As we left Rio, to make the bus and boat journey to the island of Ilha Grande easier, we booked a three hour transfer from the hostel desk. Two hours later we were still in the minibus and just pulling up at the airport to collect the last passenger (the airport that is only half hour away to start with) courtesy of a very annoying family who were not even at their hotel at pickup time let alone ready to leave, then had the audacity to ask the driver to stop at a cash machine. When we finally got everybody on board the driver had have enough himself and declared we were stopping at a restaurant for 30 minutes. By the time we got to the port we had missed the boat plus we had noticed that everyone else paid on the bus and paid five pounds less than we had. The bus driver bought boat tickets for everyone, gave them to one girl to look after for all of us and instructed us to line our luggage up in the middle for some unknown reason. At least there was a police guard to protect the sitting ducks.
By the time we made the half hour crossing on a boat that reminded me of a lifeboat, and arrived on the island six hours later it was dark. And I mean dark – the island power was off. Of course we had booked the guesthouse furthest from the beach and there were no wheelbarrow luggage helpers here. At least we had our head torches to help navigate the sandy lanes and we found our home for the next three nights.
We walked back down to the town to find some food and were looking at the menu at a busy restaurant when a man wandered over from the street, holding a plastic bag, and said something we didn’t understand. I hazarded a guess he was asking for money and said no thank you which was a bit awkward when he turned out to be the waiter. Thus commenced a bizarre evening where he took our order then forgot about it and we played 6 games of Monopoly Deal before getting a horrible meal. When I asked someone else that I assumed was a waitress for some water, she repeated back “you want water??” with an incredulous look as if I’d asked for the most ridiculous thing imaginable. By the end we still weren’t sure if the original man worked there or not. But the island’s power came back on and everyone cheered.
In the morning we saw how beautiful our little guesthouse really was, with hammocks and a pool and a lovely breakfast lady squeezing fresh juice who spoke no English but used Google translate to talk to us. We were the only guests in the whole place so had our own private breakfast buffet of fruit and rolls and cake. After some planning the night before, we set off on the most popular hike across the island to Lopez Mendes, “the most beautiful beach in Brazil”, billed as it’s a tough 3 hour, 6.1km hike (“expert” level) with limited supplies on the way. We bought a picnic lunch of sandwiches (unfortunately they toasted them) and enough crisps and water to survive for a week.
In actual fact this is a really beautiful hike through the jungle, only passing a few other people, and not really difficult at all if you have a reasonable level of fitness. I especially enjoyed the tiny section that required a rope which we presume gave it the “expert” rating!
The trail passes by the smaller and in my opinion more beautiful beaches of Praia de Palmas which had just a handful of tiny guest houses and would have been a lovely place to spend a night, then continued to Prai de Mangues where the boats come in. We saw some gorgeous little monkeys in the trees, scared away by the Argentinian group with their flasks of maté and loud voices shouting “hay un mono!!”. Not any more there isn’t.
When we got to the actual Lopes Mendes beach it was anything but deserted – it had kiosks selling beer and food and lifeguard stations, and we seemed to have timed our arrival with a cruise ship. It may not have been the most beautiful beach in Brazil but Helen jumped some waves and we ate our cooled down toasted sandwiches after picking out the wilted lettuce, unable to buy a beer as we didn’t have enough cash (no ATMs on the island so maybe the annoying bus family had the right idea). In my opinion the hike itself is the highlight rather than the destination.
Like most people we got the boat back at 3.30 instead of hiking the return trail – which we almost missed as we were waiting on the wrong beach. The boat ride was really nice in itself and is the perfect way to see some of the island without spending money on an actual boat tour!
We had another slightly weird dinner with another waiter we weren’t sure actually worked there and five games of monopoly deal before getting our drinks, but it was one of my favourite days in Brazil so far.
We finally had a lazy morning by the pool the next day before doing the short hike to some ruins of a jail that was used for quarantine. You could easily spend a good few days here hiking the various island trails – though we were yet to find a beach with enough sand to sunbathe, we did find one with a very annoying hippy couple playing terrible recorder.
On the way back to Sao Paolo, which would conclude Helen’s trip and mark the start of the next leg of my journey, we followed the backpacker trail via the little colonial town of Paraty. I had done zero research on this place so had no expectations but it’s well worth a stop with it’s preserved town centre and jungle backdrop. It also has a really interesting history, with the Portuguese arriving in the 16th century and it became a busy port town built on slave labour.
Much of the town gets submerged under the tide water – good thing we were wearing flipflops aside from when navigating the cobbled streets (Helen fell over). The streets used to be lower than the houses which gave it the name of the Venice of Brazil. Sadly the old roads were rebuilt by child slaves and the “good” stones replaced by cheaper uneven ones, at a higher level meaning the houses flooded. I can’t remember most of the history and have no internet access to look it up but I do remember that the three main churches were once totally segregated for whites, blacks and mixed race people and there was also no sewage system so the houses and churches closest to the sea got the raw deal.
We were there for Good Friday meaning we got up again at midnight (one of Helen’s better ideas!) to see the ritual of a effigy of Jesus holding a huge palm, being carried through the streets followed by a large crowd holding lit torches. We ended up in the parade for quite a while before we could get home again.
And that was three weeks in Brazil, as we waited for a six hour bus to Sao Paolo – a bus that never turned up so we ended up sharing a rollercoaster of a taxi ride with an Argentinian family who were otherwise about to miss their flight…
Maz On The Road 