Florianopolis and Iguazu Falls, Brazil 22.10.-29.10.2011

---

22.10.

Soooooo hungover today! The three of us (matt, savior and me) planned a trip to Florianopolis today, which is about 2 hours south of Blumenau. Savio was having a family meeting and Matt and I joined him to get to see another place in Brazil. On the way there we were all suffering terrible from last night lol I had to really concentrate at every turn to not be sick in savios nice car..
Savio invited us to join him on his family gathering, so we went to his uncles house.. there was soooo much food, about 8 cakes for dessert, it was amazing! Savios family was extremely welcoming and nice to us, loads of them actually spoke german fluently which really surprised me again.. We had a lovely afternoon eating and chatting and eating some more.. still tired from the night before, we left early to go to Savios sisters house where we would stay for the next few nights.. we planned to have a few hours sleep and then go back out, since it was a Saturday night.. but savior slept right trough and matt and I were quite happy to get some sleep too…

23.10.

Today was always going to be a relaxing day so we headed for the only peace and beautiful place we could think of and its one of Florianopolis beaches. After a great little power nap on the beach we got a quick shower and heading to a drum and bass party that was set on the beach front. Great night and feeling tired we headed home to get our head down. See you tomorrow.

24.10.

Unfortunately we had to say goodbye to savior today.. we became such great friends in a very short time, savio was such an amazing host and we had so much fun with him.. But he had to go back to reality, working in Blumenau, hopefully he can join us somewhere on our travels again.. We had a nice goodbye breakfast together, loads of hugs and off he went.. sniff
Matt and I went for a litte walk to one of the most beautiful beaches in Florianopolis, praya de moli.. After chilling out on the rocks overlooking the beach and watching the surfers, we decided to go sandboarding on the massive sanddunes of Florianopolis. What a shame that our battery died just when we got there, the view was breath taking.. The dunes where overlooking a landscape that looked like the swamp of lord of the rings, and in the back you could see the beautiful beaches and the sea..
Well we got a board and tried our luck at sandboarding. Which was loads of fun! It was really steep so we landed on our asses plenty of time, I can still feel it now, 5 days later.. but Matt was really good for his first time on a board.. We were covered in sand afterwards, exhausted..we had a stroll back to savios sisters house, had some food, matt went for a jog and off to bed..

25.10.

Boring day today, we have to catch a bus to Iguazu Falls, 17 hours on a bus, hopefully with a bit more sleep than last time…

26.10.

Got to Iguazu Falls early in the morning, we are catching up with Manu and Phil here, so we had to catch a few different busses to get to their hostel.. such a pain in the ass with all our luggage..lol
Once in the hostel, Manu and Phil already had big plans today, well they made friends with Bruno, a gay guy from brasilia, and he already had an itinery for the whole week all written out. So the plan was to go shopping in a duty free shopping centre in Argentina. It only took us half an hour to get to Argentina from where we stayed, but the boarder was very boring. Getting out at the Brazilian side to get a stamp for leaving, waiting for another bus for half an hour, then getting back out 5mins later at the entry of Argentina.. the shopping mall was right behind the border crossing, so we had a stroll around, it was actually still quite expensive. So after a few hours Matt and I decided to go see the Waterfalls on the Argentinien side. Manu, Phil and Bruno just wanted to chill out and grab some food, so off we went.. It took us another 40mins to get to the Falls from the boarder, changing buses and trying to figure out where we were going…lol

The Iguazu Falls where one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life. We took a little train up to the “Devils Throat”, where a lot of waterfalls came together and it really looked like hell would open his mouth and let a his fury out.. loads of steam and mist, breath taking.. you couldn’t even see the ground, it was so high and misty..
There were also loads of little trails you could take to have a look at different falls.. I felt like I was in a fairy tale.. There were butterflies and rainbows everywhere…it just looked so surreal.. Was waiting for a litte fairy to fly out of the bushes any second.. lol The Waterfalls were so beautiful and impressive.. an unbelievable amount of water, so high up and falling with such a force… scary and beautiful at the same time.. we spent about 3 hours just walking around, looking at the different falls and just enjoy the beauty of this place..
What a day.. after our bus journey back to brazil, we had a few drinks at the happy hour of our hostel, 4 caipirinhas for 6 reais (3 dollars), who could say no to this? On the way home we saw a bar with massive beer towers, so we ended up going there, already very drunk, just to get even drunker with a massive tower of beer.. lol

27.10.

Today shopping in Paraguay is on Brunos little to do list, so we headed over there.. Matt and I wanted to buy a laptop over there, so we can finally keep up with our travelblog and internet and so on.. We got told that Paraguay was a lot cheaper for shopping than brazil, but also very dodgy. We were so surprised when we got there, that it actually looked like Asia! Loads of little stalls selling all the shit that no one needs.. there was also a lot of big shopping centres where you could buy all the brands in the world. We got a quote for a laptop in one of the shopping Malls, got another one of some dodgy guy in the street, and obviously went for the one in the street.. lol which we regretted a lot 2 hours later, when we were still there, after haggeling about the price, which laptop to get, trying it out, testing if the internet worked, getting a harddrive for it, getting a cd drive, bit more haggeling.. and when we finally tried to pay, our card didn’t work.. well we figured it out eventually and finally walked away with our brand new travel laptop, just to realize an hour later that the fucked us over with the exchange rate.. Back to the shop, obviously the guy that sold us the laptop was gone, and no boss was around blablabla.. well, Matt and I didn’t back up and after shouting back and forward for what felt like forever, we got a bit of our money back that they cheated us on..

Oh well, every day is a schoolday, next time we will go for the shopping centre.. Lol.. had a little stroll around after, Matt bought some new shorts and Bruno splashed out on a camera and a watch.. fun day altogether, but we had to leave at 4, since all the stalls in Paraguay close at this time, apparently because its too dangerous after.. We did see some guys walking around with massive guns, so lets get outta here..
We decided to go bowling tonight (which I hate with all my heart, but Matt loves) so we spent the evening bowling away, I terribly sucked and so did Manu, the boys where having a little ralley and we ordered the probably biggest pizza known to man.
On the way home, the boys decided to get pissed in a bar, Manu and I went home to chill out and watch some southpark instead to give the boys some Mantime…lol

28.10.

The Brazilian side of the Waterfalls is on the Programm today. After having seen the Argentinien side, its not quite as breath taking, but still very very beautiful. They have this little animal here that’s everywhere, soo cute.. Again loads of butterflies, but this side seems to be further away from the falls, so more of an overview than being right there…It was a beautiful day again, we were so lucky with the weather. One of the trails actually went right underneath the waterfalls, so we got drenched from head to toe.. After a quick snack we moved on to the Bird park, yes, a park with birds.. lol It was actually a lot better than I thought it would be, so we wandered around feeding some cute birds and taking some great pics.
We planned a big night tonight, so we took full advantage of the happy hour and ordered about 30 caipirinhas at the hostel.. A few rounds of fuck the dealer and a massive round of circle of death later, the whole table was ready to rock! Lol we had a few more people joining us from the hostel, so we went back to the tower bar, to get some amazing food and ofcourse a few towers.. Later we jumped in a taxi to a nightclub called “uno”, which was a massive Brazilian country music club, it was the only one open.. lol.. so there was a band on stage, singing all these songs we didn’t have a clue about, but everyone was wasted, so it didn’t really matter.. long night, loads of fun, loads of dancing and Bruno trying to convince my boyfriend to turn gay for him..lol

29.10.

We woke up this morning and it was like the world was coming to an end.. There was a massive storm going on outside, it felt like the hostel was gona blow away any second, there was water everywhere in the room, it rained so hard that the water came trough the windows..it felt like sitting under a waterfall in the hostel.. crazy.. and a great excuse for us to spend most of the day in bed..lol.. We had no power in the hostel, since loads of the trees got ripped out the ground near the roads and most of the power lines where broken..so we slept, cooked some pasta, watched a film on the laptop and slept some more.. we went out for a nice meal in the evening, when the storm calmed down a bit.. Manu, Phil and Bruno went on to a gay club later on, while Matt and I chilled in the bar with and awesome dj playing all the old classics..Wise decision which we found out the day after, when Manu and Phil told us about their night which ended up in Paraguay and Bruno throwing up all over the taxi and trying to rape Phil..lol

29.10.

Just sitting in a bus to Buenos Aires now, it’s a 18 hour journey, woooohoooooooo!!!

---