We arrived in Florianopolis late in the day, caught a public bus to the university, and walked to our next couch surfer’s house.
Our couch surfer’s name was Rafa, and he is definitely a unique host. He piles ‘em in. He has multiple couch surfers at once. He has a couple mattresses and couches and beanbag chairs in his living room where all the couch surfers crash at night. He is a student at UFSC and is hugely into African drumming and photography.
Rachel and I walked up to a house with a pirate flag hanging on the front gate, the front doors wide open with dim lighting inside, and a bunch of shirtless guys sitting around the front steps playing the African drums. This was it!
We were welcomed by everybody the Brazilian way with plenty of hugs and kisses, and then we were properly introduced to Brazilian music culture at a samba night at one of the local bars.
Traveling across the island via public buses with a group of ten people is an adventure. Learning how to samba with Brazilians all night and into the wee hours of the morning is also an experience worth having. I’ve never seen people dance as easily as Brazilians do. It looks so natural watching them move to music. They also seemed to love teaching gringos how to dance. I tried, but I didn’t have the same knack for it that they did. They always smiled and kept me moving anyways. I felt ridiculous the entire night.
Before Rachel and I went to Florianopolis people kept telling us we would want more than a couple days there. Fortunately, Rafa was looking for a week long couch surfing party. We stayed with him for eleven days experiencing the late nights and beach life of Floripa. There were couch surfers from all around. Alex is a Russian born Finnish guy. Carl is a Ugandan born English guy. Justyna is Polish. Marcelo and Otavio are from Sao Paulo. Regina is from Rio. Two guys who came for a short visit were from Spain. Rafa, Bettina and Max owned the house, and they are all Brazilian. Rachel represented England with Carl, and I had America to myself.
Most nights we went to bed around 3 am, and most mornings we woke up between 10:30 and 12.
Every morning we walked down to the market to buy fruit for the day. I suppose that normally people buy what they need for the week when they go to the supermarket, but there was always free tea and coffee at this supermarket so there was an incentive to go every morning. Sometimes there was even entertainment. Our last day in Floripa I went to the supermarket and was pouring myself some tea as these two guys ran past me into the store in the middle of a fist fight. Sometimes I was the entertainment. I kept going to the same register at the supermarket because there was hardly ever anybody at it, so I figured it was an express lane of sorts and I never had much to buy. Well, one day an old man behind me explained that it was a line for senior citizens.
During the day most of us went out together to various places on the island. We went to a private beach that was surrounded by hills and rocks and mountains. We had to take a little hike over the dunes to get there, but it was worth it. We spent a day at a waterfall that we also hiked into. There were plenty of places to jump from and the water was surprisingly warm and clear and very deep. We went to the lake in the south of the island, but we went where the locals go instead of where the gringos go. It was completely secluded, surrounded by mountains and very quiet. We went to mainstream beaches, and we toured the island on public buses.
Lunch was fairly nonexistent because of our sleeping schedule, but dinner was a production. Justyna made pierogi, a traditional Polish dish. Carl made breads he learned to make at a farm in Salvador. Rachel made a vegetable concoction, as usual. They asked me to make something American. I had no idea what American food was, so I googled it. I still don’t have an answer, but hotdogs and hamburgers seem to be quite American. The only problem with burgers and dogs was that a few of us were vegetarians. I decided to go with something Mexican. I was going to make burritos. The supermarket didn’t have tortillas, so I thought I’d make the
burrito filling and buy a few bags of tortilla chips. The supermarket didn’t have tortilla chips either. I bought pasta! So maybe it’s an Italian thing, but I think it’s popular enough in America. I made a saucy vegetable mixture by channeling Rachel’s cooking spirit, and it all turned out tasty in the end. Even though we each took turns deciding what was for dinner everybody cooked! It was a group effort. There were people peeling vegetables, people chopping, and people adding random spices to things. If it was your night to cook you weren’t alone by any means.
One food that I can’t get enough of is acai. It can come as almost an ice cream consistency, but all it really is is frozen pureed acai. It’s best the traditional way, if you ask me, with banana slices and granola. Honey is always a nice addition though. It also comes in juice form. We made many special trips to acai places while we were out so I could indulge in it’s goodness. A few hours before Rachel and I left Floripa I went off to enjoy one last acai.
Besides frequent jam sessions with the African drums and tambourines, the record player had a good work out all day everyday. We always woke up to someone putting a record on.
Besides frequent rain from all the places Rachel and I had been before, Floripa proved to be extremely hot and sunny almost everyday. I understand why the guys were drumming with their shirts off the night we arrived. We often found ourselves walking around the house in our bathing suits even if we weren’t going to the beach because it was too hot to be comfortable in clothes.
It was hard to leave this community living lifestyle and all the people, but Rachel and I had five days left before we were supposed to be on the farm in Uruguay with one final destination left, Porto Alegre.
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