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Had no problems with the border crossing in fact didn't even have to get off the bus which was nice.
Got to Florianopolis and checked into a hostel in the centre of town for the first night and then proceeded to wander around town trying to find an ATM with Visa/Mastercard facilities, the lady at the hostel pointed us to a shopping centre about a half hour walk away which had about 20 ATM's one of which was international and didn't work!!!
By this point it was getting to around 5pm and I was getting pretty annoyed we hadn't had lunch due to lack of funds which certainly wasn't helping matters, in fact was just about to write one of the angriest emails in history to the council of Florianopolis enquiring why a supposed tourist destination does not actually cater for tourists...when I realised I couldn't even afford internet. Eventually found an ATM after about four hours of searching, had some dinner at an expensive Japanese place and calmed down a bit.
Also making matters worse was we discovered that Spanish is nothing like Portuguese and not many people speak english so even ordering food was an ordeal.
Florianopolis is in fact a big Island conected to the mainland by bridge, and has loads of nice beaches so we decided to get out of the centre and head north to a touristy beach called Carnasvieras. This place was good although catching two packed buses with our big pack packs on a 33 degree day was a nightmare.
Went to the beach pretty much straight away and was surprised to see that the beach itself was only about five metres wide and a couple of kilometres long but still managed to contain half the population of Brazil, didn't help that we turned up on a Saurday I suppose. It also appears that the Brazilian womens swimwear shops only sell one size of bikini designed for the slimmer woman, but that doesn't stop the rest of 'em having a go, certainly led to some good sights and also a lot of very disturbing sights. Strange sights wasn't just the womens domain, saw plenty of pigeon chested old guys getting around in budgie smugglers several sizes too small and skin like old leather.
In the end we got a bit bored as there was a distinct lack of english speaking backpackers to talk to and nothing else to do but go to the crowded beach. In hindsight we should have gone to the east or south of the Island where there is supposed to be nicer beaches with less people...maybe next time.
previous travel blog entry
tripballs says:
would like to figure out a way to do what ur doin. anyway, try Barra de lagoa next time. its about 20minutes inside the island, i guess the water is more like an estuary*. so i was there and happened to meet a bunch of Aussie backpackers. Praia Ingles, praia Braba. take care, tripballs!