Day 308 to 315 - Ilha Grande - Sunday 19th to Sunday 26th August 2012

Ilha Grande, what an awesome place… After the paradise that was Paraty, we hoped to find the same here and it's fair to say that it came pretty close! We caught the afternoon ferry, well I say ferry - it was more like a cargo ship with a few wooden seats, anyway it was comfortable enough and about two hundred passengers plus me and Soph arrived safely some two hours later. Once off the boat we had to walk with our backpacks, usually no problem, but it was the middle of the day and the only way to reach our place was by walking down the beach!! The B&B we had booked was really nice, it had a great balcony with hammock and was right on the beach. In fact the only access in and out was via the beach as there are no roads to or from it: Actually there are very little roads on the island full stop, this is because it is a nature island and all cars are banned.

For the next seven nights and eight days we chilled, read books, swung in hammocks and lazed on pure white beaches… oh and had lovely meals out and ice cold beers too - tough hey!! Soph had been told that there were some hikes to do and also that Ilha Grande has one of the top ten beaches in the world. So armed with out walking boots (flip flops) we headed out into the jungle to find this top ten beach. The name of it is Lopes Mendes beach and after about two and a half hours we were there. We were both dying of thirst so luckily just as we arrived there was a guy selling fresh coconut juice, water and cold beers!! We grabbed our drinks and sat on the white blanket of sand and just watched the waves roll in, it was awesome! Soph went for a swim, she elegantly entered the water and then ran straight out as it was freezing - so not quite perfection. We chilled for the whole day and then had to make the same hike back!! The island of Ilha Grande was a former prison in the way that Alcatraz was. So on one of the days we toured the old prison and some of the surrounding ruins which was pretty interesting even though there is not much of the ruins left you could still see the inside and cells. I think it was our second night before we left Ilha Grande that I saw something really strange; we were on the beach in one of the little bars and it was starting to get dark, when I noticed that there were three bright orange lines on the main land opposite. Now I know that Brazil is not famed for its volcanos but I promise it looked just like a volcano had erupted and magma was flowing down the valleys, and I thought, it must be massive because we are on the island out at sea and we could see it easily. I asked the nice lady on reception and she said it was a huge bush fire on the main land….. she also laughed her head off when I said I thought it was a volcano - I blame the Brazilian beer!! On our last day in beautiful Ilha Grande we got a really nice treat, as we laid on the beach, between seven and eight dolphins came really close to shore and you could see them really clearly which was amazing. We had a great time on the island and will miss it but next up is Rio and neither of us can wait!!