Ilha Grande 3

For my final Ilha Grande post I wanted to share our photos from the “most beautiful beach in the world”. I don’t remember why now, but for some reason I didn’t have my camera, so the only photos I have are from my old and broken phone.

It was quite the experience. The only way to get to the beach was to walk through 2 hours of island jungle. 2 hours of uphill island jungle (disclaimer: there may have been downhill as well but it didn’t feel like it). Plus let me remind you it was Brazilian summertime, a time when you would sweat just lying and relaxing on the beach. We were climbing Ilha Grande’s answer to Kilamanjaro, to say we were sweating like two whores in church is a vast understatement.

So yes ladies and gentlemen we were courageous and determined, but not only that, we were brave as well (well Ceca was). We were alone in the jungle (mini-jungle but jungle none-the-less) and after about 40 minutes we started hearing the most horrific roar. It wasn’t the roar of a lion or tiger it was more like the roar of a giant baboon. I say that, not because of the excessive David Attenborough documentaries I was fed by my father as a child, but because we were warned about the dangerous baboons in the jungle and perhaps didn’t take it as seriously as we ought to have. At the moment in time, alone in the middle of the jungle, we took it pretty seriously. As all great explorers do when put under pressure, I shat myself and didn’t want to move (let me reiterate it was really scary). Even the French man who arrived after a while with his girlfriend was too scared to move. Luckily my brave, Bosnian aunt took control and stormed forward to confront the baboon, who must have heard her coming and disappeared. Turns out even wild Brazilian jungle baboons are scared of Bosnians.

So we finally made it to the beach in one piece but about 5 litres of sweat lighter. It was a very pretty beach, although I would say even some of the other beaches on the island are better. Either way the photos don’t do it justice so you’ll just have to go check it out for yourselves 🙂

Disclaimer: the roars heard in the jungle were actually those of the brown howler monkey, an endangered species. Ilha Grande is home to the largest remaining populations of many endangered species and the brown howler monkey is one of them. I may have used the word baboon for dramatic effect and because if you listen to the brown howler monkey on YouTube, which I invite you to do, it sounds much more vicious and scary than your average monkey.