Sao Paulo and Santa Catarina

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Leaving Rio was a sad day but we headed to Sau Paulo for a few nights of partying. Dilpa got to experience her first bus with us, luckily for her it was only a 6 hour ride, not too gruelling. When we arrived at our hostel we were surprised to see that not only did we have the dorm to ourselves but the whole hostel!!! Never has that happened before, it was almost like having our own little house, except for the jelly belly hostel owner of course. The hostel is co-owned by two men, one of which is a pale, chubby little thing who never seemed to wear a shirt. He used to make horrible snorting sounds aswel, he was kind of gross. Sao Paulo is a huge city but unfortunately lacks any daytime excitement. The most we did in the day was visit the fruit market, some shops and a vague attempt to find the football stadium, which we failed at. Our first night there we went to a samba club which was realy fun. The band that were playing were brilliant and the drinks were cheap. The only problem, as in Rio we just cant dance the samba but we had a good time watching the expert locals. The second night we tried a salsa club where a cuban band were playing. They too were amazing and once again the locals all knew how to dance (we did get a european couple dancing in our faces though that were shockingly bad, but thats to be expected). Soon enough we were back on the road headed to Florianopolis, Santa Catarina for the start of my birthday weekend.

As always the adventures begin on the bus. Dilpa was stuck sitting near someone who smelt like cheesy, damp feet, bleugh! Other than that we made it to the island in one piece. Once we arrived we headed straight for the beach. The beaches here are amazing, this one had gold sand and we had the beach almost completely to ourselves. In the evening we went to a samba bar with a group of people in the hostel, its safe to say at this point we were slightly sick of Samba but luckily the people were cool. Our second day on the island was wicked. The guy who works at the hostel (who is hot) organised for us all to trek to a private beach on the island and it was amazing. Of course Dilpa slipped during the trek and ruined her shoes and i managed to poke myself in the eye with a prickly plant! The beach itself was completely isolated and surrounded by rocks and was totally worth the trek, we did all nearly lose our swimsuits in the sea though. After a few hours there we trekked back down and headed to the sand dunes. The last time we visited sand dunes was in the desert, they were much tougher to walk up. The only problem this time was the wind, i dont know if any of you have ever been whipped by sand before but it really hurts. After that we continued on to another more lively beach and watched the surfers. The evening only got better as we started my birthday celebrations. The whole hostel was sat outside drinking and laughing then the three of us headed out to a club where we danced all night and had the best time. I dont know how we were dancing but the next day our whole bodies were aching, must be a sign of old age.

My birthday morning the lady in the hostel bought me a cake and sang happy birthday 😊 we spent the day at the beach and recovering from the night before and then we all went out again in the evening , to an Irish bar of all things. We did get samba lessons from the brazilian gay guy in our hostel after though, that was fun!

Florianopolis has been a beach and party filled few days where we have met some awesome people from all over. We are all sad to be leaving, but its not all bad as we are headed to Iguazu Falls!

M x

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