Ilha Grande, Brazil

We have been on our own Brazilian paradise island called Ilha Grande for the last 2 1/2 days. We arrived after a two hour bus ride and two hour ferry to the island. Ilha Grande was inacessible to the public just 15 years ago, as it was used by the Brazilian government
as a prison site/island for decades. The island is fairly sizeable. It takes about six hours to encircle it by speed boat. The population pretty small, just 500. It's commonly used as a cruise ship stop, probably coming out of/to Rio, which is just an hour's drive away. At least travel magazine that I read listed Ilha Grande as one of the Top 10 "island paradises you have never heard of".

Our group took it easy the first day when we arrived in the afternoon. We've been a pretty cohesive group of 15, so we routinely have dinner together. The couples sometimes splinter off, but most of the rest of us stay together for dinner or break off into small groups for activities.

On our first full day, we hired a boat to take off out to some secluded coves and beaches to have a cookout. There was plenty of snorkeling and we had purchased a soccer ball to throw around in the water. Another GAP group had joined us, so the numbers had now swelled to over 30 for the day. We had steak, chorizo (smoked sausage), hotdogs, salad and bread to go with our meal. We were out on the water for six hours. You can imagine a number
of us had sunburns as the sun is nearly directly overhead in the afternoon this far into the tropics.

On the second full day, my Danish friend, Mathias, and I set off on a hike over the top of the mountain and to a semi-deserted beach on the other side. The hike ended up being over 9 miles and climbed a 1500-foot mountain pass just below the island's tallest peak. It was a cooler day than we had been but the humidity is as bad or worse than Florida in the peak of summer, especially hiking through more Atlantic rainforest.

We found a wonderful pizza/pasta spot in town with some reasonable prices and ended up eating there at least three times while we were on the island. I found some mango and passion fruit juices, but nothing fresh. I'm hoping Rio has some of the frest stuff to try.

Today is Thursday morning and we're crossing back over to the mainland and then taking the short trip into Rio de Janeiro this morning. I'll have 2 1/2 days in Rio to conclude the trip. The GAP tour ends on Friday morning, so many of us will start heading home or to other planned excursions/trips over the weekend.



Our digs...





More foods of Brazil...