Greetings all!

Ilhe Grande certainly had some ups and downs for us starting with the fact we'd been checking the weather forecast for the wrong island. Soon after arriving we realised the 100% humidity, 40 degree heat and unpredictable thunderstorms would instead be maximum 25 degrees with occasional persistent rain and the odd sunny day!

Ilhe Grande is 100% national park and has no cars (only emergency vehicles). It is relatively undeveloped as until 1994 there was a Brazilian prison located on the East side of the Island and therefore no tourism.

We arrived via private transfer into the town of Abraao on Tuesday evening. Our hotel 'Pousada Caiçara' turned out to be the nicest guest house we have stayed in yet and had a little balcony over looking the mountains on the island. In the evening we had what was an interesting eating experience for me at a recommended pizza restaurant on the sea front. I decided to try the mozzarella, tomato and garlic pizza which was an inch thick in raw garlic paste and, despite my efforts, inedible after the first slice. We both found this rather amusing and Esben forced a slice down out of sympathy (and so I didn't fumigate him to death in the night!).

Wednesday was my birthday and I was ecstatic to be given my birthday present from Esben which was an organised trip to the elephant sanctuary in Cambodia when we are there in October, I can't wait!! Sadly we were awakened to what was monsoon like rain. This persisted through several games of cards so we decided to head to town to have a look in the shops and grab some lunch. We got absolutely soaked to the bone on this little wander and it wasn't particularly warm either so we were both a bit miserable. Just as we sat down for what we planned to be an afternoon of kitkats and Brazilian chocolate biscuits (made of that interesting foreign chocolate that doesn't melt :-/) it stopped raining so we bit the bullet and ventured out again.

We hiked to a beach to the South west of the island through thick jungle and it managed to stay dry for the full three hour hike. We saw some interesting wildlife including a dead snake and some giant earth worms (I mean GIANT! The size of small snakes), I won't repeat the phrase I used when I came across the first one...! Unfortunately because of the rain the Mosquitos and midges were out in force and because of my irrational fear of biting insects I covered myself in our delightful 100% deet bug spray. This led to me exiting the forest covered in a multitude of dead insects... Nothing a wash in the sea didn't sort out but a bit gross!

In the evening we wandered down to the local beach BBQ restaurant and had grilled prawns and steak and sank a bottle of delicious Argentinian Malbec.

Day two on the Island saw us brave the clouds and take a 16km hike to the deserted prison on the east coast of the island. It rained persistently for about 4 hours of the hike and the terrain was nothing special so to sum it up we we're wet, tired, in pain and a bit miserable at the end of it but we slept well!!

The beautiful sunny weather finally arrived for us on the last day so we took a boat trip to various lagoons and bays around the island. The boat was a type of speed boat so a fun ride although the snorkelling was nothing special. It was nice just to enjoy the sunshine and see the island from different angles.

Our next stop was Paraty and we are just leaving there for Sao Paolo so my next blog will be about Paraty and will follow shortly.

Alice
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