Bra-ziiiil, na na na na na na na naaaaaaa!!

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So, we have finally made it, to the land of caipirinhas, where the beaches are hot and the men and women even hotter (yes, I admit it)

We arrived yesterday after our spectacular days in Iguazu and the falls. We did a 6km hike the next day and which ended at a waterfall where screaming American teenagers made us do a quick about-face, but where we enjoyed 'nature'.

After much consulting of our Lonely Planet and emails to my ex-student in Sao Paulo, we decided to head to Florianopolis in Brazil for a bit of beach life for a few days. This meant a 12 hour or so bus from Iguazu.

First we had to get a local bus from Iguazu to the border. The bus waited for us while we went through the migration process of leaving Argentina (a matter of minutes) and then ferried us a little further down the road to Brazil immigration. There we were greeted by a massive immigration line that almost snaked around the building and doubled back on itself a few times, it looked like hundreds of people waiting in the heat looking pissed off. There was a bit of confusion as to where we needed to be, but in the end, the inevitability was of course, join the queue. We we accompanied by a young Spanish couple and an older American couple, both of whom refused to believe they needed to join THAT queue. The Americans we all like 'We´re Americans, we paid 200 goddamn dollars to come and do a day trip to the Brazilian side of the falls....we´re not gonna stand for this crap, there must be a United States of America line or something...'or words to that effect. The Spanish couple seemed to think the same thing. Meanwhile John and I waited in the queue and were entertained by the others running around in disbelief and the Americans giving up after 20 minutes because they were pissed off and thought it would take 3 hours to get through. We were done in an hour which I thought was alright and on a bus into Foz Iguazu in Brazil within another 15 minutes, which is when I started singing the Braaaaziiiiil song, and haven´t stopped yet.

From the local bus terminal it was then a taxi ride to our long distance bus terminal. The sight of the queue at immigration had made us scared that we would be pushed for time but we made it there easily and when I noticed that all the clocks were an hour behind ours I realised the time difference between Argentina and Brazil which meant another hour at our disposal. We went into a cafe where we were totally hit by not being able to understand the menu and the difficulty of ordering food and even understanding numbers! We managed to navigate a meal for ourselves and went out to the waiting area to spend some time people watching before our bus. I even got to have a shower which was the most beautiful thing in the world after such a hot and smelly day, and with such a long trip ahead of us.

The bus was a little late leaving, and we held up the queue getting on the bus like stupid gringos because we hadn´t filled in our tickets properly. The bus ride was ok, just went for a loooot longer than we had expected, we left at 7pm and thought we´d arrive at 8a.m., but it was easily 10:30 when we pulled into Florianopolis or 'Floripa'as the locals call it. We hooked up with 3 Aussie girls who were also trying to work out how to get to their hostel. We were approached by a dude from HI Hostel which was the place we had booked into. He started telling us about an apartment that he knew which was cheaper than the hostel and more conveniently located, and he could take us there with no strings attached. We decided to go for it, and had to wait a few minutes as the dude (who looked like Mr T from the A team) waited for his friend to come and pick us up in his maxi taxi. We all decided that if it was dodgy, there were 5 of us, and besides, the bus had 'tourism'written on the front!!

It turned out to be a lot further than I had expected, at least another 45 minutes from the bus station. We went up and around hills and mountains, past a lake and onto a coast road. We then ended up in a funny little quiet cul-de-sac. This was our apartment, a clean, cute little family-run place with a balcony which is bigger than our apartment in Santiago! We took it straight away - it was cheaper than what we were going to pay at the hostel, and cheaper than what the Aussie girls were going to pay for a dorm room in a hostel! They decided that they´d stick to their place so we bid them farewell and met the owner, a really friendly guy who we were able to communicate with in Spanish. We asked for a map of the place, he didn´t have one, but brought us out an old poster sized photograph of the island taken circa 1960 and took time to explain the parts of the island to us.

We´re about 2 minutes from the beach and we´re paying about 20 Euro a night for the place, how great to have our own little kitchen and bathroom, and fridge, what a treat after sharing manky fridges in hostels til now and having food robbed! (John had some ham and cheese stolen in the last place). We went down to the beach after we got settled. Stunning. I consider myself a beach snob after my folks living near the most beautiful, peaceful beach in the world, but this would come 2nd! Surrounded by mountains, white sand and clear water, heaven!! We asked a guy on the beach who had a surf school stand where we could find a bank, it turned out he was an American and was the most helpful person we´d met all day! Said that the local bank here only took Banco do Brasil cards, and that we would have to catch the bus to the little village down the road. We were starving but without cash couldn´t do much - he even offered to lend us some, and said he´d give us a discounted surf lesson as well! We thanked him for the offer but decided to make the trip anyway.

It was easy enough and soon we had money and went straight to a buffet. We had read about these places - all you can eat per kilo. What a dream after not having eaten properly in 24 hours, (I´ll never eat another cereal bar or cracker again after this trip....the mainstay of any long distance bus trip....) to be met with all this great food!!! We piled our plates high, trying not to salivate over the choices of vegetables, meat and beans plus desserts, heaven!! For less than 8 Euro we were happy and full.

We came back to the beach where we lazed for the afternoon, went for a walk, a swim and a sunset caipirinha on the beach. After that we were entertained back at our apartment by the local tv channels, imitating the strange Portuguese words and being amazed at how strange the language sounds. We reckon they just make it up as they go along. After just getting a hold on Spanish and feeling confident enough to try communicating it´s strange to try this new language!

We´ve paid for 3 nights here so the plan is to get a night bus from here to Sao Paulo where we´ll have a 'homestay'with an ex student of mine and her family - her dad supposedly makes excellent caipirinhas!

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