TNT Travels

Florianopolis

A surfers paradise in SE Brazil. It’s a city but where we stayed, near the lagoons and the coast, you couldn’t see a skyscraper. With just 6 days left in S.America, this was the 1st half of our twin centre beach chill out phase. The 2nd half was spent in Puerto de Galhinas, also famed for its white sandy beaches.

Joaquina Lofts (Air BnB)

I need to start with the accommodation. Outstanding!

A hidden tropical oasis. Owned by a family that understands the meaning of chillax. A married couple with a 2 yr old daughter. They live on top floor and underneath there are 4 apartments.

We just loved the apartment and the host Stewson couldn’t do enough. He’s an ex-pro surfer and definitely fit the stereotype. His lovely wife also did our washing which to be fair, made us slightly uncomfortable but she insisted. Not many women would want to handle ETs pants so fair play to her!

We arrived at 9pm and asked where the nearest bar was and literally as were just unpacking our gear I heard a shout from below, the best words ever “Tracy, I have 2 beers for you”. Stewson also recommended restaurants, places to visit and he excels at making people feel relaxed & happy.

The short walk to the bar was well worth it. It’s called Bar do Boni. You get a wrist band on arrival with a unique number and every time you order drink or food, you flash your band.

The bar is split into 3; 1st bit is indoor with the live singer, 2nd is the undercover outside area and 3rd the floating pontoon on the lagoon. Not sure El Tel realised it was a pontoon when he jumped down the step onto it and nearly started a tsunami. This part of the bar also doubled as the back row of the movies given the number of people making out. Remember the ‘no heavy petting’ signed at the swimming pool when you were a kid. They could have worked well here. The couple on the table next to us were locked in a full on smooch for the best part of an hour. ET reckons they were my parents age. I think this was because they were in their 60s and as he is now, he is not ready to accept it. More importantly, I did NOT need that mental picture.

There is also a small walkway off the pontoon where people love taking selfies.

ET thought he would go for a pose, slung his legs over one arm of the love seat and threw his head back. His glasses bounced off his head and landed within an inch of splashing into the lagoon 🤡. Play it cool trigg!

When you are ready to leave the bar, the waiter signs the receipt to show you have paid and then you show that at the exit so you can leave the building. Not sure this system would work at The Bulls Head in Lymm.

Florianopolis has several lagoons and the Atlantic coast line. It is full of kite surfing, wind surfing and surf boarding. Lots of tattoos, beads, board shorts and budgie smugglers.

Praia Mole (Mole Beach) is the heart of the LGBT community and weirdly the place that ET thought it would be OK to sun bathe in his freshly laundered pants because ‘they are no worse than budgie smugglers’. Errrrr no, just no!

Praia de Joaquina was also great. It was the nearest beach to our apartment, only 1 mile away.

Lots of soft white sand and easy to walk in sea. This isn’t always taken for granted on The Atlantic.

We had 2 beach days in Florianopolis. There are vast sandy beaches with beach clubs, bars and loads of vendors pulling trollies filled with food or clothes, like a mobile market. One guy was dressed in a Spider-Man morph suit to sell Ice creams. Its 34 degrees and he is dressed head to toe in Lycra! The epitome of a super hero or just mad as a box of frogs!

“Nut man” (man selling nuts on the beach) takes card payment. After our experiences in Argentina and Uruguay trying to pay with card, this seems like a major feat of ingenuity. Quote unquote; “if I was selling my nuts on the beach, I would have a card machine too”. Thanks for that sage advice ET.

Clearly, not many people from the English speaking world travel here but that’s what adds to the fun.

On our last night, we ate at Dolce Vita. My food was tasty but the number of small clams ET had to contend with made his meal “a faff” to eat which took a bit of a shine off.

As we left the AirBnB (Joaquina Lofts), El Tel was carrying our bags to the door and I heard “FFS!”. The cat had left a deposit which he had unknowingly managed to step over a few times until the last trip. Nice parting gift 🤣🤣

We flew from Florianopolis to Recife via Sao Paolo.

We didn’t love it the 1st time but the 2nd time here wasn’t great either. We landed to see the last quarter of the rugby match, where Italy handed Wales the wooden spoon in the 6 nations.

Puerto de Galhinas

Famed for being names Brazils best beach multiple times. It has aqua blue waters and natural pools. More Caribbean in feel than the Atlantic. The water is shallow for a long way out and warm.

We stayed 1km outside the main centre at a Pousada right on the beach. The beach was totally quiet.

The pool area was great but the room didn’t quite live up to the booking.com photos. It probably was compounded by the quality of the last place we stayed at.

On the 1st day, there were some pretty intense downpours but we managed to dodge them. On the 2nd day, there was only one downpour and we got caught in it 20mins into our 45min walk down the beach to the centre of PdG. We looked like a pair of drowned rats by the time we arrived. On the plus side, you dry off pretty quick over there.

We fared slightly better than this poor fish that we passed on the walk.

The Beach

The beaches nearer to the town are crammed with plastic chairs and tables and full of Brazilian tourists.

They sell everything on the beach….

Corn on the cob. ET said the corn must be tough. I look at him with a quizzical expression.I look back to the seller and he smiled and all his front teeth are missing. 🤣

Beer in a fuel pump! Interesting concept.

We got to see it in action. Basically they pour a pint from the pump nozzle and then pour the beer directly into your mouth. ET asked me to take a photo but not sure he was looking at the beer.

Our favourite superhero also made an appearance on this beach.

Tourist attractions

There are 2 main tourist attractions here. One is a tour of the beaches in a jeep buggy. Passengers mostly sit on the open top seat on the back. Our pousada was on part of the route. To be honest, I thought watching people bounce around in the back of them, nearly losing their swimwear in the process and getting soaked in the random downpours was a far better attraction.

The other tourist attraction is to visit the natural reef, 200 yards from shore by Jangada boat. These boats are traditional Portuguese fishing rafts. I was all ready to do it but then saw about 20 boats were all clustered together so people seemed to be snorkelling on top of each other. We were also just getting into low season so in high season it must be nuts. If you visit here, it looked better to do it at lunchtime rather than late afternoon.

By night, the centre really comes alive.

It’s buzzing with Spanish/Portuguese speaking tourists.

We had a cocktail or 2 in one bar. ET picked a Kracken based one and was at the loo when the waiter arrived to take the order.

They didn’t have any Kracken so I took the liberty of ordering a different one for him. ET has been raving about the Pina Colada’s so I asked for one of those. I didn’t realise there was a choice so when the waiter asked me if I wanted to ‘go large’, I thought why the hell not. When it arrived it looked like something Carmen Miranda would have been proud of.

On our last night we got an Uber back.

The taxi driver was singing all the English lyrics to a song. He then asked if we liked Dirty Dancing’s ‘I’ve had the time of my life’. I said ”yes”. Next thing, “You know the words?”, me “certainly do, I love this song and Patrick Swayze”. The driver cranks up the volume, the windows are down and the music is blasting out. He said “sing loud”. Me “I can’t sing”. Him “pretend you are in the shower”. Excellent response! Next thing, the 3 of us are belting out the classic, all the way back to the pousada. He even rewound it so we could keep singing until we got to the entrance. One of the most entertaining Uber journeys we’ve had.

Roaming Animals

There are also lots of animals roaming about during the day and night. The normal stray dogs but also pigs and horses and some tiny monkeys.

We flew back overnight from Recife (1hr drive from Puerto de Galhinas) to Lisbon. Flight time was 7hrs. TAP airline was fine but we had a toddler screaming in the seat in front of us on and off for 5hrs of the flight.

We had treated ourselves to a 5star hotel in Lisbon (on a deal 😊) for the last night.

A small mishap occurred, which is only to be expected for the last blog post. After the flight from Brazil, we got into the Uber at Lisbon Airport and the driver commented on the strange white powder coming from the bottom of ETs luggage. ET joked “it’s not what you think”. I’m just grateful he doesn’t know we have come from South America. We couldn’t think what it could be but promptly forgot about it. We got to the hotel and couldnt check in so had a 2hr snooze in the spa.

The porter then brought the bags to the room. When we were about to unpack, we saw the amount of white powder had increased on the outside of the bag. We quickly opened it and discovered that the lid had popped off the jar of coffee mate we had bought a few weeks earlier. All El Tel’s clothes, footwear and our toiletries were covered in it.

Where it had for damp in some places, it congealed. We carried it between us to the bathroom and basically had to clean / shake every item. At one point bathroom looked like a scene from Breaking Bad. 40mins later, we were all sorted and just hoped there wasn’t a Hansel & Greta style trail of white powder in the corridor, leading to our door.

We ended on a high (not by snorting coffee mate) by having a lovely meal. In The Corinthia Hotel’s Erva Restaurant, the food and service were excellent ….

By the time you read this post, we will be home. Like all good things, they must come to an end. It’s been 7.5 weeks of brilliant experiences. We loved S.America for the people, the cocktails, the carnival and the spectacular scenery. Slightly less for the food. We had some lovely meals but the standard of food wasn’t great overall.

Signing off for now.

Tracy & El Tel x