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A little time to relax at the end of trial 2If you asked Lynny and I what we were looking foward to first before we left, we probably replied 'Ilha Grandé'. In that respect , it was all a bit of a dissapointment. After 3 hours (bus & boat) from Rio we arrived at the only real town on the island 'Abraáo'. It's very picturesque, a modern purpose built little town/village surrounded by jungle and boats. The whole island is jungle, our pousada (b&b) was practically in it!! We liked Abraáo, peaceful and clean, right on the water, everything we needed. Unfortunately, we found that on this side of the island, the beaches weren't great. Stunning backdrops but mostly dirty from boats and currents bringing in general (mostly natural) rubbish.
Bush tucker trial 1: The island has treks mapped out to beaches and sights so we set off on one to a beach called Lopes Mendes. The maps told us 2 hours which didn't sound so bad. Being dumb we didn't realise that the treks would be quite so hard! Up very steep hills through the jungle in hot temperatures. This one ended up taking more like 3 hours! I can now crack Brazil nuts between my calf muscles ;-)
Abraáo
Picturesque little town I counted 6 Lynny-loo hissy fits, due to large spiders, a snake and general exhaustion. She was definitely the Paul Burrell of the team ;-) Lopes Mendes was lovely though to be fair but unfortunately huge waves and very strong currents meant only surfers could get in further than waist deep. Funnily enough, there are boats waiting to take you back to town at a nice fee for the captain .... there's no way you could trek back even if you had the energy - it gets dark really early here and I wouldn't want to do that walk in torch light.
Bush tucker trial 2: Don't ask me why but we ended up trekking again the next day! It was a case of once you get so far, you may as well carry on and see the end result, especially as we knew there was bound to be a boat waiting for us unsuspecting tourists. Our bright idea this day was to wear flip flops to stop us being tempted into walking too far. Worst idea ever!! and the hardest tucker trial to date ;-) The lure of a beautiful waterfall led us on another adventure. It went
shattered!
a view on one of our treks much the same as trial 1, except for one glaring mistake. We had to climb up the steepest bank that it's possible to climb without a harness and in flops for about 10 minutes. At the top, we found ourselves facing a choice of left or right without a signpost. Unfortunately we chose a path that led us down another steep bank to what we thought was the waterfall (we could hear it!). At the bottom, reality hit us as things looked familiar. We were back on the same path!! I could have cried .... Lynny did. We took a break and did it again. We found the waterfall and it was indeed beautiful (though smaller than expected) with pools to dip into as well. Unsuprisingly, we were the only ones there ;-) Happy days. We got a boat back after finding another small dirty beach.
We spent a week on the island as a couple of cloudy days followed the trials. Then finally a glorious day arrived again for us to get a boat trip to see some of the other side of the island. It was a cool day of sun and snorkelling (which is v. good
here) with a couple of friends. If you can afford to do trips like this every day then the island is beautiful. They cost about 10 quid each which may not sound a lot, but in perspective, its a nights board and brekky for us! All in all we had fun and the evenings in town were nice but its a bit of a tourist trap and not the paradise we perhaps expected.
Gray xx
P.s If I am Paul Burrell then Gray is definately Carol Thatcher!
We took a break and did it again.
Breaks!!? There were NO breaks!!
Lynny x
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LMAO!
What a funny blog!! Bless you! And lovin the snorkelling piccie! Miss you! Love you! Me xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox