BA - RIO Days 13-15 Ilha Grande

Day 13:  in the morning we caught a 3 hour bus from Paraty heading north up the dramatic Brazilian coast, getting closer to Rio, followed by an hour and a half ferry ride to Ilha Grande.   Ihla Grande is a beautiful island not too far from Rio de Janeiro, untouched by development with tropical beaches and most of the island a national park with virgin rainforest. There are no cars allowed on the island, the only motorised transport was a police car and an ambulance.  In the past the island had been a pirate's lair, a leper colony and a prison for violent criminals.  Now it's a relaxing holiday paradise island.

We checked into our accommodation, a lovely Pousada with a pretty relaxing garden up a slight hill, we paid a couple of locals with huge trolleys to transport all our groups luggage from the ferry, they needed a help pushing uphill though, the trolleys were very heavy.  We were given a quick orientation tour of the resort and then Nigel and I wandered along the beach front until we came to the national park which had a short 2km circular trail through the forest passing, black beach, an old aqueduct, a lovely natural pool and the old prison ruins.
In the evening we went for a group meal at a lovely restaurant the opposite end of the beach for a BBQ and live music - great food and great music.  Nigel had one too many caipirinhas though!

Day 14:  today we just had a relaxing day. In the morning a small group of us  visited black beach and had a dip in the sea.  The weather was warm but a bit overcast so we soon got a bit cold in the sea.  We then just had a wander around the resort and then a relaxing afternoon chilling in the hotel garden reading.  In the evening we has another group meal, Mexican/pizza food again very nice.

Day 15: most of our group went on a boat trip but Nigel and I decided we'd walk on a 10km trail through the forest to the remote Lopes Mendes beach, voted Brazil's most beautiful beach and the 17th most beautiful beach in the world.  It was a two hour hike uphill and downhill through lovely forest and past another couple of pretty beaches to get to Lopes Mendes beach itself.  The beach was amazing, beautiful white sand and crystal clear waters.  No boats are allowed in the bay, all water taxis drop passengers off at the beach/bay before, a twenty minute walk away.  It was also not busy, we felt like we had the beach to ourselves the nearest people to us were 100m away.  We stayed there about three and a half hours relaxing, sunbathing and swimming in the beautiful warm waters.  It turned out to be a gorgeous hot sunny day, it'd been a bit overcast the last few days.  We started walking back but as we passed the first bay a boat was just leaving so we caught that back instead, it took just under an hour to return to the main resort arriving back at 5pm. We then had our 'secret friend' presents to buy, like 'secret Santa', we all picked a name from our group out of a hat for giving presents on our last night in Rio.  In the evening we returned to the same mexican/pizza restaurant we'd been to the evening before, it was good food and good value.