Ilha Grande

When you get the boat across the water from Concepção de Jacarei to Ilha Grande it is like you are experiencing the idealised paradise of a Hollywood script. The prow of the speedboat chopping through turquoise surf, an iridescent sky, the joking Portuguese chatter of the boat's pilot and mate, the lush semi tropical island growing closer to reveal a detail of brightly painted shop fronts and cafes set above golden sands. Apologies if this rather exuberant intro sounds smug. I am only trying to tell it how it is.

 

View of the main port, Abraao

 



The jetty at Praia de Palmas, Ilha Grande

Pousada Aratinga where we stayed is a quiet oasis out the back of the main port Abraao. It is run by Rennie, a charming Australian expat with a fantastic eye for decor and gardening, and who has a particularly English passion for afternoon tea served at 4pm each day. Mountains of cake - Brazilians are obsessed with it - are also served at breakfast (Sal's love for Brazil unveils itself...) alongside tasty scrambled eggs, fruit salads and yoghurt. It really was a magnificent place to stay, and if you ever go to Ilha Grande (which you must) I would heartily recommend dropping your backpack there and enjoying some modest luxury. Rennie bought the place and is now a Brazilian resident, and her business - like the island - is booming. Apparently, if you fancy, you can buy a place for US$50,000 and become a resident of a Brazilian paradise too, providing you employ local folk and contribute to the economy. While we chatted about that it did sound very tempting, even with a few bureaucratic hurdles (once buying Aratinga, Rennie had to move back to Australia and wait for her residency for two years before returning to kick off the business on Ilha Grande).



Stunning Praia de Lopes Mendes, Ilha Grande

This week was intended, more than anything, to be a time to relax. And Ilha Grande delivered on that. I won't bore you with too much of the detail as I am sure you have all been on a beach holiday or two. The days were divided into lounging on the islands many beaches (stunning), hiking through the Jurassic Park like jungle (gorgeous, sweaty, steep), eating (grilled succulent fish) and drinking (sweet and salty Caprinhas, large beers in coolers served with tiny little glasses to drink it from*). You couldn't beat it for a start.

 

 

 

NOTE - As this is my first post I feel obliged to say that the way I approach these blogs means that I only really write a little about what we did up at the start. I just can't do the blow by blow breakdown of each days activities. I bore myself, let alone you. So instead - you lucky readers - I try to do a little bit of hackneyed journalism on the place we visit, which may or may not intersect exactly with what we have done, but will be related to it at least by geography. Got it? Okay. Please do not feel bad if you stop reading now as you have a visceral hatred for abuses against the fine art of reporting, or do not care for self important analysis - the bit above has all the key information that you need about what the place is like to visit, and that we are alive, unraveged by disease or criminality, and generally having a lovely time.

 

 

 

 A typical Brazilian bikini the 'Fio Dental'
(Portuguese for 'dental floss')

The weekend fell on a Brazilian holiday, which meant the visit of a huge amount of the wealthy middle class from Rio De Janeiro and the surrounds. The posh ones arrive on fancy cruiser boats with pumping stereos, and are endowed with an impressive degree of corpulence, flaunted through minimal swimware coverage for women and men alike. These growing bellies are a sign of Brazil as one of the emerging economies of the world, alongside the Rolexes, a sushi restaurant, and the upscale pousadas on the island - though there are also plenty of more modest folks who come over on the slow boat from the mainland to stay on campsites and ramshackle concrete guesthouses.

Music abounds, soulful guitar players weaving samba and rhumba tunes in the courtyards and beach front. Everyone is smiling, everyone is drinking, everyone is eating, everyone is shuttling off in taxi boats to the half dozen beaches you can reach from Abraao in 30 minutes. It inspires an enchanting hopeful, successful and inclusive image to Brazil's present and future. The people really are lovely, welcoming and infectious.

Yet this joviality is a recent phenomenon - at least as far as Ilha Grande is concerned. The island was off limits to tourists right up to 1994. Prior to this the island was home to an Alcatraz style maximum security prison for murderers and, sadly, the persecution and torture of political prisoners during the dictatorship of the 70s and 80s. In the new burgeoning economy, and in the idealised post dictator democracy, it was decided that the island would be better served as a tourist mecca than a criminal colony.

 



Remains of the Cândido Mendes high-security prison,
Dios Rios, Ilha Grande

However the simple demolition of the prison in '94 did not resolve the underlying incarceration problems in Rio state or the country as a whole. Brazil has a severe and growing issue with prisons, with or without democracy. Today half a million souls inhabit them across the country. There are, astonishingly, only 239 prison doctors between all inmates. Over half of all prisoners languish in jail pre-trial yet to be convicted of any crime, and can wait years for a court date which could mean their release and confirmation of their innocence. Each year the rate at which people are imprisoned increases. And like the United States, the UK and France non white prisoners are vastly over represented compared to their proportion of the population.

 

'God is Faithful' inscribed above the ruins of the
 prison cells

Heaped upon this over 70% cannot afford legal council, and the state cannot provide them with aid or a public defender. It is an epidemic which undermines the aspirations of Brazil to become a first world state, and makes the poor who are overwhelmingly impacted by the system cynical of the federal and state governments, justice system and police forces. Jose Eduardo Cardozo, the justice minister, has said that he would rather die than go to one of his own prisons, a staggering indictment. Dilma, the Brazilian president, once imprisoned and tortured herself in the dark days of authoritarianism, has done little to address the issues to date despite electoral promises two years ago.

The sad state of affairs came to a brutal display of violence at the end of August. Two prisoners were beheaded and two more were thrown to their deaths from the roof inside Cascaval City correctional facility in Parana state. The ordeal was filmed and broadcasted on television to a shocked nation which had preferred, on the whole, to ignore a crisis hidden behind concrete walls, iron bars, and the invisibility of those without privilege. The riots that culminated in these events were the product of poor conditions and lack of adequate guards on duty.

 

Track from Abraoo to Dios Rios, Ilha Grande

Yesterday we hiked across to Dios Rios which houses the ruins of the demolished prison - four hours there and back on a near abandoned dirt road (no cars are allowed on the island due to some impressively progressive environmental legislation) - and were met by a still inhabited yet spookily dilapidated town. It would make a fabulous setting for the next Resident Evil instalment - rusted lamps, broken roads and an overgrown park square were set out before the intact frontage of the whitewashed penitentiary. Within the prison the cell blocks and workhouses had been imploded and sat in heaps, but there was a museum on the site to gave a little detail on the history of the inmates and penitentiary life. It was one of hunger, disease and violence.

Top: Cândido Mendes high-security prison in
Dios Rios was imploded in 1994.
Bottom: The beach at Dios Ros

These issues then and now are a symptom of under funding for the vital institutions in developing economies. Hugely expanding populations demand ever greater resources from a government which struggles, despite rapidly expanding GDP, to collect and distribute adequate taxation from wealthy elites who can offshore the money or circumnavigate the tax inspectors through the best lawyers and accountants or securing of political favours. The inequality drives up crime rates, which in turn increases corruption and these factors conspire to boost the prison population. Against this tide prisons have to compete for scant incremental government investment against stretched hospitals and schools which are understandably attract greater public (and therefore electoral) sentiment. It is a cycle that existed in Brazil and much of the developing world in 1994, and one that continues to exist today.

A grim counterpoint to a glorious experience on Ilha Grande. I am inclined to agree with the justice minister. We certainly will be doing all we can to avoid prison while we are here...

 

 

*Dad - I recommend you adopt this policy. Get a tiny glass - nothing more than a teacup in capacity - and always pour your drink into that you drink. The first beer may now last you more than 3 minutes!