Do Brasil

I arrived in Brazil on my friend's birthday. It took me the entire day to travel to Caxias do Sol, starting at 3am in Santiago followed by a 5 hour flight to São Paulo where my connecting flight was delayed, and then a 2.5 hours drive from Porto Alegre to my final destination.

So what should do you do after such a long haul in Brasil? Go out and party, birthday style, of course. We headed to one of the two only decent places (according to my local guide) to party, where a famous Samba singer graced us with his southern samba rhythms. Note: Samba sounds different depending on which part of Brazil it comes from – the most well known songs coming from Rio de Janeiro. The following night, a Friday night, we headed out on the town again and slept only 30 minutes before we woke to take the 6 hour journey to Florianópolis. Let's just say that I didn't do too much sightseeing of the city those two days and had a hell of a time finding appropriate shoes to borrow for the clubs.

As we drove over the mini Golden Gate bridge from mainland Santa Catarina, an urban city centre came into view, all the best shopping centres were picked out to visit later (I was with southern Brazilians after all and we all know how much they love to shop) and many photos were snapped of the silent, still ocean sprouting tiny black islands. Florianópolis is a very large island and also capital city of Santa Catarina, one of the sunshine states of southern Brazil. It is famous for it's white sandy surf beaches, where Brazilians, Argentineans and Paraguayans like to take their holidays, although the latter has a reputation for stealing Brazilian cars and selling them for extra profit back in Paraguay.

The further south we drove, the more the island changed into a vast jungle of strong, bitter smelling plants. Maybe 40 minutes from the main city centre, my friend, her father, stepmother and I drew up to our self-service apartment at Plaia Ingleses. 30 metres from the plaia (beach), swimming pool and the two of us girls decked out on the pullout couch in the living room, we were ready of a week of total beach experience.

First things first, we dug into some fresh camarão (prawns), our food of choice for the week, at one of the buffet por kilo restaurants. Brazil seems to have a knack for economising the eating out experience because almost everywhere is a buffet paid by the kilo, from top restaurants with gourmet food to the food court in the mall, to the local ice cream parlour. The heat of the afternoon sun really doesn't make your stomach grumble with hunger so paying only for the size of your individual stomach is actually quite ideal for the beach.