Ilha Grande = Beautiful Beaches

Ilha Grande was amazing! It is a huge island (or should I say 'grande'?) that you can see from the mainland. The coolest thing about it is there are no cars! Only a couple emergency vehicles, but everyone walks or rides bikes there. If you are extremely lazy there are even guys who will cart all your luggage to your pousada for you! It is definitely different to the extreme from crazy busy Rio and Sao Paulo!

We of course managed to find this great little pousada with an AMAZING woman that ran it, she could cook like you would not believe! She would cook every night for us, delicious!!! We only had two nights there, but the first day we hiked from the main town to a couple different beaches. The first beach has a few buildings and is very beautiful. We actually ended up saying there for a few hours. My boyfriend met a couple of Brazilian nomad type musicians and although they couldn't speak much english, they all played guitar together and sang for most of the two hours. Then we finished our hike at Lopez Mendes - one of the top ranked beaches in South America apparently! The sand feels like powdered sugar and is absolutely amazing. The beach is huge, and there are no buildings or boats to be seen! So the second day we were short on time, we took a boat to a nearby drop off and went back to Lopez Mendes - we just couldn't get enough!

So we had to leave Friday afternoon to get back to Rio to hang out with the wedding party group...so we booked the 'Speed Connection'...well, first they put us in some crappy fishing boat like the one we paid 10 reis to ride over (I think the trip was like 60 reis a person) so we asked them why we were going in a slow boat and they assured us it would be just as quick...well we no more than were 5 minutes into our journey when the engine started smoking like crazy!!! A few guys just stood around staring at the engine smoking and drinking beer - kind of funny actually. The next thing we know a few small power boats pull up and all the locals start hopping off and going with them...so the few foreigners that were still on the boat sat and waited until an ever slower, crappier boat showed up to take us on. Well, we finally make it and get on our bus that was part of the 'Speed Connection' package and was to take us to our hostel. We stopped about twice on the 2.5 hour ride, then all of a sudden in Rio the bus pulls over and the driver is acting like he is having chest pains! They tell us all to get off and we have to find our own way because the driver is having a heart attack and the medics are coming to get him! We all get off worried, get our stuff, and then the driver and his buddy hop back on the bus and drive off! We were completely scammed! The good news is they dropped us at the bus station, so we managed to find a taxi (the craziest driver I have ever had for the record) and made it back to Rio...