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Published: October 25th 2012
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Ilha de Santa Catarina
The view from breakfast, Barra de Lagoa. Ahhh Brasil what a beautiful country. I have to admit it was not in my top 10 places to go but it was incredible! After Iguazu we caught a bus to Florianopolis abusseded took a bus across the island. We spent 2 nights in a small town called Barra de Lagoa in a hostel over looking the ocean. It was a wonderful place where we were able to relax and chill out. We took a walk one of the days out over to a beach further down the coast, but as every second person that walks this trail seems to want to make a new path and none of them are signed, we took a wrong turn and headed down to the waters edge. It was not all bad we got to see some beautiful scenery, even if it did involve having to use ropes to get up and down some of the rocks... (that really should have been a big clue that we were on the wrong path). We did eventually turn back after we realised it would take us a really long time to walk around the coast this way. The beaches on this island were beautiful. We were
Ilha de Santa Catarina
The view back to Barra de Lagoa from our walk. really sad to have to move on from this place.
We caught another overnight bus this time to Sao Paulo, only to see the bus station, I had no desire to see this massive city. The population in the metropolitan area is at least 19 million! So nearly the entire population of Australia in this city, crazy! From there we bused out to the town of Paraty. Zac spent the trip talking to a German guy who was living in Sao Paulo. At a rest stop on the trip he introduced us to a frozen desert called Açai (ass-si-e). This Brasilian speciality was amazing! We couldn't wait to find more but would have to wait until we got to Isle Grande. Zac described it as being almost a chocolate taste, with icy flakes and a layer of condensed milk or muesli and banana. Yum!
Paraty is a small cobble stone village on a bay, all the buildings in the old part of town are white but their window frames and the doors are all painted different colours, blues purples, greens, yellows and reds. Very pretty. We stayed on the beach, well it used to be a mangrove so
not so good for swimming. When the tide is out it is all mud, we watched a number of fisherman pushing their boat in to shore while they were knee deep in mud! There was a massive international photography festival in town which ment it felt like it was a competition to see who had the biggest lense in town. There were some ridiculous set ups wandering around the place. The big upside to this festival was the amount of outdoor galleries and exhibitions around the town.
We met some interesting locals in Paraty, we were sitting eating our dinner in a resturant in town and the young guy at the table next to us wanted to have a massive conversation with us in Portuguese. Now before this trip we had been doing a little study of Spanish and had not even really looked at Portuguese. So our attempts to let him know we did not know any Portuguese fell on deaf ears. Not put off by our complete lack of ability to communicate with him, he talked and talked and tried and we tried but really we understood very little. Probably didn't hurt that he was quite drunk.
Ilha de Santa Catarina
The ropes we had to use to climb back up the rocks after our wrong turn. We seemed to attract these people all fun though.
While in Paraty we got on a boat that took us on a tour of the bay which is filled with 55 islands and some 100 beaches in the area. We didn't visit many of these but it was a beautiful day of soaking in the sun, and some swimming for Zac. The water in some areas was so blue, and the rain forest comes right down to the waters edge. Beautiful!
From Paraty we had planned to catch a bus to a town called Angra dos Reis and then a ferry to an island called Ilha Grande. We were sure that we had worked it all out - we planned to get the 12:00 bus to Angra dos Reis and then the 4:30 ferry across to Ilha Grande. The bus time table online and at the hostel supported this idea. When we walked to the bus stop we discovered that there was a time table change that started on that day (Oct 1) and now there would not be a bus til 13:30 which ment that we would miss the ferry that goes once a day ($3pp) and
even cut it fine for the last sail boat ($15pp), and there was nothing we could do but wait. We got the bus and things were looking good to make the last boat to the island and then the bus broke down... Typical! So we were all dropped off in this very strange town where all the houses looked the same and everything was very neat (which might not sound strange but all the other towns in the area are far from neat). While we were waiting we met an American guy who spoke pretty good Portuguese in the same situation as us with the boats, so we thought that would help in trying to find someone to take us over to the island. Eventually our replacement bus arrived and we were on our way again. We arrived 20 mins after the last boat had left so we talked to the people in the information centre who said there may be another boat tonight but they didn't know if it would come. So we went looking for a fisherman that may want some extra money and take us over... but no luck. We went back to the information centre where
Ilha de Santa Catarina
The view over the bay. we got some great news, the boat they were not sure would come was going to make another trip and save us (and about 17 others) from a night in Angra. It ended up being about twice as much as the sailboat but we were just glad to get to the island. We made a lovely crossing at night and watched the near full moon rise over the water.
We stayed in a beautiful guest house on Ilha Grande set up on a hill in a beautiful tropical garden. The only down side for Zac was the 7 cats who also lived there. But he coped quite well! The entire island has a total of 5 motor vehicles, an ambulance, and 2 quad bikes for the police and a jeep for the police and an excavator. So it is very peaceful on the island.
We hiked out to a waterfall on our first full day on the island - a beautiful sunny day with the temperature hovering around the 30 degree mark. Unfortunately, by the time we had hiked through the humid rainforest and arrived at the waterfall, the water was Tassie cold. This did not deter Zac
Ilha de Santa Catarina
The view back to Barra de Lagoa who got in and under the falls despite being blasted by ice cold water. On our walk back to town we heard our first lot of Howler monkeys. The sound these animals make is unbelievable and if you didn't know any better you would think you were being hunted by a pack of hungry lions (or something like that!).
The following day we took another hike, this time out to a beautiful undeveloped beach called Lopes Mendes that promised to be the ultimate tropical location. This involved walking through more amazing rainforest, along two other beautiful beaches and through a couple of small settlements. Just before we reached the beach, we found the cutest squirrel monkeys playing chasings through the low lying trees right next to the track. We took loads of pics here and then finally arrived at Lopes Mendes. The beach looks like a typical tropical beach - plam trees, soft white sand, monkeys in the trees... the only problem was the water temperature... it was almost Tassie cold! We took some time to adjust to the water temperature but eventually had a pretty nice swim before relaxing in the sun. After exerting ourselves on the hike
Ilha de Santa Catarina
We found two Owls in the sand dunes. in, we decided to take a lazy boat ride home along the coast.
Ilha Grande was another place we could have quite easily stayed for a while! But Rio de Janerio was calling us, so we packed up and headed to Rio. Here we encountered one of the craziest drivers yet. Not even the recent car wreck on the side of the road with its tyres ripped off and the ambulances racing to it was enough to settle him down, but we made it safe and sound to Rio.
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Charles and Maree
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Hi guys...WOW we have been reading your beautifully written and descriptive blog, well done to the Author (Renee)! And of course for your input as well Zac. You certainly are having a great time in a beautiful part of God's Creation it seems. Az showed us the Facebook page about your 5day 100Km walk - unbelievable!! Hope the sunburn wasn't too bad Zac!!!! We are very proud of your adventurous spirit and trust The Lord to be taking care of you always staying one step ahead of you. xoxoxo