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Daniela set us up in an awesome beach front condo for $1600 Reals per week.  Worked out to about $35 a night per person.  A bit pricey in backpacker terms but a steal for beachfront property.  Kitchen and all.  Walked right out our front door to the beach.  The below is the trail out of our condo and then looking right down Praia do Ingleses.  The beach Daniela set us up on.

It seems all the women have torn off the left and right butt cheek of their bikinis to create makeshift pasties for their norther regions.  I don’t think its called staring if you are a tourist.  More, curiosity.  As I’ve explained to Daniela (our friend and guide), it would be rude not to appreciate the local fashions…right?  Fashion is a large part of a countries culture you know.  Its rude not to admire it, as I see it. 

Understandable that people are almost naked here.  Its hot…I mean a new kind of hot.  The temp reaches around 41 C.  Beach patterns are much different than SoCal.  Beach from 1000 to 1200.  Siesta from 1200 to 1500.  Lunch around 1530.  Then beach until 2000.  Clean up, head to dinner and eat around 2300 to 0100.  This is family included.  Kids of all ages are out at 0100 eating family style dinners.

When I say family style…lets just say all the spirituality and inner peace I gained (along with my new physique) was lost with Churrasco style buffets.  Endless amounts of “Suacey Seans”.  That’t how you pronounce sausage in Portuguese, suaceysean.  And, they all had delicious ”fat pockets” inside them.

The beaches were beautiful.  Florianopolis is an Island.  With a center like Guatemala/Western Kansas/Ozarks of Missouri.  Quite the combo.  And the coast like a vast Hawaii with over 90 beaches.  Some requiring an hour hike and others requiring a battle with mass amounts of traffic.

All in all, a beautiful break from our travel break.  Sean and I were able to kick our feet up, relax from the rigors of meditation and backpacking.  And just have a ”tre legal” time.  Portuguese for “triple cool”.  Pronounced “tray luh-gal”.  If you add in a PB surfer accent and a “bra” at the end, quite effective.  “Tre legal bra”.  That and a thumbs up, and all is good in Flori.  Sean seemed to master it much quicker than I.  I kept doing the fiver finger wave and was frowned at with looks of confusion.

Oh yeah, for the ladies…if you want to lay out, tan yourselves in barely nothing and not be gawked at except for the random American tourist (like myself) AND shop at the same time.  Florianopolis is the place for you.  Guys bring around clothes racks…to your beach chair.  You don’t even have to go anywhere.

Enough beach time for now…Sean and I have booked a 15 hour bus ride from Florianopolis to Foz do Iguazu.  The Brazilian town associated with Iguazu falls.  On the western border of Brazil.  Bordering Argentina, and Paraguay.  Our first overnighter…Tre Legal Bras! 

That would be ”Happy New Year” in Portuguese for all you Gringo Northies.  Sean and I are down in de ”Ghettobootyfabuland of America”.  Garapoba, Brazil.  Pronounced Ghetto Poppa.

Just a question to ponder.  Have you ever wondered why we’re the only people that call ourselves ”Americans” while those from Canada, Central and South America don’t?  Why not ”Staties” or ”Unites”.  Just a thought.

We arrived into Florianopolis around 0900 on the 29th.  Flying from San Jose, Costa Rica to Lima, Peru to Sau Paulo, Brazil.  Customs was an ease and they didn’t even check our $110 Visa.  Required only because the US Government started charging Brazilians.  So Brazil now charges Americans.  Beautiful.  Nor did they look to see if we had our required Vaccinations that cost me $300.

The Dan’s (Dan and Daniela Greenamyre from Leavonworth, KS) were there waiting for us when we arrived.  Packing our items into their luxury rental (a Fiat Celebration, two door) we headed off to our beach house in Garopaba.  About 90 KM from Florianopolis.  Daniela’s friends were throwing there annual NYE celebration.  Having about 30 out of 80 total stay in a four house just off the beach.  Best way to describe it for those who know…a mixture between Spring Break in Colorado and 4th of July in San Diego.  Blissful Chaos.  Everyone is piled in four houses.  One house for single girls, one house for single boys, and two houses for couples.  Each house having its own Churrasco BBQ pit.

Churrasco is a Southern Brazil style BBQ.  They call it BBQ but its really grilling.  Over and open fire pit.  The difference is, they grill A LOT.  Far more than my Weber could ever imagine.  With only rock salt, long spears, and fire.  On occasion I saw some cilantro thrown on there.  Talk about a transition.  A month of being a vegetarian and a week of fasting immediately to eating grilled chicken hearts, pork, cow, leg, arm, you name it, we ate it.

Dan, knowing I love to grill and am a self proclaimed grill master (youngest black belt EVER), told the guys we were staying with I’d love to help.  The drunker they got the more loose they got with their pit.  Finally giving me the reins.  Eager to take over I started checking the meat for firmness…calculating hot spots in the fire…reminiscing to days gone by where I wasn’t allowed to touch a spatula.  That being a trade reserved for adults, not minors, as my father told me.

Using all my apprenticed skills I noticed a weak spot in the system.  A drooping corner of the grate.  Providing the possibility of a cataclysmic meat dismount into the flame below.  So, I reached to adjust…in my haste and rookie state my hand stumbled a bit under the wait of three roasts…the latter side of the grate gave way, sliding out of its concrete hole and the entire front end fell into the flame.  As if fearing the, ”I told you so” I quickly looked around.  To my humiliation the eyes of the Brazilian Masters locked onto mine…the music seemed to stop…as they ran over to assist me in my blunder.  Pulling the grate up and saving the 30 lbs of meat resting on top of it.  For that I was reduced to ping pong, eating, and the occasional sarcastic joke that Americans didn’t know how to BBQ.  So, I apologize to my fellow countrymen.  For the moment, I have let you all down.

In the next few days I managed to regain a little composure with the guys.  They allowed me to chop some garlic and wash lettuce…actually, they didn’t let me near the kitchen again.  So, I was forced into beach time and drinking Skol.  The Brazilian beer of choice.  A duty I was happy to accept.

New Years Eve was fantastic.  Parties start late around here.  Again they BBQ’d with dinner being served around 2230.  The main dish was all pork.  A custom here.  Again, I dined happily.  When in Rome…also, the ladies made a fruit plate that would rival any resort buffet line.

 Dinner was finished around 2345.  Following we rushed to the beach for fireworks, champagne, music, and…and…drinking.  Sorry, a little hazy.  My liver is a bit pure after San Marcos.  Doesn’t handle the champagnuh so well.  The entire city seemed to gather on the beach.  It seemed to be a throwback in time to Pacific Beach.  I could imagine similar happenings there in the 50s. As we partied on two acres of grass (someone’s front yard) adjacent to the beach.  Sean, Dan, and I spent most of our time immediately around midnight avoiding champagne corks and champagne.  As most people were spraying it on each other.  Rookies…don’t they know champagne is for drinking.  Its fine to throw the bottle at your buddy when you’re done with it, but, never waste the booze.  Tisk Tisk.

The following day was filled with siesta.  In fact…I think the entire day was dedicated to it.  Followed by another late night dinner, Sushi at midnight.  They love eating late around here.  I think its the siesta.

The following morning we headed back to Florianopolis…where we started.  Little did we know our 100 KM trek was going to take us 8 hours!!  That’s right.  It took us 8 hours to go 62 miles.  Worst traffic in the UNIVERSE!  You know that one bad thing that happens in the Universe everyday…like the formation of a black-hole, or a supernova, or a meteor hitting an inhabited planet.  Well, it just so happened that driving from Garopaba to Florianopolis was the worst thing going on in the Universe on January 2, 2008.  Go figure we happened to witness it.  WOW! Nuff Said!!