ramblings - part three: Florianopolis

The bus from Punta del Diablo took one hour to get to the border town of Chuy where we had to buy our bus tickets for that night and then wait around for 10 hours. One side of the road here is the Uruguayan side 'Chuy' and the other side is the Brazilian 'Chui'.

After an overnight bus to Porto Allegre, we caught another 10 hour bus to Florianopolis. After months of Spanish we suddenly couldn't understand anything again. In Portugese the days of the week are numbered after Saturday and Sunday, like the word for 'monday' is 'second-day', then 'third-day' etc.

Florianopolis is a city that spreads from the mainland across a big bridge to the Santa Catarina Island, which has about 44 beaches, hills with tropical jungle and scenic lakes. Our first stop was a built up place beside one of the lakes, from here we went to one of the most popular beaches; Praia Mole.

The colour of the water was amazing!

Beach vendor food - Acai sorbet with granola on top- gorgeous - our new favourite Brazilian snack.

After we'd had enough of the beautiful people at Praia Mole, we went to the less developed south of the island to a tiny fishing village called Pantano do Sul. It was perfect.

Our hostel...

View from the balcony outside our room...

The perfect place to treat ourselves to a seafood "symphony" for two...(plus Caipirinhas)

More gigantic mussels - these ones weren't unbearded, I never even knew that mussels had 'beards' that are normally removed. You can see the beard sticking out the top here...

I think it would've been ok for 4-6 people, they just kept coming with more, and this was only the starter...

Just outside the town there was a trail leading up and over hill, through tropical forest, to a quiet beach that is only accessible by this hour and a half long walk.