Florianopolis

Day 1: An interesting night bus journey to get us from Foz do Iguazu to Florianopolis. When we all initially got on the bus, we had to sit in our designated seats, which meant me sitting next to this old Brazilian guy. No problem there apart from the fact that he kept speaking Portuguese to me and, not knowing any, I couldn´t offer any kind of response. Just when I´d picked up some basic Spanish lines, now in Brazil it´s Portuguese!

Anyway, once we set off, I started looking back down the bus to see if there were any double seats available so I could have some extra room to get some sleep (no problem with the old guy, honest). It turned out there were some seats near the back so I got up and moved myself and my stuff back there. However, once I´d sat down, I caught sight of another Brazilian guy, who was looking down the bus directly at me and doing nothing except smiling. I thought it was pretty weird so decided to try and ignore him.

He kept staring and smiling at me for some time and my ignoring technique wasn´t really working. Then, he got up himself and moved to the double seats directly across from where I was now sitting! Again, he sat down, didn´t say a word, turned his head and was smiling directly at me as I tried to ignore him. When he wouldn´t stop, eventually I had to say something (in English of course) and asked him what he wanted. He clearly didn´t speak English but thankfully turned away sensing I was getting a bit annoyed.

But then, he started staring at me again and smiling more than ever (I´m pretty sure this guy is gay at this point). I´d had enough though and started shouting at him, telling him to stop staring and look the other way until he got the message. Thankfully, this time he did and stopped staring. I think he must have thought I was looking at him when searching for a seat and wanted him to come to the back of the bus with me - so dodgy. It didn´t exactly help me with getting to sleep either, knowing there might be a guy looking at me as I did!

Fortunately, more people got on the bus later meaning I had to return to my original seat. This guy however, ended up getting pretty cosy with another guy on the very back seat as the journey progressed. The word uncomfortable doesn´t even come close to describing this turn of events. Maybe this is what goes on on Brazilian nightbuses. Quite a strange start to my time in Brazil to say the least!

Anyway, moving on.

We arrived into Florianopolis early afternoon following another brutal 18 hour trip - they are starting to take their toll on me, even without gay Brazilians staring at me throughout the night. Myself and the lads jumped into a taxi and headed for an area on the other side of the island. The girls had made arrangements to stay with some friends of Elsa´s family, who lived in Florianopolis. We made plans to meet up with them the next day.

Not much time to do anything once we had arrived at the hostel. We made the second Euro game of the day so sat and watched that after meeting the nice locals that were running the hostel - Junior, Maria, Conrad and Babs.

That evening, the 4 of us had a nice meal cooked up by the hostel chef, Mario, and treated ourselves to a few too many Caipirinhas - Maria had quite a talent for making them. I also told all the lads about my experience on the bus, which they obviously found hilarious.

Day 2: A nice day in Florianopolis so after breakfast, the 4 of us headed down the hill to the nearest beach for the day. It had been a couple of weeks since enjoying some beach time for me so I was keen to catch some rays and relax for the day. The beach was really nice and we had good weather throughout the day to go with it.

We met up with the girls that evening and shared some of Maria´s now famous Caipirinhas with them. Leaving them to their drinking, I met another English guy called Chris at the hostel and got chatting to him for the rest of the evening.

Day 3: Us 4, Chris and a girl called Briley (US) booked onto a tour of the south of the island. Junior arranged it for us and it was actually his dad who took us out in this american-style schoolbus, which was pretty cool.

The tour took us to 4 of the best beaches on the south of the island but it wasn´t helped by the weather deteriorating as the day went on. No rain thankfully but it got quite cold and wasn´t exactly the sort of weather you would want to sit on a beach in. The beach hopping was all pretty rushed too because he wanted to squeeze in as many as he could, which meant we couldn´t really spend much time sun-bathing (before the sun disappeared) before having to move on. I decided then that beach-hopping tours aren´t really my thing because you end up spending more time getting to them than you do actually there. Oh well - nice to see some more of Florianopolis at least.

The tour finished with a visit to a good vantage point, giving nice views over the island, before ending with a stop at the biggest lake on Florianopolis. This was pretty nice and we were glad we had checked it out.

That evening, after yet more Caipirinhas at the hostel, we headed out with the girls, Chris and the staff to a bar along the main strip of the island. This was cool and had a decent live band playing. We hung around for a few hours before heading back.

Day 4: The lads had more of a hangover than me so I left them in bed that morning and headed back down to our local beach after breakfast. I spent the morning there before taking a walk to the area we had visited the previous night so I could see what was going on by day. It was pretty quiet but there´s a nice lagoon, which I took a walk around and spent the afternoon strolling around town.

Our final evening in Florianopolis and the final one of us together as a 6 so we headed into the main part of the island for a nice Mexican meal. The trip was almost over for the lads and they were heading back to Sao Paulo the following day to spend a few days before getting their flight home. Myself, Nikki and Elsa were all heading to Rio de Janeiro after managing to sort a couple of cheap flights from Floripa (as the locals call it). Mine was the following day.

We had a really nice evening and a good laugh for our last one all together. The 6 of us had become really good mates over the past couple of weeks and it was sad that we were all parting ways. Apart from some guys in New Zealand, this was probably the longest I had stayed with the same group and we had all become quite close. We all just about managed to hold back the tears as the lads headed off to the bus station after dinner though. Hopefully, the 6 of us will all meet up again when back in the UK.

That was me finished with Florianopolis after an enjoyable few days. A really nice island and well worth checking out. My next destination was one I´d been excited about before the trip even began.....................Rio de Janeiro - The City of God.

Bring it on!!!