Day 80 - Illa Grande

So, before I ditched Rio, which I love by the way, we had to have one final big night out. Despite getting a cab all the way into the centre just to head straight back because the club there was rubbish, we found a place near our hostel which was playing good music and selling Skol beer. Everyone except Justin was out, and almost everyone except me managed to get a snog. It was dirty, but I loved it.



   

In the morning, we decided to head out of town in hope that the sun shone elsewhere in Brasil, so headed 2 hours south of rio to the Illa Grande (originally titled the "big island"). Apparently its paradise, and so 4 days on amazing beaches and with the promise of some sun sounded perfect. We joined Chloe, Yelena and Justin and headed south, catching an hour long boat ride there. I plugged the iPod and forgot about the rest of the world, watching this weird water pipe dance around on the waves for the whole hour, but when we arrived it was the landscape that got me.



Its a proper sleepy island. Nothing going on except going to the beach, eating self-service ice-cream and lazing around. After managing to find a hostel with a DVD player in our room (THIS is unheard of), we grabbed some food and headed to bed. Its worth saying at this point that my little neice, Isabella, became 2 years old today, and whilst not there to show her a good time, my mum took her riding horses while she awaits a present from Bolivia.



The next day, we hopped on another boat and 1 hour later were trekking across the island to what is described as one of Brasil's most beautiful beaches. Lopes Mendes.



The beach is pretty special. Its not AMAZING. I've seen better. In fact, Ipanema does it for me SO much more, with the backdrop of mountains, high-rise hotels and a real sense of class. But as far as isolated, hotel-free, miles of stretching sand beaches go, it was NICE. We took a dip in the waves (which, I should add, I nearly drowned in when the rip current nearly took me out to sea) and generally burnt ourselves. It was offically my last ever speedo moment, since even with factor 20 suncream on, my delicate thighs (which haven't seen direct sunlight since I was 7 years old) ended up more red than sam's red lipstick on a big night out.



   

Anyway, with burnt thighs and brown arms, we had to celebrate Justin's birthday, so attacked an ice-cream parlour, ate loads of pizza (which will ultimately make Sam sick for 3 days) and drank beer until Justin and Chloe decided to do it in the nearest toilet cubicle (we know guys, sorry). Dirtbags.