Florianopolis is great.  I’m happy to report that boredom has not yet set in.  We’ve been out exploring the island and its many beaches, hiking trails, towns, restaurants, etc.  The people are very friendly, and while we’re in a sleepy fishing village, it’s exactly the break we needed from Buenos Aires for awhile.

We have noticed a tremendous number of differences between Brazil and Argentina, which include the people, food, culture and language.  We initially thought that since the two countries were neighbors, we’d see more similarities, but the differences are striking.  We’ll write more about that in another post, but one example is the language.  For some reason we thought Portuguese would sound more similar to Spanish, but we quickly learned that our rudimentary Spanish did not get us far here. The two languages sound nothing alike to us! Even when the words are the same (about 89% of the language overlaps or is close), they’re pronounced much differently.  Luckily, having our basic Spanish does help though as a lot of people can understand the basics and can figure out what we’re saying.  English has been pretty useless for the most part here.

We’ll be back with some more updates soon, but for now, here’s some pictures from my time here.

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P12 Beach Club - Saturday night

P12 Beach Club - Saturday night

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P12 Beach Club on a Saturday

P12 Beach Club on a Saturday

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A private beach

A private beach

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Another stray that followed me

Another stray that followed me

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A view from the trail

A view from the trail

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One of the many interesting insects in Florianopolis

One of the many interesting insects in Florianopolis

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A view from the walk to Pantano do Sol

A view from the walk to Pantano do Sol

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A view from the deck

A view from the deck

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The house

The house

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Our house

Our house

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Bar do Arante - famous for the notes that were left for other travelers before electricity

Bar do Arante - famous for the notes that were left for other travelers before electricity

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A view from the deck

A view from the deck

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The house

The house

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Lagoinha do Leste - private beach accessible only by foot or boat

Lagoinha do Leste - private beach accessible only by foot or boat

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Ready to start hiking to Lagoinha do Leste

Ready to start hiking to Lagoinha do Leste

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The town - Pantano do Sol

The town - Pantano do Sol

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Fishing for squid at night

Fishing for squid at night