We have now said goodbye to Paraty
And are currently in Ilha Santa Catarina, but getting here has been very rough. The plan was simple – 6 hour bus from Paraty to São Paulo, a stop over of 5 hours and then an 11 hour sleeper bus to Florianopolis, state capital of Santa Catarina. First part of the mission was relatively painless. On arriving in São Paulo and trying to use an ATM, however, I realesaed that some @#$% head had been using my card to withdraw thousands of pounds, which was strange as I still had the only card for that account. After speaking to Lloyds TSB for hours (at GBP1.68 a minute) i was told “if you just pop into your branch we’ll arrange a new card for you”. When I said I was away for another 6.5 months she said to just “pop in when you get back”. Never has the word “pop” upset me so much. Luckily I have a back up account which we are using and I should be refunded everything within a few days.
Anyway, after all the stress of this we only had an hour and half to wait, and we somehow walked into the executive waiting room with air con and comfy seats and waited for our bus. When it came I was impressed. We had paid extra for a “Leito” or sleeper, which means the seats recline almost to horizonatal, and after an hour or so Nikki and I were fast asleep. I woke up at about 6 in the morning happy in the knowldege that in an hours time we would be in Florianoplois. Nikkis face/mood told me otherwise. Unbeknown to me we had been stationary on the freeway for 6 hours due to a massive mud slide so 6 lanes of traffic were being filtered through just 1. This meant our bus was 7 hours late. 7 hours. Late. with NO FOOD STOPS!!!
But we finally got to Florianopolis which, despite all that we had read and heard is a fairly non descript bland city full of malls and mcdonalds and pizza huts and the like.
Still, we were only there for 2 nights to rest up and then we were heading to the beaches, where I am now writting this. The town we are in is like one of the quaint European holiday resorts like Aya Napa, Lanzerote, Faliraki or even Magaluf.
Needless to say we were a bit dissapointed that we have travelled all this way to end up here, but yesterday we did stumble accross some amazing sand dunes
A really nice beach
Some ancient graffatti (someone really ought to clean that off)
Some great birds and other beasts
And, as ever, some amazing plant life
So all in all we think the island has potential. We were warned that the north was over developed but apparently there are some much quieter villages with even nicer beaches and bigger dunes further south. we will see tomorrow, and I shall update you forthwith.
Before I go, a quick update of “New Stuff I Like”
9) Churascaria. If you like meat then this is for you. Men with sticks skewered with meat (including delicious chicken hearts) slicing off as much as you like. I ate so much though this almost went in “New Stuff I Don’t Like”.
Have you recovered from Nutkinsitis?
Has your finger grown back?