Loading ...Ihla Grande, Brasil
Written by Brian David Crane on July 29th, 2005
After hang gliding, the next day we headed out to Ihla Grande, Brasil; an old treasure-island kind-of-place that was used by pirates and prisoners until it was turned into a national park. It was like a big rain forest sitting in the middle of the Carribean with 1,000 m mountains, 20+ shipwrecks, snorkling, surfing, and the clearest water I have ever seen (we could see starfish on the ocean floor from 15 feet). Philipe (Geli´s friend from Brasil) showed up before we left (much to my surprise as the night before I went on a 5-hour bus trip to visit my sister in a church camp outside of Rio and didn´t get back to our hostel until 7 AM of the morning we were leaving for the island). Gettng to the island was a huge mess as Gustavo didn´t make our bus - so I waited for him - we took another bus 20 minutes after the two girls and Philipe but got to the dock in Angra (where you take a 2-hour boat ride to the island) 5 minutes too late to catch the girl´s boat and ended up on another boat 2 hours later, arriving maybe 2 1/2 hours after the others (but what a surprise it was as they weren´t expecting us until the following day as they thought we had missed all of the opportunity to get to the island).On our first day, we hiked probably 2 1/2 hours to a surfer beach on the other side of the island (there are no roads on the island, you hike thru the jungle anywhere you want to go). It was incredibly beautiful as was the entire island - this place is a must-see if you are near Rio. We missed the boat to go back (a reoccuring theme, no?) and ended up having to hike thru the jungle in near-darkness * near-darkness because we ran into a local who gave us two lanterns made from soup cans with one end cut out, electrical wire, and candles. Our second day we also hiked but to another side of the island where there is a waterfall and later to another virtually-deserted beach where an old fisherman gave us a lift in his boat back to town. I spent our time at both the waterfall and the beach reading A Year In The Merde - a pretty funny account of a 26-year old Brit living in Paris for one year. As for the boat ride back, it was one of the most impressive 30 minutes of my life as we rounded the island in this little boat with schools of fish beneath and all of us standing on bow of the ship watching the sun set. I sound like a total schmuck but it was cool, trust me.As for now, I am back in Rio after a brief walking tour this morning with a group from Newton´s hostel (hosted by Newton himself). I am getting ready to leave this evening for Iguazu to meet up with my sister. Wish me luck!
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