From Floripa the plan was to head north 2 hours to the town of Itajai. It's tourist card being one of the best beach super clubs in the world. Tanaglia and the famed ocean sunrise was going to be special. But sadly, Saturday night at Warung wasn't to be!
The recent news of floods in Brazil will have alerted you to the fact that the SE has been getting a ton of rain - so much so that our bus crawled along roads blocked by landslides and the heavy rain storms made going outside pretty impossible. So, instead of a glam night among Brazils glitaratzi at Warung, we ended up with a matress on the floor at an old nursery school (don't ask!) and headed on from grey Itajai early the next morning with the heavens still opening. If the sun had been shining, it would have been a different story but as it was, we headed on towards Ihla do Mel - the honey island - with the promise of a little piece of paradise.
Thankfully it was as sweet as its name suggests! On route we spent the night in the pretty colonial town of Paranagua. Tropical and on a mangrovey delta, Paranagua serves as port town for transporting cotton & oil among other things, as well as running boats to take tourists to Ihla do Mel. Being a Friday night, everything was shut down - this tends to be the way with weekends in Brazil - but a little shop on the back street rustled us up a couple of yummy sarnies fit for hungry travellers.
Next morning all we had to do was cross the street from the hostel and hop on the ferry to the island. Ihla do Mel is a beautiful hilly tropical island thats a rare jem of unspoilt tourist territory without even a single car. It has two main settlements north and south - but not quick enough to jump off at the first pier, we accidently ended up at the southern tip in Encantadas. Still, synchronosity worked to our favour and we ended up at Pedro's hostel where we set up our tent and stayed very happily put for the week.
Just a minutes walk from the beach, with a big grassy lawn dotted with palm trees, it's the perfect spot. We could walk from one end of the island to the other along the beaches in an hour or catch a little boat which we did to see the sunset on the ocean one evening. The northern beaches of Grande and Farol had perfect beach breaks, the nice little girl friendly waves rolling in made surfing fun. The island wasn't short of nice simple food and drink: we tucked into tropical fruit, learnt the secret to making the perfect Ciaparinha from Pedro; found a great bbq shack run by a salt of the earth family who were massive Rolling Stones fans, serving us up tasty chicken and fresh bread each night and I also discovered a new divine dish of acai (a national snack it's a divine combo of the Amazonian berries mixed with ice to make a sorbet & topped off with granola and banana).
We met a lovely crowd of people - including Pedro, Alvarez and Paula who ran the hostel Ecologico - aswell as other Argentinians and Brazilian vacationers. I also had an education in the world of Chinese Shiatsu - swapping Shiatsu sessions on the beach in return for a surfing lesson with Argentinean Shiatsu master Carlos. Carlos it has to be said was on another planet but some of the most interesting people are.
Ihla do Mel is one of those places where the days just dissapear. We could easily have stayed for longer, life there is just so beauitfully simple. If we should want to go back to the honey island, Pedro has offered us to look after his hostel while he goes off travelling for a while. We can most definately think of worse ideas!
