A Brazilian ways to have fun in Florianópolis

We finally made it from the Pacific all the way to the Atlantic Ocean--trekking across an entire continent! When we arrived we bought some "vergamota" (oranges) from this van (photo to the right) and took a stroll down the beach. We were thrilled to shed our hiking boots and feel the sand beneath our feet and the salt water breeze on our face. What a welcome change of pace from hectic bus terminals and rugged expeditions to barefoot beach time and laying out in the sun!  

I'm not putting down my fruit for anything.

Luckily for us, Derek has some amazing friends here, the Moraes family and friends, who have laid out the red carpet for us: taking us to all the best views and beaches, guiding us through the city, and introducing us to some of the nicest, wildest people we've ever met. In addition, they've offered us their home as a place to stay, done our laundry, and cooked us some delicious meals. We are extremely grateful for them; they've made our stay in Florianópolis exceed all expectations. We've seen and experienced some amazing things in our travels, but these past couple days have definitely been the most fun. 

Us on our final day with the Moraes family

Our main man, Thiago, showing us around the city our first night

Our first night in Floripa (Florianópolis) we met Thiago, a friend of the Moraes family who also speaks English. In Justin's struggle to pronounce Thiago's name correctly, he accidentally called him "Chango," which in Spanish means "monkey," and the nickname stuck. 

These "dream" croissants were smothered in fruits and chocolate.

Sugarcane juice. Not only is it delicious, it's also probably really good for you and very healthy.

 The next morning we walked around the city center for a bit with our friends Thaís and Guilherme Moraes. Our constant failures in Portuguese pronunciation drove us to give Guilherme a nickname as well--"Billy Demais," (literally translated = too much Billy). We met up with some more friends and relatives and drove to some large sand dunes to do some summa-time shredding with a sand board. I say "sand board" as if it were a special piece of equipment, but I'm sure a piece of drift wood would have worked just as well. With all of us being used to boarding on "the best snow on Earth," as they say in Utah, the sand was a little difficult to get used to. However, we all had a blast doing our best to adjust to the challenge. We even found a jump someone had made from piled up bags of sand. We decided to go for it, and Justin and Derek both took some hard falls, making several attempts each before finally landing a jump. We were all picking sand out of our ears for the next several days, and to this day we can occasionally still feel sand in our eyes. Not the most pleasant feeling in the world, but worth it. Maybe.

Righteooooous

The next morning, the Moraes family took us to a beautiful beach called the Praia da Guarda do Embaú, where they led us along a rocky trail to reach a smaller, more secluded section of the beach, called simply "Prainha" ("little beach"). We had the whole beach to ourselves. The sand was super fine, the views were gorgeous, and our pasty white skin got to soak in some much needed sun. Billy Demais brought along a surf board, and we all tried to catch some waves. Since none of us is particularly talented at surfing, the short surf board proved to be extremely difficult to balance. However, we still had tons of fun swimming in the ocean and laying out in the sun for hours before our hunger finally constrained us to return to the Moraes' home for some dinner.

After the rocky hike along a grassy hillside we arrived at Prainha, completely empty

All ours, baby

This beach rocks.

This beach rocks too. I'm running out of puns. 

This was the cabin at the ranch

Our last day in Floripa happened to be some sort of a holiday, and the Moraes family brought us to a big churrasco (barbecue) at a ranch out in the forest. We asked several people what it was that we were celebrating and nobody really knew--something about Corpus Cristi--but as we've noticed, Brazilians will find any excuse to party. We met up with a giant group of Brazilians our age that are all part of the same institute class (which is like a religious class for youth, for those that don't know). With the exception of our lack of Portuguese fluency (minus Derek), we fit right in, making tons of friends while playing volleyball, futebol (soccer) and pool/billiards, eating loads and loads of meat, drinking an unhealthy amount of Guaraná, and listening to American top 40 songs blasting from a loudspeaker. Everybody seemed to enjoy teaching us new words and letting us practice our pronunciation, and we ended up hanging out well into the night before finally heading home. 

Porter and Justin discussing strategy for the next game of pool

The whole group

The next morning we said goodbye to the Moraes family and took a cheap flight to São Paolo, where we then took a bus to Sorocaba to meet up with a good friend of Porter's dad. There are parties going all the time here in Sorocaba, too. We are exhausted but refuse to turn down an invitation to party. We are very quickly realizing that it is impossible to out-party a Brazilian. Até mais, caras.