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| Aquario Pousada - our humble abode for a few nights |
We had a nice quiet few days on Ilha Grande, unwinding and
relaxing before the festivities of Rio and the World Cup.
Ilha Grande is one of the most serene places I have been to.
An island filled with rolling hills covered in jungle type vegetation, and
surrounded by crystal clear blue waters. You can spend your days swinging in a
hammock watching the world go by, or trekking to one of the many white sandy
beaches with long right handers rolling through.
We spent our days doing a mixture of these with the
highlight the 9km trek out to Lopez Mendez for a day of beach activities. The
walk to Lopez Mendez takes you past three other beaches and up and over one of
Ilha Grande’s highest hills where you get a view back down towards the main
township, Vila do Abraão, which is worth the hike in
itself.
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| View back towards Vila do Abraão |
After about 2 hours you are rewarded with the some of the
softest white sand that squeaks underfoot, and the perfect break to appease the
beginner surfer in all of us.
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| Lopez Mendez |
We whiled away the night hours making our own Caipirinhas,
slowly getting jolly enough to check out what Vila do
Abraão had to offer. For about $3.50 AUD you can get your hands on a
1L bottle of Cachaça, steal some limes from the hostel fruit bowl (or
bar), help yourself to the tea and coffee sugar supply, borrow some ice from
some Frenchies and you have yourself and a few mates’ drinks for the night.
After one such night we headed into town to see what was
happening. A few hours later we returned to the hostel to find somewhat of a
raging party happening. Not really raging, but for Ilha Grande standards it was
all they had. And given we appeared to be the only guests at the hostel when we
left, to come back to a party was a strange surprise. This wasn’t the only
surprise of the night.
Upon entering the bathroom to have a shower I noticed the
hallway was flooded. Opening the bathroom door revealed a weeks’ worth of
sewerage happily covering every square inch of the place. From the looks of
things, the toilet had been clogged up and continual flushing had forced the
toilet contents to find another pathway home via the shower drain. Fair to say I
wasn’t volunteering myself to help clean the mess, and nor was I going to have
a shower that night either.
We have since left the relaxing ways of Ilha Grande and familiarised
ourselves with the organised chaos that is Rio de Janeiro.
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| Lopez Mendez |
Did you snap the snapped?
ReplyDeleteNo chief i have not taken any snaps of the evidence.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, I have also just come across the 3rd shitty shower, although this one was just a small little nugget someone left behind! Again, no photos though!