Ilha Grande is a pristine paradise-like little island (despite its name that actually means "Big Island") in the south-east of Brazil. It was discovered by tourists not so long ago, so it is still a perfect destination for backpackers, although you can tell that it will develop more pretty soon. Unfortunately. Currently, there is not even one ATM machine on the island, and people who live there have to actually cross the bay to the nearest mainland town Angra to get some cash from the bank. Pretty incredible, no? Just like in that lobster-fishing village in Mexico, except Ilha Grande has a far bigger population than that little village…MONSOON AND LIVING IN THE BLACK AND WHITETanya points out that the landscapes that we have seen so far in Brazil seem very much like she imagines China to be. The resemblance is magnified when it starts pouring an hour after our arrival on the island and all the streets immediately flood and fill with muddy knee-deep puddles. Ilha Grande, supposedly amazingly colorful in the sunlight, is completely black and white. It's not that everything is pale. No, the scenery is quite dramatic. The colors are just non-existent. It reminds me of this moment when the desktop image switches from colored to black-and-white when you power down your computer…
…And the monsoon continues for our next four days here with intermittent – no, not sunshine, God forbid – absence of heavy downpour that time after time manages to fool us into believing that maybe this is the start of normal weather. But no such luck. After a short period of drizzle, the monsoon continues.
It is interesting to observe how our perceptions and expectations change over time. Drizzle is now “good weather” that makes us mobilize immediately and make a mass exodus out of the pousada’s balcony (our regular hang-out spot during the rain) into town. There is no internet anywhere on the island. We want to leave early and go to Rio instead, because clearly it is better to be in a city in this weather, but we learn that it is absolutely impossible: due to mud slides the roads are closed and Rio is also suffering immensely from the worst rain storm in the past 50 years. Lucky us.
We make the best out of our misfortune though and don’t disperse into our respective rooms in silent despair, but instead buy a ton of beer and take out delicious food to make our evening conversations last as long as humanly possible. It is a total success! Sometimes we put on our rain ponchos and run to a close-by restaurant for a meal. Despite the downpour, we also manage to have two day-trips – “Boat ride from hell” and “March of doom” (©Tom).
BOAT RIDE FROM HELLOne morning the weather is great (meaning it’s slightly drizzling) and we decide to venture out for a 4-hour boat ride around the island. What a mistake! Half an hour into the trip, the drizzle becomes a straight downpour. The boat is absolutely not prepared for such quantities of water from above, and the awning starts leaking, very quickly letting the outside downpour in. It is freezing so much that I don’t even feel my fingers and toes. Some brave people jump off the boat into the water to swim, but I cannot even imagine how it is possible. Instead, I ask the captain if I can hide in the only dry spot on the boat – a little “room” behind the steering wheel. Of course, he lets me. Everybody on the boat is obviously jealous of my newly found water-proof retreat, and gradually the tiny space gets filled with all the ten people we have on the boat. Well, not true. Marcela and Tom remain on the deck all the time, in their ponchos, pleasantly conversing and, surprisingly, not shivering. As if the rain doesn’t affect them at all. I wish I could give in to the weather like this. They actually genuinely enjoyed the ride. I didn’t, but on the other hand I admit that this is something that will be impossible to forget, and not just another beautiful boat trip in the tropical surroundings:).
On the boat we met an Australian couple that we blame the horrible weather on. Consider the facts: they started their trip in Chile, and on their first night there the Santiago earthquake happened and they were literally thrown out of the bed. They couldn’t contact their families for the next 16 hours, and couldn’t fly out of Chile, because the airport was immediately closed. Instead, they wanted to go to Peru on a bus, but since the flood shut down Machu Pichu for a while there was no point in going there. So they went to Bolivia and spend 3 calm weeks there swimming with piranhas in the Amazon. As soon as they got to Ilha Grande the downpour started, and it finished immediately after they left. Coincidence? I think not! Despite being a bad weather omen though, they are very nice people, and we enjoyed their company later on during dinner at our place.
MARCH OF DOOMOn our last day on Ilha Grande, the bad weather couple left to Rio, and suddenly the sun came out. We lost no time and set out on an expedition to the other side. The road cut through the narrowest part of the island in the picturesque rain forest (maybe not rain, but some other kind of densely treed forest). We walked at a comfortable pace for 3 hours and stopped only when we reached an amazing pristine beach on the other side. We passed another couple of hours enjoying the weather, the water and the quicksand of the nearby river delta, taking in every moment of this unexpected gift of sunshine. Unfortunately, eventually we had to go back.
We wanted to make it home before dark (which is around 6.30PM). Before leaving this little almost uninhabited part of the island though, we had lunch literally at somebody’s house, with their children playing in the living room, while we were eating on the deck. The town has only one cantina, and this family runs a little business of providing tourists who venture to the other side with a delicious meal (not very cheap by the way).
Of course, while we were enjoying the food and beer, the sky summoned clouds and squeezed out some serious tropical storm. Luckily, it was over right when we finished eating, so our walk back promised to be as nice as the morning one. Unfortunately, not for all of us though… Ta-ta-ta-tam… Tom hurt his legs and was limping around painfully. Marcela tried to talk the local police into driving him back to our side of the island, but no such luck – the only means of public transport here was your own two feet. So we set out on our walk again, but this time it was much slower. Almost immediately, we somehow separated in 3 pairs: Melanie and Marcela in the front; Dima and I followed them at a distance that was increasing by the minute due to Melanie’s inherit (?) desire of running ahead of any group; Tanya and Tom concluded our procession, one of them naturally slow-paced, the other injured.
The 6PM Ave Maria announcing the beginning of sunset caught us nowhere near our destination. It was a little worrisome, because all of a sudden Dima remembered that Marcela had told Melanie that in the dark some animals could potentially emerge from the forest, so I was nervously interrogating him whether the said animals might be leopards or hyenas or, perhaps, cheetahs. He did not know. Of course, when we finally reunited at the finish, it turned out that Dima with his ADD never paid attention to the end of their conversation: apparently, the “animals” Marcela was referring to were, in fact, insects of various kinds.
We also started to worry about Tanya and Tom. We tried to shout their name in hope of getting some close-by response from them, but none followed. We turned back to see if we could find them, but quickly realized that it was a stupid move, because it was very difficult to walk in the dark: without any flashlight, the road presented a constant danger of ankle breaking. Oh, and did I mention that it started raining all over again? We stayed put in one spot and waited for about 30 minutes more (I was entertaining Dima with the concepts and theories from Elizabeth Gilbert’s book on marriage, appropriately titled “Committed”), and then we started to really worry about them. This is when we devised a plan to go back home as fast as we could and get a flashlight and go back to fetch them. Maybe Tom couldn’t walk any longer and Tanya didn’t want to leave him alone (obviously). Maybe they were attacked by hyenas. Maybe they fell off the cliff… We reached the end of the road fairly quickly in our rescue rush, and knocked on somebody’s door to get a flashlight. But even though surprisingly the understanding had been reached through the mix of English, Spanish and Portuguese, the guy didn’t have any flashlight that he could lend us, but instead advised us to go to a nearby police station and ask for help there. It was a great idea. On our way to the station we reunited with “the first team to arrive”, and Marcela went to talk to the police, from where she was bounced to the fire department, and, naturally, as they already started to assemble a rescue mission, our dear friends emerged from the woods. Very slowly, but very surely. Apparently, on top of his leg injury Tom also got severely dehydrated and because of the absence of enough bottled water and his paranoia with any foreign country’s local spring water, he almost fainted on the way. But they made it and this is what counts. Upon rehydrating Tom back to semi-life, we went to dinner, leaving him behind at the pousada to regain his strength. In a couple of hours he was as good as new. The happy end.
TOOTH FAIRYIn addition to a communal weather problem I also had my own personal misery to deal with. My front tooth crown started shaking pretty visibly on the very first day of our stay on the island. I was not surprised a bit – my luck, as usual. Of course, I was very careful not to bite with it, but I was still afraid that it would fall out one day or I would swallow it at night. But fortunately, it stayed more or less put until we returned to Rio (getting a little ahead, I want to mention that my fears were very much valid, because it took only one effortless little pull for the doctor to take it out without any tools…).
I guess, I should explain why I have crowns on my both front teeth.
On March 5, 1982, when I was 8 years old, my teacher sent me to bring flowers to another female teacher in honor of the International Women’s Day. The other teacher’s classroom was located on the second floor, and on my way back, on the staircase, some 15-year old guy ran past me hurrying to his lesson and by accident swept my light-weight body into a rapid flight down the steps. I fell face down at the end, but it didn’t hurt a bit, so I stood up, shook the dirt collected on my way down off my white apron (part of the Soviet school holiday uniform; on regular days we used to wear black aprons over our uniform dresses) and went back to my classroom. I was very much confused when as soon as I entered, my teacher’s face turned completely white and she grabbed me into her arms and ran to the medical office. On the way there I managed to take a quick look in the hall mirror and realized that my whole face is covered with blood that is dripping on my white apron. I have no idea how I didn’t feel anything, but it truly didn’t hurt at all. Anyway, what happened is both of my front teeth were severely chipped, creating a perfect pizza pie hole between them. Of course, I had just gotten my permanent teeth several months prior to the accident. My father was furious, and in addition to all the reprimands that the poor boy received in the principal’s office, made him swear that he would marry me if nobody wanted to take me on as a wife on the account of my newly created look. The dentists informed us that the problem could be fixed only when I turn 17 because the other teeth were still growing until then. It doesn’t make sense now, but this is how it was in the Soviet Union, I guess, and despite all the connections that my mom tried to pull, in the end we had to obey. I remember endless evenings when my mother was teaching me “the Mona Lisa smile”. I mastered it. Also, my laugh back then was completely silent, and that usually cracked up all my friends. Interestingly enough, after my teeth got fixed, my laugh continues to crack up (and sometimes annoy) people around because it is now too loud.
Honestly, I didn’t suffer much from having my teeth chipped. Somehow I could pull off that look. At least, nobody seemed to be shocked at the sight of me. When I turned 17, my almost missing teeth were finally turned into crowns. It was a complete torture to re-learn to talk with this new barrier to my tongue. I remember the English “th” being the toughest sound to master again. But I managed, of course. But the story doesn’t end here. When the dentist put the crowns in, for some reason he insisted on preserving as much of the original teeth as possible, so he decided to create crown posts out of the tooth bone itself, kind of shaving it off from all sides. But one tooth gave in and demanded the metal post instead, but unfortunately he could still do this “natural post” for the other. And this is precisely what caused all the subsequent fun.
In the following year, I got a temporary job through my University. It was a week of interpreting at a conference held by the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development in Saint-Petersburg. They posted an ad for English-Russian interpreters at our school, so several students got the job. It was pretty exciting to be part of this serious assignment, and we all enjoyed it tremendously, proud of our first real translating job. The week was coming to an end, and two finale events were scheduled to celebrate the success of the operation: on the second to last day there was to be a cocktail hour where everybody was supposed to mingle and drink, of course, and then on the last night – dinner and a dance party at the trendy Commodor ship-club docked on one of the embankments.
My personal situation back then was a bit complicated. I was living with my boyfriend from my class, but it was a secret from the rest of the group. I fail to remember why it was so important to keep it confidential, but I am sure we must have had our reasons. There were two other guys in my class who kind of liked me, and I guess to make me more pleasant to talk to or something, they did a pretty stupid thing during this cocktail hour – added vodka to my champagne while I wasn’t looking. I was wasted beyond any belief! They didn’t expect such a severe outcome and felt very bad, but the damage was already done. One of them did help me to get home, but it was my parent’s apartment, because even in my drunken haze I still remembered to keep my relationship a secret. For a moment, I debated whether it was reasonable to show my wasted face before my parents, but quickly decided against it, and braved the subway to my boyfriend’s place. What a terrible mistake! I was so drunk and tired that the usually 30-minute trip took me 2.5 hours. I just couldn’t catch my subway stop. I kept falling asleep on the train waking up only at the two last stops of the line. I still remember how I tried to talk myself into not missing the stop and keep my eyes open for it, but somehow I just couldn’t do it. And so I kept going: Primorskaya – Rybatskoye – Primorskaya – Rybatskoye – Primorskaya – Rybatskoye. A true nightmare. Ah, also when I was waiting for the train on the station, I fell asleep as well and was tossed back to reality by a policeman’s hand shaking my shoulder. He looked very confused by my looks: on one hand I was very well dressed and coiffed, very “presentable”, but on the other hand it was clear that I was wasted out of my mind. Finally, he just asked if I was ok, and when I nodded yes, he went back to his booth without charging me with anything, thank God. Anyway, after this horrible subway ride I finally got home. I was so tired that I literally couldn’t keep my eyes open, and of course, being clumsy as I am, bumped into some open wardrobe door and knocked this “natural post” tooth out. I remember thinking, “Shit, not this too”, but I didn’t have the energy to deal with it at that particular moment, so I put the tooth on the side table beside my bed and immediately fell asleep.
I was still drunk when I woke up the next morning. I did not remember the tooth accident, so you can imagine my shock when I dragged my feet to the mirror to assess how much make-up was needed to mask my poor condition and suddenly saw that I am TOOTHLESS. And that is for the last, very important, day of the conference, plus all the parties that were to follow! I have always been pretty resourceful though and I usually don’t dwell too much on my miseries, so I quickly found a solution and… crazy-glued my tooth back to its root. Looking back, I cannot believe that I didn’t just call in sick and go straight to the dentist to fix it, but for some reason it seemed absolutely unreasonable to skip work and, most importantly I’m sure, the parties. The crazy-glue didn’t work very well, because my saliva kept dissolving it, I guess, so every 15-20 minutes I had to excuse myself to go to the bathroom and re-apply my magic fix. At lunch, my tooth fell in the soup, but luckily nobody noticed. I am still amazed at myself for braving the entire day toothless and drunk, managing to interpret the negotiations and enjoy the trendy party afterwards. I am fairly certain that I am not capable to do anything like this anymore… Youth is wonderfully foolish this way.
The program was truly formidable, as it presented the organ music from the 16th century up to today, and it was really interesting and educational to witness the progression of the styles.
Although this town is generally known for its rich historical and cultural value, to me the main attraction here is the nature. Mountains and forest again! Cannot get better than that. The temperature is much lower than in Rio (thank God!) and lingers in the upper 70s during the day dropping to about 65 at night.
