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Published: April 12th 2007
Florianopolis (3); On the Move Again.
Stella´s lovely house, my fourth home in as many weeks in Floripa. Tuesday 3rd April to Wednesday 18th April 2007.
I was feeling perhaps a sense of 'into the unknown´ when I loaded my sack into the boot of Face´s gleaming set of wheels, his newly rented white Fiat Panda and set off for the ten minute drive to my new home, the fourth since my arrival on the island, Stella´s rented colonial style house in Lagoa do Conceciao. She had searched for weeks upon her arrival in Floripa for a suitable place for her and Gabriella and had chosen well.
Set over three levels (the ground floor from where wafts of pot smoke will occasionally filter up to the verandha above is rented out to a guy named Junior), the all wooden structure has four bedrooms on the two remaining floors, two bathrooms, an extremely spacious and airy lounge complete with stone floors and duck egg blue tongue and grooved walls decorated with Stella´s own ocean inspired pieces of artwork and a huge first floor verandha that looks out onto the two hills seperating Lagoa do Conceciao from my previous home town of Barra Do Lagoa and which at night would appear illuminated solely by the power of the
Florianopolis (3); On the Move Again.
Receiving Jonas´s congratulations on winning the Barra Do Lagoa Beach Tennis Cup, 2007. moon and the stars and, occasionally, the blinding intruder light on the side of the large green house across the road.
I was greeted by Jessica, Stella´s smiling but alas non English speaking maid who took my bags before I returned to the waiting Face for the short 2km drive to the beach at Joachina where Jonas and I had cycled on our first day on the island.
Face was intruiging. At twenty two he had made the decision that he had had enough of whatever it was that was eating away at him, packed his surf board and set off to travel the world teaching snow boarding, surfing and para boarding en route. Now 38 he spends his summers working his successful lentil dahl stand at music festivals up and down the UK resting his head in either his van, boat or lock up garage and his winter´s wherever takes his fancy.
He seemed to have developed an inner peace, definitely as a result of his chosen life style and no doubt influenced by his choice of reading material. In desperation for reading matter I had borrowed his self proclaimed bible, the multi million selling bestseller
Florianopolis (3); On the Move Again.
What I´d left behind, Barra Do Lagoa. ´The Power of Now´ but had been forced to hand it back despite his protestations that I should keep it and give it time. After struggling to understand, amongst many other things the author´s interpretation of the word ´being´ and despite reading each of the first twenty pages at least five times I thought that this would be an excercise in futility. The inner peace he had found had resulted in a very quiet and extremely inoffensive Face, half an hour could and would easily pass without a word being exchanged between us but strangely I never felt uncomfortable with the situation and am quite sure neither did he.
I moved into Stella´s home on Tuesday. Face was staying on the island until his return to Europe on the Sunday so I resigned myself to a few quite literally ´quiet´ days and it was during these few days that Floripa suffered a consequence of the beginning of the end of the summer - rain. This gave us the perfect opportunity to explore the rest of the island, to the north various townships mixed with holiday Poussadas and hotels and to the west the island´s capital, Centro, seperated from the
Florianopolis (3); On the Move Again.
Gabriella, Jessica and Stella on my first meal, huge prawns in a delicious creamy garlic sauce on my first night in my new home. mainland by a narrow strip of water spanned by two adjacent bridges and a place as far removed from where I was now calling home as was humanly possible, a mini Sao Paulo, tower blocks, shopping malls and freeways. The guy at the airport had advised us well.
First thing on Saturday morning Stella received a phone call to say that the last of her motorbyke´s had been rented out which effectively meant that the day was hers and when I eventually surfaced I found that the island was again sitting beneath a band of precipitation that said it was here for the day. Other than spending the day in the car we decided that laying low at home was the only option. Gabriella had a gaggle of her neighbourhood friends around, seven of them in all ranging from three years to nine years old and as the rains fell my afternoon was spent in a creche like atmosphere doing jigsaws and generally acting as an indoor climbing frame.
The house is situated at the end of a series of dusty private tracks ten minutes walk from the spur road that connects the ocean at Joachina to the
Florianopolis (3); On the Move Again.
Simba, Stellas old and wise dog. I swear he speaks English too. rest of the island and twenty minutes from the nearest civillisation at the Lagoa. Before you reach the spur you have to pass an enclosed piece of lush green that is home to Santa Fe Social Football Club and at tea time, when the rain had ceased and I was in need of a rest from the mental and physical stresses that are jigsaws and little monkeys I wandered there alone to witness my own piece of South American Shell Swan.
The first thing that struck me, perhaps not surprisingly given my location, was the omni presence of gestures; hands held to heads at a mis placed pass, remonstrations to the referee with outstretched arms at yet another unjust decision and overjoyed hugs and celebrations when the ball hit the net. The game was finally poised at 1-1 in the closing minutes when a hopeful upfield punt from the home side resulted in the visitors short, squat left back being poll axed by Santa Fe´s massive negroid centre forward and a couple of defensive errors later and the ball was nestling in the back of the net. I´d noticed the little mans colleagues bullying and ordering him around throughout
Florianopolis (3); On the Move Again.
Can you ride Tandem ? Joachina Beach. as though he was a complete novice to the game, all criticism being accepted in a completely silent manner as though he was taking it all on board for his next game which seemed more than a little unfair as from the half an hour or so that I´d witnessed he hadn´t put a foot or a pass wrong. But he still appeared to be the runt of the team and I felt like scaling the fence surrounding the pitch and rushing to his defence when his team mates took it in turns, like a pack of hungry hygena´s circling a tiring and injured prey to theatrically lambast him for his carelessness in allowing a mountain of a man twice his size to knock him to the ground with such ease. Suddenly, with his team mates closing in and whilst still cradling his jaw still smarting from its collision with his opponents forearm in his hands he flipped and responded with a rattling volley of thankfully non understandable vitriol that instantly saw his tormentors retreating. I smiled as I realised that the little man needed no defending.
When I returned Stella was strapped to the kitchen sink preparing a
farewell dinner for Face and some hours later I dined on a beautiful oven roasted fillet of beef smothered in garlic and other herbs and served with salad, rice and Feijons, Brazil´s ubiquitous and delicious boiled beans, nothing unusual there other than the company gathered around the table. If someone had told me four weeks ago that I´d be sat around a table dining with my Brazillian girlfriend, four of the cutest pre junior school tots imaginable, a non English speaking maid and an affable English society drop out I´d have asked them what they had been drinking but here I was and feeling strangely comfortable.
On Sunday lunchtime Face called on his way to the airport to say good bye. As far as fellow countrymen or travellers were concerned I was now completely alone again although in reality as far from alone as could possibly be. I had worried slightly before moving in how things must have seemed to Gabriella, a relative stranger with whom communication was nigh on impossible coming into her home to deprive her of her mother´s undivided attention but I needn´t have worried, Stella´s way reassuring us both, at seperate times of course, that
Florianopolis (3); On the Move Again.
Not all Brazillian beach babes have bums like peaches. all was well. I´d been there nearly a week and nights on the town seemed very much a thing of the past. We were both more than happy, once Stella had returned home from work and reassured her daughter all was well to spend our evenings sitting chatting on the verandah until the early hours.
If there was one thing I was lacking at this stage it was something, anything to read. My failure to succumb to Face´s literal guide to a better way of living had given my appetite and my brain a reminder of what it was missing. Since Rio I had not managed to find anything anywhere in English other than the South American Lonely Planet I had picked up somewhere en route and reading the economical and basic texts about the places that I´d visited for the fiftieth time was beginning to get me down so after watching Manchester United storm to a 7-1 victory over Roma I met Stella at her workplace and we headed to the shopping centre in Centro. The large, modern Mall contained two large book stores but in both the English section consisted only of about 30 paper back titles
Florianopolis (3); On the Move Again.
The Saturday afternoon creche in full flow as Face struggles to find a corner piece. by authors such as Dickens, Shakespeare, Du Maurier and Carland. Rivetting. I was getting desperate and knew this would be my only opportunity for some time to get my hands on some English reading so took a gamble based purely on the strength of the ¨suspenseful and flat out hilarious¨ and ¨a perfect book for beach reading¨ endorsements on the sleeve of a novel called ´Sofie Metropolis´ by Tori Carrington, an author I had not surprisingly never heard of given it is actually the pen name of a Greek-American husband and wife team. Quite how two people, especially a husband and wife team write a novel together intrigued me but thankfully, so far, they have managed to convince me it is possible.
Travel insurance is, for obvious reasons, listed as an essential purchase prior to embarking on any trip overseas but more so a trip of this nature and I often wonder if people are actually aware of exactly what they are paying their premiums for. Past experiences tell me that somewhere hidden deep within the pages and pages of small print that accompany the actual insurance document there will be a sentence that excludes whatever it is you
Florianopolis (3); On the Move Again.
Face´s farewell dinner. Who´d have thought. are seeking to claim for and the hefty Scottish girl in Rio had further enforced this belief. Thankfully, other than the robbery in Airlie Beach which forced me to miss a visit to The Whitsunday Islands whilst waiting for the local plod to compile and forward his report, a report which despite several e mails never materialised, I had had no reason to retrieve mine from the bottom of my sack.
Five or six stubbed toes, a bruised forehead from the open topped bus encounter with the tree bough at Bondi, a near lacerated nose at the hands of the washing line in Phnom Penn, a couple of common colds, a calf strain, various aches and pains which I presume go hand in hand with my onset of years and my never ending ear problem which, over the last few weeks has seen me rendered horizontal at regular intervals whilst Stella or Jessica apply the magic drops have been the extent of my ailments. Long may it continue.
On Friday lunchtime I was home alone, Stella was at work and Jessica had gone to pick up Gabriella from the school bus when there was a knock at the
Florianopolis (3); On the Move Again.
Gabriella does homework on the Verandha with the beautiful view. door. This would be interesting I thought as I approached, I hadn´t prepared for or even imagined any situation where I would be the houses only occupant. I tentatively opened the door to reveal a toolbox carrying man in a blue uniform with the word Sky emblazoned across his left breast pocket who immediately rattled off a series of sentences in quick fire Portugese. I was half expecting it to be a neighbour asking to borrow a cup of sugar but this was something much more important, he´d come to install the satellite TV that Stella had told me was on order and I simply couldn´t afford to blow this opportunity to have a link with the English speaking outside world by simply shrugging my shoulders and telling him I didn´t understand Portugese. Somehow I managed to convey to him to hold tight and that Jessica would be back in five minutes and then got brave, mumbled the word ¨cafe¨ whilst lifting an imaginary cup to my lips and five minutes later was presenting him with a cup of coffee exactly as he took it. I felt quite pleased with myself.
Stella has been the epitomy of the perfect
Florianopolis (3); On the Move Again.
Capoireha on the streets as Stella prepares for a hand stand. host whose generosity and kindness has known no limits. At times she has almost appeared to be two different people, by day a busy, energetic, hard working mother and ambitious business woman who also possesses the rare ability to switch off and relax completely once the working day has finished. Her love for music matches my own although unfortunately there is no room for Maiden and Metallica on her playlists, more Cidade Negra and other Brazillian styles, the lyric´s of which she takes great pleasure in translating into English for me. One of her goal´s is to learn to surf, something she will throw herself into literally head first once she is finally settled and she also loves to run, accompanying me on several of my enforced painful attempts to keep the beer belly to a minimum along the now all but deserted sands at Joachina, something that in just two weeks from now will seem like a far away dream.
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non-member comment
You should have had a go at the capoirha lad, I would have showed em. I cant believe your sick with love ya big poof!