Activity Summary
Sunday 14th January - Day 467
Travel to Ilha Grande
Linner at Gurisa
Walk around Vila do Abraão
Monday 15th January 2024 - Day 468
Nicola massage
Luke coffee on Praia do Abraão (East side)
Lunch at Ateliê Cafeteria
Aqueduto
Praia do Galego
Praia Preta
Dinner at God is Good
Tuesday 16th January - Day 469
Boat to Pouso / Lopes Mendes beach
Lopes Mendes beach
Pouso beach
Caipirinhas at beach bar
Wednesday 17th January - Day 470
Luke: Abraão -> Pico do Papagaio hike
Lunch at Gurisa
Praia do Galego / Praia Preta
Summary
Ilha Grande
A nice island with a surprisingly small town for what was expected to be a bigger touristy location. Turns out it’s not particularly.
The surrounding greenery of the town is great and Luke enjoyed the views from the big hike nearby.
The local beach wasn’t all that but a short walk revealed a nicer one and if beach hopping in your thing, there are loads of boats going to nicer and more secluded ones. Personally we couldn’t be bothered and Lopes Mendes was fine for us.
Food is expensive and not great quality but that was expected from island life. Cooking for us was easy and affordable enough.
Transport
Ilha Grande
Uber to Novo Rio Bus Terminal
Costa Verde bus to Rodoviária Vereador Nilton Barbosa - Angra dos Reis
Taxi to ‘Ilha Grande Ferry’
Ferry to Ilha Grande
Walk to accommodation
Accommodation
Ilha Grande - Azul Del Mar Suites
Number of nights - 4
Price per night per person - £13
Positives:
Private room and bathroom
Aircon
Decent enough kitchen
Town is small so location wise, anything is decent
Affordable
Negatives:
Very small room
Sand everywhere
Shower strangely hot. For once we wanted a colder one
Neighbours were quite loud but surprisingly were pretty good at hushing up way before 11pm
Recommend?
Yes
Diary
Sunday 14th January - Day 467
As we took off at 7.30am we got an Uber to the Novo Rio Bus Terminal rather than bus it. Only cost about £4.
As we were travelling in January we got our bus tickets to Ihla Grande in advance, and did this late enough to secure some of the last seats. The Costa Verde tickets needed to be picked up from the ticket office and we were then on the bus to Angra dos Reis for the ferry terminal.
At the bus terminal we got an overpriced taxi (R$25) to the ferry terminal. On Google this was located simply as ‘Ferry to Ilha Grande’ and there was little information about this. But it took off at 1.30pm on a weekend (3.30pm midweek) and cost R$20.50 each.
The ferry wasn’t overly comfortable but it got us to Ilha Grande in a calm and non-seasickness-inducing manner in 1.5hrs.
Our accomodation was a short walk away and once checked in we went straight out for some more substantial food. The linner at Gurisa was pretty decent, some nice poke bowls for an alright price but they never go far enough in filling us up for an extended period of time.
We had a short walk around Vila do Abraão to get our bearings and then returned to the room for the rest of the evening.
Monday 15th January 2024 - Day 468
Nicola was crying out for a massage and found a place on the island for £30. Never gives the aggression she requires but she came back happy enough.
Luke meanwhile went to the main Praia do Abrãao (East side) beach where he summed himself for a little while while drinking his self made takeaway coffee. Turns out the sun is mighty intense and in the 30 minutes he was out, his back and soles of his feet got unknowingly cooked which came out in force later in the day. Classic sun noob.
We tried going for an early lunch at God Is Good but they didn’t open before 12 so giving up on this we wandered around town, topped Nicola up with a Coxinha snack and had lunch at the nice beach front Ateliê Cafeteria. Food was substandard but Luke’s caipirinha on the beach was glorious.
Naturally Nicola pretended it was hers for a photo op for Insta. In fairness she was surprised she actually liked it.
The plan was to stay fairly local to town so we went for the short walk along the West side of the coast.
First viewpoint was the Aqueduto which apparently still worked.
We got to the furthest beach on this trail called Praia do Galego and given it was nice and calm we spent most of our time here just sitting in the sea and chatting.
The desire to move on only happened because the tide came in so much it threatened to sweep away our stuff. There was barely any beach left at around 2pm.
To try to find less risky encroachment, we went down the way a little to Praia Preta which was subpar in standard. It was quite a steep drop off, much choppier and not so enjoyable.
But the lighting was great for Luke to show his abs to the world for one last time. Goodbye fit Luke.
Back in town we finally managed to make it to God is Good for the shrimp pineapple rice dish Nicola was craving. It didn’t hit the spot she wanted.
The idea of having a dinner out was to try to force us to stay out for a potential evening drink but because we ate so early we failed miserably at that late night bev and instead got comfortable in our room with chocolate.
Tuesday 16th January - Day 469
We were less than informed about how we would be achieving our Lopes Mendes beach day which was required to get a boat across. Based on Luke’s experience watching many a people accumulate around the pier all morning, it was assumed that was the place to be so we did the same early doors.
It turns out the guys on the beachfront are all speedboat taxi people and charge R$70 return. Our first idea was to only go one way and then walk the 9km back but they tried charging us 50 and we were pretty sure we saw cheaper prices at the tourist booths. Good decision to run away.
At this point the heat again wiped out Nicola who was barely functioning so Luke called off any attempt to walk in the heat, secured the slower but cheaper big boat at R$50pp return for 11.30am and went to cool down in the room. The idea of getting a boat at 9.30am and then returning at 3.30pm was far too long a beach session for us.
At 11.30am we went to the large green striped boat on the pier, boarded and then once off at sea, the captain decided to leave the wheel and float around aimlessly for 30 minutes as he flapped around getting tickets and payment from people. It was super warm, there was no airflow and plenty of people were getting super irate. There were cheers when it seemed like a tourist was going to steer us to the beach but he didn’t actually make much progress and there were much more jeers of dissatisfaction when the driver finally returned and got going again.
What should have been a reasonable ride turned into a long one that made Nicola need to implement some anti-seasickness measures. Floating and bobbing at sea isn’t a great state of rest for her. Whack system.
The boat dropped everyone at the deeper and calmer waters of Pouso Beach. From there it was a reasonably steep and very sweaty hike through the jungle to get to Lopes Mendes Beach where 98% of people were.
Lopes Mendes was a nice beach. It stretched on for a long way, had plenty of shade in the trees for the masses and was pretty.
It was not a calm beach however. Sitting and chilling in the water wasn’t exactly easy and so we didn’t do that much. Surprisingly, we did see quite a few lifeguard rescues throughout our very short time here.
We didn’t spend all that long here. After arriving at close to 1pm, we left at about 2.15pm to catch the early ferry back. We also came with limited food supplies due to a breakdown in communication on leaving the apartment and Nicola dropping what little lunch was available to her in the sand.
Back at the return port, we had some time relaxing in the calm waters of Pouso beach before heading back.
One of the nastiest insect bites Luke has had came from a savagely large horsefly while waiting to take off. Being so large they hurt like hell when they bite, but the next morning he had woken up with a lump doubling the size of his shin. Over a few days this went down but left him with a pretty gnarly red ring of blotchy rash for a long old time. At the time of writing this 5 days later, it still hadn’t gone down.
The boat ride back to town was nice and chill through.
In town we got some much needed Coxinha snacks before later heading out for Caipirinhas at the same beach bar as yesterday but had a significantly less fun time. All we wanted were two caipirinhas and they took well over 30 minutes to come. We debated just straight up walking away and rather than being a nice chill drink, it drained us of any energy we had left. The go slow island lifestyle is one thing but this was a bit ridiculous.
Wednesday 17th January - Day 470
Hiking 10km with 900m of elevation in 30°+ heat didn’t appeal to Nicola so she let Luke go this one alone. She had a chill morning, had some breakfast coxinhas and waited for Luke to return minus all the water weight he was carrying.
Luke story time:
The plan was to set off at 6.30am to avoid more savage heat but for some reason my alarm had been on the Fritz since having a software update and this ended up being an hour later.
The hike planned was from Abraão town to Pico do Papagaio, a tall peak overlooking the island, town and the mainland in distance.
It was already 30° when I set off, but still fairly shaded. The morning coffee wasn’t such a great addition to the start of my walk.
Once hitting the trail head from the road, it is all uphill through jungle, up roots and soil without so much as a view outside of the trees.
I did however see 2 snakes, a load of birds, lizards and big flying bugs. These bugs turned out to be Green shield cicadas and after a year and half hearing them roar around us in jungles, I was finally able to see them, take a picture and even a video of one screaming unbelievably loudly on a nearby tree.
The top animal moment came nearer the top. Out of nowhere a 4 legged mammal the size of a small dog stopped, got properly shook and bolted rapidly away. My first thought was puma, then a big hare and have now concluded it was a capybara. Which is amazeballs.
The only people I passed on the way up were those who were down and coming down, clearly having sensibly started the walk earlier.
By the time I got to the top, I was a right hot mess. I only had 2.5l of water with me and wished I had another bottle to more frivolously pour over my head and down my back. The whole trail was shaded (thank the lord) but hiking in the mid 30s was still seriously warm and I was totally not used to it. Some guys I passed on the way down however looked to be faring pretty badly in the heat mind.
Perks of starting later was that I had the summit all to myself.
The views of town were great plus the islands in the distance.
A large proportion of the mainland could be seen as well.
I didn’t spend too much time up top because it was roasting.
Going down was pretty easy but I was surprised to pass people ascending so late in the day. Hilariously it was all women I had passed going up and only men on the way down, an entertaining insight into who is the more sensible sex.
Back at the apartment it was straight into the shower and whip off the kit I had lost every ounce of water molecule in my body to. Coupled with our beach wear, musty did not even begin to describe the smell of that bathroom by the end of our 3 days in Ilha Grande.
Distance = 16.57km
Elevation = 917m
Highest point = 898m
Moving time = 3hr 39mins
Elapsed time = 4hrs 2mins
Reunited:
Now Luke was fresher, we went to town for lunch at Gurisa again because the poke bowls are really good. This time the portion sizes were substantially bigger than before so Luke was mighty happy, although he had another mammoth wait for a less than impressive caipirinha that arrived near enough once done eating. Not ordering anymore cocktails on the island, they’re too infuriating.
All that blistering morning sunshine departed come the afternoon as we went to the nearby Praia do Galego & Praia Preta. But we really didn’t mind as it was still warm and it allowed us to finally cool down post sitting in a sweat box for lunch. As if we were 15 again, our beach time involved smashing back a few Smirnoff tinnies on the beach.
Once back in the apartment we again cooked and chilled.
Sorry no photos for this one- the Wix website app requires us to pay for more which we're not going to do!
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