Ilha Grande

Ilha Grande is on the coast close to Rio de Janeiro. Translated it means big island. For a long time this beautiful island was not used for tourism because its past scared away investors. The island used to be a pirates island, then it was used to isolate people with lepra disease and after that it was a prisoners island. Today there are no prisons any more and the island lives from fishery and tourism.

We did a day trip with a little boat to some fantastic snorkeling spots and beaches. The day was perfectly sunny and the water absolutely clear!

Lagoa azul

Lagoa verde

And then we did it again... We climed another mountain! On the next photo you see the second highest mountain of the island - pico do papagaio (translated parrot's bill) with 982 m of height. But this time we wanted it even a bit more exciting, so we decided to climb it at nighttime to watch the sunrise at the top! We started walking at 2:30 am and fought us with a torch trough the jungle up the mountain. It was a real adventure and we heard endless animals around us watching us but the only one we saw was a huge tarantula right in front of us on the small path. And then on the top the sun rised between the islands and it was just breathtaking to watch!

On the way down we could finally really see the path we had climbed up before in the complete dark with just a torch. It was not quite a flat paved road ;-).

We arrived back at the guest house at 9:30 am just in time for a delicious breakfast.