Florianopolis

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So we left you on the brink of our first mammoth bus journey, one which we had expected to be a two-bus trip from Paraty to Curitiba via Sao Paulo but ended up being a three-bus one because the Paraty-Sao Paulo bus had sold out. We found ourselves in the devilishly hot Ubatuba, a place that doesn´t quite live up to its exotic name. For the 45 minutes that we were in Sao Paulo it seemed like a standard sprawling metropolis, but then again we did only see it from the road and airport-like bus station.

We thought we´d been quite clever getting a night bus from there to Curitiba, but the trip is just six hours, only about 20 minutes of which we were actually asleep, and rolled into Curitiba at 4:30 am, tired and not really up for a four hour wait for our next venture. That was the train ride from Curitiba to Paranagua, a bit of which has been uploaded by video, and had some great views which probably would have been better if it hadn´t been raining/we´d had a good night´s sleep.

Paranagua is a fairly laid-back, sleepy place with faded and decaying (in a nice way) colonial buildings.We found a beach (something we´ve become quite adept at) and played a variety of beach sports (a pasttime we are becoming worryingly good at), before eating that evening at the best value place of the trip so far. The following morning we were going to catch a bus after some much-needed sleep and a bit of shopping in the Brazilian version of Primark. We headed straight to Florianopolis, which, dare I say it, might just be cooler than Rio. The city straddles the sea between the western side of Ilha da Santa Catarina and the mainland, but most of the fun stuff happens on the eastern half of the island so we headed straight there found a good hostel and promptly went straight out to experience SNF (Saturday Night Florianopolis).

(The new paragraph isn´t bad English, it just means we got caipirinhaed again). The following moring we found a pub and caught up on the Scotland rugby game, the Carling Cup Final and a very dissastisfactory North London derby, before walking to the nearest beach. We thought the island was walkable, but have since discovered it´s 100km long and that walk took a good hour and a half. It was a nice beach with even nicer dunes behind it.

The following day we went to Mocambique beach, 14km long and looking quite similar to all the others to be honest. We then headed to Joaquina to do some sandboarding (see videos to see how sucessful we were), which was a lot of fun. Funnily enough we got quite sandy.

Yesterday we headed to Praia do Lagoinha do Leste, the most remote beach on the island that requires an hour and a half trek to reach. The beach itself was nice, as was the lagoon behind it suggested by the name, but the weather wasn´t. It had been threatening to rain all the while we had been on the beach, but on the way back it started to pour. The track we had been following slowly became a trickle and then a stream. On the way there we were only metaphorically off the beaten track, but on the way back that phrase became literal as the beaten track disappeared.

We were going to leave today for Torres, down the coast, but, being sunny, and having found yet another paradisical beach, we decided to stay (the fact England were playing might have had something to do with it as well) and rented out surfboards. It was a good fun and hard work with massive waves and we left fairly drained and with the taste of seawater in our mouths. We leave tomorrow (well that´s the plan anyway) as we continue south and head into gaucho country, an introduction to Uruguay and Argentina beyond.

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Photos

Charlie at 4.30am
After Bus to Curitiba

Florianopolis
Lagoina do Leste

Florianopolis
Lagoon at Lagoina do Leste