Floripa, I will conquer your waves!

Florianopolis affectionately known as Floripa to Brazilians, is set on the coast in south Brazil, and is like a completely different world in Brazil if you compare it to Rio, Salvador, and Sao Paulo. The other cities I traveled to in Brazil had crime and danger lurking at every corner whereas Floripa was as relaxed and as safe as any other place in the world.  A complete 180, that was wonderfully welcomed by me because I was finally able to walk around the streets at night or during the day with any electronics and any amount of money without feeling like I had to hide things in my bra and constantly look behind me. haha.

I arrived at my hostel sweaty, hungry and tired only to find out that I couldn't check into my room for another three hours, I wasn't allowed to have breakfast, and to top it all off, there were NO girls in sight. All I could see were burly guys all shirtless with rugby shorts none of which said hi to me and or was talking in a language I could understand. I thought I had walked into a gay hostel. Seriously.  The only girl was the receptionist, and she didn't seem to care about the look of horror on my face.

The only thing I could do was head to the beach because I had no bed yet, so I figured I would kill some time and walk. What a horrible idea.  After about 20 minutes of walking through the intense humidity and heat, I FINALLY saw a sign for the beach only to turn the street corner and see a massive hill for me to climb.  The next sign showed that in about 2400 meters (1.5 miles) I would get to a really good picture point.  At this point, I can't even figure out where the beach would start considering I am walking up a hill.   The worst walk of my life probably.  I was sweating and so hungry and the beach didn't come for another 15 minutes of uphill climb!! Out of control.

The beach I went to, Praia Mole, is surf central! But only for experts.. not me. I spent the entire day  relaxing in and out of the water, until I had a 60  year old-ish senior citizen-esh type French man started to offer to buy me a drink. Um awkward. Didn't take me much time to leave after that.

I finally checked in at the hostel and found out from the new desk girl that there were two rugby teams staying at the hostel (one from Uruguay and one from Paraguay) and I really was the ONLY girl staying at the hostel that night. How does this kind of stuf happen to me??

Luckily I met a guy from Mexico who was doing a study abroad in Floripa so spoke English fairly well. We got some drinks and spent a few hours just talking about all of the food we miss from home. Tacos, burritos, enchiladas, nachos, indian food of course!

I hung out at a different beach  the next day with this guy and we just chilled out. By the time we got back to the hostel some aussie girls had come to the hostel and so had some german guys.  I was somehow the only girl in the room I stayed though..that's the third time now.

I hit up the beach again on my last day with the german guys I had met and I learned how to surf!! No official lessons or anything.  Just those two guys giving me some pointers. Not exactly reassuring, but believe it or not, I got up a few times in the first hour, and since I only had 1.5 hours before I had to leave to catch a bus out of town, I felt pretty good!! Surfing is really fun but   hard! The waves bashed me around a bit and since I was using a long board, I had almost no control of the board half the time bc it was so big. haha. But I am SO HAPPY I tried!! One thing from my to do list in south america is done!

I am heading to Iguassu Falls next. It is supposed to make Niagra Falls look pathetic.  haha. I will see in 14 hours since that's how long my next bus ride is.