Brazil didn’t really feature much on our South America itinerary planning, other than our flight back to the UK being from Rio de Janeiro. It’s a huge country that we didn’t really fancy tackling, Debbie was a bit terrified of its reputation, Steve had already been to Rio 20-odd years ago on business, so we just viewed it as somewhere to fill whatever gap we ended up with before our flight home. That gap turned out be 11 days, sufficient time to have a little holiday on the Costa Verde (green coast) and a quick look at Rio.

Our research had suggested that Paraty and Ilhe Grande were the must-dos near Rio, but ‘near’ obviously has a different meaning in a country 35 times the size of the UK.

We flew from Foz do Iguaçu to Rio and decided to do a loop – down the coast to Paraty, then back towards Rio and out to Ilhe Grande, and finishing with Rio. It is possible to get to Paraty by public transport but not easily – the most common route is a shared minibus transfer but our flight times meant that we’d have been hanging around for 3-4 hours, the shuttles were pretty expensive and a private transfer was ‘only’ about another £60. It should come as no surprise that Debbie convinced Steve that the private taxi transfer, with a driver meeting us from our flight, was the only sensible option! However for most of the 4 hour drive to Paraty, in bad weather, on twisting roads, and with a driver clearly in a hurry, she may have regretted her insistence on that private transfer!!

Paraty

One of Brazil’s most beautiful colonial towns, located on the Costa Verde between Rio and Sao Paolo, with the historic centre and surrounding Atlantic Forest both recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Sites for the unique blend of culture and biodiversity. Add in a coastline with crystal clear waters, tropical islands and secluded beaches and it’s easy to see why Paraty is a very desirable destination – especially as a weekend retreat for the rich and famous of the ‘nearby’ cities who fly in to the airport used exclusively for private planes and helicopters. Debbie should’ve realised that it was a bit posh when searching for accommodation as the prices were pretty astronomical, not helped by our visit co-inciding with the start of the Festa de Santa Rita. If we were going to have to splash out for accommodation it might as well be for something nice, and so we booked 3 nights at the Boutique Hotel Carpe Diem, 2 minutes walk across the bridge from the historic centre. That turned out to be a great decision, not only because it was a lovely small hotel (despite the bathroom being behind the wardrobe doors!) but also as wheeling our luggage to somewhere in the pedestrianised centre would’ve been a nightmare on the very bumpy and uneven ancient cobbled streets.

The centre was beautiful – Portuguese-style whitewashed buildings with colourful woodwork lined those cobbled streets which flooded at high tide. The setting was beautiful – on a bay and with a quay and jetty lined with large and small boats. Just a lovely place to sit, sip a drink and watch the world go by.

But there was also delicious food to be eaten, a longed-for Thai hit the spot beautifully, some fabulous seafood, and we finally found the decent pizza which had eluded us for many weeks. And on finding a bar to watch the Spain v Belgium World Cup match we were treated to free shots – very civilised! Debbie could’ve spent days wandering around the cobbled streets, in and out of little boutique shops and purchasing fabulous items of clothing, jewellery, things for home and toiletries. Who knew that there was a L’Occitane Brazil – even more gorgeous than the Provencal version? Of course a purchase was made there. And when in Brazil it’s almost compulsory to purchase Havianas flip flops – especially at £8/pair vs the UK price of £30. Debbie got a message back to the girls at home and took their orders, we bought a tiny pair for our Grandson, even Steve got some – 8 pairs in total!

We knew that we wanted to take a boat trip out into the bay, to explore some of the islands and beaches, and having been impressed with the organisation of our transfer by Paraty Tours we chose to book the ‘clear waters tour’ through them on the Neptune schooner – not one of the huge tacky ones with water slides, just 35 passengers maximum. We set off in glorious sunshine with calm seas, making our way through the sparkling blue water dotted with lush islands to our first stop at Ilha dos Cocos – a beautiful bay with a very exclusive-looking hotel and LOTS of other boats. We joined our fellow passengers in jumping into the water – well, lowering ourselves down the steps actually – for a very short-lived dip. It was bloody freezing! The next stop was a beach – Praia da Conceicao – to which we were transported in a small boat with no need to get wet. It was gorgeous, and the Brazilians were all posing for photos on the beautiful rock formations. We didn’t bother! After a delicious fish lunch we explored more of the bay, Ilhe da Pescaria and Praia do Saco da Velha, marvelling at the sheer beauty, amazing houses and laughing at some of our fellow passengers trying paddle boarding for the first time. We knew that we were rubbish at it so opted not to subject ourselves to the embarrassment! A really lovely day in a stunning place.

On our final evening the town really came to life with the arrival of the masses for the festival – we had to queue for a restaurant, even at 10pm the centre was packed with families eating ice cream, and there was live music and dancing outside the church. Such a shame that we were leaving the next morning as it certainly seemed that a good weekend was ahead. We loved Paraty and could’ve happily stayed for a few days longer, but our credit cards may not have thanked us.

Ilhe Grande

Our destination for 6 days of much needed rest & relaxation after 12 weeks of travelling, but first we needed to get there. Less extravagant with the transfer on this leg, we booked a shared shuttle with Paraty Tours, but it turned out that we were the only passengers going to the port and so got a private transfer by default. A 2 hour minibus ride took us to the Santa Luzia ferry terminal near Angra dos Reis, we were handed over to a Paraty Tours representative and guided to our ‘ferry’ for the 45 minute crossing across to the island. It had been described as a big boat, but was a 40-ish seat RIB with a roof and two enormous engines and it sped across the channel at around 25 knots. Thankfully we were at the back of the boat and the sea was flat calm.

We’d not really known what to expect of Ilhe Grande but first impressions were very positive. It’s a large mountainous island (abut half the size of the Isle of Wight) around 3 miles off the coast, with no roads and mainly covered by protected rainforest. The inhabited area is relatively small, mainly centred around the village of Vila do Abraao and that’s where we were heading for. It was immediately obvious that this was a very chilled and relaxed place. Perfect!

Accommodation looked to be pretty basic, with no luxury options available, so Debbie had settled on Pousada Cauca, just back from the seafront, as it had very good reviews and some nice outside space. The people who ran the place were lovely but it was VERY basic, probably the most basic place we’d stayed during all of our travelling – it was clean and comfortable enough but had the most depressing lighting. However we hadn’t come to a tropical island to sit in our room. Or so we thought – it actually pissed down for most of our first 2 days! Thankfully there was a covered yoga Sala in the grounds where we could lie on cushions and read our Kindles while the rain battered down. We did get breaks in the rain to enjoy beachside beers and to watch the England beat Norway in the World Cup quarter final though.

2 rainy days were unusual at this time of year as it’s dry season, and soon the sunshine returned and we headed to the beach. The town beach was nice enough and we spent one pleasant afternoon there, but it was crowded with boats. The most notable beach (Lopes Mendes) was only reachable by a 30 minute boat ride followed by a steep 20 minute trek over a mountain, so we decided that might be a bit much exertion for Steve’s dodgy lungs. So we settled on a shared water taxi to Abraaozinho beach – a pretty extortionate £10 each for the return journey considering it was only 5 minutes away. We were the only passengers dropped of there as the more adventurous and fitter others were heading to Lopes Mendes but the driver promised to return for us at 3pm. After a lovely few hours in the sun we headed to the water taxi meeting place but the boats there weren’t from the same company. We waited, and waited, and waited, but Steve refused to pay more money to take one of the available boats so we gave ups and decided to walk back – apparently it would only take about 20 minutes. Mmmmn, we aren’t sure who could’ve done that trip in 20 minutes – it took us over an hour to find our way across some pretty rough terrain, not always clearly marked, and at one point the path actually went into the sea and we had to wade waist deep for a while. Thankgod we’d met a group of nice Argentinian lads who let guided us, as Steve was just about to head off into the forest to God only knows where!

It turned out that this lads were the only nice Argentinians we came across in Ilhe Grande as the next day was England’s World Cup semi final clash with their national team, and we knew we were in trouble as soon as we arrived at Bar do Che to watch the match. Pretty much the whole place was packed with pale blue & white striped shirts bearing the number 10 and name of Messi, and every available surface had Argentinian flags draped across. We found a small group of England fans in the centre of the chaos and joined them to give our combined voices more presence. Caipirinhas were £2 each and the crowd was very much in the spirit! Its fair to say that this bunch of Argentina fans were as dirty as their players that night – it wasn’t good humoured sporting rivalry in any shape or form, there was booing during our national anthem, flicking of the finger and glares when England scored, and all hell broke loose when Argentina equalised in the 85th minute and then went ahead in the 92nd, Debbie’s glasses were knocked off and she got a smack in the face (hopefully accidentally) from a wildly cheering young lady. We decided to make a swift exit just as the final whistle blew to escape the inevitable carnage from rowdy Argentinian celebrations. Oh well, football wasn’t coming home.

It’d have been a shame to not explore a little more of Ilhe Grande so we took a boat trip – taking in the Azul and Verde lagoons (both beautiful but heaving with boats from the mainland), doing a bit of snorkelling (the water was just as cold as on our Paraty trip) and finishing with a jumbo prawn lunch at Praia de Feiticeira – a wonderful day and a truly gorgeous island.

But it was time to head back to the mainland and on to Rio for the final few days of our South American adventure…