So we were both jumping at the idea of taking out our clothes from our backpacks, filling them with fruits and granola and leaving for the most desolated areas of Ilha Grande. We hiked the trilha to the famous beach Lopez Mendez, taking a long way around the peninsula. The beach is supposedly one of the most beautiful in Brasil, but this title owned the powdery sand quite some plastic. We paused in Santo Antonio, a little bay with rocky islands which we found much more to our taste. Nicolas, a wild solo traveller and flautist we picked up on the trail, offered to share his tent with us: a massive thunderstorm was approaching. Cramped between two skinny Argentines, that was the wettest and toughest night so far!
Our drenched bodies woke up next morning with little strength to begin the ill-famed and non-recommended trail to Cachadaço. Instead, we followed our footsteps from the day before, under the rain all the way back to Abrão via Pousa and Palmas, where the members of MonteZion shared their lunch with us: Obrigado!
Back in Abrão, we were eager to get out into the wild again. We left our useless luggage with Fabiano at his lovely Ocean View hammock camping; Lucas had been staying there for months, we gave him the push to set off. We took all the shortcuts from the road to Dois Rios and then marched across the virgin jungle along the stone trail to the magical beach of Cachadaço. That night I swam in the sea under bright stars, with fireflies watching me from the forest all around and ardentía plankton tasting my skin. Agus and I played music until we collapsed into our hammocks, rocked by the sea…
The night got pretty cold for me, I woke up at dawn and ran up the great rock to reach the morning sunshine. I felt a great peace as I walked through the magical rock complex, I saluted the sun in the company of a beautiful turtle just off the rocks.
When the sun reached the tiny beach, I jumped into the crystal waters with my pyjamas to join Agus and Lucas for breakfast. But our dream of being on a lost beach was shattered by the invasion of a fleet of speed boats packed with tourists. We tried to enjoy our manga and granola as we watched selfie sticks, beer cans, fat boys and arm bands fly across the beach. They soon left, continuing their tour around the island, leaving trash and oil in the water…
Thinking we were finally alone, we went back to playing castaway. Agus and I washed our clothes in the stream and hung them by the rocks… Soon, a couple of armed guards from the Prefeitura with hunting dogs came to spoil the vibes. Called by the tour-boat owners, they rudely kicked us out of the beach with threats and shouts “Estan fazendo FAVELA!”, under the questionable excuse of “environmental protection”.
Our next beach was Parnaioca… we got there the next morning, the trail at night seemed endless so we camped in a yellow bamboo forest next to a Tarantula hole. We soon realized that our plan of making the tour of the island was falling though as the beach was too wonderful and the trail too long! We made lots of (more hippy and Argentine) friends in this tranquil corner of the world. Marcio and Giovanni Panni invited us for churrasco and cocktails in Camping do Silvio every day, Coco let us camp in his garden… in the evenings after midnight we would make music, rapping and singing around a small outlawed fire. Here is a list of things I loved the most of the 4 days in Parnaioca:
- Spending a chill time, based on freedom, spirituality, music, sharing, and letting be with my amazing cousin and all our new friends
- The river were we fished, made art, acrobatics and stone towers, meditated, washed clothes, picked out nits… and its waterfall that healed my lactic-acid-body
- Discovering an ancient Pirate village in the middle of the jungle were trees grow over massive old bottles of rum
- Swimming in massive schools of fish of many colours and sizes
- The great heart of our Carioca friends and especially of the sweet old pirate Silvio, who I will never forget for treating us with incredible kindness.
- Walking the illegal trail back from the day trip at Praia Aventurero, crossing massive rocks and the endless beaches of Praia do Leste do Sur at sunset and then under the moon as I played the flute…
We could have stayed forever, but society was calling some my companions back to our duties as ordinary workers as students. We spent an afternoon on the shores of Dois Rios, a very unusual village with a morbid past of slavery and penitentiary. We visited the ecomuseum, taking notes of all the healing remedies, the bio-construction techniques… we cooked lunch using a great trick: a bit of alcohol in an empty can as a cooker! The forest guards arrived later, but only to scare off a couple who were making a fire to cook their catch. I had the great idea to ask them nosy questions about the weird regulations and customs of the haunting village.
In Dois Rios, no one who isn’t a villager can stay there after 6 PM. It just left me wondering what the hell the bunch of ex cons and prison guards got up to all alone at night… The hotties wearing green uniforms insured me that the rules were purely there to protect the environment and went on to tell me the life story of the old man sitting on the hammock behind be who apparently is the last prisoner of Dois Rios penitentiary, at home arrest for murder until last year. I wondered what the hell would make you want to continue living in the same tiny village as your guards after your release, no matter how beautiful the beach is…
We said good-bye to our false friends and headed off to break the law again, by sleeping at Cachadaço, again. We wanted to enjoy our last day on the island to the max, so we decamped early, hid our stuff and behaved like daytrip tourists when the speed boats started coming in. We had a massive feast with all the food we had left, I was for once more concerned with something else than getting fat: drying bamboo over the fire to make a case for my flute. That bamboo stick didn’t make it to my next adventure, and I sacrificed a whole bamboo for it… it wasthe first time I had ever cut down a live tree! So the reason for this is that a couple of Crimeans who called themselves Ucrains but were outright Russians arrived from the infamous Santo Antonio trail. The girl got a free massage from me as she said she couldn’t breathe properly after falling down some rocks, they proceeded in not taking any of our advice. They put up camp when there were still boats in the bay and even started lighting a fire. We were playing music on the rock when a taxi boat came by to offer us a lift to town. At our refusal, they asked us if we were intending to camp, so we lied. 15 minutes later, the hot forest guards turned up. The sneaky Russians decamped at the speed of light, we found their tent later hidden in the woods along the trail. We got a massive bollocking for having abused their trust… this time the threat was to take our tents. We argued all the way, asking what kind of protection they were actually exercising with their pretty green uniforms and their speed boat…
We set off that night under the rain; hitting noisy and dirty civilization, we had a burger and a cocktail watching TV at the local kiosk, unaware that the reason why we only took 3 hours to hike back was because the hour had shifted back to autumn time. Darling Fabiano opened up for us and let us crash at Ocean View for our last evening on Ilha Grande.
TIPS FOR A GREAT but UNFORTUNATELY illegal “VOLTA DA ILHA”
- Dismantle camp, hide your backpack after sunrise, look like a tourist on the beach and tell other hippies to do so too
- Avoid any contact with any guards and don’t tell locals what you are up to
- Bring granola and rice, as well as alcohol and a tin or can! (Who needs a camping stove when you have 98° Isopropyl alcohol??)
- Take your shit in the forest AND COVER IT WITH STONES AND UNDERGROWTH AFTERWARDS. This way, maybe one-day people will stop hating on hippies trying to free camp.
- Needless to say, don’t leave trash behind; give and take: don’t abuse of generosity…
During our adventure, Agus and I expressed our creativity mainly through music, art and poetry. We got the chance to get to know each other in this raw condition of wild beings in contact with nature and facing (the guards and) our basic human needs.
A fire as sunset
a moment to reflect
or simply another encounter
in the blessed bay
clouds all around
and tropical heat
of fire, of love
of many badly protected fish
in the internal peace
which has lost time
exchanging it for tide.
There is nothing to do
and too much to discover
with no necessity, perception
ready open to the magic of an island
which has everything.
It tells the story of wild creatures
collecting diamonds in the depths
of the stream to then hide them deep inside
the cave, kept save by spiders with long and colourful legs,
marked by a stream the colour of rusty earth.
it tells the story of strong and tall natives,
integrated hunters, the truest of men
walking trails marked by stones.
It tells of prisoners of the most fatal crimes,
condemned by necessity of a society
ruled by gold, which in the cave terminated them.
It tells, on this shore, of pirates rebels like us
but who instead of camping, firing wood and calmly fishing;
plundered ships full of gold heading to Portugal;
the real burglars of the planet are always the commanders.
Because they steal our freedom.
And this is all that remains for us
on the faery beach, dreaming a shipwreck
to only believe in the law of nature,
in the love for the truth that descrives her,
in the respect for fellow beings,
to believe in a future of internal peace.
Each person should be able to enjoy such a pure place,
to perceive the uselesness of our existence.
Poema para una mujer libre
Mujer libre
alma niña
ojos cristalinos como el azul del mar
como quien nada tiene que ocultar.
Desnuda del miedo al que dirán
sonriéndole al mundo ella va
mujer bella, mujer integra
hambre de mundo visceral
sed de lazos de verdad.
Niña traviesa
rebelde y salvaje
tierna y duce
ríe fuerte como el mar
mira hondo y con verdad.
Mujer sabia
niña viva
cuantos mundos te esperan
para enseñarte
cuantas huellas dejaras
En los mundos del mundo.
Sencilla y pura como el agua
qua alimenta los torrentes
de quienes tienen la suerte de conocerte.
Nunca pierdas tus alas
amiga mía
pues tu vuelo deja brisas
de paz y vida.
Nunca pierdas tu risa y tu
Hambre de vida
pues es esa la receta de la vida.
Te quiero con el alma
y para siempre.
gracias por mostrarme tu sabiduría.
Mas encuentros de amor y verdad
nos esperan en esta vida.
Muchos sueños que despertar
los nuestros y los de aquellos
que conocerán el canto de un alma libre
y la sonrisa de la verdad.
A bailar la canción eterna de la vida
hasta que nuestros cuerpos se cansen
y nuestra luz se haga una con el sol
por siempre niñas, por siempre vivas.
(Agustina Walsh)
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