You know when you see the covers of travel or lifestyle magazines and the photograph is one that makes you think ‘ahhh paradise’. Well I stumbled across paradise when I got to Florianopolis.
Arriving to the island of Florianopolis, or Floripa as it is locally known, the part of the island I was staying didn’t have any ATMs. This meant that I had do go against the rules of backpacking and take out a big wad of cash that would last me six days before I arrived.
It turns out this isn’t the only thing paradise is lacking. Unfortunately due to the major influx of tourists for the New Years period, we ran out of water. No flushing of the toilets took its toll after a few days and along with the lack of showering, we all made use of the torrential downpours from the gutters by washing ourselves with shampoo. If nothing else reminds you that you’re living the life of a backpacker, this will.
Being surrounded by a different culture there will obviously always be different ways of getting stuff done and a lot of the time I just do not get it at all. Visiting the nearby beaches of Mole (mole-ay) and Joaquina, I noticed that on both beaches all the people enjoying the sun, surf and sand were sitting on top of each other. There was the whole beach of which the majority of it was untouched yet the Brazilians felt the necessity to put their beach umbrellas so close to each other they were overlapping. You couldn’t walk through the middle of umbrella city. It made no sense to me. Felt like telling them all they are doing the whole beach thing wrong. The reason I didn’t tell them is because I don’t speak Portuguese and because I thought maybe they’re doing it right and the rest of us are doing it wrong. One thing the women seem to be doing here is starving themselves so their bums eat their bikini bottoms. Yep, every female bum is a hungry bum in Floripa.
Besides the sun thumping the earth with its rays and the water being a perfect swimming temperature, paradise delivered an unknown treat in the form of a berry called ‘açai’. Blended up from its frozen state and stacked with mixed fruits and muesli, this delicious healthy treat that produced a mouthgasm apparently has more antioxidants than any other fruit in the world. The purple berry is quite cheap here but apparently very expensive at home but I reckon it’s definitely worth paying a motza to indulge in its goodness.
Spent New Years pretty chilled with a few of the locals as I didn’t have $500-$1500 spare on entry fees to the clubs hosting New Years parties. Had a few beers and a bit of a Brazilian BBQ cook up and learnt of a few nearby local swimming spots to jump off rocks into the water.
I rocked up (not pun intended) to one of the swimming spots with a bloke from Holland and three blokes from South Africa staying at the hostel and hung around there. One of the blokes had his GoPro and got a video of us jumping off the rocks so have a geez for that on Facey if you have me as a mate. The swimming spot was just another part that made paradise what it is and what it was.
Floripa has been my longest stay on my trip so far and if I was traveling or six months instead of six weeks, I would definitely stay here for another week or so. The people here at Barra Beach Club hostel and the location of this joint is ridiculous. You could definitely go as far as to say it’s Barradise.
Unfortunately I only was able to have a little half foot surf as there weren’t waves during my stay. Definitely going to come back here with mates and bring surfboards when there are less people and the surf is a bit bigger.
As I’m spending my last hours here before heading to Iguazu Falls, the water still isn’t working. The owner of the hostel and pretty much part of the Floripa furniture, Jim, said he’s never in his life seen it this critical. Fingers crossed for them it gets back up and running soon.
I’ve been gone a month today for all those missing me. It’s gone as quick as a flash and so far I’ve had so many phenomenal experiences. Can’t wait for what the remaining two weeks has planned for me
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