Golden Tulip Porto Bali Angra Dos Reis

... the generosity i feel here. i also am overwhelmed by all that i have and maybe that is why i came... cause i already knew that i have many blessings in my life, i have now lived without most of them for already a week and am acutely aware what life could have been if i just so happened to been born somewhere else... if my mom did things differently, if i did... and its just a big TANGIBLE reminder that i have no control over anything in my life except ...

... their small town. i stopped a old guy who looked like he might know english... who didn,t but instead knew panish and he pointed me outof their little touristy town to a woman'shouse to find good cheap food... and it was. she spoke no english but served me upjust what i wanted... though i rewally had no idea what i was getting myself into when i said "carne" i was just hoping that she was not going to bring out a pig... and she didn't. my best meal yet. now i am ...

... point at one end of Praia Rancho to two other pristine white sand beaches: Praia do Meio and Praia Caixa Dassou. Separating Meio from Caixa Dassou is a steep rainforest trail over rocks and tree roots. We went from The Beach to an Indiana Jones film in a matter of minutes. What a spectacular place. After crossing the long and flat white sand beach of Caixa Dassou, with the jungle rising to the right and the ocean crashing to the left, we disappeared into the ...

I was hoping for the best and prepared for the worst. The night bus from Belo Horizontes to the coast was ok though. No zombies like on US greyhound busses that cut off your head midway. It wasn´t a direct bus as I had thought and so passengers did board and alight at many stops all through the night. The seat next to me was empty until a few hours later I opened my eyes and found a nice-looking girl in a white pantsuit ...

To get to Paraty from Ilha Grande we took a 2 hr ferry to Ankor, followed by a 1hr 45 min public bus. The ferry was without fault (save for a completely self inflicted hangover) but the bus ride was interesting. There are apparently no fancy tourist buses for this route s my group boarded at the first stop with lots of locals. We had to take most of the bags onto the bus (no room underneath) but did at least all manage to get a seat ...

... Lopes Mendes that we had missed the day before. It was a lovely, if at times challenging walk that passed through a number of beautiful bays on the way. However the most notable thing about our walk over was the stray dog that adopted us. Yes adopted us. We named him Bratwurst (as he was a sausage dog) when it became obvious that he wasn`t going to leave us alone and we really wished we could keep him! He picked us up in Abraao and literally followed us for the ...

... and is very hot.<br><br>So I finally arrive to Ilha Grande and go straight to one of my already classical boat trips hoping it to be as good as the Boipeba one. And, again, it was a good idea and, again, Argentina is the ...

... journey South over the next 3-5 days, which is good as it lessens the chance of me getting lost as I try to bus it to Paraty and then on to Iguassu. It is also nice having shared meals and meeting new people. However, by the time I depart the annoyances of group travel will probably surface for me, already it can be frustrating waiting for people to arrive to go somewhere, the hesitation time when deciding what everyone should do and the **** banter that inevitably comes ...

... i was thinking rock pools and i think jim was probably thinking something even less crazy....however basically we were chucked into the deep end....literally. maybe we should of checked this stuff out, maybe we should of asked before we got on the boat....whos to say? but once we werte there and the boat owner had chucked some banana into the sea to get the fish going and thrown us some snorkling gear we didnte really have too much of an ...

... we got to Palmas, a calm beach with some camp sites. We left our stuff there, had something to eat and then continued towards Lopes Mendes. One more hour and we were there. Lopes Mendes is undoubtedly the most famous beach in Ilha Grande. The water is fantastically clear, the sand is amazingly white (it looks like snow, actually!) and it is a relatively long beach (2,5 km). It's really fantastic, even though it was not my favorite beach in the island.