Off to the Big Island

Time to leave Rio. Made the last of my farewells and headed for the bus-stop. At this point, I made one of my occasional miscalculations, and got on the first bus headed for the Rodoviaria (the long-distance bus terminal the other side of town) - this turned out to stop all over the place, plough through the Rio traffic, and got me there 5 minutes after the bus I´d wanted to catch had left. I made it onto the next one, but with the sinking feeling I was not going to make my ferry. I was headed for Ilha Grande (translated literally as Big Island), and what the guidebooks all describe as the only scheduled daily ferry to the island would have left by the time I got to the port of Angra dos Reis.

Luckily, the alternative transport options have moved on from the "possible to maybe go over on local fishing boats" of the books, and there are both a small catamaran service (which I also missed...) and a bunch of local schooners, the last of which I was able to catch, in the company of an Aussie called Steve and his Brasilian mate Anderson, who I´d got chatting to on the coach. This meant I got to the island a couple of hours later than I´d planned, but this had the unplanned bonus that it wasn´t quite so stinking hot when we arrived, so I didn´t melt quite so much whilst lugging my packs from the quay in Abraao to my hostel.

The scene at Overnativa when I arrived was what I would learn was typical of the place - Christina, the "mama" of the place was cooking the dinner and simultaneously covering front desk. I was told to just get my stuff settled in my room and we could deal with the paperwork later (this was eventually done at checkout!). After a shower, I tucked into the home-cooked dinner, and struck up conversation with what would become my regular circle of companions on the island, an Italian girl called Paula, two Colombian cousins (Angela and Camilla, the latter about 4´6" or so) and a Zurich-based Croat doctor called Marija, who must be one of the few people I´ve met who probably has a faster metabolism than my brother Alex. Either that, or she´s got a tapeworm. She´s thin as a reed and could eat for her country, and possibly one or two others as well.

Still, it´d been a long (and sometimes stressful) day, so I managed one beer, sat around watching people play pool for a while, then crashed out.