Blogs from Santa Catarina, Brazil, South America - page 24

Well, after a few days on the Argentinian side of the falls, getting wet in boats and that sort of thing, I´ve headed over to Florianopolis for a couple of days before getting my flight from Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires. Everyone kept saying "you have to go to floripa, it´s beautiful, it´s amazing..." Well so far, I´m not impressed! It´s OK, in a chilled out surfer kinda way, but that just means the place is rammed with Aussies. I also seem to have spent most of my time on local buses between the hostel and town centre trying to sort stuff out. Ah well, get my coach out of here in the morning. Take care people.... read more

Hello! Hope everyone had a very good holiday and soon a great New Years! We have just spent the last 8 days in Barra da Lagoa on the Ilha de Santa Catarina. The island has loads of beaches and depending on what you are looking for you can usually find a beach to suit your needs. The beaches to the north have calmer waters and more development, the beaches to the east are great for surfers and tend to be cleaner and have a good mix of small fishing villages and developed vacation towns. Then heading south you find gorgeous beaches and less tourism but perhaps rougher water. John and I chose to spend the last eight days in Barra da Lagoa. A small fishing village on the east side of the island. We had originally ... read more

Hey! We are in Florianopolis after 20 hours on a coach!(14.09.05) It was ok actually, stopped off a lot and managed to sleep! One time when we were in the services we came back out and the coach wasn´t there! Andy was worried! I knew it hadn´t gone and of course it turned up again. It had been raining for 2 days solid! We had to walk around in the rain to find somewhere to live. Got soaked through and freezing. Needless to say spirits had depleted a little. Today we have checked out Florianopolis (as we are actually staying in Barra da lagoa small town on the east side). Been looking at the shops and still not allowed to buy any clothes!!! We gave in after struggling to cook nice food and had Mac donalds. ... read more

Faith again here. We drove to Florianopolis on sunday and went right on through. The capital of Santa Catarina, "Floripa" is half on the mainland and half on Ilha (Island) de Santa Catarina. Most of the Ilha is BEACHES and small towns supported by tourism. its the off season now, so we got a room with a porch facing Praia da Joaquina, on the east side of the island and facing open ocean. Praia da Joaquina hosts the Brazilian Surfing championships every year, so every day by 7 or 8am there would be twenty surfers in the water right by our hotel, and that number would grow and top out at about 50 or 60. The beach was pretty long - it took over 2 hours to walk to the end, one way - and there ... read more

After a thirteen hour bus journey we arrived hungry in Florianopolis. We had been spoilt by Argentinian bus journeys and found it difficult to get used to crackers as our only nourishment for thirteen hours. We picked up some maps of the area and set about organising some transport. A car seemed the best way to get around so we hired one and set off for Ilha de Santa Catarina (Santa Catarina Island). Barra de Lagoa We got to know the island pretty well looking around for a pousada (a mini appartment with kitchen etc.). There seemed to be lots happening on the beaches from football to sandboarding. We eventually settled on Barra de Lagoa, a little fishing village with lots of tourists, most of them Brazilian. The pousada we stayed in was across a pretty ... read more