Winter in Brasil

From Rio we headed a couple of hours South down the Costa Verde, that is the green coast for all you gringos to Ilha Grande. Ilha Grande is the third biggest island off the Brasilian coast and is a beautiful island with over 100 beautiful beaches. The island has rather an interesting history, it used to be an old pirate hangout and then it was used as Brasil’s answer to Alcatraz and housing the countries most dangerous prisoners. The prisoners have now been replaced by tourists.

We stayed in a really nice hostel the Overnativa Green Hostel which had comfortable rooms and really good breakfast. Each morning we would wake up to fruit platters, fresh baked bread and home made juice and jams.

The town itself is really small, the main street is cobbled and the rest of the island’s streets are compressed sand. There are no cars on the island apart from the police who drive a golf cart. The streets are also home to numerous dessert carts, much to Anna’s delight they even had lemon meringue pie!! Phil wasn’t so much a fan of the dessert carts but definitely rated the fresh seafood.

The main draw card was the beaches, which we made our day time home. It was meant to be winter here in Brasil, 27 degree, sunny days is our kind of winter. The island is pretty big and the majority of it is covered in vast bush. So we took the lazy option and took a boat to the beach each day. Our favourite beach was Lopez Mendes, which had squeaky white sand and beautiful blue sea. Phil was tortured by having to watch some pretty fun waves come in as he couldn’t surf as his ankle is still buggered.

The island also has some cool wildlife. We spent a day snorkelling with turtles in the blue lagoon and saw dolphins from the boat on the way back from Lopez Mendes. We also saw some friendly monkeys on the way to the beach each day.

From Ilha Grande we headed down to Sao Paulo stopping in Paraty for a day. Paratay is another one of those towns that makes you feel like you have stepped back in time. Especially when you stumble upon a film crew filming an old pirate movie. We almost made a guest appearance and had to be ushered from the set we had aimlessly wandered into the middle of. The town has also has an old fort, which has canons from the 1750s which were used to guard the gold from the pirate ships.

We loved Brasil and if you have the opportunity be sure to pay a visit!! Just practice your Portuguese before you arrive.