My last three days on the Island named after its beauty in the state of São Paulo have been a mix of hunger sadness and fear. Coming to Brazil in off-season is both a blessing and a curse. If you are a student looking to travel more and spend less like me, I can confirm that this is the place to be. The only trade-off though is being one of four foreign tourist on Ilhabela.
Not having done much research on the Island, my friend and I found ourselves in the less touristic part of town, right where the free ferry drops you off. If you are planning on visiting, I highly recommend staying in the Centro area instead. Our hostel Clandestino is located a two minute walk from the cobblestone streets that have live samba at night and as many artisanal shops as one could want.
I am writing this blog from Free Port Cafe, a ship themed bizarre yet beautiful place to get an espresso. This town is perfect for melancholic souls that want to contemplate the extremity of the wealth gap in Brazil, or simply watch fishermen fail to catch fish. If you like me have recently started your three month long distance relationship on an ambiguously disloyal note, I recommend getting yourself a bag of vanilla tobacco and 3-600ml Spaten for 50 Real deal.
On a more positive note, it’s whale season! Ilhabela is famous for its whale watching scene. Maybe the solo part of my trip will consist of a spiral into madness in the Moby Dick fashion and I will find a loyal whale companion.
You might be thinking, my first post is a rather bitter one. After months of looking for a creative output, I have landed on blogging with the main reason being the blog titles I would like to put out into the world. Inspiration has struck at a rather unfortunate time though. As Edward Munch said, “Art comes from joy and pain… But mostly from pain.”
My send-off song of the day is Besame Mucho – Joao Gilberto. Ciao ciao!
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