Floripa: a World Away from Florida

Days 7-13: Florianópolis
June 14-June 20, 2010


The rest of my week in Floripa included a great mix of beaches, hikes, and spending time with people I met at the hostel. Even though I only planned on staying on the island for a day or two, there was always something new to explore and I just kept pushing back my departure. Besides, once you get to the paradise that is Floripa, why would you actually want to leave? (If you need convincing, see exhibit A: pictures below...disclaimer: they aren't mine, but since my camera broke, I still want to leave you guys with some visuals)

Monday, June 14th

My leg was still a little out of commission from my sand-boarding fall the previous day, but I spent a beautiful afternoon at Praia Mole with Sergio (who took me and Luis sandboarding) and Hadas (from Israel). If you can make out the rocks in the picture below, Hadas and I actually clambered over to reach the tip of the stony enclave to be greeted by the sight of the waves smashing against the smoothed boulders and blowing mist onto our faces. Definitely worth the awkward climb up!

Praia Mole

That night was another great time of cooking and conversing with people from the hostel. After a great meal of seco verde (another delectable Peruvian dish thanks to the master chef Sergio), Luis, Sergio, Hadas, and Elena (who went to the samba) and I all played salsa and merengue and we had a mini-dance party right there in the hostel. I'm a big fan of samba, but it just can't compare to salsa dancing for me :)

Tuesday, June 15

Hadas, Luis, and I all decided to take advantage of Floripa's beautiful trails and go on a hike to Lagoinha do Leste, a completely isolated beach that can only be reached by an hour and a half hike over a mountain (as you can see there in the picture below). Once we emerged from the rocky, tree-covered trail to arrive on the beach itself, we could really appreciate the fact that we were so surrounded by nature - the only signs of human life were some half-washed away footprints and a couple fisherman on the rocks. It was so peaceful and beautiful that I could have stayed there for hours, but we were in a rush to get back to civilization in order to watch the Brasil vs. North Korea futebol (soccer) game for the World Cup. As we got closer to the town, I could literally feel the atmosphere of anticipation in the air, as fire crackers and car horns started going off as kickoff time approached. It's definitely a great time to be in Brazil!

Lagoinha do Leste

Wednesday, June 16

Wednesday Luis, Sergio, and I paid a visit to the center of Florianópolis, whose old alfândega (customs house) still serves as an active marketplace (see picture below). After walking around to appreciate the old architecture, busy commerical streets, and a pretty little park, Luis and I split ways for a couple days so he could visit Iguazu Falls (Foz de Iguaçu). Since I had already visited last year while I was in Argentina (note: see old blog entries) and found a cheap airplane ticket to our next destination, Salvador, we decided to meet up on Sunday, leaving me with three more days to explore Floripa. Later that night, Sergio and I hiked up to the Mirador (overlook)for an awesome view of Lagoa de Conceição.

Mercado Público Municipal

Well, this post is getting super long, so I´ll try and be a bit more concise...Thursday and Friday were spent exploring the north part of the island and a little bit more of Lagoa de Conceição. At night on Friday, I went to a bar where they had a live band playing "Samba-Rock" - basically a mix between samba music and rock music. It was not a combination I would have expected, but I definitely had a great time dancing.

Saturday June 19

Sergio, three other friends from the hostel and I spent all day hiking around the Costa da Lagoa (translated literally as the Lagoon Coast), which ranks up there on most beautiful trails I've ever taken. The trail wound along the edge of the coast, so we were constantly dipping in and out of sight of the water and various docks as we made our way along the path. We also passed some historic sites, including an old mill and church. The interesting part about the trail was that it wasn't just for nature-lovers - a lot of people lived along the coast and used the path to access their colorful little houses that we passed along the way. Even the haphazard mixture of plant life we passed reminded me of how diverse Brazil itself is...Ive never seen massive stalks of bamboo neighbored by evergreens, jungle vines, oaks, and small wildflowers. It was as if the plants were brought from their native habitats around the world to cohabitat here, much like Brazilians themselves.

The group on the Costa da Lagoa trail

One of the many docks along the hike

After several hours of hiking (and battling vicious blood-sucking mosquitos), we arrived at a small little town and decided to have a late lunch at a local restaurant. Our table was set right on a large dock, and it felt so good to take off my sneakers and slip my feet into the cool water while we waited for our food. Surrounded by green mountains and long docks that extended out into the Lagoa, it was definitely one of the prettiest dining locations I've ever eaten at. After a nice big meal, we caught a boat back to the Lagoa de Conceição right as sunset transformed the natural scenary into misty hues of pink and purple, adding a whole new dimension to the coast.

Me, Angela, Victor, Patricio, and Sergio having lunch on the dock
Boat ride back to Lagoa de Conceição

And that sums up my wonderful week in Floripa. Sunday I flew up to Salvador da Bahia and met up with Luis to begin our Bahian adventures...which you'll hear about in the next post!

Coli

Sand Dunes: Exhilaration, Humiliation, and Termination

Day 6: Florianópolis June 13, 2010

After spending the previous several days in the cold, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could peel off some layers in Floripa, despite the fact that it’s further south than Curitiba. Florianópolis is actually a large island (probably 3 hours driving from north to south) off the coast of the state Santa Catarina known for its beautiful beaches and water-sports. Despite the fact that I was there in winter, it still was a complete paradise with gorgeous beaches, picturesque treks, and just a general atmosphere that really drew me to the area.

Our hostel was located in Lagoa de Conceição, an area with a small-town feel situated in the middle of the island. Well-developed and surrounded by large lagoons and beaches that draws tourists by the thousands, it was still the type of place where you could walk everywhere and tend to run into people you knew.

Lagoa de Conceição

Whenever you arrive to a new place, there's always a sense of disorientation and 'what are we going to do?' But the staff definitely felt more like a family right from the start, with Dona Lena, the hostel's cook, making us an awesome breakfast and Sergio, who works at the front desk, inviting Luis and I to go sand-boarding.

Walking towards the dunes

If you read my blog on sand-boarding in Peru, it's definitely a really fun experience, and this time was no exception. We went up into the dunes, which had the most spectacular views, as you can see in the picture below. The deep hills of sand eventually led to a green marshland, which then panned out into the sugary sand and foamy surf of Joaquina Beach.

Sand-boarding itself wasn't that difficult for me, but the landings were usually not very graceful. The very first time I went down the hill, I used a wooden board that we brought from the hostel. I really shouldn't have ignored the fact that it was splitting in the front (disguised by poorly wrapped tape) because I got halfway down before the board got jammed with sand, effectively stopping while, thanks to momentum plus gravity, I kept going. The whole fiasco was captured for posterity on video, which I uploaded below (be prepared to laugh).

While you´re currently laughing your head off, I´d like to point out that both Luis and Sergio both stood there taking pictures and laughing at me...what friends. So, we rented some other boards and I had a couple more runs down the dunes until I had a fall that ended my sandboarding career (well, at least for that day...I won´t let it keep me down). I basically ended up in a split with one foot inside the straps while still sliding down the hill, followed by some somersalts and body rolls until ending up as pictured below (notice the guys were still documenting my humiliation instead of helping me! haha).

Unfortunately, I twisted my ankle pretty badly and ended up crawling back up the dunes on my hands and knees... it was quite the sight. We then went down to the Joaquina beach for a while to relax in (more) sand before making our way back to the hostel. We had a really fun night cooking Peruvian food (vegetarian lomo saltado yumm!) in the hostel with several Brasilians and a new friend Elena (from Spain) before going out to a local samba place - ironically right across from the sand dunes we went to earlier in the day.

Luis, Sergio, and me with our Brazilian friends, ready to chow down!

After an awesome night of dancing to live samba music, we made our way out of the two-story wooden beach shack to be greeted with an amazing view of the stars above and the sand beyond. We decided to climb back up the dunes to star gaze for a little, and I had such flashbacks to the night I climbed the sand dunes of Oasis de Huacachina in Peru...it was one of those moments whose beauty you´ll always remember, although this time it was accompanied by soft strains of samba music drifting out over the sand.

All in all, it was a memorable first day in Floripa! I´ll be writing about the rest of our adventures there soon...Coli

P.S. The evil sand dunes not only took revenge on my leg, but also my camera...the lens got so much sand in it that it will no longer open to take pictures. So, most pictures I´ll be adding here from now on are borrowed from other people´s cameras.

Eu Curti Curitiba!

*(Eu Curti Curitiba = I Liked Curitiba)

Day 5: Curitiba June 12, 2010

Our overnight bus from São Paulo arrived to Curitiba around 6:30 in the morning and my first impression was COLD! I had on four layers plus a scarf and I was still really cold. The temperature wasn’t really so bad, maybe in the upper 30s, but the fact that I’m from Florida and it was raining (I’m convinced it was basically snowing) made the weather seem much more drastic. We hung out in the rodaviária (bus station) for a couple hours waiting for things to actually open and ate in a little lanchonete. I ordered a “Sanduiche Especial egg e cheese” (Special Sandwich with egg and cheese) that ended up being a hamburger with egg and cheese on it. The funny thing was when I read the menu and saw egg and cheese, I tried to say the words in Portuguese (ovo e queijo) but they didn’t know what I wanted until I said ‘egg e cheese’ (but pronounced in Portuguese of course).

Since we only planned on spending one day in Curitiba, we decided to take the tourist bus line that would pass 24 ‘destinations’ throughout the city, with the option of getting off at any four places of your choosing along the way. And when I say it was a tourist bus, I’m talking big double-decker bus, barely clearing stoplights with speakers blasting information in multiple languages...I’m sure you’ve got a good image in your head. And if not, you can see us freezing below (because, of course, we decided to sacrifice our bodies to the windy open-air top deck in order to get a good view). It ended up being a great sampler platter of Curitiba - I’ll have to put it on my list of places to re-visit in depth one day.

Curitiba is known as the most ecologically-friendly and environmentally-conscious city in Brazil, and it seems like a very nice place, with lots of huge parks that I would have loved to explore if we had more time and more degrees on the thermometer. For example, instead of regular old trash cans all over the city, they had bins for every sort of recyclable you can imagine. They're so colorful and even decorated with animated garbage! (see below: bins for metal, plastic, paper, organic products, and glass).

The first place we got off was the Oscar Niemeyer Museum, where we got in for free (seems we have really good luck with going to museums on days they are free, this is the third time it’s happened). If you read my blog on Niterói, I talk more about Oscar Niemeyer (famous modern architect), who not only bears the name of the building, but also designed it. The museum is nicknamed "Olho do Niemeyer" ("Niemeyer's eye") for it's unique design, as you can see below.

We saw several special art exhibits and an exhibition of Oscar Niemeyer’s famous works in miniture (he also designed most of the distintive governmental buildings in Brasília when it became Brazil's capitial in the 1960's..if you haven't seen pictures, you definitely need to google it) . We also entered the actual "eye" of the museum, which not only had a neat design, but also contained an eclectic mix of artwork (below).

Our next stop was pretty spontaneous, but everyone else was getting off the bus, so we figured we might as well check it out. It was called Ópera de Arame and it was this beautiful theatre designed completely out of glass - almost like a greenhouse - perched on a river, and completely open to the surrounding forest. My pictures don't really do it justice, but I saw some beautiful ones of the opera house lit up at nighttime, and, wow...it must be amazing to see a performance there.

Our next stop was the Oi! Observation Tower, a communications tower/observation deck, to get a sky-high perspective of Curitiba. We got an awesome view of the whole city, from its sprawling parks to its sprawling skyscrapers.

Oi! Observation Tower and Oi! Pay Phone

There were so many other places I would have liked to stop, such as the historic downtown, the Ukranian memorial, and all the parks (of course). But our final stop was awesome- the Botanical Gardens. It's grounds were covered with beautiful landscaping leading up to a huge, picturesque greenhouse.

View from Greenhouse - Grounds of the Botanical Gardens/Curitiba's skyline

We sadly had to head back to the rodoviária, but not before we popped into the Mercado Modelo, a local market that sold everything from vegetables to huge cuts of meat, so that I could buy some fruit. We returned to the same lanchonete from earlier in the morning to eat a meal of feijoada, rice, meat, pasta, and salad and guaraná (Brazil’s national soft drink, really tasty) before catching our five hour bus to Florianópolis.

We arrived to Floripa (as the city is nicknamed) around 10 at night because we planned on staying with someone we met on CouchSurfers (a website that helps people get in touch with locals to meet/stay with while they're traveling). However, after a confusion with the address and a costly hour and a half in a taxi, we eventually ended up at the Lagoa Hostel, which would be my home for the next 7 days!

More on my incredible week in Floripa in the next blog...Coli

Parques e Museus de São Paulo

It´s hard to believe that I arrived to Brazil exactly one month ago from today! It doesn´t feel like I´ve been down here for that long, but I´ve definitely learned a lot about the culture and hopefully the language too! But, to continue catching up on my backpacking travels...

Day 4: São Paulo
June 11, 2010

Today marked the first official game of the World Cup! So, of course, we had to watch a little bit to commemorate the opening. Around late morning, we made our way to Estação de Luz to visit o Museum de Língua Portuguesa (Portuguese Language Museum). Like the Museu de Futebol I visited the day before, it was a super high-tech and interactive museum. Not only was it an awesome museum, but I also learned a ton of new things because, well, obviously it was all about Portuguese - the historical roots of words, common mistakes native speakers make, differences in accents, famous literature, etc. It was legal! (slang for cool in Brazil, pronouced lay-gall)

Estação de Luz - Metro/Train station

Museu de Língua Potuguesa


I could have spent the entire day there, but we we were off to our next destination: Parque da Luz (Park of Light), right across the street. I'm obviously a huge fan of parks, but this one was especially cool because they had a bunch of modern art sculptures throughout the park, which we had fun taking pictures with.

After stopping at a lanchonette (typical small restuarant, usually with simple foods and drinks to eat) for a lunch of different salgados (common Brasilian snack, generally fried pastry filled with meats or cheeses), we made our way to Parque Ibirapuera, which is this absolutely massive park in the middle of the city. I guess it's kind of like the Central Park of São Paulo, but with a bunch of awesome musuems. We went into the Museu Afro-Brasil, which is a huge museum dedicated to the history, culture, and art of Afro-Brasilians. Since the sun was setting, we decided it was time to head back to the hostel, but it turned into a 2 1/2 hour adventure to arrive there....lesson learned: when asking Brazilians in large cities for directions, ask at least 5 different people before making a decision, because they WILL give you complete opposite directions and you'll probably do way more backtracking than you would like.

O Obelisco de São Paulo in Parque Ibirapuera

View of sunset in Parque IbirapueraSão Paulo at Night, from a lake in Parque Ibirapuera

And that marked the end of our São Paulo adventure. The lack of beach and colder weather (I think it got down to the 40s at night) made me appreciate the fact that I would be heading back to Rio de Janeiro for my program. Even though São Paulo isn't really my kind of city, I would have loved to spend more time there just for all the elaborate and modern museums - I think I could literally spend at least a day in each one and there were several I never got to visit...I guess I'll just have to make it back there someday. But, we were off on another overnight bus to Curitiba - until the next post!

Até logo, Coli