Ilhe Grande… A little piece of paradise

Ilhe Grande….wow where do I begin. Again the American we met in Sao Paulo recommended we stop by Ilhe Grande if we could, we were sold at the mention of quiet beaches and nature walks. We caught a bus to the Angra dos Reis Port from Paraty, from here it was a 30 minute boat trip to the island. For some strange reason we took Gulia´s advice and decided let´s not book accommodation and just find a cool spot when we get there… This COULD work for you if you arrive early enough, you can speak Portuguese andddd you have like no bags! I enjoyed a sun downer on the beach while Nick did all the work, he found an internet cafe where he managed to book a gorgeous looking air bnb called the Rainforest Tree house – Just what we were looking for!! We had to wait to get a reply but a little while later we heard back from the host who would meet us further down on the beach.

Our epic host – Ricardo

By now it was dark and we needed to make our way up, UP, and UPPP to the tree house, the next day we chuckled by how close it actually was, but when you are walking in the dark with just a head torch, two backpacks with our groceries on a trail that involved climbing over boulders and fallen over trees…. it seemed pretty far! Ok lucky for me Ricardo carried my backpack 🙂 🙂 Poor Nick was drenched in sweat by the time we made it up there! It was sooo worth it though…

Our beautiful tree house room.

Ilhe Grande island has been recognised by Brazilian and foreign tourists as one of the worlds most beautiful places to visit. The tropical beaches, the luxuriant vegetation, the animals – so much beauty to take in! The undeveloped island which does have roads or cars is 193km2, the island used to be a hideout for sea pirates and then much later was a top security prison which was closed down in 1994. It is now a top tourist attraction where eco-tourism is flourishing.

There are many beaches scattered throughout the island, all of which you have to hike to or catch a moto taxi by boat. The first day we decided to hike to one of the closer beachs, this still took us 2 hours to get to. The hike was beautiful though, deep in the cool, shaded rain forest the walk was pleasant. Along the way we were spoilt enough to see the endemic Caninana snake (commonly known as a yellow rat snake) the one we saw was right near the path – an adult which must have been close to 3 metres in length, we followed it for a while as it was just so exciting to experience this magnificent creature in it´s own natural habitat. We saw lots of little marmoset monkeys, a few mischevious looking squirrels munching on some nuts and a wood pecker. At this stage we were regretting not packing our hybridge camera which takes much better photo´s if you need to zoom in and focus on something.

After much relaxation, well Nick was way more active than me, running the trails and discovering beautiful beaches, we decided to do a boat tour on one half of the island with some friends we had made. Tiago (our skipper) took us to some places I cannot even begin to explain. The colours of the ocean were so many shades of blue it was almost too much to appreciate. One of the travellers we met would paint instead of take a photo – he did this as he felt he would remember it a lot better compared to just taking a photo.

One of the stops was to a natural made cave, this was quite an adventure. Acaia cave is a flooded cave which is only accesible through a small crack in the rocks, you have to crawl through the cracks because the space is less than a meter tall. The reward at the end of the crack is magnificent. The water is a luminescent aqua blue which makes you feel like you have discovered a little piece of heaven. The waves come crashing through a small gap at the bottom of the cave which adds to the whole experience, there is a water vacuum effect in the cave so one minute you are waste deep in the water and the next only ankle deep. This was a highlight for us and something we will never forget, thanks to Nicks GoPro we managed to get a few shots 🙂

In the Acaia cave

On one of our beach stops we spotted a gorgeous green turtle gliding through the water. This beach is well known for it´s turtles. We got into the water with her and she let us follow her for quite some time. Swimming slowly behind her, watching her scope the area for food and come up now and then for a breath.

We ended our day with a delcious lunch on another quaint and peaceful beach. What a day and time we got to experience at the beautiful Ilhe Grande – a must see!

L