Goodbye Rio…

We are moving on from Rio de Janeiro city towards Ilha Grande (or direct translation: the Great Island). It is a rather big island around 150 km from Rio with great beaches, waterfalls, hiking, etc. All we know is that this island is a must see in many tourist guides.

In order to get to the island we took a bus ride and then a 45 min boat trip. We were a group of 15 people, so the boat was nice and empty. Plenty of space for everyone.

…and welcome to Ilha Grande

The weather is not really friends with us today. So, the beach is out of the question. 😀 Hopefully, it will be better tomorrow.

We are staying in a hostel that has a balcony with a direct view to the water. It is called Che Lagarto. Most of the people here are in their early twenties, so I assume you can call this a youth hostel.

There are also fruit trees growing right outside the balcony and they actually use them for food here. 😀 Very convenient.

When checking-in we had to pay for our whole stay. The only problem was that our credit cards didn’t want to agree with us. 😀 And we do not have enough cash with us to pay for the whole stay and also for some food and stuff for the rest of our stay here. So, this was looking rather sad. 😀

We were in the end able to pay for one night only and that we did in cash. This was based on the promise that we come tomorrow morning and try to pay again. Let’s hope that our cards like us more tomorrow. 🙂

First look on the island

While waiting for our room (2 bunk beds in a 4 people dorm room) to be ready, we took a walk on the beach to find some food. We were surprised to find out that the prices in places here are rather high. But it also makes sense as it is an island and people do have to eat, so they can ask for a higher price. 😀

We ordered a dish that was made for 2 people, as it seemed like a nice deal. What we got seemed more like for 4 people 😀 And they have a funny way of offering chicken with rice and then also French fries next to them.

We did not manage to eat all the food and we saw that the couple next to us had their leftovers packed to go. We asked if we could get the same. Now we also have lunch for tomorrow. Not a bad deal 😀

It is 5 pm and getting dark already. We’ll see what the local bar has to offer and how the nights look like here.

The good thing is that we still haven’t seen any mosquitos. Although here are some small annoying flying bugs. 🙂