Ilha Grande or 106 beaches, 7 bays and 1 lake in tent

Here I go! First farewell with girls whose through all that time gave me a home. Rita and Jeni – two amazing women who was like a women for me. Even that I didn’t want to they gave me a coffee and they prepared breakfast for me! Thank you very much for every evenings! That was difficult to say goodbye but needed to hit road. And Rio didn’t want to let me so easy…

First I rolled to train station from where I wanted catch train to suburbs. I’m standing far away from rails, smiling, and suddenly atmosphere on station changing. Everyone is looking at me. On something what is going on my back. I’m turning and I see soldier who is running on my with gun and is aiming at me! AGAIN?! What have I done?! But he just passing me and when I turned around once again I saw two young guys who jumped over the whole in fence and just walking next to rails. When they saw (or heard) soldier they just started run and… they ran away 😀 Maybe it’s not good opinion for soldier’s condition but in Poland probably no one from train security would react in that way 😀

I rolled to suburbs, walked second of that (probably even now there are puddle of my sweat). I could chose two roads – probably quicker inside country or longer on coast, through small villages. Decision could be only one – coast! Road BR 101.

First night I spend on beach hearing how local school orchestra trained his hits. Next day I decided to hike on the mountain from where should be amazing view. I’m going and I see that whole hill is fenced and somewhere there I see ticket box. Another place where I need to pay? I found lack in fence, jump through it and with my whole staff I started climbing. Bushes, stones, slope 45-55 degrees so literally I’m eating ground. I jump through next barber wire and cut my hand. Pterodactyls’ birds are watching at me like at some crazy man (if someone saw me there also should think something like that). Finally I’m on summit! Normally there is amazing view but because also there was a lot of clouds I saw only view. I thought to stay there for night but because of rain I started to walk down. And that I saw a trail! I walked with them down, passed by that ticket box and I saw that is completely empty! So I could climb there like a normal tourist!

Next day I couldn’t catch any cars so I decided to go by bus to Angres dos Rios. There I jumped into motor boat (for which I over paided, I could pay 14 reales but I paid 30!) and after more than hour on water we threw anchor on Ilha Grande. That island is a miracle – 106 beaches, bays with blue water, gold sand, two giant hills. Through 360 days there is sun. And when I came there I found 5 fucking days with rain! Clouds, thunders, and every type of rain. As Forrest said: “We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin’ rain, and big ol’ fat rain, rain that flew in sideways, and sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath. Shoot, it even rained at night.” Is raining or not I paid 30 reales so I want to see something.

I walked through 5 beaches, to reach some of them you need to swim or walk in ford. I didn’t care about that because all of time I was wet from rain. Of course I forgot about very prosaic thing like flow so on last beach I was caught for night. Next day I wanted mountains so I started near 100km trek through island. I’m hiking often  of mountains but not on tropical island and that completely different thing. creepers, bushes, slippery stones, bamboo, 30st C, humidity 70%, rain, my 18kg in backpack and something giant, black thing looks like animal which followed me by hour. To scare away that something black I clapped in hands (when I didn’t need to use it to traverse rivers or giant stones) and sang (if I didn’t swore).

Next nights on beaches, 2 hot-dogs and rolls on breakfast and I can face to storm on ocean. On my way back I jumped to lake looks like thing, took a bath and slid down to port, I jumping on boat and another time I’m standing on road, far away from rain, mountains, from black giant thing.