Beaches and More...

So the bus ride to Florianopolis was uneventful. Except that I was awoken in the middle of the night by the Brazilian Federal Police and had my bag searched. But besides that, uneventful. Not sure what they were looking for, but we were stopped on the side of the road for a hour and a half and arrived to Florianopolis a little later than expected.

We took the local bus to our hostel and Amanda got yelled at by a man on the bus because she couldn´t fit through the turnstile to get to the back of the bus. The whole turnstile situation on the bus boggles us everytime we get on. You get on, pay and then squeeze through this turnstile that is absolutely impossible with our huge backpacks on.

Once at the hostel, we had to go to the beach. We took the bus to Mole Beach, like the sauce not the animal, and relaxed there most of the afternoon. Probably the most beautiful beach I have been to. Waves were huge, water was a bright blue, the white sand was spotless. Strange thing about beaches here, are there are not seashells. Also, this was the day that I didn´t take my camera with me to the beach, so you´ll have to believe me that is was the best beach ever.

The hostel had this amazing cook and did a theme dinner every night. We had arrived for Indonesian night. Fish, chicken, mango chutney. I was in heaven. Between the food and the sun and the overnight bus, we were exhausted and decided not to go on the hostel outing to a reggae concert that did not end until the sunrise. We met two girls from England that we had seen at our hostel in Sao Paulo, Alice and Rachel and we teamed up with them to form Team Zorb for the next day´s activities.


Zorbing. It´s like rolling down the sand dune in a giant hamster ball. So fun! My hands and my feet both fell out and I was just hanging there by my waist. The ride was short, but the zorbing pro explained to us that was because if something went wrong the zorb could not be stopped.

Team Zorb had big plans for the day that included a two hour hike to a waterfall. We set out on our adventure hiking through the forest, climbing over rocks, crossing streams, walking through little fishing villages and just kept hiking. Four hours later, we still had not found the waterfall. Eventually the trail just ended. Defeated, we stopped to get a drink before nightfall and to make sure that we caught a boat back to the center of the town. The server at the restaurant we stopped did not speak english and our Portuguese is still lacking, so lost in translation was the cost of the beer. We almost ended up paying him 44 real for the drink which is about $30. After that hike, we would have paid that much. In the end, we found out that we missed the little turn off to the waterfall and we were about 10 minutes away from it.

We skipped the hostel dinner that night and ended up getting some pizza in town, since everyone knows that I love pizza and could eat it all the time if I could. However, even better than the pizza was the ice cream sundae buffet that we had for dessert. It would put River Forest Country Club to shame and have my grandma rolling in her grave to eat this ice cream. So many toppings, so many flavors. Ice cream like this should not be made a habit if I plan on hiking the Inca Trail very soon.

The last day in Florianopolis was a beach day. Different beach, but still beautiful. We tasted the food of the beach too. Cheese rolled in oregano and grilled before our very eyes and the first churros of the trip. Relaxed on the beach and went back to the hostel for Brazilian BBQ. Delicious. The food at the hostel was amazing. We decided to out to a local club that night even though we had to be up really early to catch the bus in the morning. We thought everyone from the hostel was coming, but on the walk there a thunderstorm broke open and everyone behind us get drenched and we didn´t see them again. The club was pretty cool, but pretty expensive. We stayed for a while, but left to make sure we got some sleep before the bus.

We had planned to take a bus directly to Uruguay from Florianopolis, but found out that could only be done on Tuesdays. Since we wanted to leave on a Sunday we had to change our plans. Decided on Porto Alegre since we had talked about going there anyway. Up early, we had a seven hour trip there. Thinking we could sleep on that bus was incorrect since some guy right behind us snored so loud I don´t think anyone in Brazil could sleep if they wanted to. Luckily when we got to Porto Alegre, we could take a bus that night to Punta del Este in Uruguay. So we waited in the bus terminal for four hours until we could take the night bus.


Our bus was the best bus I have ever been on. Luxury at its finest. We got two meals, the seats were huge and reclined almost all the way back, it was like flying first class. We didn´t even have to wake up at customs and get off the bus to get our passport stamped on the way into Uruguay, it was all done for us. I slept the whole time until the attendant on the bus woke me to let us know we were near our stop. We had to wait in the bus terminal in Punta del Este until we could get a taxi since we were there so early.

Arrived at our hostel early, but they were expecting us so it was alright. The hostel is very cute. Its run by a man and his wife and their two and a half year old son. Its in there house and they are the nicest, most helpful people ever. We went with the wife to the shopping center to get some Uruguayan currency. Its kind of confusing because the denominations are really big, so when I took out 700, it was really $35. We hooked up with some people in the hostel and rented bikes for the day. First up a beach and layed around there for a bit. We were just there relaxing when a seal swam right up to the shore. Super cool! After the beach, we rode into town and walked around and got some more churros. Best churros ever, warm and gooey.
We got a little lost last night trying to ride the bikes back to the hostel since the roads are a little confusing. We also got distracted because this woman approached us on the street and asked us to ride past some barking dogs with her since she was scared. I also think she was a witch because then we asked her directions to where we needed to go and she gave us incorrect information. So also looked like a witch and must have used a confounding spell on us. We did make it back eventually so we must have broken her spell.

Punta del Este is a huge tourist spot in Uruguay in the summer. Kevin Bacon and Shakria have houses here. However, this is the end of the summer so its been a little cool and windy. Amanda and I kept our bikes for today and rode around to a lighthouse and to the port. We also finally did some laundry which made us both really excited. Tomorrow we are leaving for Montevideo for two nights and then a day trip to Colonia de Sacramento before taking the ferry over to Buenos Aires. Getting excited for all the adventures still to come. Hopefully, we can find some green beer in Montevideo!