We woke up early this morning to ensure we made the most of the delicious breakfast at Windsor Leme. Imagine the hardest choice of your day being the decision on what to have in your freshly cooked omelette for breakky!
If there were awards for the best hotel breakfasts, this place should be in the running – fresh fruit, lots of yoghurts, a bowl of rich melted chocolate to drizzle on some mini pancakes, endless pastries, fresh bacon and eggs, mini cheese toasties and, believe it or not, chicken nuggets! Spoilt for choice – so naturally we just had a bit of everything.
Feeling satisfied with our full tums, we headed upstairs to pack our backpacks for our next adventure. Thank god for packing cubes. We checked out and got an Uber to the main bus station of Rio. Sometimes I wonder if using a mainstream taxi company is a bit of a cop out, but the truth is it’s so convenient, safe and cost effective it’s hard to miss out on this option. Even the locals seem to agree that Uber in Rio is a positive addition to the city. It cost us £4.34 for a 30 minute taxi trip to the bus station – not bad!
We pulled up outside Novo Rio Bus Terminal. It was very busy and bigger than we were expecting – but of course busses here replace most of the rail services we would be using at home, so it makes sense for it to be busy with locals and travellers alike. Manned with some police on parole, we didn’t feel unsafe. We bought our ticket for Ilha Grande via Conceição de Jacareí using the Costa Verde bus provider located on the right hand side of the station as you walk in. Not so easy to buy tickets, Google Translate is a good idea to have at the ready. Payed on card, no problemo. It’s great that this city is predominately cashless, we are grateful for this!
The journey to Conceição de Jacareí was surprisingly comfortable, the seats had a memory foam type feel – a little different from the smelly, sweaty school trip coaches we’ve all experienced back home. Aside from the passenger blasting trance music throughout, it wasn’t a bad journey.
We stepped off the coach to be greeted by some tour guides asking if we wanted to purchase private speed boat tickets to get to Ilha Grande, we were sucked by their persuasion and just 30 minutes later (and around £9 each) we arrived at the boat port of the most beautiful tropical island.
Think green, leafy, humid and vibrant – that’s Ilha Grande. A few restaurants with the chairs overlooking the sparkling seas, some workers restoring paintwork on wooden panelling. It didn’t feel very touristic, rather like a working village with lots of smiling faces and families playing in the sea.
A short 10 minute walk to our hotel, Pousada Naturale, and we were suspended in the trees with the sounds of crickets and tiny tweeting birds. A little different from the kind of tweeting we were used to at home. Stunning. Now time to chill and prepare for days of jungle exploration.
Alpaca Backpackers 