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Published: February 23rd 2012
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(If you´re wondering what the title means, 'ola' means 'hello' in Portuguese and we don´t know what paradise is so we´ve left it in English).
So we left you on a cliffhanger - would we get the bus or wouldn´t we? Crazy. Anyway, you´ve probably looked at the location and seen that we must of got on the bus, although after quite a lot of effort.
Timings seem to go out the window during Carnival, just like body clocks, so needless to say, after queueing up for ages in the stifling heat for the 12:30 bus we didn´t leave until 1. The bus was pretty nice though (understatement), with sofa-like seats and footrests that were more like leg-rests and we got to Angra dos Reis via some amazing views of Atlantic rainforest-clad mountains and blue sea. George did his best to sleep through it and we have the video to prove it.
We got a casual schooner to Ilha Grande just as the sun was going down which was beautiful, accompanied by thumping beats that went from recent hits to the dregs of the playlist from 1980. We got docked in just as it was getting dark after
passing what we both agreed would be our future houses (not together), and since we had nowhere to stay, listened to the touts offering their rooms. We found one that was being rented out and went out into the car-less and wild west streets of Vila Abraao, the largest village on the island.
Carnaval in Ilha Grande is a bit differrent to Rio - still the volume of music but more of a family atmosphere and with happy clappy catchy music to boot. There was also a fair amount of dressing up and we couldn´t resist fitting in so bought appropriate headgear.
The following day it turned out that our next place to stay had been too good to be true and that Hostelworld had messed up, so we went back to our original room which was fortunately still available and haggled the price down a bit.
Ilha Grande is cool at night, but in day time it´s stunning, not that we saw much of it from our trek through the rainforest to get to Lopes Mendes, apparently the 7th nicest in the world, according to Vogue magazine (we don´t read Vogue, I promise). It would be
churlish not to mention that our competitive streaks got the better of us and overtook about 57 people on the way (not that we were counting), including a family of small monkeys that were tamely chilling on a tree. The forest was quite hot and sticky, like most in Brazil, and I think it´s safe to say we have never sweated so much in our life. We got to Lopes Mendes, which is as good as was advertised with perfect sands for beach sports and decent waves.
After schoonering back to Vila Abraao, we went about tasting the local pizzas, and ended up getting both a Lopes Mendes pizza (basically an english breakfast on a pizza base) and various local cocktails that tasted surprisingly good.
The heat until that point had been hot but manageable, but the following day we struggled as we managed to find our own beach on which we could lie down and burn. Later we had to get the ferry (this time a catamaran, on which George was amusingly sick) before waitng at the bus stop for a couple of hours (seems to be a pattern emerging) where we met some Brazilian people. We
headed to Paraty in a farily rubbish-but-cheap local bus, a trip George particularly enjoyed, before checking into our hostel in Paraty, handily located a minute´s walk from the bus station. We went out with our Brazilian friends for arguably our biggest night so far. Paraty does Carnaval quite well and that´s about all we can remember from that night.
We retraced our slightly inebriated footsteps the following morning and selected episodes from the previous night came back to us and took the opportunity to explore the town in daylight. Not to self and anyone else who goes there: don´t wear flip flops. While the cobbled streets combine with the white buildings and numerous churches for a bit of colonial flavour, they´re highly hazardous and must have stubbed thousands of toes over the centuries.
The last night of Carnaval was enjoyable and memorable (for once) and we got our first glimpse of the floats moving down the narrow streets before Brazil´s version of Cee Lo Green (possibly the second coolest guy in the world behind the guy dancing in his shades and bananas on our schooner back from Lopes Mendes) entertained us to the Carnaval classics (some of which
sound quite like the Mario Kart soundtrack) which are impossible to get out of your head.
Today we woke up to a scrumptious breakfast and then went kayaking with Alejandro, an Argentinian who managed to pull off the chilled-but-deep persona pretty nicely. We visited various islands and beaches, all of which were picturesque, although our highlight was gliding/getting caught up in the mangroves, home to trees, mud and billions of crabs. We stopped for the nicest fish we have ever tasted for lunch before returning to Paraty central. Even with our humungous guns, kayaking is exhausting and George nearly found himself heading off to Africa at one point, before announcing it was a tactical shortcut (it wasn´t). We got in just before the thunder and lightning and have just finished watching Inglorious Basterds while it rains outside for the first time properly (good news to all those tired/jealous of our sunny pictures) before we head for Curitiba some time tomorrow. Hopefully you might get a video this time but we´ve been writing this for a while and it´s still only 40% uploaded so that remains to be seen.
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