Traveling around Ilha Grande - The paradise island in Rio de Janeiro

As I have said on my first post here on steemit and SteepShot, I LOVE TRAVELING!
Last week I had the pleasure of going back to one of the places I love the most in Rio de Janeiro (one of haha).
This place is called Ilha Grande, what means Big Island, and is located in the green coast of the state, next to a city called Angra dos Reis.
Well, the island is known as the biggest island of Rio de Janeiro and the 5th biggest of Brazil. The vegetation is lush, formed by Atlantic forest and mangrove

The main village is Abraão Village with nearly 3.000 persons.
Economic activities revolve around fishing and, mainly, tourism.
The island currently offers many tourist alternatives: boat trips, beaches with calm waters for family diving, beaches destined to practice sports like surfing, ecological trails inside the forest to the center of the island, mountain-bike, besides some historic attractions.
I have no words to explain how beautiful and pure this place is, so, I'll show you guys a little bit of what I've seen and lived there. The photo below was taken at the Ponta do Aripeba beach.


The island is a relaxing and unexplored paradise in Brazil. Disembark on the island is disconnected from the outside world. No cars, no atm machines (take your money!) With no phones ringing. Just relax in the sun, sail, swim and stop to eat fresh seafood in one of the 30 small restaurants.
I had a great experience doing an amazing boat trip around the island, getting to know beaches where there was no persons,and diving with a lot of fishes under the blue sky, and clear water.

Say Hello, little fishes :)


After diving in the beautiful Lagoa Azul(blue lagoon), I went to know the first church of the island, on the beach called Freguesia de Santana.Back In the time of the empire, an "anthill" of slaves harvested sugar cane, beans, cassava, coffee besides producing sugar, flour and fish sent to Europe or marketed with other villages on the continent.
What remains of the grandeur and prosperity of this village is now reduced to the secular church of Sant'Ana.

The next day, I went to the 3rd most beautiful beach of the South America and 13rd of the planet,Lopes Mendes beach.
Keep following me to see more content about this trip! I HAVE MUCH MORE BEAUTIFUL PHOTOS TO SHARE WITH YOU GUYS, I'm looking forward to this :)
Credits of the photos: @philippzurawski