Florianopolis – Our Halfway Stop between Iguazu and Rio

After our visit to the falls in Foz Iguazu we travelled on yet another overnight bus to Florianópolis. You really get used to long bus rides and sleeping on busses… After a few of these trips an 18 hour bus trip is like driving from Uitenhage to Port Elizabeth.(It’s not a big deal.) Marc calls these overnight busses “expensive luxury accommodation” because they cost more than a fancy hotel for the night.

We had a bit of trouble because we didn’t have any Reals, Brazilian money, and there weren’t ATM machines for us to draw money at the bus station. Fortunately, the cafeteria at the station also accepted Argentinian Pesos, which we had, and gave us change in Reals, so that’s how we managed to get money to pay for the local busses once we arrived in Florianopolis.

I don’t have too much to tell you about Florianopolis. It’s also in Brazil and is about halfway from Iguazu to Rio with pretty beaches and lagoons. The weather was gloomy and teary all three days we were there. We stayed at Energia Hostel which overlooks a lake and there was a hammock outside our room. We are so glad we didn’t book a place in the center of the city which seemed overcrowded! Near the lagoon or beach is much better! There are many outdoor activities you can do like stand-canoeing, surfing, and going round the lagoon in a boat.

Mole Beach, with its soft, white sand, was about a three kilometer walk from our hostel. One section of the beach is a known nudist beach, but we were the only ones swimming naked!.. Ha,ha, no, we didn’t really take our clothes off, because it would have been awkward seeing that everyone else was wearing bathing suits…not much of a nudist beach! There was only one chubby guy, who obviously didn’t care what anyone else thought, who was splashing naked in the shallow waves. Quite a sight to be missed!

There were many restaurants close to our hostel. For a treat meal we had a prawn special which consisted of a ton of garlic prawns, herby prawns and fried prawns. Very delicious! I was so happy to discover Brazil has coconuts!! You drink the ice-cold coconut water with a straw and then you can ask to have your coconut chopped open so that you can eat the soft flesh.

We like using public transport and it is usually very easy, cheap and efficient…. But sometimes it’s not always the most reliable way to travel. On our last day in Florianopolis we had booked the bus to Rio de Janeiro for 12:30 that afternoon. We didn’t take into account that the local bus doesn’t go directly to the station and stops multiple times along the way. We made it just in time! We were racing with our backpacks from the local bus terminal to to the big bus station. I didn’t think my legs would make it! But they did, and we got on the bus, drenched in sweat, at 12:28. Obviously, the bus followed Murphy’s Law and was exactly on schedule this time and not late like busses usually tend to be.