ILHA Grande

With all the adventure going on out here, I have not had much time to sit on my laptop. But, after an 104 degree day today and playing soccer for four hours, I decided I could take a night to rest and catch up on telling you about Ilha Grande.

Ilha Grande is an island on the southeast side of Brazil. Several volunteers will take trips out to this island. In fact, when we first arrived, a group was just getting back. When they told us about Ilha Grande, I remember thinking, wow, I wish I could go there. Well, we did... and I never wanted to leave. If you have ever imagined paradise, euphoria, complete relaxation, a state of zen, well then you know what Ilha Grande feels like. Although, I could write a complete series of novels on the experiences of Ilha Grande, I will try to make the stories short and let the pictures do the talking.

After a trip to the Botafogo futebol game on Thursday night, (they ended up tying) we awoke at 3:50am on Friday morning to meet 3 of our fellow volunteers at the kitchen table, where we would leave to find a taxi. After finding our taxi, we were off to Central, where we would get on a bus and travel to a small town in southwest Brazil. The bus ride was about 2 hours and beautiful! We went through the mountains and along the Atlantic ocean. Even though there was fog, rain and it was 5am, you could feel the excitement in the air. We arrived at the small town, where we picked up cafezinhos (coffee) and some acai with granola. After talking with some locals, we found a boat that left a little earlier than our previously planned boat. Perfect. We could not wait...

Once we arrived onto Ilha Grande, we had to find hostels. After getting turned down multiple times because, “they did not have rooms for five people,” we decided to separate and see what we could find. Separating worked and we each met back by the palm tree to discuss where we found our home for the next couple of days. After a couple beers and a traditional Ilha Grande meal filled with fresh seafood (by fresh, I mean they just caught it a couple of hours ago!), caipirinhas, cheese platter and an end of the meal celebration with, tequila! Tequila only meant one thing... we were dancing! And we did... A LOT.

Saturday we headed out on a boat with a Brazilian wildman by the name of Marcio. I say he is a wildman because there were stories of him catching two live octopus on his boat the day before... skinning them and then bringing them back to grill up for that nights dinner. Not only that, but he drove the boat like we were setting out to sea to catch great white shark or something. Marcio had wild hair, a wild tan and a carefree, no worries, island attitude. He was the Bear Grylls of Ilha Grande.

On the boat, you saw nothing but blue skies, palm trees and mountains. We snorkeled for about an hour and headed back to shore for lunch/dinner. And, followed it up with another night on the island of singing and dancing.

Sunday was one of the best days in my entire life. As we awoke from our hostel and sluggishly made our way to the breakfast table, we talked about what we would do for the day. Not really coming to any conclusion, we hoped our cafezinhos would kick in quick and we would come up with something. We put on our bathing suits and grabbed our sarongs and decided we would take a walk. The walk turned into a search for secret beaches (where we found many). We would stop at each beach, sometimes lay out for a minute, sometimes swim, and some just to look at who was there or what kind of view we could get. The search for secret beaches turned into the finding of an old prison (which I can tell you right now is absolutely haunted, um yikes, back to secret beaches)... oh perfect-a sign to a secret waterfall! Let's GO! So, in our bathing suits we went on the search for the waterfall. After, seeing bamboo forests and natural springs, we really started to get deep into the mountain... and the day got hotter and we had no water... and we started to wonder... where is this waterfall?

 We heard two girls coming our way and Mike whispered, “Should I ask them?” Thinking, YES PLEASE for the love of God, I said, “Um, sure!” They told us it was only 30 minutes up the trail and described the rest of the hike. So we went and we saw the most beautiful sights I have ever laid eyes on.

I'll go ahead and mention that Mike and I had quite the walk back. We ran into some guy who thought he HAD to tell us he saw 2 very large snakes ahead... “How far ahead?” we asked. “Not that far ahead, but not that close. Farther down,” he said, doing the estimates of how big they are with his arms. The fact that his arms were spread all the way apart was not comforting. As we walked the rest of the way, we told funny stories and tried to hop over the dark shadowy spots. Lucky for us, no snakes. And, soon we were back on land headed for a much needed (once again) fresh as can be seafood and a caipirinha, of course.

Ilha Grande, all in all, was an experience I cannot even describe. As I looked out onto the ocean and the mountains, I thought to myself that I never would have thought I would ever be somewhere or see something like this in my life. It was so surreal and I was so grateful to have been there and to have seen what I saw. It reminded me that you can go and do whatever it is in the world that you want to, but you must be patient. Everything you want will not come over night, not in a summer, not in a year and sometimes not even in 5, 10, 15 years. To reach a goal you have to work everyday for it. You create your own life... you are the decision maker, the one driving the boat. And, if you want something, you can have it... but, be patient. It is coming. Maybe you're still waiting for it, maybe you're still on the journey.. and maybe that's ok, because do any of us really want the journey to end? I sure don't.