Botched trip to Ilhe Grande

On Tuesday morning, everyone was leaving Mellow Yellow.  Jamie and Sweety were going to Dubai, Eoghan was going back to Ireland, and everyone else we'd met were leaving that night or the next day so I decided to take off for a few days before coming back to Rio to meet Nicki Friday morning.

The night before, as I was eating dinner, I had met a guy who wanted to go to Ilha Grande and I told him that it would make sense for us to go together.  So, without really knowing each other, Graeme and I joined forces and became travel buddies.

After I woke up on Tuesday, I found Graeme and we confirmed that we were both going to go.  I let him know when the bus was and told him we had to leave the hostel by 11:30am at the very latest.  We both went to our rooms to pack and take care of everything, but at 11:15am, still no Graeme.  I paid for my nights at the hostel and went to find him.  He was in his room on his laptop skyping with some chick.  I tapped my watch and said, "Am I going to have to pack for you?  What's going on??  We need to leave, like, now!"

Apparently, what Ilha Grande looks like.

He looked at me with a guilty look, said goodbye to whoever was on skype, and apologized.  He wasn't sure if he could pack in time but I told him not going wasn't an option, and I wasn't going alone, so he'd better pick up the pace. 15 minutes later, I was helping him shove odds and ends into his bag.  He grabbed his skateboard and we headed downstairs.  As he paid his bill, I asked the front desk staff how long it would take to get to the bus station.  Their answer?  At least 30 minutes.

Oh no, this was bad.  The bus left in less than 30 minutes and it was the last bus we could have taken to get on the last ferry onto Ilha Grande.  I started probing a bit --   Was there any way a later bus would be ahead of schedule and we could still catch the ferry?  Were there any other lesser known ways of getting onto the island?

After chatting with the staff, we were told that it was highly possible that a fisherman would bring us onto the island if we missed the ferry or the catamarans.  That is how these poor fisherman can make some extra money, we were told.  So, with bags packed and a will to make this happen, Graeme and I left for the bus station.

But now that we weren't in such a hurry, why take a cab?  We got on the underground metro and got out at the station that looked nearest to the terminal, but once we got there, we realized that we needed to take a cab from there.  After a few minutes flagging down potential cabs, we finally got in one and took it to the terminal.  Once at the ticket window, we saw that we'd just missed the 12:45pm bus and would have to wait until 1:30pm... we were cutting things close...

Our view from the bus (when it wasn't pouring)

With the aid of Graeme's Portuguese phrase book, we made our way around the terminal, finding food to bring on board with us then finding our way to the correct port and into the correct seats.  This book was super awesome -- it was labeled by occasion, such as "out to eat" or "things you might say about the weather" -- and he had gotten quite proficient in using it while in Rio.

We took off promptly at 1:30, and saw that the bus was about 30% full.  Instead of sitting together, we each took our own seat and lounged out.   We watched as Rio drifted away and both put on our ipods to zone out and enjoy what we heard was sure to be a beautiful ride.  Except it wasn't so beautiful...

About 30 minutes into our journey, I started to see rain coming down.  45 minutes later, it was a full on storm, with rain pouring down, darks clouds, and poor visibility.  Traffic formed, the bus slowed to maybe 15 mph, and I realized that there was no way we were going to make it onto the last ferry.  Graeme and I chatted and decided the fishermen were our only hope.

Fast forward a couple more hours, and we had arrived at the town where the boats and ferries set off for the island.  The rain had stopped coming down as hard as it had been on the ride there, but it was still raining and the sky looked ominous.  Upon entering the bus station, we saw there were no signs about how to get to Ilhe Grande and we walked up to the big Information desk, hoping the woman there spoke English.  If not, we always had Graeme's phrase book.

After a mix of English and Portuguese, it was confirmed that we had missed the last ferry AND the last catamaran (run by the company whose booth was behind us in the bus station.)  We inquired about fishermen.  Apparently the weather was too terrible and the fishermen had all gone in for the day.  We were stranded.  Our options were to stay there for the night and get the first catamaran to Ilhe Grande at 9am or to just say screw this, we're going south another 2 hours to another town called Paraty, also known for its beaches and fun, relaxing atmosphere.

The closest we got to Ilha Grande... the dock.

Because Graeme and I knew people on the island that we had been hoping to meet up with, we opted to stay the night so we could catch the first trip onto the island in the morning.  We booked into a really basic hostel, took showers, and went to find some dinner.  Again, with the aid of his phrase book, Graeme and I got ourselves a disappointing not-so-tasty dinner and went to bed early.

The next morning at 6:30am, we woke up ready to catch the ferry.  But when we looked out the window, it was still raining and we started to wonder if our friends would leave the island because of the crappy weather.  Quickly, we ran to an internet cafe to email them, and already waiting in Graeme's inbox was an email from one of the friends.  We had guessed correctly... they were planning to leave at 1pm.

Graeme and I managed to return the catamaran tickets we had purchased the day before and walked (well I walked, he skate boarded) back to the bus station not knowing what to do.  It was a Wednesday and I had to go back to Rio by Thursday night, so this whole trip kind of seemed like a waste of time.  But, I was already this far, so maybe I should just go south to Paraty with Graeme?  Or maybe I should just cut my losses and go back to Rio?

Bus ride #2 in less than 24 hours.

I really thought both ideas were bad, so I just decided to go with the more adventurous one -- on to Paraty!  We found our bus, got on, and hoped for better luck in our next destination.  The bus ride was insanely bumpy and at one point he and I both came off of our seats from a massive bump in the road.  Ugh!  Can this get any worse?

Yes, it can.  We got to Paraty and it was still raining.  An England World Cup match was on so Graeme wanted to get to the hostel I'd picked out ASAP to watch the game.  We hopped in a cab and were surprised to arrive at our destination within 4 minutes.

"15 Reals."

"What?  It took you 4 minutes to get us here."

In poor English, our taxi driver let us know that in Paraty, there is a minimum amount for a cab, and that minimum is 15 Reals.  That's about $8. Absurd.

We got into the hostel and for the first time in 36 hours, we let out sighs of relief.  The hostel was nice and clean, the front desk guy was really nice and spoke English, and he immediately got us set up in a room that would not only accommodate us, but also our friends who would be in Paraty shortly.

Cooking some stir fry!

That's where things turned around a bit.  After the game, Graeme and I went to a grocery store and came back to make a delicious stir fry.  We played pool on the crap pool table that was at the hostel, watched some more World Cup games, and had a fun time until the others arrived in the early evening.  That night, we all went out to dinner and went to bed by 10:30pm.

Things had started to look up, and while that was great, I still had to get back to Rio by the following night.  When we woke up the following morning, I realized that everyone else wanted to do a day trip, but I knew that would be risky timing for me, and given the past 2 days' events, I wasn't going to mess with anything.  So I decided my afternoon would be a day just for me on the beach with a book.

The others set off around noon and we all said goodbye.  Saying goodbye to Graeme was tough, because we had been through a lot of crap together for 2 straights days and I was going to miss him, his skateboard, and his phrase book, but I was excited for him (because this was the beginning of his South American trip) and I wanted him to start exploring and experiencing.  I kind of felt like his mom or big sister and we had a nice goodbye.


That afternoon, I sat on the beach and (finally) read The Motorcycle Diaries.  When I was done, I turned around and went back to the hostel, packed up my things, and headed to the bus station.   An hour later, I was back on the bumpy bus back to Rio and thought to myself, "Okay, this is it... You're about to start your last 5 days in South America."