Tom and Noel's South America Cruise: Ilha Grande and Parati, Brazil 2/21 and 2/22

We arrived in Ilha Grande (big island in Portuguese) to clear skies and a beautiful sunrise. The island is a short distance from the mainland and accessable only by ferry or private boat. There are no vehicles on the island other that a few used by the police, fire and park service. There are many nice beaches and they were all packed with locals as this is the last day of Carnival. We just took the ship's tender into the town, walked around for about one hour then went back to the ship in time for lunch. We did look in a few shops to perhaps buy a tee shirt, but they were very pricey.

Refer to Tom's prior comment about string bikinis

Vultures on the beach at Ilha Grande

Riding back to ship on top deck of tender

In the early evening the ship had another special event for the full cruise passengers on the bow deck (the crew calls this the "steel beach" as it is where they can relax in the sun). The culinary staff was barbequeing (sp?) Brazilian type meats and there were also some other cold items displayed on a large mirror in front of a very tall ice sculpture of the Christ statue that is in Rio. Not long after I took a picture of the sculpture it came crashing down, scattering all the food and breaking a lot of dishes and the large mirror. The load noise sure got everyones attention!

Ice sculpture and food before

and after!

Food and Beverage manager with Brazilian style meat

On Wednesday morning we had a very long tender ride, about 50 minutes, to the town of Parati. The town is very historic, from around 1500. It was an important harbor for the Portuguese as it was where they shipped Brazilian gold back to Portugal. It is now a nice tourist spot and seems fairly prosperous. Our tour was a ride in a 4x4 Toyota Land Cruiser with bench seats in the back that held 8 people. We visited two waterfalls, one was a large rock that people were sliding down, some even doing it standing up like surfers. We then visited a cachaga distillery, a local liquor that is made from sugar cane, and a bromeliad nursery. After the tour we walked through the town to find a bank where we could use the ATM to get some Brazilian Reals. We then found a restaurant that had a menu with English and had a light lunch before heading back to the ship. One interesting thing about the town was that the tide came in while we were on tour and when we started back to the pier some of the streets were under about a foot of water!

One of our tour drivers sliding down the waterfall