Farewell Florianopilis

So two weeks in Florianopilis has flown by and before we know it, its time to leave. During our last week with the weather always threatening to rain and the sun struggling for its moment to shine, beaches were not on the agenda. And so sick to death with the shit chat with random hippies we will never see again. And nine bed dorms that have you waking up all through the night as people stumble around trying to find a toilet. We decided to check air bnb, absolutely the best decision we have made yet as we found a beautiful three bed apartment in a great location for the same price as a night in the hostel. So for the first time in nearly 5 months we had our own bedrooms!

We did a surf lesson on Campeche beach where I’m sure I swallowed my body weight in salty water, flashed the instructor multiple times and got completely battered by the waves. You certainly won’t see me on bay watch any time soon. Daisy on the other hand managed to ride the waves for a few seconds at a time before she plummeted to the ground. Pretty impressive. We both emerged an hour later half drowned and with stinging eyes. I will defiantly rethink my swimwear options for any future surfing. The next day we decided to swap surfing for sand boarding and headed for the dunes.

Being our second time sand boarding we managed to stand for slightly more time before falling to an even more dangerous near death. But relentlessly we got back up again and again heading for the even steeper hills, throwing ourselves down with blind faith and tumbling to the bottom bruised and covered in sand. When our hour was up we hobbled to the beach where we sat so covered in sand we almost blended in to the ground. Lunch was served by a stroppy teenager who was clearly forced to serve us and had his girlfriend hanging around in the background silently hating us with her eyes.

Finally when it came time to leave we ordered an Uber and tried to pay the bill only for both our cards to get rejected with the embarrassing insufficient funds. Fuck! The woman was not helpful but finally agreed to hotspot us some data so we could transfer the funds for lunch and scraper quickly in to our waiting cab. Running from one embarrassing shit storm to another as we covered his taxi in sand and spent the entire journey trying to discreetly brush it on to the floor. When we arrived Daisy ran in for some cash that he then didn’t have change for so after begging the neighbours we finally had the taxi paid and entered our apartment covered not only in sand but shame at the chaos of the last half an hour. That brings me to our last day where after a few days of storms where we barely left the house apart from to get the essential munchies and ate rounds of oat flour pancakes with goji berries and chia seeds until our bellies swelled and we sunk in to food like comas.

But on the final day the sun shone for us and we headed to Lagoinha de oeste a beach an hours trek away.

The treck there was easy and we chilled on the beautiful deserted beach for hours before we attempted the scenic rout back along a narrow cliff edge for over an hour where looking over the edge we could see sea lions poking up their heads for air. It then curved in to the jungle where now sweating and dangerously low on water we hoped beyond hope we hadn’t taken a tong turn somewhere.

Relief floods over us when we arrive on the beach finally. The next morning we say our goodbye to Florianopilis.

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Hardcore sand boarding in Huacachina

Huacachina is a Laguna in the middle of an expansive desert. The drive there was beautiful as sand dunes and coastal lines met.

The first day we climbed the closest sand dune where you sank in to every step so it was quite literally one step forward half a step back. We finally reached the top as it threatened to rain and collapsed two panting messes barely holding it together. A few photos and a discussion about how amazing South America is that you can be one minuet scaling a snowy mountain the next on a surfers beach and then here!

That night we went for a few cocktails with our new French mates and then headed back to our hostel Desert Nights, where we tossed and turned in a 10 bed dorm where at least half the residents were snoring and the temperature must have been well in the 30 degrees without a fan. The mosquitoes had an all you can eat buffet wherever you dared poke a limb out in the hope of lowering your body temperature. After hours of angry half consciousness we moved to the sofas where I had an all out fight with the sheet on the overly small sofa as I tried to get comfy without having an inch of skin available for the ever attacking army of mosquitos. That was definitely a war I lost as come morning I was sleep deprived and with a dot to dot on my face. That day was spent by the pool eating nachos mentally preparing for our sand boarding sunset tour.

Despite everybody’s advice we opted for the professional stand up boards rather than the tourist option of descending on your belly. A choice we were instantly unsure about after an adrenaline filled buggy tour we arrived at the top of our first dune where my belly did somersaults just looking down the steep drop. We seemed to be the only idiots choosing to board who hadn’t previously snowboarded and with no one to teach us the basics we threw ourselves off the edge managing to stand for seconds at a time before we picked up to much speed and tactfully threw ourselves on to our bums. We got only marginally better as the dunes got extremely more dangerous and the fake boarders dropped like flys giving in to their fear. Still we carried on naively. The last dune I was almost sure was a joke it looked like an absolute death trap, the people at the bottom of the hill were so small they looked like raisins in the distance. My heart absolutely pumping I accepted my fate and used my fool proof tactic of bruising my bum. Arriving at the bottom full of adrenaline and ready to go again. Next was Daisy’s turn where she came flying down the dune at a dangerous speed bent so low to the floor you couldn’t see her amongst the sand storm she was creating. Suddenly she is absorbed by the sand storm and you just see her board spiralling and bouncing off the floor as she is dragged with it. Everybody held their breath as she reached the bottom and somehow managed to rise covered in sand but apparently unharmed! With sand in her eyes, ears and mouth she hobbled over an absolute trooper. The pain only worsened during the day as she picked an entire deserts worth of sand from her nose. After showers that felt like sand paper we left in a taxi where the driver and his family (who were in the taxi with us for a discounted price) reassured us we were lucky to leave with “our legs not by our elbows” we laughed the entire way with the lovely family. Next stop Cusco