Jardim Do Éden on Ilha Algodoal - promises of living amongst wildlife such as monkey, toucans and everything else you can imagine within the confines of an ecological lodge with English speaking staff. From their leaflet it sounds like paradise, right? However the reality is slightly different… the only wildlife I encountered were the mosquitoes. For those of you who don't know, I seem to be a mossie magnet, and when I arrived to Ilha Algodoal it was paradise for them. No amount of various repellents and mosquito nets could keep these relentless buggers at bay and prevent them from having a feast on me – head to toe, but with particular attention being paid to my face!

Mosquitoes aside Algodoal is a beautiful island, and due to the fact that it is out of the way and a bit hard to reach there were quite literally no other tourists there. The part of the island in which Jardim Do Éden is located is particularly desolate and peaceful, just one solitary set of footprints grace the sand at Praia Da Princesa. Along the beach there are bars and restaurants – none of which were open, the only company I found were dead fish and jellyfish washed up on the shore. Maybe at weekends/during holidays this place is full of people, but right now there is nobody. On the other side of the island, near to the "port" is the town centre where there is more activity and people, but still it is only the locals who live/work here. Needless to say I was of much interest to anyone who saw me! Nobody here speaks English, not even the staff at Jardim Do Éden (despite marketing materials stating otherwise)… so I am having to use my fantastic Portuguese skills, which to be honest are much improving, but still it is not easy!

The journey to get to Algodoal started in the city of Belém. I took a local bus from my hostel to the terminal, and it seems like I paid twice the price of the locals, which is the first time this has happened to me with Brazilian public transport. I managed to find the company who travels to the town of Marudá, and proceeded to take the three hour bus to reach the port from which I was to take the boat to the island. Four hours later I still had not seen Marudá from my window, but admittedly I had dozed off a few times :s I asked a few people around me whether we had got to Marudá yet and I was assured that we hadn’t reached it yet. After another half an hour I started to get suspicious and thought they had just been telling me what I wanted to hear, so I asked the driver just as I saw the sign of the town. I asked him to drop me by the port rather than the bus terminal and within five minutes I was off the bus and running towards a small boat that was just being untied – good timing.

On the boat I spoke to the driver and asked whether he could drop me on the side of the island with Jardim Do Éden, rather than the town but he told me this was not possible. He would however walk with me over the island to show me the way. Another thing to mention is that due to the severe lack of tourists, if you want to get the tourist boat from Marudá to Algodoal, but there are not at least five of you then you need to pay for all seats. Fortunately this was not a tourist boat, but one with local shop owners importing goods from the mainland, so I did not have this problem. Once we landed on the island I walked with the boat driver through the town, just as the sun was going down. All of the “roads” on the island are sand and the only transport that they have here are carts, either drawn by horses or men. The sand is very soft and tough to walk on, particularly in the dark and whilst trying to have a conversation in Portuguese!

Eventually we reached a small river that runs into the island. To cross this you need to go in a canoe as it is too deep to wade and too long to walk around. If I had not been with the boat driver at this point I think I would’ve been lost! A short walk later and we arrived at a house where he called a woman down. I was then passed onto her and her two daughters and said goodbye to the boat driver. It turned out this woman ran Jardim Do Éden, but as there were no tourists about she was not actually there. We walked along the beach until we reached it. After a little bit of chat and a whole lot of bargaining in Portuguese I settled down for the night as I was knackered – it must’ve been about 7pm.

The journey back was less eventful, although get (yet another) marriage proposal… I should really start counting these. Brazilian men of all ages, shapes and sizes are not shy in coming forward, and sometimes it can be quite scary even when they mean well! After asking around a little near the port I found a boat that was going back over to Marudá and would arrive there before the final bus of the day left at 3pm. I got over to Marudá at 2.30pm and the bus was there in the port waiting. There was nobody else on it, and when I got on we left. I don’t know whether somebody called the driver to say there was a tourist, or if this just happened by magic. A few minutes later we were outside some restaurants in town beeping the horn and the bus filled up with locals. The bus conductor looked to me like a scary prostitute, with killer heels, far too tight long denim shorts, bright red talons and hair, and a backless top. She also had incredibly hairy legs, but she charged me the same price as the locals, so she wasn’t all that bad. The bus didn’t seem to have any suspension at all, so it made quite an uncomfortable ride, but thankfully we were back in Belém within 2.5 hours as we had a lot less stopping at the roadside than my outward journey.

Whilst on the island I spent a couple of days walking around the island and exploring the beaches and the interior through the sand dunes. It is really beautiful and I had a massive sense of being alone. The only thing that really tarnished this was the never ending itching of the mosquito bites, and the difficulty of finding somewhere to get food from - although sometimes it’s nice to escape the convenience that I am used to both at home and in most places I stay. I think this island would be a great place to come with a friend, or a loved one, and a mobile mosquito net!