Day 9: Ilha Grande, Brazil

Dan and I tried to get our day started a little earlier this morning so that we could venture to the other side of the island. After we got ourselves ready, we went to the town market to put together some bagged lunches. I decided I would have an easily assembled meal of sliced turkey and fruit. I grabbed an apple and pear, and then Dan and I went over to the meat counter to get some poultry. 

Dan has a translator app, so he typed the name of the bird into his phone and then attempted to pronounce it: "Turquia por favor." Blank stare. Dan tried to say the word one more time before he resorted to pointing to the term in his phone. The butcher looked confused and shook his head. I began to think that they were unfamiliar with turkey and that my only option would be sliced ham (which seems to exist in abundance in Brazil). However, that's when Dan realized that the accidental capitalization of a letter had left us inquiring about a Middle Eastern country. We corrected our mistake, "Peru por favor" (again, not to be confused with the country), and got the meat we had come looking for. 

While still in the market, Dan and I spotted a British couple we had befriended on our initial boat ride to the island. At that time, we had attempted to exchange numbers with them, but the island's spotty internet left us relying on good old-fashioned chance encounters. James and Willow (yes, their names are actually that British) had already been traveling for over a month, and planned to continue doing so until their money simply ran out. During our run-in, we exchanged stories about what we had been up to the previous day. It was lucky we had, because from their experience we learned we should change into sneakers for our walk. So after parting ways with the Brits, we went back to our pousada to get proper footgear, and then finally set off.

I have decided a good tagline for this island would be, "Ilha Grande: Find Your Beach." With so many beaches to choose from, Dan and I consulted a number of sources before deciding which one we would go and find. We settled on one called Dois Rios and were directed to the path that would lead us there. It was there that a sign informed us the beach was 8.6km, or a little over 5 miles away. I was instantly happy that I had changed out of my flip flips, and we began our trek. The first half of the walk was all on an incline, but we were rewarded with a downhill slope for the second part of our journey. 

Finally, after two hours, we had found our beach! It was a beautiful stretch of sand with sparkling blue water. Only a handful of people had selected the same destination, so the beach felt very exclusive. We laid out our towels, ate our lunches, and drank up the sun.

Because it is still winter in the Southern Hemisphere, the sunset here is pretty early. So Dan and I were only able to stay at the beach for a couple of hours in order to ensure we traveled back to town in daylight (there would be no lampposts to guide our walk). Ultimately, we had spent twice as much time traveling to and from Dois Rios as we had spent actually being there. Would I say the beach was worth the 10-mile round trip? Probably not. But I'm still happy we went.

When we got back to our pousada, Dan and I took some much-needed showers. I thought I had scrubbed down well, but while drying off, I removed a full extra layer of dirt from my body. Needless to say, I got more than I had bargained for on our walk.

After hanging in our room for a bit, we went to the second floor of our pousada, which doubled as an Italian restaurant at night. The owners made everything from scratch, and we decided to split a ravioli and a spaghetti dish. The pasta was some of the freshest I've ever had; it was delicious! We washed our food down with a bottle of red wine, and then rounded off the meal with brownie a la mode. We left the meal extremely satisfied and then went back downstairs to our room. The wine must have gotten the better of me because the second the lights went off, I was out.