Okay, let's be honest, we checked out quite a few pousadas and made a short list. This place was on our short list. It's not on the beach but we liked the reviews and the location seemed to be okay although it's hard to tell when you're almost 11,000 km away. What finally made the difference was that they had online booking and didn't use those third party online booking services. We could pay our deposit online rather than sending them our credit card information.
So, booking done, we were off to Ilha Grande. We arrived late in the evening after a long journey, which is another story, and the staff were waiting to greet us and show us to our room. We had called ahead to tell them we'd arriving around 9:00 pm. Our room was small but comfortable and clean. It was interesting that all the furniture except the bed and a bench, were attached to the wall and not touching the floor. That probably makes the rooms easy to clean and there was enough space for us to keep our luggage and daypacks off the floor.
We slept well, despite the late night serenade, and awoke to the sound of birds singing. When we opened our door to the morning sun we were treated to a view of a nice garden and some really interesting flowers and trees. The breakfast room was only a few steps away as was a meditation shelter and a couple of hammocks. We like birdwatching and spent some time trying to identify several of the local birds.
Breakfast was simple but tasty and filling enough to start our day of exploring.
Let me tell you about the nightly serenade. There are lots of dogs on the island, many don't have collars and even the ones with collars roam freely, or so it seems. We did see a few dogs on the end of a leash. Well, at night they sing to each other. Some nearby and some far away. Certainly we weren't the only visitors in the only pousada to hear the nightly singing. The dogs on the island are very friendly and move on if you look at them and say "no, I'm not going to share my lunch with you". The streets are clean and rarely do you see dog poop on the streets. Someone cleans it up pretty quickly.
All that being said, we really enjoyed our stay at the Pousada Cauca. The room was comfortable and clean, the gardens were pleasant, the staff were friendly and helpful, the wifi worked well and it's only about a three minute walk to the shopping and restaurant area. I'd definitely stay again.
