I know, consecutive blogging, but I've gotta do it. So I arrived at Ilha Grande without a hostel reservation since the dude in Paraty couldn't figure out how to call them :) But thankfully, as usual, a rep from the Hostelling International was out there waiting for some other guests and so he led me thru the maze to get back to the Holandes Hostel. It was a very green hostel, with lots of plants, trees and kind of a jungley feel. I liked it! I checked in and walked into my dorm (the odd thing was guys dorm was full but girls pretty empty - i was liking my odds ;) to find a cool English chick in there by herself, so I said, "Oh my goodness, are you traveling by yourself too??!!" She said, "no, my boyfriend is in the guys dorm." Ouch...but regardless, she was really nice. The ferry to Ilha Grande was cool, and you come in seeing the little town front with all it's color and personality.
First night I rolled back into the beach front to grab some dinner. There were only a few places so I settled at one bar/restaurant next to a table of 3 cute guys :) TOo bad they didn't speak English...but along came the roomie and her boyfriend, who ended up joining me, though they had already eaten dinner. We moved inside b/c it started to rain...A-gain...but still enjoyed ourselves. The GAP group from Paraty ended up being there and all the Indian girls were dolled up and looking cute and being all loud in the bar. Kind of a buzzkill again, haha. I had a great dinner of fish, rice and beans and salad. No joke, had so much leftover rice and beans I ate it the next two nights (with some fresh chicken breast I bought at the local market and cooked up with nothing more than olive oil, salt and garlic - and lime the next night)! Yummers. So after dinner we went back to the hostel and called it a night. Next day I woke up and had the BEST breakfast - this lady made homemade cake and switched it up each day. One day just plain vanilla cake (eaten with this amaaazing pumpkin/spice/coconut spread), one day carrot cake with chocolate frosting (which was a change up from the American cream cheese frosting, and although not as good, still fan-tiddly-tasttic), chocolate cake...bad bad bad but oh so good good good! I met this couple - guy from Canada, girl from Sao Paulo, but living with him in Toronto - super nice and became my buddiees for the next couple days, including a guy from Sao Paulo and Stewart, an Irish lad who was hilarious.
So like I did in Paraty, I set out by myself in the morning for the long haul hike on Trail 10 and 11 to Lopes Mendes - one of Brazil's most beautiful beaches. The apparent 2.5 hour hike (one way) took yours truly just under 2 hours ;) I was feeling quite proud of myself when I got there. The cool thing is that there are a number of beautiful beaches along the way, so you get a bit of a break from the hard core up and down to wander thru the sand (which isn't exactly easy on the legs either!). Bottom pic is one of those other beaches and me mid-hike. Ya, and there were again 2 people hiking kind of same pace as me (2 older French guys) so i felt safe. By the time we got to Lopes Mendes there were about 8 of us within 10 minutes of each other. The sun even made an appearance every now and then, but I was less prepared and only brought bathing suit bottoms, so i had to swim in a sports bra but hey, coulda been worse! Even had a go at surfing on a tiny little board with pretty much no waves, but I was proud nonetheless for trying :) Stayed on the beach and "tanned" a bit, and said hi to the Argentinian family that was staying in my hostel - a husband and wife and their 14 year old son. It was soo nice having them around the hostel cuz I could speak Spanish again! Freakin hostel manager barely spoke English, and mostly just Portuguese, so I was over that. So I became like an adopted daughter to the couple by the end of the weekend - the dad called me "California." haha. Anyway, I digress. Back to the beach. Had a great afternoon, then had to motivate to make the ~2hr hike back to reality. Man was that tough. Legs hurting and I was strugglin, even knowing what was ahead of me...but alas I made it back.
That night i cooked up that chicken and ate my leftovers, and had a fantastic evening not even leaving the hostel, just playing cards, listening to American soul music (the likes of James Brown but Jive Records instead of Motown) with my Canadian, Brazilian and Irish friends (thanks to my speakers and Canadian John's ipod). We played gin, spoons, and by the time we were done the old women sitting in the common area with us hated us b/c of how loud we were being. Um, excuuuse me, but is this not a youth hostel, and is this not a FRIDAY NIGHT??!! We were ticked. They had no reason to get snippy, but even when we went over to the hut where the canadians were staying, they complained to the hostel manager. WHATEVER! I felt like such a bada$$ though being part of the outcast crew ;) Haha. We hung out a while longer, then called it a night.
Saturday I was planning on doing nothing but catching up on emails and blogging since the weather sucked, but when I caught a glimmer of sun after my cake/fruit/coffee breakfast, I beelined for the tourist offices to book a boat tour! Yeah!! Such hope after seeing weather forecast of rain for days and days and days! It was a tough call to make - the green lagoon or the blue lagoon?! I was having visions of Brook Shields and whatever hot guy that was with her in that movie, but was crushed to know the Green Lagoon was much better than the blue one, so I opted for that. As I walked out on the dock, i was hoping to be on one of the big, fun, party-like boats with all the young people. Instead, I was on this little fishing boat looking one with lots of couples (including lesbians and what looked like a gay couple as well), my favorite Argentinian dad and son, and a guy that looked like the Brazilian version of Paul, my brother in law. So whooppeee for me all by myself!! Geeeez...even worse, it turned out that that little glimpse of sun I saw earlier that day, and that we had right when we took off was the only sun that shone all day! Some luck!! We all still managed to have a blast though, and before the end of the day, I was be-fris with the lesbians, the two young guys who ended up not being gay (and yes, I actually ended up asking one of them if the other guy was his boyfriend...you should have seen the expression on his face! haha, but i had my reasons - when 2 young good looking guys are wearing speedos, i mean, there is no other explanation, right? wrong. This is Brazil Kaitlin, you forgot...).
Not only did we get to see the Green Lagoon, which really was green, but we stopped at this grotto (ya, the only "grotto" i was familiar with? 2 words - Playboy Mansion. I was a little hesitant to see what this one had in store) which was kind of an adventure in and of itself. We had to crawl down this ladder into a black hole, crab crawl down into this cave-like place pretty much on our backs with the rock barely touching our nose, and then you jump into the water at the bottom with waves crashing up, but no way out except back up the rocks - hence if the tide came up you were screwed down there...our boat driver got photos of us underwater. Super cool. But too bad I didn't want to pay for those photos. The lesbians were having a field day though! They loved that camera...anyway, somehow I ended up having a tough time coming back up - was it b/c I was tall or just cave-challenged, i don't know, but it looked like I had pooped my pants once I was in daylight again. Oh everyone had fun laughing at me :) We also stopped at a place on the water to eat lunch (hot guy pictured here above). I was happy I'd packed my usual ham and cheese sandwich (which is taken from breakfast - genius - just wrap it up in a napkin and voila! there's your lunch for free!) b/c the restaurant was super expensive. But I sat with the 2 young non-gay guys who actually were with the Brazilian navy. Studs. I asked why they needed and Navy and they didn't really have a good answer ;) Haha.
Got back after the long day, at my usual chicken/rice/beans dinner while the crew did a little bbq and we just chilled again, went down to the beach and listened to music, then Irish Stu and I made it over to the one bar where it started getting packed with locals (including my boat driver) and tourists alike. We just sat in the back having a good time, laughing and enjoying the island life. We actually thought we might make it up to the one "club" on the island that night, but it started to rain, so we quickly changed that plan. Well, we thought we'd wait out the rain but it just didn't stop, so Stewey and I went to Plan B. We took his jacket, put it over our heads, and puddle jumped all the way back to our hostel, which was not particularly close (see photo of Stewart holding up his cans of beer that we had to find on the beach where he hid them, with jacket on head). Needless to say we were soaked by the time we got back. Stewey had saved this key lime pie which he had bought from one of the amazing dessert carts they have in the street, and we were so excited to forget about how rain-soaked we were by diving into that heavenly slice :)
So that pretty much wraps up my Ilha Grande experience. I was sad to leave my new friends, but Stew and I thought we might see each other in Rio, so that was going to be fun. Plus he lives in greater London, so instant friend for my coming year! I was planning on meeting up with Grainnie and Rhona again in Rio Sunday night, so I booked myself in the same hostel as them in Ipanema, and after the ferry back to Angra, and the bus to Rio (which broke down on the way, and we had to wait for another bus to come get us, in which I ran into 2 girls I had roomed with the night before!), I jumped in a cab with those 2 Dutch girls to our hostel and off I went to one of the BEST cities in the world...RIO!!
