Shamelessly free-loading for my last week in Brazil!

As luck would have it, my dwindling bank balance seems to be in direct correlation with the amount of free-loading I managed to do in Brazil. After the excesses of Rio, which had been planned to last 4 days and then turned into 2 weeks, it was definitely a good thing!

I arrived in Florianopolis to a deserted hostel - I mean, seriously deserted. I think there were 3 guests in total. Under any other circumstances I would have heaved the old backpack on again, but a few quiet days where I wouldn't be tempted to spend money or have crazy nights out sounded perfect. Fortunately, I'm able to explain away my laziness as careful planning on my part, striving to avoid another onset of illness by balancing my active weeks with, er, slightly less active ones. Yeah, right...like anyone's going to believe that!

As a result, my days pretty much consisted of sleeping, eating, going online, watching TV and occasionally leaving the hostel to explore Florianopolis. This was a town that I actually really liked - it half had a Mediterranean feel to it, and half reminded me of Brighton with its little alleys selling quirky things. I think my favourite place was Plaza de XV Novembro, which commemorates the day Brazil became a republic. Centred around a huge tree, the square is home to the cathedral and also occassionally some market stalls. However, what I liked about it was the little tables that dotted the pavements, where old men would gather to chat, play cards or chess, and watch the world go by. There was a real community feel to it.

One of the upsides of staying in such an empty hostel was that the few of us staying there felt like a little family there. I was the only foreigner, so it did at least force me to turn my non-existent Portuguese into abysmal Portuguese, with a little improvement!

What with my general non-activity, that's pretty much all I have to say about Florianopolis. So instead I thought I'd mention a few of the things about Brazil that have struck me over the past month:

• Platform shoes! - Brazilian women are huge fans of wearing shoes or boots with clomping great big platforms on them. I'm not personally a fan, but to each her own...
  
• The postal system is rubbish
  
  The old men gathering
  
  - It's a pretty outlandish statement, but there we are. It may be that if you have a complex task to ask of it, the correios suddenly come into their own. However, for my purposes, it was entirely inefficient. Firstly, you can't buy stamps anywhere other than the post office, which was annoying in itself. But more irritatingly, you have to join a queue with every other person who has any sort of business whatsoever with the post office, meaning that I waited an hour and a half. For 3 stamps. Which I then had to watch being carefully stuck on by the postie before the card was decorated with a variety of rubber stamps to make it all look a bit more official. Grrrr.
  
• The Brazilians love their flag - It really is unbelievable how often you see it everywhere. On tops, hung from windows, decorating sarongs...the list goes on, believe me. And I'm not just talking about tourist stuff here - it's everywhere!
  
• Fried food - If you want a snack in Brazil, chances are you're not going to find much fresh fruit. Everything here is deep fried, my favourite of which is the coxinha con
  
  Curitiba Cathedral
  
  frango, deep-fried pastry containing chicken - I hold it entirely responsible for the spots currently dotting my complexion.
  
• Plates per kilo - Pricing food by how much it weighs. Genius buffet system!
  
• Portuguese - I have learnt the trick to this language. If you just slur whilst speaking Spanish, you've pretty much got the native tongue down pat!
  
• Popcorn - Unexpectedly popular in Brazil. No one has any idea why, but people selling pipoca are everywhere!
  

So after a few days relaxing in Floripa, as it is affectionately known in Brazil, it was off to Curitiba to stay with my good friend Fabiano once again. Whilst his mum lives in Foz, his apartment is actually in this city, the capital of Parana - which my faithful Lonely Planet refers to as 'the success story of Brazil'. I had a fantastic, and cheap, weekend here.

On Friday night, after dumping my bags we headed out to a bar with his flatmate Mica and his best friend Rafael. Here I was introduced to a strawberry caipirinha (thumbs down) and Fabiano's favourite drink, rum chased with beer - a very wierd taste, but not bad nonetheless. Despite Fabiano being the only one to speak good English, we managed to have conversations between all four of us, which I really enjoyed - I did have one slip-up though. Having been told their professions, I was trying to talk to Mica about the farm he was visiting on Saturday. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember the word fazenda, so I was reduced to mooing and baaing in the hope that he would understand. By the bewildered and frankly scared expression on his face, I gathered he did not, so I gave up. It was only half an hour later that I discovered I'd mixed up Rafael's vet with Mica's journalist...doh!

Fabiano and I were up early the next morning to complete Fabiano's mission. My Brazilian friend is not a huge fan of the Argentinians, to put it delicately - so he had been horrified to hear that Argentina was probably my second favourite country so far. He suddenly leapt into action and became a tour guide extraordinaire, determined to prove to me that Brazil was number one. And so we had a jam-packed day, resulting in me not being allowed to eat the entire day until 6.30pm - I was not a happy bunny!

I had a great time though. We walked through the centre of Curitiba, passing food markets and central plazas. Again, like Floripa, there was a real feeling of community here - I particularly liked the main pedestrian street, which was lined on one side with young people and families watching street performers, and on the other with old men discussing the politics of the day. We briefly snuck into the cathedral - which I thought was beautiful in a pleasantly understated way, unlike the elaborate gaudiness you sometimes find in Catholic cathedrals - before climbing aboard the tourist bus. I had envisioned a bus with a tour guide pointing out the sights, but in fact it was just a bus that drove past the tourist attractions and allowed you to get off 4 times on one ticket.

Our first stop was the botanical gardens. These were really beautiful, despite there being a surprising lack of flowers. However, most of all I enjoyed the freshly-pulped sugarcane juice that Fabiano introduced me to - really refreshing, and you could definitely tell that this was the main ingredient in cachaça rum. We climbed back aboard and rode for a while until getting off at the Oscar Niemeyer museum. This strange building was designed by the aforementioned architect, and houses art of all kinds as well as being a homage to Niemeyer, who designed the entire city of Brasilia among other things. The strangest piece was in The Eye, where miniature wedding dresses were being gradually eaten by mice. Not being much of an artiste, this was entirely lost on me!

Our final stop of the day was a gorgeous park. We were conscious of the time because we had a busy evening ahead of us, so we didn't really have any time to explore, but the views of the Mata Atlantica, or Atlantic Forest, were breathtaking. We had intended to stop off at the panoramic tower too, but the light was fading and we were both exhausted so we gave it a miss. After finally getting a bite to eat at the night market close to Fabiano's apartment, I had an emergency nap before we headed out again with Mica and Rafael.

Saturday night was fantastic - really, really good fun. First, we went to a traditional Sao Juan party hosted by one of Fabiano's colleagues, where we drank mulled wine and ate peña, seeds which are very similar to chestnuts. Here I did myself proud and had a long conversation in Portuguese with a girl waxing lyrical about her boyfriend, and once again attempted samba and succeeded not at all, before a friendly guy took pity on me and taught me how to dance to certoneijo, Brazilian country music. This was much easier, and ended up being good preparation for our next stop, a certoneijo club.

What a great time I had here! The live bands were absolutely great, and I really enjoyed dancing with my new friends. Eventually we left around 4.30am, having worn the soles of our shoes thin from so much boogying. Sunday was a very muted day - we slept until 5pm, for one thing! The evening was very relaxed; after cooking the boys a meal to say thank you for their hospitality, we watched a movie before heading to bed. Fabiano's apartment doesn't have any heating, which is great in summer and not so great in winter - meaning that anytime you were inside, you were wearing 2 jumpers, a coat and sitting wrapped in a duvet!

The next day I caught the bus to Sao Paulo for a couple of days of doing not very much before I flew to Costa Rica. That was the plan at least, but my forever-networking cousin Amanda had put me in touch with her friend Sho who lived in the city, and he offered to take me out for dinner the night before I left. I had a great time - like most of Amanda's friends he was flushed with cash, which meant I was able to free-load again, and we went to a lovely restaurant where I ate duck breast in a red wine sauce served with saffron risotto - a fair cry from my staple of chicken, rice and beans! We also managed to drink some lovely Sauvignon Blanc and champagne, which made me feel terribly glamourous after my months of cheap vodka and crappy beer.

I got back to my hostel at 3am, just in time to catch my taxi to the airport. And thus I was on my way to the last country on my list, Costa Rica, with a happy heart but a VERY heavy hangover...

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Part of trip: The RTW Gap Year Extravaganza

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