Paraty & Ilha Grande, rain, beaches and trekking

• Captainflint's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Ilha Grande

Trip Start Jan 19, 2009 Previous
Entry Trip End Ongoing Next
Entry

  Ilha Grande, State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Saturday, February 14, 2009

Read original entry with more info and pics in Paco in America

Morro de Sao Paulo had been a great experiencie but, on the other hand, left me with the feeling that I hadnt really made the most of my trip through the state of Bahia, that I hadnt seen too much. And this was probably what pushed me out of my comfort in Rio for a quick trip down in the coast. Paraty and Ilha Grande are the main tourist attractions of that area according to Lonely Planet and I decided to visit at least the first one.

Rainny Paraty

Paraty is a very nice colonial town in the middle of plenty of crystal clear beaches and small islands all over. I has to be a really charming place… when its not raining all the fucking time as it happened to us. And I am talking in plural because for this plan I had the company of a former ICEX workmate, Luis - Johannesburgo, who came from Sao Paulo where he had recently started to work. Meeting all these genuine travellers was the biggest thing that happened in that year I suffered in Stockholm and wasted from the profesional point of view. With a few of these guys still around the world is easy to arrange travel companions.

So Luis and I landed in Paraty on a Saturday morning with the idea of enjoying beaches during the day and burn the night. Actually we only manage to acomplish the second thing and only to a certain extent. There are some times that plans dont go well and there is nothing to blame about it. When you go to a beach place and it does not stop rainning you are basically fucked. Sun only showed up for an hour, enough to burn us and then the bastard left for the rest of our time there and an endless rain came. Still, we did the kind of compulsory boat trip all over the surrounding beaches and islands and had a few laughs with the guide whose mission was to make the trip more enjoyable. He was an incredibly fat guy who was travelling spreading his huge body all over a few cushions so we quickly baptized him as Jabba the Hutt, this mythical bad guy in Star Wars. Jabba could play different songs with his guitar and, with no pause in between, trying to sell you a dinner in the best restaurant in Paraty. But the most amazing miracle this dude performed in front of us was to get his massive body really deep to came out with a sea star. It was fucking unbelievable that such a whale could dive that deep and even more amazing that he could come up. Nature will never stop surprising me. Appart from this, the boat trip didnt leave anything too remarkable. The beaches were great for sure but… did I tell you already that it was rainning?




We did not do too much else that day appart from finding out that these stone paved streets in Paraty might look nice but they are not the most practical thing to walk around, specially when is inundated. It rained and rained so we had to sleep a very long siesta to wake up just in time for preparing a home made caipirnha which, after a few tries was more or less drinkable. Once we were not thirsty anymore we got our asses to the most known club in Paraty, according to the guy in the hostel. That was fun mates! It was this kind of very local place, full with all the bad guys in the town like we had in every small village in Spain. The difference is that here instead of techno music you have these guys playing drums all the time and a bunch of brasilians that seem to wear this uniform made of very colourful t-shirts and rap caps. There was almost no foreign people appart from us and nobody was really paying us any attention but then Montilla showed up (drinks were only 2 euros there) and in the end we were comfortable there and had fun. Later that night we moved to a more international place with live music and less rap caps where we stayed till very late. But, actually, I liked more the first place, I enjoy seen the locals partying even if I am totally out of bussines there.





Quick brazilian experience in Angra dos Reis

So, as the situation was, there was a new dilema in my mind. Not making my mind up about the next place to go is been a constant thing in my trip. Let’s see… it’s raining, Luis is heading back to Sao Paulo and there is nothing else to do in Paraty. However there is this supposedly very nice place called Ilha Grande in my way back to Rio. But, if I go there and it keeps raining I am gonna be very pissed off. Let’s check the weather on the Internet, umm, it says it will be fine, do I trust it and go to Ilha Grande? do I go back to Rio? On the right the bus to Ilha Grande, on the left the bus to Rio. Both are leaving at the same time, in 5 minutes… In the end I decided to go to Ilha Grande.

However, the way there was not so easy, for going to Ilha Grande you have to take a boat in a place called Angra dos Reis where the bus from Paraty leaves you and I am too late that day for that boat. So I had to spend the time in this not very happening place. While I was trying to make up my mind in Paraty I had sent a few messages to couchsurfing people in Angra dos Reis just in case someone local could help if I was finally going there and…. it worked! Cadmilla is a very friendly girl who replied to my last minute message and not only hosted me but also invited me to a dinner with some friends of her.

I had lot of fun that night even though I hanged around with this mother and her children. There I was, in the middle of that brazilian kitchen while they were cooking this traditional dish called tapioca and talking about their stuff. I could catch up some of the conversation and it was very funny and interesting to hear about the child girl boyfriends or about the seven! husbands the mother had had. It was a very brazilian moment and I havent had too many of these in this trip. I have hanged around with many argentinians and spanish but not with brazilians…

Ilha Grande, green waters

I wake up next day very early for taking the first boat to Ilha Grande and news are really good. There is a great sun shining up there. Great, it seems I got lucky this time. The view is different like this, all this coastal area of Rio de Janeiro state is a beautiful combination of mountains, baches and islands containing both. I have never been there so far but I guess it is a bit like the norigian fiords. The difference is that here there are coconuts, the sand is white and is very hot.

So I finally arrive to Ilha Grande and go straight to one of my already classical boat trips hoping it to be as good as the Boipeba one. And, again, it was a good idea and, again, Argentina is the country to be thankful to. I met this couple from Buenos Aires, German and Marina and have dinner with them in the night. I havent arrived there yet and I already liked it a lot, all argentinians I have met so far are great people.

Besides, the boat trip happens to be interesting too. The first stop is this cave next to the sea to which you go down through a very claustrophobic passage carved in the stone. Once you are down there, the light coming in through the water produces this amazing green effect, like the Heineken beer commercial. If you get your head under the water in this certain point…you see all gren (sorry, I cant find a more detailed way to describe it). Anyway, I had already had beaches, sunsets and mountains in this trip, caves was a new thing, I can already say that I did it as well.

Right after the cave we visited this natural kind of lake whose colour was… green? Yeah! Very clear water and chances to see small fishes and stuff like that. Great but is kind of getting an usual thing for me. I eat some friend fish, sleep a siesta, have a bath. A real stress mates…









Climbing the papagayo peak

Appart from the green stuff, Ilha Grande offers a good bunch of trekking paths. I knew from the beginning which one I wanted to do. Since I left the boad and look around I wonder if you could climb the highest mountain in the island. Papagayo peak, a 1 km vertical ascension and the only trekking clasified as “extremely difficult”. Apparently you have to go up with a guide, some people got lost already and all that blablabla. Bullshit, a piece of cake for someone who did the Chapada Diamantina. Fortunately German also wants to go up there so I dont end up doing my first very dump move of this trip which would have been to climb it alone. We decide to start very early in the morning next day, 7 am, so this is how the former great night punisher that I used to be, ignores all these drunk americans in the hostel and hit the bed very early like a good boy.

I wake up with the first hour of sun at a time I should be going to bed to sleep my hangover and not leaving it for climbing a fucking mountain. And we go up and up and up, and it seems that training back on my first days in Brazil is really working out. My rythim of ascension is quite tough and German is kind of struggling to follow. On the other hand he prevents my rushing ass a couple of times that I took the wrong way from getting lost in the middle of that forest. The trees all over make orientation very difficult and, even though there quite a few signs, they are not always in the best places. An advice if someone who is reading this eventually goes there: the signs are numbered. Someone hand writted numbers on them, starting from 12 in the one more down-hill. This way you get an aproximate idea of how much climbing you still have in front of you.

I am gonna be a bit arrogant here to tell you that we made the three hours ascension is just two  The view up there was definitely worth it, have a look at the pictures below…







Amazing the Papagayo peak but, because of him, it was already too late that day for doing anything else. Dilema moment again; there are still things to do and see around here, for example Lopes Mendez beach, considered to be one of the most beautiful ones in Brazil. So, should I stay here another day or should I catch a boat back to Rio? This time I decided the second. I wanted to have more time in the wonderful city, if it wasnt raining there either there was plenty of things to do, plenty of places to see and I thought it was a good idea to have a couple of days before the carnival to do it. I left Ilha Grande with the feeling that I had to come back. Another place in this “to repeat” list.

The best

• The people: Luis, Germán y Marina!


• The landscapes, trekkings, boat trips. Amazing place!

The worst

• Rain in Paraty


• It is a more expensive area than Bahia

Sao Paulo hotels Share

Previous Entry Next Entry