Tchau Rio, Hola Ilha Grande, Paraty y Argentina

Going backward in time again. Currently I am lying in bed at the Alaska Hostel in Bariloche, Argentina at 449pm in the afternoon. We arrived a few hours ago after an amazingly painless 22 hour Valentine bus ride from Cordoba. The food on the bus made airplane food sound delicious, but other than that we had big first class seats that reclined way way back (coche cama), a big bottle of wine (sleep aid), and some good and bad movies that either got cut off in the middle (scratched disks) or made it all the way through. If anyone wants to tell us the end to Charlie St. Cloud or The Neighbor, that would be fine, otherwise I am guessing we won’t lose sleep (haley is sleeping right now) over not knowing what happened. I think I have a good guess anyway. The one movie we both liked was ‘A Little Bit of Heaven’. Other than that…we were on the upper level of the bus with big windows all around and saw some amazing lightning last night and good scenery this morning.

straight to bariloche

good bus window view

Before the bus ride, we were in Cordoba which was mostly boring except when we took a bus ride out of town to a river in the hills with good swimming and this standing wave that I couldn’t get enough of… just need to figure out how to shrink myself to about 1 inch tall and I could ride this wave all day.

epic river barrel needs at least 1.5 inches of swell

pretty wife-o-me by the river

Before Cordoba was Ilha Grande and Paraty.

Just as we had gotten the use of the public buses and bikes in Rio down to a science, we learned that our luxury condo was in need of some renovations for which we may not want to be around. For no good reason, we decided to take this chance to hit the road rather than staying around and looking for a place to stay for carnaval. We got on a bus and boat to Ilha Grande (3 hours south of Rio) which turned out to be a very good idea. This place is like Disneyland for nature lovers – in a good way. All of the trails are in perfect condition and just as you are walking along and getting too hot, a perfect swimming hole or beach would materialize in front of you. There are no cars on the island apart from a garbage truck and a few other city things, everyone there seems to be happy- because they are in paradise – and everywhere you look is something beautiful.

1 of my favorite of the 102 beaches on Ilha grande

lopes mendez beach.. amazing sand and crystal clear warm water.. tiny bit of surf too

coming into town..errr... paradise by water taxi back from those beaches above

After Ilha Grande we had the less brilliant idea of trusting Lonely Planet and leaving paradise to explore a place called Paraty. We even said out loud as we were leaving, ‘we must be crazy to leave paradise before we have to’, and it turns out that we were crazy. Note to self: when in paradise, do not leave unless required to leave. Note to self 2: don’t trust Lonely Planet. After our initial Ilha Grande departure shock, we got a really nice place and even saw the coolest waterfall ever…where you can slide down a rock face like a water slide for 60 ft. The locals tear it apart and the gringos just enjoy the coolness of sliding down a waterfall.