brasilhouse

sooo brazil brazil brazil. we embarked upon a 27 hour bus ride - me and emily sitting arriba en frente and the other girls below...they played no movies but I breezed through 2 books and slept like 12 hours so it was relatively painless. we arrived in bustling florianopolis and took two buses to pantano do sul - the small fishing village where we would be renting a chalet for the next week. sooo serene, easily the most quiet place I've ever been....our house had 71 stone steps that led right up onto the beach. we rented the top floor of this beautiful house owned by a woman named niliana and her daughter, and their baller cat chiago. we had a porch that overlooked the bay and we could see sunset every night. i slept on a futon right by the poor doors and got to fall asleep and wake up to the sound of the ocean night after night, so amazing. the first day we spent lounging on the beach in pantano do sul, getting to know a little bit of the town, aka the supermercado where we went everyday without fail. we cooked every night, and made sandwiches for lunch every day, very economical of us. after 2 gorgeous days on pantano do sul, we headed to the lagostina national park. we hiked a little over an hour through rainforest and made it to a private secluded beach surrounded by green mountains. it was absolutely stunning, apart from the severe sandstorms that pelted us without end. we lasted only about an hour on the beach and then hiked back. we stumbled across a praying mantis who was really cool. then we stumbled across a gigantic lizard thing which wasn't really cool. after a brief scare we booked it through the rain forest and made it safely back into town. the next day we headed to campeche, another beach that was supposed to be re lindo. we got a couple of hours of sol in, i swam in the ocean - btw the water in brazil was incredible, always the perfect temperature and the waves were so much fun, felt like a little boy again. then it got cloudy so we left the beach and stumbled upon an ice cream buffet store - mira que suerte. you get to pick however much ice cream you want and add has many toppings as you want. so after i consumed like 6 scoops with white chocolate, sprinkles, etc. i felt like i needed to purge sin parar for hours on end.
finally there was a rainy day so we could take a break from suntanning. we went into el centro to see the lake that was supposed to be really beautiful. we saw it briefly on the bus and it looked incredible. we tried circling around the town over and over and over but never found it. fianlly we took a break at a cafe and all feasted on acai - the berry that brazil is famous for (so delish!) and em and I split a brownie with nutella, strawberries, and ice cream - so amazing. on a separate note, whoever said that spanish and portuguese are similar are off their rocker. there is nothing similar about them, the latter sounds like russian it's so harsh and I couldn't communicate anything other than oye, si, and obrigado.
the next day was thursday, our final day in floripa. the time went by so fast. it was just what the doctor ordered as em and I said for everything....really chill, lowkey, no drinking, relaxing, taking a break from city life. beach every da =) em and I took the walk to saquinho beach, another secluded really tiny beach with great waves and lots of gorgeous beachfront property.

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