The Island´s totally all beach, man.

Ola Colleen (my aunt)

Tudo bem?

Managed to see a forrest fire. Flames were only 4 inches high though.

I am fine and all is fantastic. Happy to hear about the fine english spring and am utterly jealous. It is horrid being stuck in the hot, balming weather of Brazil and am sure no-one would want to share my unfortunate fate. Oh well. I will grin and bare it. The tan has not yet worked it´s magic on me yet as today, I´m sad to say, was a little cloudy. Still warm as a fan oven though with a the breeze arriving off the sea carrying the smell of surf and salt.

Myself and Paula visited about 4 beaches today and got some great pictures which should show some of the beauty I am seeing. Sadly I had to use a disposable camera as I forgot the digital Dad lent me at Paula´s sisters. Am sure though that it will serve it´s purpose well.

The beaches are golden and long and have traipsed the length of them with our feet kicking up the water as bronzed brazilians bath on the sand or play in the docile waves. Our hotel is called Sou Sebastao in a town called Campeche and sits next to a beach of the same name. Today our ambition was to visit as many beaches as possible and then go horse riding which I was most looking forward to.

Our hotel is based on the south east side of the island and had to travel up to the north via the island centre to go to the bank for Paula and have some lunch (another grill and absolutely gorgeous meat once again). Came to about 50 Reals which is under 20 quid. Still have loads of cash but the bill for the hotel is all mine as Paula paid for the rented car we are driving so may lose a substantial bit then.

After lunch we drove up to the north east side to find this ranch. It´s number was 2971. Long road I thought. When we found the road we started searching for the house numbers. after a few minutes I spotted one and to my disbelief I read 17984. Yes we had found the only road possible to see from space. Two years later (I may be exaggerating as I am known to do) we arrived and had a wonderful day of trecking over huge sand dunes amongst the beautiful back drop of the northern mountains of Florianopolis. We rode for over two hours during which we saw a gorgeous secluded beach, rode threw the waves and sand, tried to gallop but only got my horse to trot, which is the most painful pace the horse could go (don´t think mine liked me,) and on the way back got to see a small forrest fire burn it´s way slowly through the pine covered floor. It had turned the area before charcoal black but had not climbed a single tree as the flames only reached maybe 4 inches in height. Got a picture of it so I will show you when I return.

Today I also saw fisherman selling there freshly caught goods right on the sand. Hope you are well and wait to read your next email with great anticipation.

Tchau Dan