Ihla Grande

On we went from Rio to the tropical island of Ihla Grande. After our great start in Rio, weather especially, we were looking forward to more of the same on Ihla Grande. How wrong we were! It was dull on afternoon arrival there but no fears we thought, the sun will surely be out in the morning and we will check out all these fabulous beaches we ve heard about. That was the best weather we got on the island (bar the morning we were leaving of course when the sun finally came out). It proceeded to empty out of the heavens for the following two days.

Our first night there we quickly realised that our hostel was the party hostel of the island and that most of the people there were Irish and English. Needless to say we fell in a gang of Irish soon enough and it didnt take long before we got carried away altogether. We met a gang of 4 lads from Ennis who were at the end of a 4 month tour of Sth America and a gang of 9 girls from practically every corner of Ireland (7 nurses, a Garda and a Pharmacist). Of course, within 2 minutes of speaking to the Garda from Caherciveen she was talking about the only 2 Gardai from Carrigaline I know, one who is stationed with her in Bray and the other who coached her while he was in charge of the Ladies Football team in Templemore. No names will be put on the public domain but lets just say I heard a few stories about Jose Bale Mourinho which I will be mentioning to him in due course. Anyway, cut a long story short and we were in the horrors the following day which, combined to the bucketing rain, led to serious depression for the day. I mean there aint much to do on a tropical island in the p*ssing rain with an unmerciful hangover. It was a long day but the weather meant that the night in the hostel began early. Another late one ensued but at least we had finished off their stock of Rum the night before so we stuck to the Skol. We had decided that we would leave the following morning if the weather was poor again but we were too lazy and were also excited by the prospect of an all you can eat BBQ that night in the hostel. So we decided to stay and given that it was dry we said we would undertake the two hour hike to Lopes Mendes, apparantly voted worlds best beach in recent years (by who we werent told). We decided to bring the rain jackets just in case. We mustve been hiking steadily uphill through the rainforest a good half hour before we heard our first bit of thunder. An unmerciful thunder storm ensued over the course of the next hour and a half. We had gone too far to turn back and "sure it ll pass soon". It didnt.

We got to the last path before Lopes Mendes, about 20mins away from it when disaster struck and a couple of locals told us the path was flooded after a landslide and it was too dangerous to try it. Now on a scale of nought to gutted, how gutted were we? Very. Soaked to the skin after hiking for hours (and you know we dont do hiking, although we were well impressed with ourselves) and we didnt even get to see what we set out to. Instead, we got lunch on a very strange floating restaurant and waited an hour for a ferry back to our port. Now, what about that all you can eat BBQ I hear you say, well worth the extra night I can assure you. We filled up on a months stock of protein. We also have realised why the Irish and EU farmers are so anti Brazilian Beef, its unbelieveably good and would have then out of business in a flash. Here s hoping the Argentinian steaks are even nicer given their repuation but they ll have their work cut out. Anyway, of course the bloody sun was out as we left the next morning but what can ya do, cant win em all I suppose. Onto the long road to Iguazu Falls we went.