11 November 2007 - Paraty and Florianopolis

We headed for a place called Paraty after the Ilha Grande. Neither of us wanted to leave, but it was time to move on. It took 2 hours on the ferry then a 2 hour bus journey to get there. On arrival at the hostel we thought we had booked, it was full. Great. they had overbooked and what they offered as an alternative was not ideal. It was a shared house that was dark and gloomy and not very clean. Our nice double room with sea view was no where to be seen!! Luckily we found another hostel just along the street which had a nice double room so our troubles didn't last long!!

Once we had settled in we had a beer on the beach and chilled out. It was then the rain came. It hammered it down for the rest of the day and all night.....and the following day!! We tried to get the bus to Sao Paulo a day early but they were full so we had to stay the 2 nights that we had planned. We didn't do much but eat, sleep and do bits on the internet while we were there. Unfortunately for me i was ravaged by mosquitos in Paraty and had roughly 100 bites on my lower legs!! It was awful. Even the people in the chemist were shocked!!

We caught the bus to Sao Paulo at 1 pm. It took 6 hours to get there. Our plan was to head straight for Florianopolis. Luckily once we arrived there was a bus leaving at 9 pm. It took another 12 hours to get there. We arrived in Florianopolis at 7 am. We had no acomodation booked so that was first on the list of things to do. There is usually people waiting for you as you get off the bus trying to offer you somewhere to stay, usually we have booked somewhere in advance and ignore them but this time they came in handy. Alexandra sorted us out with a nice cheap apartment

in the centre of town. It had a kitchen, lounge, bedroom and bathroom so it made a change from staying in a hostel. It was nice to have a fridge as well.

Florianopolis was in 2 parts, 1 part on the mainland and the other was on a island called Catarina. They were joined by a bridge. We didn't stay on the island even though it was nicer because we were waiting for our debit cards and needed an address for them to be sent too. So just to be on the safe side we stayed on the mainland.

We wandered round in the day, sat in the cafes people watching and generally chilling out. At night there was not a lot to do and we couldn't find places to eat. It was like a ghost town. The only bars that were open were called whiskerias and we later found out when we nearly went in one of them they were strip joints!! We should have guessed by the red lights really!! So McDonald's came in handy and we got some alcohol from the supermarket and stayed in and played cards and dice. Safer bet really.

On the last day we visited the island to have a look at the beach. The beach was called Prai Mole. I had been told to stay out of the sun because of all my bites so we just had a bite to eat and watched them surfing. The waves were good and there were loads of surfer dudes. It was very popular and there had been a surf competition on that week.

When the debit cards arrived, an hour before our bus was due to leave it was brilliant. We now had all our cards 5 weeks after they had been stolen. What a relief. Things were back on track!!