ILHA GRANDE - Idyllic island in Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil

The fact that I really love Cabo Frio doesn't change that I also love travelling. So after few months staying in here, I decided to travel a bit.

So I went to Ilha Grande. The island which is still in Rio de Janeiro state. There are no cars, no roads, no mobile signal, no cash machines, and the only way to commute in there is by boat or hiking.

I went by blablacar to Angra dos Reis and from there I took a ferry to Ilha Grande. I arrived in the late afternoon so I stay in Vila do Abraão - the only civilization that you can find there, with some markets, shops and restaurants (and even few emergency cars).

After putting my tent up on the camping I went to explore village a bit. It looked nice, different but I wanted to completely run away from the civilization so the following day I went to another beach to camp there.

I wanted to get there hiking but as my backpack was pretty heavy with all the camping stuff, I decided to take a boat to another beach and go hiking from there.

It was supposed to be a 20 minutes walk but with all my stuff it took me almost an hour and I even had to use my hands to climb at some places, and all of that with flip-flops and bikini. Such a disaster...

But getting there, I realized why it was all worth it.

Transparent, warm water. Swings on the palm trees, only 4 camping, no electricity during the night (so no fridge on the camping), no cash machines, no shops, no supermarkets, only 3 beach bars which where so expensive that I decided to keep eating pasta with sardines from the can (coz tuna is too expensive in Brazil).

The other day I decided to go to Lopes Mendes beach. It's well-known as one of the most beautiful beaches there and it's also a surfers' beach.

I went hiking and even though I left only at 9 am, I met nobody on my way. First 10 minutes I was really enjoying my loneliness there in the middle of the jungle however suddenly I realized how dangerous it was because of all the animals I could meet there... even like snakes.

Fortunately I didn't meet any snakes but I did see some monkeys and Iguana lizards.

When I got there it was around 10.30 am and it was still before the hour when all the tourists from boat trips come there. And I was there almost alone. On the enormous beach in the middle of the jungle on the island where even boats don't get there because of huge waves.

It looked like on the beach from "Lost" serie. I felt something that I've never experienced before. You know, I've been to many beautiful places in my life before. But all of them where kind of... human places. Places that you could understand. Places that you could embrace with your human mind. Places that were breath-taking but not this way....

I had the feeling in my heart that I couldn't explain. That took my breath off and I felt like in a movie or a dream. I couldn't explain what I saw there. It all looked so unrealistic. So inhuman, so beautiful that it couldn't just belong to human. It was out of any limits, out of anything that you could ever imagine... It was something bigger - it seemed like something that shouldn't even exist.

I've never felt something like that before.

I wanted to surf there but there wasn't any surfboards rental on that day. One guy wanted to rent me a surfboard but the price was so high that I gave up.

I stayed there a whole day anyway. And it was just surreal.