Border Crosser: Five Countries, Five Months, One Big Adventure: Va-va-va-cation

Okay so my bad, I'm in Cape Town now, but already wrote this and forgot to upload it. So if anyone still cares about my rantings and vacation in Brazil, here ya' go.

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As I write this, I am on a bus hurtling down the side of a mountain towards São Paulo. The ocean gives way to lush rainforests, scraggly looking cows on ranches, and eventually the periphery zones that I have been fortunate enough to spend some time in these past few weeks. And in a few hours I will be on a plane heading towards South Africa (what?!). Never have I ever been jumbled with so many nerves and feelings of excitement.

While I am extremely anxious to land down in Cape Town, it's hard to fully immerse myself in the experience when I am less than excited to go back to class. I could rant for hours about how disappointed I am in my professors expectations, grading scales, and overall demeanor but that wouldn't be particularly enjoyable to read. Long story short is that our 3 professors do not respect each other due to some ridiculous hierarchical scale they hold which is severely impacting our experience. We have received two grades back since us 32 students have been abroad and our journal grades were dismal at best. I'm talking students at top-tier universities getting 1/20 on assignments bad. A professor accidentally drop boxed his journal grades to all of us, with comments singing to the tune of "this subject is useless to study" and "these writings make no sense". When we brought up these concerns our opinions as students were undervalued, we were talked to like children, and were left to embark on "vacation" with immense feelings of resentment, frustration, and anger.

Despite these setbacks, I am incredibly thankful to have had the chance to vacation on Ilhabela with 11 of the coolest people I have ever met. Ilhabela, which quite literally translates to "beautiful island", is a tiny island off the coast of Brazil and is roughly 4 hour bus ride from the hustle and bustle of São Paulo. 92% of the island is a nature preserve and is extremely well protected (unlike the national parks right now in America apparently). We departed for the island at the crack of dawn Saturday morning and arrived at our beautiful hostel just in time to spend the day at the beach drinking coconut water and tossing around a frisbee.

I am happy to say that most of this vacation was spent doing just that and I would not have had it any other way. Although many of my friends on the program decided to make the trek up to Rio, I have become a boring homebody who wanted to do nothing more than explore an island and get to know some other people on my program a bit better. Monday we spent a good 4 hours looking for the trailhead for a 2 hour hike. As we traversed up through the rainforest we spent the day exploring natural pools, standing under waterfalls, and eating fresh, massive avocados. That night 6 of us girls spent the night drinking wine and talking about the most life-changing classes we have taken, sharing our favorite books, and trying to contain our South Africa excitement.

Tuesday we had the bright idea to rent bikes on the island and trek to Praia Da Pinto which is one of the many beaches on the island. We basically ended up biking 13km which was a literal pain in the ass, but really fun once we dived into the water of our totally empty beach. Spending the day swimming, relaxing, and taking photos was much needed and we ended the day with some of the best tasting coconut popsicles I have ever had in my life. The rest of vacation was pretty much the same- relaxing, cooking with my friends, and walking around the beautiful island. Side note, penguins from Patagonia occasionally get swept up by currents and brought to Ilhabela which explains the dead penguin we saw during our bike ride. A very weird thing to see on a tiny island in Brazil.

Anyways here are some pictures of Ilhabela!