Ilha de Santa Catarina

The view from our hostel
see all photos »

We left Punta del Diablo a day later than planned to cross the border into Brazil.  We knew this was going to be quite an arduous task!  This is how it went:

-We left Punta del Diablo at 8am, bound for the city of Chui.

15 of us crammed into a VW combi van.....

-Half an hour later, the bus driver stopped at the immigration point and waited for us to get our exit stamp out of  Uruguay.  Rob had lost his entry piece of paper which the immigration office wasn´t happy about but stamped his passport reluctantly and chooed him away!

The beach
see all photos »

-Back on the bus, 10 minutes later we arrived in Chui.

-We walked 3 blocks to the bus station where we bought a ticket to Porto Alegre in Brazil.

-However, we couldn´t get our entry stamp into Brazil here so we had to get another bus to a town called Santa Victoria.

-We arrived there half an hour later and walked 3 blocks to the police station where we got our entry stamp into Brazil.

IMG_6792
see all photos »

-We then walked 8 blocks to the bus station.

-We waited 2 hours and boarded our 7 and a half hour bus to Porto Alegre.

-We arrived in Porto Alegre at 8.30pm, bought our ticket to Florianopolis.

-We waited 3 and a half hours and boarded the bus at midnight.

IMG_6811
see all photos »

-Ar 6.30am the following day, we arrived in Florianopolis, almost 24 hours later

-We then boarded a local bus to Barra da Lagoa, where we boarded another bus to the town our hostel was in.

-At 8am we had arrived!

I feel exhausted just writing that!  We were staying on the island of Santa Catarina on the east coast.  Florianopolis is the largest town on the island but nobody really stays there.  Where we were staying was located right on the beach.  The hostel ´Backpackers Share House´ was one of the best hostels we have stayed in.  It was a very social hostel.  Every night they organised dinner (usually a BBQ, which was really good) and they organised a club to go to after 11pm.  This made it very easy to meet people and we met a great bunch of folk.

IMG_6812
see all photos »

Our hostel had a sister hostel located near the town.  On the 2nd night we were there, we caught a bus to the sister hostel where we met up with the gang.  We were meant to be going to the club next door but they were charging to get in, so 15 of us crammed into a VW combi van and headed into town to a samba club, where a live band was playing.  This club had one the most ridiculous systems ever.  They gave us a card when we entered the club and with the card, the barman would write down which drink we wanted, whilst we waited for another barman to make the drink!  Then at the end of the night we handed the card in and they totted up our bill!  Very dangerous!  You never knew how much you were spending (which was the probably the plan!)  This system was common place in clubs and even bakeries!

IMG_6814
see all photos »

The following night, after everyone had recovered from the night before, it was even more carnage!  The night started with karaoke and then we moved to the club we tried to get into the previous night.  Good times were had!!

The following morning it was hilarious seeing everyong so hungover.  Nobody made it to breakfast!  Some of us went down to the bakery, with the stupid system and then headed to the beach, where we couldn´t wait to get into the sea!  That night was pretty subdued!  We had an alcohol-free night as we were killing our livers and were hoping for a good nights sleep.  But that didn´t happen.

Rob playing football with the lads
see all photos »

At 3am that morning, a belgian guy who was staying in our room, staggered down off the top bunk, causing us to wake up.  He was ina very drunken state.  We weren´t sure what he was doing until he started to urinate against the wall!  He obviously couldn´´t find the bathroom!  There was a German guy sleeping on a matress on the floor and he was unlucky enough to be in the firing line!  His bed was covered in urine!  We started telling him he wasn´t in the toilet but he completely ignored us and got back into bed.  We told the German guy to get the night guard as he could´t sleep on the wet bed.  The night guard came up and tried telling the Belgian guy to get out of his bed as he wasn´t going to stay there.  We tried telling him what he had done but he wouldn´t have any of it.  He was being very obnoxious.  In the end he got so annoyed he got up and said he was leaving.  His bed was changed for the German lad to sleep in.  We could hear commotion downstairs but they didn´t throw him out.  He ended up staying another night, although not in our room!  He came up to us during breakfast and apologeized but i told him it was the German lad he should be apologeizing to.  He was lucky enough he peed on someone very young and shy.  If it had been anyone else, i´m sure it would have resulted in a punch-up!

IMG_6823
see all photos »

Brazil´s national drink is the cocktail, the caiprihna which is made with cachassa, from the sugar cane plant, limes, ice and sugar.  At home one would cost about 12 euro but in the hostel we got it for a great price of 1 euro!  Messy, very messy!

Again, we didn´t do much during our days as we were normally hung-over but one afternoon we decided to kayak down the estuary which turned out to be hilarious!  We set off and after about 10 minutes, a boat went past, causing some waves on the water, which was enough to capsize Rob!  And not only once but 3 times!  It was so funny watching him trying to balance himself on the very unstable kayak!  And every time a boat went past, that was it, he was off again!  He eventually realised the kayak was full of water as there was no stopper in the back of the kayak and when he took it onto the bank, we waited ages for the Atlantic ocean to empty out of the thing!  Rob was just happy it wasn´t due to his technique, which is what i blamed it on!  After shoving my hairband into the hole, he managed to get back to the hostel, without falling in again!

Really good times were had on Santa Catarina, but we had to move on, to Rio de Janeiro!