Carla's Adventures: November 2008

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Florianopolis

On the bus ride from Curitiba to Florianopolis I met a Brazilian guy who decided to tell me his life story and let me know he was on his way to try to get his ex-wife to sign divorce papers......lovely........It was so good to get to Floripa. What an incredible place!! I just absolutely fell in love with it. So many beautiful beaches and such a chilled out vibe. Felt quite different from the other places I have visited in Brazil.

I was so lucky to have my friend Leo there and so I stayed with him, his Mum and his sister, Tatiana, in their apartment close to the centre of Floripa. Leo was the best tour guide!! So awesome to know a local person - I got to see so much of the island and he drove me around everywhere! They looked after me so well and feed me almost too well!! I have now tried a few foods that were quite foreign to me. Soft polenta (just corn flour, salt and water cooked in the pot and then eaten as it is like we would eat rice!), pizza dolce (sweet pizza ayeeeee loads of chocolate and strawberry pizza, and banana, mozzeralla and cinnamon pizza), and Leo's mum's yummy rice risotto with zucchini, curry, and cheese. The seafood in Floripa is great too, so of course I sampled some prawns and fish cooked the Brazilian way.

Oh yeah, and I got introduced to Brazilian Styles BBQ care of Leo the maestro chef!!! It was all good!!

It has been raining a lot in Florianopolis over the past few weeks but i was lucky enough to get some sunshine during the day and it would rain hard out at night. Some days were just too overcast and rainy but I still loved it anyway! My plan was to stay in Floripa for about 4 days but I was having too much fun so I extended it to a week!
Any Brazilian people reading this blog will be happy to know that I have bought a brazilian bikini...ahhhh yes thats right! Its a brazilian trainer bikini...not as revealing as the real mccoy but definitely different to the good old conservative kiwi styles! Doubt if that one will ever come out in NZ!

This is me and Leo's mum.....I just love them and will miss them heaps!!
Leo's family also have a beach house in Rio Vermelho (Red River) and so we spent a little bit of time there too. Such a cute little house and Leo's mum has decorated it so beautifully with bits of her art and pottery as well as things from around the world!

I could seriously live in Floripa! If I was to move to Brazil....this would definitely be it! Don't worry family Im not getting any ideas just yet!!

Me and Tatiana

Mercado Publico in downtown Floripa

The best tour guide ever!! Obregada Leo!! xx

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Curitiba

After leaving Bonito, Avi, the girls and I went our separate ways....I spent the next two days (after a marathon 22 hours on the bus) in Curitiba on my way to Florianopolis. The only reason I stopped here was to go on a panoramic train that I had read about. Unfortunately it rained most of the time I was in Curitiba!! I managed to get on the train - it was a cloudy day but the views were still great. I felt totally lonely in this city, I was too scared to go out after dark alone

and the hostel I stayed in was not really traveller friendly....there were no other foreigners and it didnt have a common area to meet other people. I was glad to get on the bus after 2 days and get to Floripa!!!

The panoramic train ended in a little town called Morreto. Children were running alongside the train and everybody was throwing food and drinks out the windows to the kids.

Views from the train

Going into a tunnel

Another view!

And another tunnel!

Pantanal Photos 3

Piranha fishing!! It was so disgusting baiting the hooks with beef that had been sitting out in the sun......ewwwwww

Thats a big fish ha ha!!! Puts all those snapper I have caught at the Mount to shame.......

Day 3 horse trek!!! I loved it!!!!!

The pet parrot at Santa Clara - well it was a pet but they warned us not to try to touch it or we would get biten!! Beautiful!!

These are crazy creatures! Anteater.......

Bonito

I am nearly 2 weeks behind myself in keeping up to date with blogging!!!! Most of the internet places in the hostals are soooo bad and so slow and frustrating so trying to get photos uploaded is a mission!

After leaving the Pantanal I travelled with Avi and 3 other girls to an awesome little place called Bonito. It totally lived up to its name (bonito is beautiful in both portugues and spanish).....we had a fantastic 2 days there. Snorkelling in the crystal clear river and visiting a cave that had incredible blue water (grutos lago azul). It was very relaxing and we felt really safe there. Walking around at night at 1am was no problem at all. The locals were really friendly. We frequented the bar across the road from our hostel a couple of times to hang out with the awesome people that owned it! Our marks are now permanently on the wall of their bar - they get all travellers to write on the wall! Its very cool!

I had my first taste of Brazilian Cachaca....its alcohol made from sugar cane....to me it tastes like pure ethanol!!! But its a fav with a lot of travellers and obviously the Brazilian people! In true Kiwi Carla style I nearly spat it out.......and proceeded to order a beer! We decided since we had just spent 3 days hanging out with Caiman in the Pantanal we had to at least see what they tasted like so in Bonito we also sampled a caiman curry! Not bad!