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Published: March 15th 2009
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Ilha Grande
One of the houses - not sure it would fit in in Plymouth Hello! I’m sat in our hostel in a place called Paraty, 2 hours south of Ilha Grande the tropical inland i wrote the last blog from. We spent 4 days there in hot sunshine just thinking every moment how amazing it was. The island was something you’d see on an episode of Lost with steep tree covered mountains as the backdrop to the beaches. The more time we’re spending in Brazil the more I like it! Although Rio was an experience this is what it’s all about - chilled out, good people, colourful buildings and a good atmosphere. Ilha Grande had no roads, no atms, no McDonalds and most of the paths were just sand!! One afternoon Steve and I were sat at a beachside bar, drinking capiranha’s in the late afternoon sun listening to Brazilian Reggae and it including one amazing version of John Lennon’s Imagine! My kind of place!! So we went to Brazils second best beach on our first day (called Lopez Mendez) - about a 30 minute boat ride from the main town and then a 25 minute walk through forest but it was worth it! Steve hired a board and left me to burn on the
Ilha Grande
On the way to our Pousada (hostel) beach! The sand was so perfect it squeaked as you walked on it!
We also discovered on Ilha Grande how to eat out cheaply and indulged in ‘a meal for one’ where for £4 you got meat, chips, rice, salad and some kidney beans in a sauce! We are finding Brazil really expensive and we are pretty much over spending most days!! To be honest it’s pretty much comparable to the UK in many areas - eekk!!
We also did a lot of walking on Ilha Grande including one massive trek to a waterfall in the middle of the island, it took about 2 hours and probably wasn’t best attacked in flip flops! At the point just before the waterfall you pretty much had to pull yourself up by roots of trees! It was pretty stunning when we got there and Steve entertained everyone with a Peter Andre moment under the waterfall (OK he didn’t sing Mysterious Girl but it added to my experience to think he did!). On the final day we hired sea kayaks and went round to lots of different beaches which was cool (it puts getting lost in a car with your boyfriend to
Ilha Grande
Your average street shame - imagine being in the middle of the sea without a map!!).
We got the bus then down to Paraty, it’s a world heritage site and all the streets are cobbled (no cars again!) and it’s filled with old colonial buildings with brightly coloured doors and shutters - it’s stunning. Yesterday we headed out on a local bus to the town though to a little fishing town called Trindade. I’d read about it on someone else’s blog (it isn’t in the Lonely Planet) and it was as stunning as he’d described it. The beaches were pretty empty for a weekend and we also trekked through mud and dodgy cliffside trails (these Brazilians like to make it hard to get to the good places) to a natural pool sheltered from the sea by huge boulders. The pool was huge and again, stunning!
Glad we did that yesterday because today we’ve had our first rain! And this place doesn’t really have drains so the streets just flood! So today we’re just chilling, been to get some lunch, got some dinner for tonight - we’ve been cooking here so it’s back to basics with different variations of pasta and sauce
(we even had tinned hot dog sausages last night - oh yeah!). Their cheese isn’t up to much here though to my distress!
Tomorrow we have another first - a long bus journey! It’s ok though I have my 50 song playlist prepared and ready! We go from here to Sao Paulo which is 6 hours and then straight from there to a place called Curitiba, another 6 hours, where on Wednesday we’ll make our way to another island - Ilha Do Mel.
We’re two weeks in now and plan to stay another 2 weeks in Brazil, although we may get in to Argentina a little sooner because of the expense!!
I hear you guys are having good weather too!!
STEVE
Lopes Mendez : 2ft messy. Wouldn’t have really gone in at home but for the fact I was too hot in boardies and a rash vest..... Nuff said. Not much really promising swell kicking around. Hopefully some on Ilha do Mel.
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Heather
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JEALOUS!!!
It all sounds so great and I am so jealous of you both...the pictures are stunning...Iola are you sure your eating enough, you are looking skinny!! keep the blogs and piccies coming! Miss you xxxxxx