Barra da Lagoa, Brazil, South America

It was a pretty good bus ride last night, and I think I actually got about four hours of sleep. That’s pretty good for me. We got into Florianopolis at about 11:30am and I traded contact information with Graeme and Hillary and went over to the other local bus terminal. They are staying in Florianopolis for the night and I’m staying out at Barra da Lagoa, so I needed to get another bus.

I got on the 330 local bus over to Lagoa da Concecia, and then switched onto the 360 bus to get to Barra da Lagoa. Luckily for me, the bus stopped right outside Pousada Dona Alice, where I’m staying for the next few nights. It’s pretty nice, compared to what I expected. The owner runs the place with her daughter Priscilla, and they are both very friendly. Priscilla doesn’t speak English, but she can speak a little Spanish, so I’ve been able to communicate with her that way. Whoever told me that Spanish and Portuguese are very similar must have been joking, because they are absolutely not similar at all. Completely different languages, especially the spoken language.

I got into the room and immediately turned the A/C on to “freezing” and then took the coldest shower possible. It felt fantastic. I relaxed in the room for a while and then took a little walk around the area near the Pousada. I found a restaurant near the lake that had tables out on a deck right next to the water. I had dinner there with a nice local beer from the island. Strangely, there are a lot of german inspired microbreweries in the area, so the beer I had was actually a heffe weizen, and it was delicious!

I had dinner watching people swimming in the river, fishing for oysters, standup paddling, and driver their boats around. It was a really peaceful place to enjoy my meal. I’m back in the room now and I’m ready to crash early. That little bit of sleep I got on the bus last night just wasn’t enough, so I’m going to try to catch up tonight. And I’m so glad I have a nice air conditioned room to do it in!