the best thing about Yes
Posada, the breakfast! Warm bread, butter, jam, tea, coffee, oj,
scrambled eggs, hot dog Brazilian thig, ham, cheese, quiche, 3
different kinds of cake and biscuits, it was incredible. After
stuffing ourselves the weather looked to have cleared so we decided to
visit the local beaches.
We stopped off at a travel agency to get the weather report for the
next couple of days and get a snorkeling mask, then set off to
Abrizinho a beach 10-15 minutes walk from Yes, it was supposedly a
small beach with good snorkeling. For some strange reason I had
decided to wear my walking trainers instead if my crocs and was forced
to walk bear foot because of the numerous streams we had to walk
through. As we continued, the beach pass went into the jungle but you
could see a beach in the distance so sick of bare foot I decided to
swim. After 100 metres I cut my foot on sharp rocks and what made it
worse when I got to the beach it was the wrong one. So I had to use
the jungle pass for 20 minutes with bloody foot before I found Hollie
but the worst thing was the sea was too rough so no chance of
snorkeling (no visibility) and the sun had gone in!! We spent about
half an hour there decided there was no point staying if there was no
sun so headed back. On the way back it terrentially downpoured and the
weather was now not funny. We looked around the port, shops and
restaurants for a few hours then headed back to the hotel. As we had
been told by people before there was nothing to do in Ilha Grande
without sunshine and they were unfortunately correct, we decided to
leave the following day so booked our Catamaran for 11am.

Day 2

Again breakfast was outstanding but the weather was still crap. We
checked out and headed to the port, we were 45 minutes early so waited
on a bench and never guess what happened, the bloody sun started
blazing. I decided the weather wast going to get the better of us so I
sent Hollie to tell the agency I wasn't feeling very well and changed
our departure till tomorrow, we checked back in at Yes and got ready
for the beach.

Lopes Mendes was where we headed it an hour and three quarters walk
through the jungle and up some steep hills seeing loads of nature
including some fire ants and spider ants which made the walk worth it.
It was the most baron beach I have ever seen in my life, it was long
and curved around the rough sea with White sands but apart from a few
sunbathers, surfers and 2 lifeguards there was nothing there. The
waves were really rough so I drank alot of seawater which is why I
reckon the lifeguards were there because it can't have been for the
volume of tourists more for the surfers safety. We spent about 3 hours
there decided to get a boat back instead of hike through the jungle in
the dark. On the boat were a couple of the guys we had met at Beach
Backpackers so after leaving them we agreed to meet at their hostel
for drinks later.
We had pasta for tea a few drinks at the hotel, a few more on the way
to their hostel and got there about 10ish. Aquario was the name of
their hostel and if you wanted a backpacker/lively place that was the
place to be. The bar was buzzing with people probably because the
Caiprinhas were cheap so we followed suit having a few Caiprinhas then
a few beers. We played shithead most of the night with everyone before
leaving at half 12 to try and catch a kebab from a place that closed
at 1 with no luck this sent us straight to bed hungry.

Day 3

This time the weather wasn't playing games it was blazig hot when we
woke up at 9.30, so we decided it would be rude to waste good weather
so delayed our departure another day. After 2 days of beaches and a
real urge to go snorkeling I persuaded Hollie to do the Blue Lagoon
trip. The trip was only 5 hours but we were told the snorkeling was
good and there was a possibilty of swimming with sharks and turtles.
We set off from the port about half 10 and it took about 40 minutes to
get to Blue Lagoon. The 3 boats docked and through bread off the sides
which attracted alot of fish but we knew if we wanted to see sharks or
turtles we had to get away from the crowds. Yohan (guide for
Galapagos) told us you find the best sealife near the rocks and shores
usually feeding, so me and Hollie started searching there. After about
30 minutes we knew we had to get abit further away so we swam to the
otherside of the boats where nobody was and there we saw a turtle, we
swam alongside it for a while until it disappeared into the deep sea.
Out of the 3 full boats of people me and Hollie were the only ones to
see a turtle, thanks again Yohan. After that we stopped at a beach for
15 minutes which was pretty pointless as only 5 of us got off as the
sea water was freezing. Then we stopped at another beach with
restaurants on that smelt delicious but because it was ridiculously
expensive and neither of us were really hungry we just got drinks and
decided to treat ourselves later instead.
When we got back to the main town in Ilha Grande where we were staying
we sent postcards home then went back to Yes to get showered. We both
got smarter than usual clothes on and headed out for seafood. The
prawns were on par with the ones from Mancora and went down a treat,
Hollie having seafood risotto and me prawn stroganoff. After tea we
were knackered from all the snorkeling during the day so konked out
straight away.

Day 4

We decided we were behind schedule so needed to move on but didn't
want to go too far from the sun so Paraty was our destination. We got
the early catamaran to land and caught the next bus to Paraty, not too
far only 2 hours. When we arrived at Paraty there was a weekend
festival on so every Posada and hostel we tried would only let us stay
the Thursday night or we had to stay till the Monday and that would
put us way behind schedule so we decided to get a bus to Ubatuba.
The next bus was half 5 which was 3 hours later but in Spanglish we
found out we could get the next bus to the Sao Paulo-Rio regional
border and another bus to Ubatuba from there. Luckily for us the bus
driver was sound and told a young lad on the connecting bus to tell us
when to get off, but the young lad did more than that with him and his
mother walking us to our hostel, Brazilian people are brilliant!
After settling into our hostel and making tea we watched a film and
headed to bed.

Ubatuba

Officially the capital of surfing in brazil, Ubatube boasts more than
100 beaches.
Me and Hollie woke up had breakfast which wasnt the best and headed to
Praia Grande, a beach in the area known for it's very strong waves. As
we had set off late after ringing home after wishing happy birthdays
we walked to the beach taking about an hour and a half. When we got to
the beach it was full of sarongs, football shirts, towels and the odd
sweetcorn stall. There wasn't alot of people there mainly because the
sun wasn't that hot. Ubatuba is probably the beach in south america
with the most surfers from the ones we have visited and they could
surf, the best surfing I've ever seen. We stayed at the beach a good
4-5 hours until you couldnt even feel the heat of the sun anymore then
headed back to the hostel stopping off along the way at a few artisan
shops. As the walk there was 90 minutes and the walk back was 2 hours
it didn't feel like we did much with our day so we decided to catch a
bus to a different beach tomorrow. There wasn't much of a nightlife in
Ubatuba from what we saw so it was another film then bed.

We woke up the next morning and the weather wasn't too good so we
packed and decided to move onto Sao Paulo early.

Muchos Love

Brown

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