Florianopolis. Lagoa da Conceicao. Barra da Lagoa. These are the places that we spent our last 3 days, and let me tell you, we struggled with the names! Although Florianopolis was a bit out of our way between Iguassu Falls and Montevideo, we had heard in various different places throughout our travels how amazing this place is. And it certainly did not disappoint.
I had expected Florianopolis to be a small beach town, so you can imagine my surprise when our bus pulled into a massive suburban city. As it turns out, Florianopolis is a city of nearly 400,000 people. The city is the gateway to the beautiful Ilha de Santa Catarina, where we actually spent our last 3 days. As I said in my last post, we had to take 2 public buses, through Lagoa da Conceicao, to get to Barra Beach Club Hostel in the secluded Barra da Lagoa, on the eastern tip of the island. Right from the time we jumped off the bus in the tiny little fishing village, I was in awe of my surroundings. The beach had beautiful white sand, and very lush greenery on all sides, with colourful houses popping up here and there.
After spending far too many hours on a bus, and not arriving into Barra da Lagoa until almost 5pm, we were in need of a shower and a proper meal. Not much was open in the town at that hour, so we ended up at the only pay by the kilo restaurant that seemed to be open. The food was fine for the price, and I had basically forgotten about it by the time we got our much needed free caipirinha. We spent the evening chatting with some of the people in the hostel, and by the time my head hit the pillow, I was so tired that I slept like a rock.
Our first full day in Barra da Lagoa looked too cloudy for the beach, so Ryan and I set out to explore Lagoa da conceicao. The little town was the perfect place to grab a coffee and a snack and go for a walk by the lake. As we began walking, we had the beautiful lake on our left, which reminded me a bit of the Shuswap in BC, and then the exquisite sand dunes from Praia da Joaquina on our right. You can rent sandboards (like snowboards) here and go for a hot ride, but we opted to just walk through them for a few minutes. It was insane how hot they were; I was soaked within 2 or 3 minutes! From there, we walked about 40 minutes over a hill to Praia Mole, where the good surfers tend to spend their time. The waves were massive, and the surfing was very high quality. I was mesmerized, watching them weave along the rolling waves so gracefully. By this point, the sun had peaked it’s head through the clouds and it was turning out to be a hot day, so we only watched the surfing for a few more minutes before catching the bus back to Barra da Lagoa. Upon arriving back, we immediately threw on our bathing suits and headed out to some “natural swimming pools”. I’m not sure who named these, but whoever it was has clearly never been to a swimming pool, as the area was mostly just an inlet off the ocean. We went for a swim anyway, and it was super refreshing! That evening, we headed to the bar to get our free caipirinha, followed by a group dinner of seafood paella. Both of these were delicious and exceeded my expectations! Although many of the people from our hostel went out that night, we opted to stay in, get some sleep, and save some money. I’ve decided that Brazil has taken enough of my money now, and I refuse to spend anymore than I have to. Stubborn as ever, I know.
We woke up the following day to sun and blue sky, so we made our way to the nearby beach after breakfast. We grabbed a couple of great chairs, near the ocean, agreeing to spend $25 on food and drink through the day. All was great and I was having a lovely beach day until the wind picked up and started whipping sand, beach chairs, and umbrellas around. We went inside the restaurant to escape the wind, but that proved even more disastrous, as we got some weird, breaded fish that was nothing like the fish the waiter had advertised to us. We headed back to the hostel in mediocre moods and spent a few hours relaxing and trying to enjoy the rest of the day. The wind ended up picking up even more, so our trek out to dinner felt quite cold. We ended up visiting a pay by the kilo restaurant that we had already been to, and after eating the same food as 2 days before, I was ready to leave the area. The evening was fairly relaxed, and it felt much more like a Sunday at the hostel than a Saturday. We had to rise bright an early to catch our bus out of Florianopolis so this was fine by me!
Our bus left Florianopilis at 9am the next morning, and we had a pleasant 6 hour journey to Porto Alegre. For once our bus was on time, and we were left waiting in the Porto Alegre bus station for 5 hours. Luckily, we managed to get into the VIP where there was free wifi, comfortable seats, and free water (bonus!). The time passed quickly, and the next thing we knew, we were handing over our passports to the bus attendant (yes, I felt sketchy about this), and heading over to Uruguay. Although I would not describe the evening as pleasant, I managed so sleep, through the border crossing, awaking in Uruguay this morning. I’m looking forward to exploring Montevideo…. But first, a nap is in order!