honey island - trains, and boats and planes

another day of crazy travelling! i should have mentioned that we were staying in one of the sketchiest hotels of all time in curitiba, at the suggestion of lonely planet. let me tell you about it.

called hotel itamaraty, it was located across from the train/bus station (this should have been our first hint). it looked as though it was built in the 70s, as the entire building was very dark, made mostly of dark wood. the hallways of the hotel are completely unlit - as lights are activated by motion detector lights. so, as soon as you walk out of the elevator into the hallway, it is pitch black. it is almost like being in a horror movie! we had to walk down the hallway, flailing our arms, in order to get the lights to turn on.

in the washroom, there was no soap, and there was only a thin sheet on the bed. the shower door did not close. the only saving grace of us, was that it was right across from the station, and it was easy for us to get up this morning to take the serre verde express.

the serre verde express is a scenic train from curitiba to morretes. it was SO COLD that we were wearing toques! can you imagine, two days ago we were wearing bikinis on a beach, and now we are wearing 10 million layers and toques. and it was raining! unfortunately, it was quite foggy so we were not able to see much of the scenery, however what we did see was quite nice.

after we got into morretes, we took a bus over to pontal de sul, where we boarded a ferry to ilha de mel. we are staying in a place called hostel zorro, which is a hostel right on the beach! unfortunately, it is freezing here too (something like 14C) so there is not much beaching that we can do here. lots of hiking will be done here tomorrow!

the great thing about this island is that there are absolutely no cars - it is also an ecological reserve, so you have to walk everywhere.

btw - i forgot to mention in a previous post that while we were in rio and were at the bossa nova concert, an old brazillian man was yelling at kavitha for drinking beer, because he thought she was under 18! bahahahahhhaa! :D