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Ilha Grande: Devil’s Paradise
One of the most beautiful regions on the Brasilian coast, ex-penal colony Ilha Grande is a perfect hideaway, tucked away between Rio and Sao Paulo
Words by Gabriel Silvestre
featured on JungleDrums issue 45 May 2007
“Two rivers flow into the sea, one on each extreme of the beach, as if they were embracing the small bay. The place is perfect; white sand and blue, limpid waters surrounded by a well preserved area of Atlantic Forest”. That was how a friend described Dois Rios beach to me. It was hard to believe that such a paradisiacal setting actually existed. But I had to take him at his word. A well-worn traveler of Rio’s coastline, his tips had led me to some fantastic destinations in the area before, but this trip looked like being a bit different. “As well as all the beauty, the place used to be inhabited by some heavyweight thugs, that’s why the island was nicknamed `the devil’s caldron`”, he revealed. Something wasn’t adding up.
I discovered that the “thugs” Gustavo was talking about were, in reality, prisoners who inhabited Dois Rios for almost a century. The so-called “Devil’s Caldron” was in fact their final destination; the Cândido Mendes Penal Colony. Constructed in 1903 to hold common criminals, the prison went through a series of renovations and served a varied array of functions before finally being deactivated and knocked down in 1994.
Some famous figures spent time behind the prison’s bars, such as Madame Satan, the infamous transvestite criminal who was a well-known figure in 1930s Rio (and whose life was immortalized on film in 2002), and writer Graciliano Ramos, who was arrested because of his association with Communism. The horrors Ramos experienced were so striking that his time in prison inspired a book, the classic “Memoirs of Prison”. During the military dictatorship of the `70s, common criminals began sharing cells with left-wing revolutionaries. Living so close to one another, both sides learnt guerilla tactics and organizational planning – ingredients that would result in the formation of the Red Command, one of the first and largest organized criminal factions in Brasil. In the recent past, Ilha Grande wasn’t usually associated with breathtaking landscapes. It was known as a penal colony.
Going even further back in time, to the 17th Century, Ilha Grande was invaded by its first wave of criminals; British, French and Dutch pirates, who used the island as a hideout from where they could attack crammed galleons leaving Brasil with shipments of gold and other precious items, heading for Portugal. Today, the island has been redeemed and is embracing a new wave of “foreigners”. Once again, they hail from Britain, France and Holland, as well as from many other countries, in search of treasure. Except that this time, the treasure’s natural; the island’s dazzling beaches and trails.
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