On Ilha Grande, the Itaguaçú Ranch, with the beach that lends its name, traslated from Tupi (indiam language) means "Big Stone" was populated  by the time of the discovery of Brasil.

In diggings conducted by archeologists, we found in the deepest sedimentary levels, signs of a time eartier than the discovery in at least 500 years. Signs of fire (coal and burned red sand). Pieces of burned bones (hunt prepared on fire) fragment of "aparas" stones that were splitted to make axes and arrow points.

There are stones with marks that indicate that utensils were polished on them.
Nowadays the ranch is a Private Ecological Reserve, since 1975 the residence of the owners that dedicate themselves to natural agriculture, environment preservation and tourism.

The integration with nature is so, that some of its inhabitants walk free on the ranch's ground not bothering with humans, lizards, some of them quite big, even walk in trough the kitchen door looking for food. They like to stick aroung the kitchen's dump, where all the waiste goes.

As night comes we have to throw the trash out, for the urchins want to get in the trash can.

In the morning we can "read the night news" by marks left on the sand during the night. They are sea otter families that went fishing and now play happily with the otter babies on the beach.

Itaguaçú beach is a little unknown in the area and it's unique. Its geography position is hidden from the visitor until the very last instant of the boat ride, it appears suddenly showing all its beauty facinating everybody.

Vain, it's always changing its looks, sometimes with smooth sand, other times with dunes and cliffs cutting the beach. Sometimes there's a lake in its middle.

The "humor" always changes too, sometimes calm and pacific, other times furious and violent... but always beautiful.

In the begining of the world, its geological formation must have been troubled and big was the quantaty of enormous masses of lava that rolled down the cliffs,  leaving the small bay filled with big losen stones in the ocean.

The beach spread itself between them and formed realy nice spots.

Not very far is the natural pool formed by the sea.
From our window, around 500 meters there is a shipwrecked. It had a wooden hull, 2 sails and 2 wheels on the side moved by vapor. It carried weapons and suffered a fire on board exploding as soon as the crew reached land.

When is the best time to visit Ilha Grande?

January and February are the summer months there are more tourists. But if you prefer peace with nature, we suggest you pick another time. The weather is excellent all year round.

July and August usually presents winter weather but even then the weather can be nice. Always check out the weather before coming.

It used to rain a lot at that time, and slowly the rainy, season changed, and today it rains a lot less than in those days.

The water are lower, but to compensate that, the mosquitos practically disapeared, becoming rare.

Here, in Itaguaçú, with nice weather, no rain or strong winds, we are use to sleeping with our windows open since mosquitos only show up in two or three occasions.

The windows are kept open for months, only closing them one day or another when there's wind and storm.