About 150
miles south of Rio de Janeiro, Ilhabela (“ilha” = “island” and “bela” =
beautiful) is an island 10 miles long and 5 miles wide. It is a mountainous island with no road
around it. There is one modern community
called Ville that is a tourist destination.
The other four communities live a ‘traditional’ way of life (e.g. no
utilities). On the west side of the
island, the mainland is less than two miles away.
VEENHAM
approach Ville cruising north down the channel between the island and the
mainland.
Arriving
there, we found the town in the midst of preparations for what a huge Carnaval
weekend.
Boarding a
19-passenger van, we drove south along the shoreline, then turned inland and
started upward. Our first destination
was the waterfall powering the hydro-electric plant that provided Ville
with power prior to underwater cables being laid to bring power from the
mainland.
Watching the
amount of water coming down the falls, my impression was that using gerbils in
a wheel might have generated more power, but there may have been a more voluminous part of the
falls that we could not see. As for the falls themselves, they fell a bit short
of breathtaking.
We got back
in the van and climbed higher on a mostly dirt road to Taco Falls. We were told
that we would have 90 minutes there to explore that falls. Those who wanted to swim in the pools beneath them could do
so. Oh, and everyone should put on
plenty of bug repellent because of a type of mosquito whose bite would cause a
large welt.
a truly impressive dispenser - pumps affixed to a PVC pipe full of insect repellent
I had reset
my expectation level based on our first stop, but not enough. I do not mean this as disrespectfully as it
sounds. For the people of Ilhabela, TOCA
Falls and the park they are in truly are one of the special spots on their
island. I sometimes need to remind
myself to see things through the eyes of the locals, not mine.
Okay, having
now done a mia culpa to the locals, the falls were not impressive, but were
scenic.
Those
who went for a dip said the rocks were slippery and the water cold.
I
wandered up to the small restaurant where I found hummingbirds everywhere.
While I presume that there is no such thing
as a tame or domesticated hummingbird, these certainly had lost a lot of their
inhibition to being around people. One
of the park attendants fed some of them just be holding a feeder in her
outstretched hand.
We rolled
down the mountain and back to Ville. The
tour ended at the largest church on the island.
It had a personality that seemed to fit that of the island.
After saying
good-bye to our guide Guia, we walked around town a bit, then returned to
VEENDAM.
a fun collection of tiles on a
building in town
The captain
hoisted the anchor on schedule, turned the ship around and slowly steamed
north towards Rio.
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