His name is Tiago. He was finishing work at a tall building near the bus terminal. We wandered by in vague search of a beach fit for camping and/or the ferry terminal. He was walking to a bar near said terminal, and would pass the closest beach on the way. He kindly dropped us off, newly acquainted and ready for the night. At the terminal, we learned that the boat to Ilha Grande would leave at 8 da manhã - in mais o menos 10 horas.
Our beach was occupied by a well-lit futebol game. It was beautiful, with two clusters of tall palm trees towering near the water, some cracked-paint fishing boats floating tranquilly just off shore, and an eerie harbor bordering to the right.. Save for the lack of lighting, it was picturesque. Proof:
With our boat and our beach plans requiring only time to pass, the next order of business was drinking. One of two downsides to the beach was that it didn't have soft, fluffy (Rio-like) sand. It was covered in hard, packed bits of shell. (The other downside, I'll get to later.) Not so comfortable. So, when I say "drinks," I mean, "drinks enough to get comfortable under one of the clusters of palm trees on this picturesque but not-so-comfortable beach and sleep."
We failed at finding a bar where they either a) served Caiparinhas under R$8, or B) Served Caiparinhas. We did find a place filled with creepy old men where the Itaipavas were only R$1.50, but the place offered insufficient beverage options, and would not do for more than an hour. On a half-assed mission to find a dive bar, we stumbled upon a closing supermarket. As a worker pulled the stainless steal entranceway door down, José literally slinked under the door and swiftly collected a bottle of vodka, two cartons of orange juice, some plastic cups and a bag of ice. Success! Fully prepared with supplies, we went back to the beach, selected a cluster of palms, spread our array of cangas, and settled in for the night. We made drinks, and drinks after drinks, and drinks after those, and played a hillarius game of rule-less Never-Have-I-Ever for the next few hours. And then we were re-procured by Tiago! He wandered jolly toward us with a Bob's Burgers bag in one hand and a giant smile on his face. He joined us under our palms for a while, sharing with us what we originally thought were arcana: a história verdadeira dos fantasmas de Ilha Grande. That's right, GHOSTS. The island, at different points in history, used to be home to pirates and lepers and a giant prison. Madame Satan (a ghost transvestite pirate or prisoner - I can't remember) offered a lengthy conversation topic. Tiago was curious to know why we were the bravest Gringos ever; sleeping on the beach and not having fear of Rio and whatnot. We were curious to hear about his life and his impressions of us. We were all pretty drunk. When Tiago went home we went swimming in what we thought was clear, warm water. José caught some big, neon crabs with his bare hands, which was very impressive.
(Our comical excuse for a camp site.)
(Our camp site being used.)
(José posing like a big goober with one of his crabs.)
(Marc showing off one of the bigger crabs that he did not catch.)
The next morning brings me immediately to the other downside of the beach. When the sun woke us, we could see the water, which was dirty as can be. The bottom wasn't soft because of luxurious sand - it was covered in mud. The crabs weren't big and abundant because of clean, nutrient-rich water - they were feeding on garbage. FAIL.
But when we went over to the boat terminal we also discovered through zombie eyes what Angra dos Reis actually looks like. I'm jus' sayin', it looks better than I at 8 in the morning.
We made our way to the ferry, got on it, went to the roof, and fell asleep.
When we woke up we saw this:
(Arrival dock in Vila do Abraão.)
(Surrounding islands = perfect hiding spots for pirates.)
Ilha Grande is truly stunning. I could definitely see why pirates would love it there. (And why their ghosts - Madame Satan, for example - would never leave.) After coffee and breakfast, we went immediately to this magnificent beach to swim with swordfish, other fish, and turtles!
Then we embarked on the epic journey that would occupy the next 10 or so hours of our lives. The destination was Dois Rios, an isolated village of bygone years that presumably featured a pristine beach, a blue lagoon, and Ilha Grande's abandoned prison. It was a three hour hike up and over a mountain blanketed by jungle. The barrier divides Villa do Abraão, the little town with all the touristy beaches, restaurants, hotels, ice cream shops and snorkel rental stands that surround the arrival and departure docks, from the wilder, better-preserved Dois Rios.
Up and up and up we went, and just when we thought we would find a peak with a view and such, the trail began to descend. We followed it down and down and down until we came across a spot where a river got all imbued with waterfall-type contraptions, and a voluminous pool offered perfect bathing/hydrating opportunities. The Piscina dos Soldados.
(The closest thing we got to a peak with a view.)
(...unless this view of ENDLESS GREEN counts...)
"A place where soldiers bathed and quenched their thirst after walking all the way from Vila do Abraão to the prison."
We may as well have been simulating a day in the life.
Refreshed, we continued down the path. We vaguely wondered where the hell we were, but were so satisfied by our discovery of/dip in the Piscina dos Soldados that the importance of our Dois Rios destination diminished. Until we cheerfully stumbled into the "ghostlike" town. I say "ghostlike" in quotations because Amy's Lonely Planet said it would be. But it is. Check out these ghostlike houses and the ghostlike prison. They haven't been used for a hundred years. Except by ghosts.
(The abandoned prison of Dois Rios.)
Right next to this "ghostlike" cluster of manmade remnants is one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. It is easily up there with a few in Southern Thailand, Big Sur, California, and the Mediterranean. But it's exceptionally pristine; isolated; unscathed; preserved. A lagoon, which is probably one of the "Dois Rios," or "Two Rivers" for which the village was named, ensures that the soft, spotless sand is surrounded by blue-green wetness. As in the city of Rio de Janeiro, the place's stifling beauty is so panoramic that the mono-angular perspective of photos offers incomplete depictions. Try and get in your computer and put one of these on each side of your face.
I lied before. Not all of the buildings in the "ghostlike" town have been used exclusively by ghosts for the last 100 years. Today, one is home to currently living human beings. The family has not surprisingly capitalized on their probably boring, isolated location by turning their front yard and porch into a restaurant of sorts. Passersby are minimal but constant, and the family might as well make some money serving the hungry ones some homemade Brazilian food. We sat at one of a few plastic tables in their yard, and were served what Amy and Stephanie - the meat-eaters in the group - called "some daaayum good Brazilian food!" or something like that. (As for me, there's only so much you can do with rice, black beans, lettuce and tomatoes...) The feijão and chicken reminded Amy of her Brazilian dad's amazing cooking. This is exceptional. Except preparation of all this from scratch took forever. Like an hour and a half forever. Three obstacles suddenly allied against us:
1. The time change. We lost an hour the previous weekend.
2. The mountains. They made for a very high sunset.
3. The hike back. The same really long way we came was the only way back.
Re-energized and determined, we left Dois Rios. We asked about a shortcut, and ran into our savior for the day. A man named Marce or Marse or Mars (I will call him Mars as a tribute to Marc's love for David Bowie - and his unknowingly psychic moment on the beach in Angra the night before when he wrote MARS? in the sand...) Mars was hiking back with his family, and knew of the shortcuts. We followed Mars and his hilarious family up the path and into the jungle. We all stopped again at the Piscina dos Soldados, where a trail wound strait up through the jungle, instead of going around, to the top of the mountain dividing Dois Rios from Abraão. How we failed to notice it earlier is a mystery (that can probably be explained by our gringo/noob-ness). Up and up and up we went, again, and after a half an hour or so on this steep, narrow path where a machete might have made the going easier, we were almost at the top. Some of the faster members of Mars's clan started shouting from the top for us to come quickly. We could hear some vague guttural noises resonating through the jungle, and Mars mumbled something about macacas. Monkeys! We mustered our energy and ran the rest of the way to the top, where the booming, boisterous sounds of monkeys rumbled through the trees. We cautiously and quietly found a spot from where we could spy up at the powerful beasts in the trees. Mars and his family warned us that if we were detected and perceived as threatening, we might be attacked, and that we really had no legitimate defense against the beasts. After I took one photo, the playful/crazy niece of Mars started screaming and told me to run. So I did. And she laughed. And everyone else laughed. But then we all had to run because the monkeys heard her, and started watching us. We ran to a freshwater pipe situated at the bottom of a waterfall. Each of us drank about a gallon of water. Then Mars lead the way to Shortcut Pt. 2 - the one that goes down the other side of the mountain - and we began our descent, away from the macacas.
By the time we were almost at the end of the short cut to Abraão, it was already dark in the shaded jungle. Thanks to Mars, we saved an hour of muddy, downhill blind hiking that would have been perilous and miserable.
We asked the wise Paulista (person from São Paulo) about camping, and he told us that camping outside of a campsite is illegal. He said camping in a campsite costs money. He said the cops would find us, and fine us, or send us to a campsite or hostel. We asked about exceptions, and he said... well... the enforcements don't normally make it over to Praia Preta... Perfect! We had been planning on camping at the Praia Preta, along with all of its ghost inhabitants. Imbued with the teachings of Mars, we thanked him for saving our lives, wished his big, eccentric family good camping, and set off for the beach. From the center of Abraão, we would follow the coast for twenty minutes to the left until reaching Praia Preta. We needed to size it up before the dark completely obscured it. When we reached the water, I was struck by the combination of magic hour and incoming heavy clouds:
We beat time in a race against it. When we reached Praia Preta a few remaining minutes of the quickly dimming natural light remained, allowing us to scope the scene. There were plenty of large rocks behind which to hide and camp illegally for the night. Praia Preta ("Black Beach") is the beach where the Lazareto, or leper/cholera hospital (basically leper colony) was built in 1871 and used until 1910. In 1910 the prison at Dois Rios, which was a political prison, or a penal colony, became the main use of the island and the leper colony was shut down. Unlike the prison, the leper colony remnants are few and hidden. They are presumably really eerie, but because we didn't get to experience the Praia Preta in the light, we never saw them. Fail. (In 1954 the subsequent penal colony was shut down, and the island was used only by ghosts until 1994, when it was opened to tourists.)
( My dad says black sand comes from black rocks. He's a scientist. Thanks dad.)
A word on pirates, while we're on the subject of history: Between 1500 and 1800 pirate activity and smuggling were huge on Ilha Grande. The Spanish used it, along with Florianopolis and San Sebastian, as an in-between island for food and water during the trade of Peruvian gold and silver. The island was a strategic point for pirates. They hid out among the giant rocks and took the treasure that inevitably filled Spanish ships. Praia Preta was obviously one of the cooler pirate hang-outs.
After taking a quick bath in the ocean, getting our Praia Preta bearings against the quickly-diminishing light, and determining that our Praia Preta camping experience would be flawless and superb, we returned to the touristy center of Abraão for some much-needed nourishment. We got some Finnish ice cream, hit up a supermarket, and set up a picnic on the beach in front of rows of chic, overpriced restaurants and jungle-backpacker-themed, overpriced hotels and hostels. It was much like the night before. But with more dogs. In fact, what Ilha Grande lacks in cars (there aren't any), it makes up for in dogs. Hundreds of wandering, skinny dogs add a dirty but - I think - fantastic component to the island. Marc and I decided that there are so many because when the pirates all died, there was no one left to educate the young pups about birth control. I had to include that. Whatever. The point is, we made a friend, and he stuck with us throughout the night:
(His name is Pombo, or something. According to Marc, it's a popular last name in Galicia, where José is from. Marc thinks the name is funny. But he named his dog Book, which is english for Libro, or Livro. So what does he know.)
Suddenly, the clouds that made for a beautiful sunset exploded with moisture, and intense drops of big wetness pushed us under the only overhang that wasn't owned by a restaurant or other business: the one over the main arrival and departure dock of Ilha Grande. Pombo came with. It was only around 10 pm, and we decided we'd wait out the rain with drinks. It was quite an entertaining couple of hours. We played an advanced edition of Never-Have-I-Ever. Tonight it went a little more like this: "I did [this specific ridiculous thing]." Everybody drinks. A story is told. We were inturrupted frequently, as our rain-protected hiding place was visited by extremely annoying drunk gringos. It was a little more than mildly entertaining, as always, to play games of whit with the belligerent Australian men.
By midnight, the rain had waned sufficiently to wander about the town in search of more mixer. By 1, the rain had stopped, and we were ready to camp. Marc went to the hostel that José booked because he was "feeling sick." We the women knew this really just meant that we were much more badass then the boys.
As we left the Abraão area, a guard told us that we'd better not be going to camp. We said we knew. We were just going for a walk. We found the beach, and, using the flashlight that Mikko gave us (which straps to ones head), we found a spot with our names all over it. We pitched our tent with miraculous ease and sat down to shoot the shit. There was just one problem. The tide. It came up about 2 feet in the half an hour that we were there, and started splashing the ocean-end of our tent. Also, the area smelled like rotting dead animals. It was revolting. Also, we looked around and realized that we were literally on the one spot on the beach where sand was not underwater. It would soon disappear. All of this reality sank in, and we un-pitched our tent and went back to Abraão. The guard looked happy to see us. We were happy to have pitched the tent successfully. It was outside forces that caused our failure. In other words, the failure was not truly ours. We were fail free.
(Success.)
(This passageway was basically designed for the incoming tide to wash us away.)
We decided to take the act-like-we-know-it's-illegal-but-we-just-don't-give-a-fuck route and spread our cangas in the most obvious spot possible - on the beach next to the main dock of Ilha Grande, right between some street lights and the boat-speckled water. Pombo was there, waiting faithfully, and we slept. Or tried to. Actually I slept. But Amy and Stephanie had some stories the next day of bums and drunk tourists alike, who stopped by to hang out at various times throughout the night. Whatever. Around 5, the universe turned against us. 1. It got light. 2. It started pouring again. But more this time. We ran into this tiny café that was luckily opening right then, and 2 seconds later the street/beach/docks were flooded. They were an extension of the ocean, except from the other direction. The meeting of water from above and below was intense.
(This is our dock overhang. It was much more romantic at night, I swear.)
There we sat in awe at the utter and absolute wetness of it all. We texted Marc and José, and they emerged from their hostel a while later. We ran to the dock, and waited soaking with some dogs for our ferry back to Angra dos Reis.
(Cachorro hanging out by Amy's canga, which is "airing." I should mention here how smelly our stuff was. After pitching our tent on what must have been the rotting remnants of some Ilha Grande beast, our cangas, clothes, backpacks and Mikko's poor tent smelled RANCID. Mostly the cangas. They were a pain to bring home, because their odors constantly inflicted utter disgust.)
(Ilha Grande looks a lot different when the top half of the above-water portion is covered in clouds - or, also under water. Think about that...)
Everybody had the same idea. Everybody was getting the hell off Ilha Grande. Nobody wanted to be there in the rain. The island actually suffers from extreme mudslides. When I registered with the US Government Visa Service Trip Advisor they told me not to go there. A year ago or something a bunch of people died and houses/a hotel? were destroyed for this reason. So our boat was full. Definitely not enough life jackets on board for all of us. It was windy, and the rain blew in from all directions. Despite the obnoxiously squished together 100 or so seats, half the passengers had to stand. Our arrival back at Angra dos Reis left us with a hike across the town to the bus station. We may as well have swum there. When we got there, we had an hour to wait. We took our dripping clothes off, fished the least soaked of our soaked clothes from our drenched backpacks, and attempted to retain a bit of warmth. The bus, however, was absolutely FREEZING. Brazilians are really into their Omnibus Air-conditioning Systems. Even when all the passengers are wet and cold. We finally got back to Rio after 2.5 hours of this. I wanted SO BAD to sing "We made it through the wilderness!!!" the whole time, but we decided that we would go to PUC dinner (R$5 for delicious rice, beans, salad, meat, whatever. The cheapest way to eat a lot in the entire city.) Amy wouldn't let me sing it until we got there. Marc, José and I then raced home; they took the 178 bus straight from the station near Centro to São Conrado. Thinking about the traffic and how much I utterly detest it and its effects on the buses in Rio, I went for the Metro-connect-to-van system. It cost two fares instead of one and went way out of the way but what I'm really trying to say is I BEAT THEM!!
So, after traveling from 8 am to 6 pm, I was finally home. I got to take a shower and start my laundry first, (since I WON!!) and we finally went to PUC.
WE MADE IT THROUGH THE WILDERNESS!
Finally, I have some more Ilha Grande pictures that didn't fit in anywhere else:
(I like green bikes.)
(My friends are resting.)
(This futebol field is situated rather epic, né?)
(Alleyway next to the café that served us coffee the first morning and took us in from the rain the second morning. Green BYKZ.)
(This one's for MIKKO!!!)
(The Itaipava [Brazilian beer] boat, included for good measure. In case you were wondering how they got all that beer out to Ilha Grande.)
This was taken on my walk home along this treacherous road called Niemeyer. It connects the two wealthy neighborhoods of Leblon (near PUC, my university) and São Conrado, where I live. It has a dangerous reputation, as it basically winds around the mountain that is Dois Irmãos ("Two Brothers"), so called because its two peaks look like brothers. The mountain is home to Rocinha and Vidigal, two beautiful communities that scare the shit out of favela-haters. So the road's got all these upper class-created urban legends surrounding it. (Dois Irmãos is also the name of the NGO where I'm teaching English in Rocinha.) Anyway, the walk along Niemeyer is beautiful and refreshingly devoid of pedestrian traffic. It's got some excellent fishing spots along the way, so there are always a few friendly favelado fishermen ready with a thumbs up and a "tudo beleza!" to brighten my journey.
I took this from within.
I'm floating on clouuddssss...
The peak of Dois Irmãos is peeking up from under the fluffy cover.
