Catching up a bit

Hello again - 

I am back in Reno now - but the fun is not yet over! I have more to say about my time in Brasil, and more photos to show you. Also, an added bonus in this edition: video! That's right boys and girls, I made a few movies while I was there. You'll see. But first....

There is more to the sights in Florianopolis than just beaches and sunshine. The nights can be quite beautiful as well. 

Baia Norte, the north channel between the island and the mainland, seen from the Joao Paulo neighborhood on the island. The light in the distance is the town of Biguacu, on the mainland.

I stayed in a nice little apartment for the second part of my trip, in the seaside hamlet of Barra da Lagoa, located on the northeastern shore of the island. It was a complete apartment, with secure parking and nice decor, and...sporadic...internet access. Check it:

My place (just the ground floor!) and my nice but weak (1L engine!) Chevy Celta.

In the last few days of my time in Brasil, I made the rounds of several beaches on the north part of the island. There are some 42 beaches on the island! I had pie-in-the-sky plans of visiting all of them, but I got too busy with other things. Here are the spots I hit, in no particular order:

Praia Brava. Small but very nice. There is a well-known bar there, Kioske do Pirata, which regularly host world-famous parties.

Praia Barra da Lagoa (name scrawled in the sand). My home for two weeks. Pictured here is Luiza Da Silva and her dad, Professor Guilherme Da Silva (I took the pic. The one of me didn't turn out well).

Me on the rocks at Praia Joaquina.

Praia Canasvieras. High tide! There was maybe 10 meters of usable beach space that day.

Praia Jurere Internacional. Very posh locale, trying (and fairly well succeeding) to be the new Ibiza or Punto del Este. Pricey homes, fast cars, and world-class shopping to go with a world-class beach.

Praia Ponta Das Canas. Popular with families for its calm, clear, warm waters.

Praia Lagoinha. Another place with calm, clear waters, and some cool sand dunes to boot.

Praia do Santinho. Directly open to the sea, so it has great surfing.

Praia Mole. Known for its soft sand (too soft to draw the name in the sand!) and great surfing. It's a party beach popular with younger crowds, but the steep underwater drop-off just a few meters from the shore makes it a tricky place to swim sometimes. 

I spent many of my nights in and around the Lagoa de Conceicao area of the island, about halfway between the main part of the city (Centro Florianopolis) and Barra da Lagoa. Aside from all that Centro Floripa has to offer, it is the epicenter of night life on the north part of the island.

OK, that's all I have for right now. I'll probably make another post or two before all is said and done, so check back from time to time. I'll keep the site going for probably another month before I take it down.

More later - 

I have been a bit remiss...with reason....

Hello all - 

A short post to update you: I am home in Reno. Just got back a little while ago. The last few days I spent in Floripa were pretty busy, and my internet went down again, so I never got a chance to make new posts.

I am going to get a shower, unpack, relax a bit, and sometime tonight or tomorow I will post an after-action report of my last time in lovely Brasil. Stay tuned.

T.

Life is a zero sum game

I've always said that life is a zero sum game - for everything that is a positive, there must somewhere be a corresponding negative. Well, I have been having such a good time here that it was inevitable that something would come along to spoil the party.

That something has a two word name: bad mayonnaise.

I went out on the town Sunday night with Tatiana, Marcus, and Illeni, and found an Irish pub in downtown floripa...well, at least a reasonable Brazilian interpretation of one.....

A while later, we were hanging at a sidewalk nitespot on the main drag of the Beira Mar area (a condo and hotel-filled of Centro Florianopolis, right on the water).

Beira Mar

At some point, I started to feel sick to my stomach, and ended up spray-coating the inside of the bar toilet with my dinner. That's right, folks: food poisoning. Yay.

Tatiana dragged me home, and I spent the rest of the night and next morning forcibly expelling fluids from my body. I think we have all been there at some point in our lives, so no details need be provided. 

Anyway, I passed monday drinking Gatorade in a semi-feverish daze. It is now Tuesday morning, and although I feel like a soccer team practiced their goal-kicking on my stomach and lower back, I am bouncing back pretty well, and I think I'm going to get in the car and cruise the island today. Lots of beaches to see! I only have three more days left here, so I gotta get while the getting is good.

Thanks for taking care of my sorry ass, Tati!

 Tatiana, shortly before the night took a nasty turn.

Another beach....

I made it out to another beach today, Praiha Joaquina. It was supposed to be rainy today, but the drops never really fell - it was mostly overcast and about 80 degrees. A few pix:

On the rocks, Praiha Joaquina, Florianopolis, Brazil

I'm really starting to notice the small differences in the way things are done here. For example, when you order a drink with dinner (any kind, soda, beer, whatever) the garcon brings you a bottle and glass, opens the bottle for you, and then pours a quarter to a third of a glass for you. That's it. If you want more in your cup, it's up to you. Don't know why they do this.

Also, there are a hell of a lot of Argentines (locally, Argentinos) here. It's something akin to New Englanders flocking to Florida...if you don't have warm tropical beaches at your latitude, head south (here, it's head north). Brasilieros don't lilke Argentinos, and vice versa. Yet the place is practically overrun with Argentinos. 

One last thing, something I have debated bringing up. There is one little part of daily Brazilian life that does not make it in the travel brochures. It's not a big thing, but it does take some getting used to. Apparently, the Brazilian septic systems cannot handle paper. Of any kind. Even the soft stuff that comes in a roll and is usually found in a bathroom. Look:

 

See the little can on the left? It's not a trash bin. It is dedicated to being a receptacle for used paper. When you do your business and give yourself a wipe, you don't drop the paper and flush it away. You put it into the little can. It's why they ALWAYS have a lid, to prevent certain smalls from permeating the place. In a warm humid climate like this, it's necessary to change this thing out every day or two. 

Here comes the rain....again....

There is some bad weather heading this way again, just in time for the weekend. Tomorrow, I was going to go to the island of Campeche, but it looks like the weather is going to suck. Especially for a boat ride out in the ocean. Oh well.

On the bright side of things, I've made some new friends here - most noteably Tatiana (remember the song "The Girl from Ipanema"? well, she actually is from Ipanema, in Rio de Janiero), Marcus, and Roberta. They are all cousins and good friends of Maria, down here in Floripa visiting family. I've been going out with them when Maria was busy with other things, and having a good time. (photo, L-R: Roberta, yours truly, and Tatiana, at Priaha Brava).

Do you remember the movie "Almost Famous"? There is a scene in that movie where the singer of the band Stillwater (played by Billy Crudup) is at a house party with a bunch of adoring teenagers, and he is standing on the roof of the house, about to jump into the swimming pool below. At one point he spreads his arms out wide and shouts "I AM A GOLDEN GOD!"...well, earlier today I was looking at myself in the mirror, and that line came to mind, only slightly altered:

I AM A BRONZED GOD!!!

He he he just kidding. But I am getting a fantastic tan......

Internet foo 2

OK, so I have a little problem getting online. That is to say, the place I am staying does not have internet.

Well, that´s not true. It does. Wifi. The only problem is, my laptop and the router can talk to each other, but the goddamn router won´t let the internet flow into my netbook.

The person that owns the place I am staying at would probably be very helpful in resolving this issue, if it weren´t for the fact that I am never there when she is, and vice versa.

AGH!!!

So, I have to drive 10 miles to a cafe with free wifi if I wanna use my laptop to make posts.

I´ll try to get this ironed out soon, so I can post things more often.....

For now, soak this up:

Me, Marcus, and Tatiana on the town

A quick funny thing.....

I don't think I want to shop here.......

Internet Blues

Yesterday, I moved into an apartment that I rented in Barra da Lagoa. It´s a nice little place, clean, with secure off-street parking for this tiny little GM Celta I rented (well, it´s not the smallest car I´ve ever seen, but it has a itty bitty 1 liter engine...he he he).
Last night I went out with Marcus and his cousin Tatiana (visiting from Rio de Janiero right now), some good friends of Maria´s from way back. In order to go meet them, I had to make my first real attempt at navigating this place while actually driving - an interesting prospect since it was midnight before I left, and it was raining a bit.
However, persistence
has its rewards, and after a while I found them all, and had a pretty good rest of the night.
I think I crashed about 4 or 5 am, and got up at around 10. It was supposed to still be rainy here today, but when I looked outside I saw....sunshine. Blue skies. So. I threw on a t-shirt and my swim trunks and my Haviainas (basically, Brasilian flip-flops, very popular on the beach areas) and made my way out to the beach.
The beach here is mostly east-facing with a reverse j-hook at the southern end, and runs north to a point near the Rio Vermelho area, where this particular beach ends. It´s about 5 miles long from end to end. When I got out there, I started walking north. After a while, I ran. Then I walked some more. Then I ran some more. All the way out to the northern point, and back. round trip of roughly 8 miles, given where I actually started.

I have internet blues right now. My new place does not have wifi. Right now, I am in an internet cafe around the corner on a rent-by-the-minute desktop computer. Scary!

Tomorrow, I am heading north, on the mainland, to a place somewhere north of Camboriu where one of Maria´s aunts or uncles live. I don´t know exactly how long I will be gone, or if I will have internet access while there - so you might not hear form me for a little while. Don´t worry - I´ll be back.

No time for pleasantries....

Hello all - 

It's been a busy day, and a rainy day, and everything is running behind schedule, including me. Tonight Maria and Ana are going to pick me up and take me back out to Barra da Lagoa, and we are going to hit the local clubs. I'll be there all day tomorrow for another churrasco, and maybe back here in the central part of town tomorrow night. 

In any case, it might be a while until I post something else here. The weekend beckons. Beers await my drinking. Women await my attention.

I want to be ready. So I'm signing off now....catch you on the flipside.

Oh, one more pic, just for fun:

There's only one person on this entire planet that knows what this is, where it's from, and how it was obtained. For you, that one person, I have this to say:

"One day...one day....yes, it'll happen. I know it. Be smart. Don't forget about where the bad things in life come from and where the good things in life can be found."

Goodnight all - peace out.

Feliz Ano Novo!!!

Greetings from Brasil 2009!

Last night was a completely new experience for me. For the first time in my life, I spent a New Year's eve celebration on a tropical beach in South America. Warm. Nice ocean breeze. Wearing shorts.

Yes. Shorts. I can't think of a single time in the US when I wore shorts to a New Year's party.

Here's a few pix:

A Familia DaSilva, L-R: Luis, Ana, Guilherme, Edna, Maria, e Rodrigo.

Eu e Maria

Maria's parents (and party hosts), Guilherme e Edna DaSilva

Ana and Maria

Festa Ano Novo na Praia da Barra da Lagoa, 2009

A few words about last night:

I arrived in Barra da Lagoa around 4pm after navigating the local bus system (which is pretty good, actually, just a bit hot if you're not on an executive express bus), with the day's festivities already under way. I was immediately handed a beer. I drank it. When I turned to talk to someone, and then looked back, my glass was mysteriously full again. This happened all day long!!! Another thing: I smoked a Cuban cigar. A Real one. Romeo y Juliet. Now I understand why they are so treasured! Cuban cigars are definitely a class above anything else. 

I went for a walk on the beach, just me, and soaked in some of the Brazilian sun. I told everyone I was only going for a short stroll, but somehow my short stroll ended up being more that an hour. It's easy to lose track of time here.

We set out a big spread and ate, drank more beer, and prepared for the short walk to the beach itself. In Brazil, it is traditional to wear white for the passing of the old year into the new year, which brings luck. Another tradition: After midnight, you eat seven grapes, then you go to the water's edge and hop over seven waves. Another good luck thing.

This was definitely one of the best, and maybe the best, New Year's celebrations I've ever been to. 

Well, I have things to do now...as soon as my laundry dries, I think I'm heading out to Barra da Lagoa again (btw, about 20 miles from where I am now. A bit of a journey by bus, but worth it).

Happy New Year to all of you. Stay tuned for the next edition.