Brazil '08, Day 4 - Ilhabela, SP

Today was our last day on Ilhabela. I had a hard time sleeping, woke up in the middle of the night with a headache and kept hearing a mosquito buzzing around my ear. It was around 9am when we went down to breakfast, which was far less impressive than the fare at Manga Rosa, just bread, cold cuts and melon. Last night we made arrangements with Carlos, the manager of the pousada, to get a ride to Curral, a “hip” beach further south. To our great surprise he offered to not only let us store our bags at the pousada until we got back, but also to let us take a shower in our room when we were done. How nice is that?
There were two other guests from the pousada that got a ride from Carlos at the same time, Alexandra and Jamir. Carlos dropped us off by Curral’s small chapel (apparently there is one for every beach), and we went up and took in the view.



While Alexandra and Jamir headed for the more populated and “hip” Curral to our right, we chose the smaller and deserted looking Praia do Veloso on the left.


There were some really beautiful (and hot) black rocks, or streaks of black rock anyway, and the most bewitching sand effect – a thin layer of black covering the more standard brown sand. All this spoke of some fascinating geological history, of which we know nothing. But we did collect some of the sand to take with us. Incidentally, getting the black sand on you is not recommended as it immediately heats up to an uncomfortable temperature.




I fell asleep right there and then and woke up several hours later nicely toasted, or rather a bit overcooked. Husband had been amusing himself with coconuts and taking beautiful pictures of the beach. He also got bit by an ant, which has made his foot swell quite a bit.

Around 2pm we walked along the shore to Curral, where our suspicions were confirmed. This ‘hip’ beach was filled to the brim with people (pale and chubby, an unusual site in Brazil), cafes, restaurants, beach chairs and an overabundance of boats, which made swimming problematic if not dangerous. If this is hip, I want none of it. We got some snacks out of necessity, but they were so overpriced it was almost worth staying hungry.



And in a strange turn of events we met Alexandra and Jamir waiting for the bus. There was a man selling piggy banks (why???) by the side of the road, and Husband’s foot was really rather dodgy looking by this point.

We got back to the pousada and tried to get ready as quickly as possible. We were aiming for the 5:30pm ferry because we were not sure if the bus would be leaving at 6:30pm or perhaps earlier (Ilhabela is not, after all, really a station as much as a stop in the middle of nowhere). While we were paying for our stay (also R$110 per night), another guest was getting a ride to the ferry and we were asked if we would like to join. The guest in question was actually getting a ride all the way back to Sao Paulo and with the owner of the pousada, simply because she was heading that way, but we already had tickets for the bus and declined the invitation to be taken along all the way. In the end we ended up catching the 5pm ferry and were at what we thought was the bus stop by 5:30pm, leaving us some time to kill. At around 6pm a bus saying “Sao Paulo” went by without stopping and gave us a bit of a fright, but after talking with some people and other bus drivers we found out that our bus was not leaving the station in Sao Sebastiao until 6:30pm, and coming here afterwards, so we were pacified.


The bus ride itself was uneventful. The first half hour or so it drives to the mountains, then it takes about half and hour to go up and down over the ridge, and then it’s two plus hours to Tiete (Sao Paulo bus terminal), this time in the dark. So now we are in Tiete, and our next destination is Curitiba, a big city in the state of Parana, just south of Sao Paulo state, on the midnight bus – R$75 per person, in case you are curious.

Brazil '08, Day 3 - Ilhabela, SP

After waking up we had another excellent breakfast at Manga Rosa (our last). Today they had two cakes to choose from! Then we packed up our stuff and said goodbye to Paulo and Mariley, our excellent hosts, and went on our merry way.

Loaded with our backpacks we walked to the center of Vila – near the church with the giant metal Jesus structure – and waited for the bus, which of course had just left. Among the school kids we spotted two other backpackers and upon making some conversation discovered that they were from Germany. While I was practicing my Deutsch the bus arrived, only not where we were expecting it but on the other side of the little park. So we ran, loaded as we were with our bags, and caught it just in time. Since the northern bus runs only as far as the ferry we had to get off and wait for the southern bus. As luck would have it one was scheduled to arrive in 15 minutes, giving us just enough time to walk to the local office of the Litorania bus line and purchase tickets for a bus tomorrow evening to Sao Paulo.

We took the southern bus to Portinho and had no trouble locating the Vida Bela pousada where we intended to spend the night. This was the same place recommended to us by the Dutch girls we met on the first day. It is much bigger than Manga Rosa and the décor is more rustic. Everything is done up in many bright colors and there is a pond, a gym, a swimming pool, outdoor couches with privacy curtains, a shrine and even, inexplicable, a sauna. Unfortunately they seemed to be doing some remodeling and were painting the rooms around us. I am annoying very sensitive to smells and had mad headaches whenever I hung around the room for longer than a few minutes. Therefore, we unpacked and quickly went out for the day.


We had two goals today – to go to the beach, and to see some of the local waterfalls, Cachoeira dos tres tombos (waterfalls of the three tumbles or drops). The beach was first on our list. We headed south by foot and asked directions every so often. The road went up and down and had a very isolated feeling to it. We passed a restaurant where we thought we might eat later tonight and the road that lead to the waterfalls. A woman waiting for a bus suggested that we go to Praia Juliao instead of Feiticeira, which was closer. All of them were somewhere below the road so we could not see them. In Juliao we found a snack place and had some ham and cheese sandwiches.


After walking a while longer and seeing some of these very interesting local residences, we discovered that the entrance to the beach was all the way back by the sandwich place so we had to retrace our steps.





The beach itself was very windy today. At first we huddled on the beach under a blanket, and then went into the ocean and threw a coconut around to keep warm. We did not end up staying long, however, as we were both freezing.

Finding the waterfalls turned out to be very confusing. We followed the marked side road passed a very empty looking but cheap pousada, and had to go on some wicked vertical but paved roads for quite a while. There was not a single person in sight, nor a sign. The only sign we did see pointed us towards a dead end road. So in the end, the way to get to the waterfalls is to always take the right-hand road once you get onto that side street. They must not get many tourists… Eventually one comes to a wooden gate and a kind of sign that explains that there are three waterfalls one after the other, counting from the top. They are not terribly impressive but it was still nice, and we did not see any snakes, which was a bonus.

3rd waterfall.

2nd waterfall.

1st waterfall.

As we headed back the sun was beginning to set. I was pretty beat with my cold and all this wind. All I wanted was a hot shower and some good food. The restaurant we had passed, Ilha Sul, looked very nice but was extremely expensive. It also proved to be the only restaurant for miles so we had no choice. It was, however, delicious. They brought us an entire fish and deboned it in front of us. While being able to afford it was no problem for us with our dollars, the rest of the customers, and there weren’t many, were extremely posh, so we felt a bit out of place.

Brazil '08, Day 2 - Ilhabela, SP

The fantastic owners of Manga Rosa, Paulo and Mariley, got us some bikes from a rental place in Perequê called Juninho (outrageously expensive considering the sad quality of the bikes - R$30 per person per day for a one speed bike, mine with a broken handlebar). Consider that each night at the pousada costs R$110 and comes with a fantastic breakfast - coffee, tea, fresh juices, cold cuts, cheeses, many kinds of bread, fruit and even cake!!
The plan today was to bike north to the northern most beach of Jabaquara, which is supposed to be beautiful. The only bad thing was that my cough has now acquired a runny nose companion. So drippy, we set off.
The road was alternating cobble stones and pavement, up and down hill at very consistent intervals. Because of the broken handlebar I could not go uphill at all so we pushed our bikes up all the hills and then rode down, and on and on like this.


The first beach we came to was Barreiros. It was, like many of the beaches we saw today, deserted but for one man who was just chilling.



Soon the little biting flies that the travel books warn you about began to attack us, so we put on bugspray by this interesting abandoned-looking house. Note the fruit, which is edible and the size of my head.


Up until the beach of Sino there were quite a few pousadas and restaurants but eventually they began to disappear and the residences became less posh.


As we left Sino we saw a campground (apparently there are four on the island: two in Perequê, one in Sino and one in Grande). We stopped to check it out and it's quite a deal - R$20 per night per person if you bring your own tent and R$60 if you want to rent one of their little trailers. There are bath houses throughout, a restaurant or kitchen and mango trees loaded with mangos for the picking. We grabbed a few!



On we went passed where the bus has it's last stop and the road turns to sand and gravel (from here 3km to Pacuiba and 8km to Jabaquara). By this point you have also increased in elevation so the beaches are somewhere below you. It was hot and a bit muggy, so we decided to cool off at Pacuiba beach. It was completely empty and beautiful. Gorgeous black rocks and the occasional black sand, the cool ocean, definitely welcome in this heat, and then it rained for a while, which I love when I am out swimming. There was single house on the beach, with a garden and chickens, but no sign of people. For lunch we ate the mangos we had picked up along the way and a coconut that we found on the beach.



At this point we decided not to go on to Jabaquara, but head back. It was getting on in time and we still had to bike back and then go even further back all the way to Perequê to return the bikes by 5pm. On the way we stopped in Sino once more, but this time to check out the famous rocks. The place is not actually called Sino officially (surprise!) but is nicknamed thus because it means "bell" in Portuguese. The rocks on this beach, when hit with a hammer, produce a sound just like a bell. Wicked cool! So we went up to the little bar/restaurant and asked for a hammer, and banged away. Good times.


By the time we reached Vila I was so exhausted I did not know how I could go on. What with the cold (disease not temperature) and the heat (ambient temperature) I had a raging headache, and my arm fat was hurting wicked bad from being shaken to and fro on the downhill cobblestones. Not to mention that they don't make those bike seats cushy! So we stopped at Manga Rosa to take an advil and leave the remaining mangos and headed for Perequê still 6km away (total trip today ~24km). Fortunately the road from Vila to Perequê is almost completely flat and even has a handy bike path, so we got there just in time for 5pm and handed in the bikes. It was a struggle once again to get them to accept a credit card but in the end we persevered. Then we tried to find a place to eat and settled on one of the few open places (and rather expensive I have to say), Pier 18 right there in Perequê. There we had fish for two, once again smothered in butter. Just as we were leaving a bus passed by so we had to wait for 30 minutes to catch the next one, which we passed people watching. There are a lot of scooters on the streets, an efficient but scary mode of transportation. On the beach a bunch of teens were playing volleyball. Must be a nice life...
After dark, around 9pm we ventured out again to say "bye" to Vila and maybe see more squid fishing. Unfortunately, the pier was much less lively today, but as we walked along the promenade we came upon an exhibit of a local artist who makes sculptures from old car and motorcycle parts, as well as tools and other scrap metal. We even got to meet the artist!



Tomorrow we move on but we'll be sad to leave Manga Rosa.

Brazil '08, Day 1 - Ilhabela, SP

We did it! We did it! Obama won! Am beside myself!!! At 2am Obama was leading McCain 170 to 89 or so which gave me some hope but we had to go catch the bus. Let me just tell you something about buses in Brazil. I have never been on more luxurious transportation than a Brazilian bus. They come in several 'classes': conventional, executive, double service and leito. I havn't experienced a leito, the fanciest and most expensive of the bunch, but all the rest of them are like traveling on a sofa. Seats recline almost entirely and there is a leg rest that comes down to support your legs, so you are literally almost horizontal from head to toe, not to mention that the next person is still far enough away from you that you do not travel with their head in your lap.
Anyway, we arrived in Tiete (Barra Funda), which is the main bus terminal in the city of Sao Paulo at around 7:30am and immediate went to find a newspaper stand. When I saw Obama on all the front pages, I have to tell you, I cried from joy. I can't emphasize enough how scared I was of a McCain presidency, and I am so proud of Americans right now. I hear Minnesota and Georgia are still having trouble, and I am rooting for Al Franken and Jim Martin. The fly in my dessert is that proposition 8 passed in California, which I think frankly is unconstitutional. Also, bizarrely Michele Bachmann won, not sure what to make of that.
Back to the travels at hand though. We got tickets for a 9am bus to São Sebastião, which could only be paid for with cash for some reason, and slept through at least 2 hours of the three and a half hour trip. When I woke up I realized that we were on some kind of mountain range, making our way down through the beautiful Mato Atlantico rain forest. I haven't been to a rain forest since Costa Rica back in 2003 so it was all fresh and new and absolutely gorgeous. We could see the city of São Sebastião on the small stretch of land between where the mountains ended and the ocean began. Driving along the shore we saw some of São Sebastião's suburbs, which looked more prosperous than any part of Brazil I had seen up to this point. I was also pleased to see that the fences around the properties where only waist high, rather than the full-on prison-like walls and barbed wire of Husband's hometown.
The bus dropped us, and only us, at a deserted looking place by the ocean, and moved on towards the city. Upon closer inspection we found the ferry, which is free for pedestrians, and headed for Ilhabela (travel time ~30 minutes, no motion sickness, in case you are interested.)
We had no prearranged plans or any specific notions of where we were going or what we were planning to do, so first thing we did was visit the tourist booth just a few feet from the ferry dock. The lady there, who spoke English, told us all about the various attraction on the island and made many phone calls on our behalf to pousadas (bed and breakfast type hotels). The island, which is actually called Ilha de São Sebastião, but is referred to as Ilhabela at all times, has two roads. The main road, which is paved, runs along the western coast of the island from north to south, and a second road, passable only by 4-wheel drive vehicles, crosses the island from west to east, connecting Perequê with the Castelhanos beach. Some hiking trails exist as well but beware of the snakes! The ferry arrives in Perequê, which is also the dividing point between the "north" and "south" part of the island. The northern part is more developed and a bit fancier. When I say developed however, it is in this case not a negative. There are more restaurants and pousadas, and there are also more and nicer houses, but it is not unpleasant and plenty of nature, beaches and beauty is preserved. The southern part of the island is supposedly more wild and has the more deserted beaches.
For transportation it was recommended that we should use the bus. Taxis are extremely and unreasonably expensive, while car rentals are absurd. Buses run regularly (every 30 minutes) from Perequê north as far as Armacao, and a different set of buses runs south from Perequê.
While looking into pousadas we met two girls from Holland, one originally from Honduras and the other from Thailand, who recommended to us their pousada in the south part of the island. So our plan became thus - stay one night in the north, and then one night in the south of Ilhabela. We decided to do north first because being tired and starving we thought the north would offer more comforts. We found an excellent pousada - Manga Rosa - run by a husband and wife. They came and picked us up from the tourist office, they accept credit cards (most pousadas don't) and the place is just beautiful. Check out the view from our room!



Manga Rosa is in one of the few real 'towns' on Ilha de São Sebastião. It's called Ilhabela but everyone calls it Vila. I am not sure how townships are established here but each beach appears to have a name, and all businesses identify themselves by the beach. There are signs along the road which indicate the name of the beach area you are in, and how far to the next beach.


After we took a shower and freshened up we wondered off into Vila and had some lunch at "Cheiro Verde", a place that serves local and fresh salt water fish, sadly deep fried and smothered in grease. It is, however, recommended by locals and Lonely Planet alike. I had some fresh squeezed lemon juice, which is made with tap water I presume, so here's hoping I don't get sick. Now really sleepy we stumbled back to the pousada and passed out for 3 hours. When we got up it was dark. We wondered outside again and went for a nice walk, had some self-serve ice cream and watched locals fishing off the dock for squid. It was the weirdest thing. They fish with these lit bobby things (you can tell I am so not a fisherwoman) and the squid are so funny. There was a grandpa there who caught at least 3 while we watched. There were kids there too, really people of all ages, fishing for breakfast squid. Wicked!