Day 4 -Sat 1st Nov - Rio to Ihla Grande

We checked out of the hotel in the morning and headed over to meet the rest of the tour group. We then got a private mini bus to take us to the port to catch a private boat accross to Ihla Grande. It took about 3 hours on the minibus and given the very late night we had all had in Lapa the night before it was a very somber and quiet bus journey! the boat then took an hour and a half to get over to the island.

Ihla Grande is a fairly large island but it is a nature reserve with incredible beaches and the core of the island is very mountainous and covered in rainforest - it looks just like the island from Lost!!

There are no cars on the island (just sandy streets), no cash machines either and the small town looked like a model village with brightly coloured shacks for buildings.

When we arrived there were two guys with a big trolley to collect our luggage and push it to the hotel for us, which was about a 5 min walk (the entire length of the town!).

The only thing that wasnt perfect about this place was the weather! It was cloudy and overcast and they were forecasting rain - not what I expected from my tropical island paradise!!

The hotel we stayed at was surprisingly nice (we werent quite sure what to expect in terms of quality of accommodation on this tour). The rooms were basically log cabins surrounded by beautiful gardens, with a terrace and hammock.

It was quite late in the afternoon when we arrived so we just had a few hours to ourselves to explore the town (didnt take long!) before heading out for dinner. We ended up at an all you can eat pizzeria (this all you can eat thing is very popular in Brazil!) were they just keep bringing out more amd more different pizzas until youve had enough.

On the subject of food, Brazilians seem to be addicted to ham and cheese, cakes and pastries. They have cake for breakfast, ham and cheese for breakfast lunch and dinner, and there are bakeries on every street corner selling pasty type things and savoury donughts with a variety of fillings - but usually ham and cheese! Its not doing the diet any good at the moment!

When we arrived at the hotel we were told there was another group doing the same tour but in reverse order that were due to arrive at the hotel that day. By this time we had already come to the conclusion that there were two main activies to fill the two remaining full days we had. One was to take a boat to Lopes Mendes beach (the picture above) which is a famous beach on the island which is totally remote and everyone goes there to surf. The other was an organised boat excursion around to the other side of the island for snorkelling and bbq.

The consensus was that as the weather was not going to be great the next day we would postpone the boat excursion to the second day and head to the beach on the first day. Our tour leader is a surf fanatic so all he wanted to do was go to the beach anyway, the other groups tour leader decided that rather than taking the boat to the beach he would lead a group to walk round there - a 3 hour walk! Foolishly I decided that I would join them for the walk seeing as Id done nothing except drink caipriniahs and eat ham and cheese since arriving in Rio so thought I needed some exercise!

Day 5 - Sun 2nd Nov - Ihla Grande

We had a fairly early start of 9am to head off on the walk to the beach. What I hadnt appreciated about this walk was that it was going to be a practically vertical walk and and down the sides of 3 mointains to get accross there!! Not a nice gentle coastal stroll. By the top of the first hill I was completely hyperventilating I was so exhausted. The views from the top were quite amazing though and luckily I was wearing my walking shoes! But the insane (Brazillian) tour leader was doing it in his bear feet!! He had also told all his group that it was an easy walk so they were all wearing flip flops.

At the bottom of each hill was a beach which we then walked to the opposite end of to head to the next hill. At the side of one of the beaches was a pond and there was a crocodile just lying in the sun on the other side of the pond. I managed to get a photo but was a bit worried that there may be another one lurking on my side of the pond! (we have since been told that it was a cayman not a crocodile but it was very big, tke a look at the photo to see what you think).

The other thing making this walk extremely difficult was the weather. Not the cloudy day they had forecasted making it perfect walking conditions, no it was an absolute scorcher, the hottest day we had in Brazil so far!!

When we finally arrived a Lopes Mendes beach it was beautiful and the walter was very clear (albeit slightly cold!) and the waves were very stong. Aparantly perfect for beginners surfing but I didnt fancy giving it a go.

I ended the day with the inevitable sunburn despite using gallons of suncream and sitting in the shade! It was very sore (and a week later its still pealing!).

We headed back on the boat (there was no way we were doing another 3 hour walk back). On the way to the beach the people on the boat had a group of dolphins swimming along the side of the boat, so I spent the entire boat trip back (about an hour) staring out at the water looking for dolphins - and yep, you guessed it, absolutely nothing!!

In the evening we head out for dinner to a lovely fish restaurant, as we had all had enough of pizza and ham and cheese!

Day 6 - Mon 3rd Nov - Ihla Grande

We set off about 10am for the boat excursion - now named ´the caipirinha boat´ with the other tour group too so there were about 30 of us. As the name may suggest the only thing there was to drink on the boat was caipirinhas (Brazillian cocktail of cachaza sugar and lime) or water, so it turned into a total party boat quite quickly.

After about an hour we set down anchor in a blue lagoon to go snorkelling, there were hundreds of fish. We stayed there for quite a while and they cooked a bbq off the back of the boat. After that the boat carried on round the island to a private beach where everyone got off the boat and swam to the beach for another little break.....and more caipirinhas. We made one final stop at a bay on the way back and got back to the town about 6pm, with everyone well and truly in the party spirit. The other guide offered to make a bbq for everyone as the hotel had an outdoor bbq and patio area. we stayed there until about 10pm then decided to head out to a bar (because clearly 12 hours drinking by this point was not enough!). Got back about 2am - and have felt better than i did the following day.