I figured four or five days in Florianopolis should do the trick. Those four days turned into 3 weeks. And then I came back for yet another 3 weeks. Whether this is related to the place itself or the people I met on these grounds I leave in the middle here (which kind of answers it), but certainly location is a contributing factor.
Simply put together the elements island, sun, beaches, good food and palmtree-dotted lanes, and you get an idea why this place has such a strong magnetic effect on (the mainly Argentinean) crowds. However, if you now find yourself dwelling on some idyllic image of you jumping off the springboard sticking straight out of your bamboo hut while a hot muscular João kayaks towards you to bring you the coconut he freshly slammed out of a palm tree, you totally got the wrong picture. Florianopolis, Floripa for friends and family, is developed. Un-Brazilian developed).
Perfect asphalt cuts a way through jewels of real estate shaping every broker’s wet dream, people of all colors parade through the streets full of the latest fashion, vegan restaurants and organic pop-up markets reflecting the national dream of health-trends and everything is expensive, so damn expensive.
That also means that the touristic infrastructure is up and running and ready to give you the great outdoor experiences you’ve been dreaming of. Do I already sound like a slick commercial break to you?
Ok, let’s cut the bullshit then right there. Because of course, this is still Brazil and Brazil is still in Latin America. And when something is “up and running” in this pleasant slice of our planet it means “whenever they feel work is on the agenda”. So if you want to organize, let’s say, a 4WD ATV adventure, that means that you email the tourist agency, and again, and call them, and again, and email and call them again a few times more, then go in person to their office to find it closed for undefined reasons, then stalk them via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram until someone found enough working spirit to grant you an answer, but then cancels on you again, and again, and one more time until you leave town and you wonder what those people on the brochure-photos have done to get their ass on that quad in the first place. In short, I didn’t ride any quads, 2 times 3 weeks wasn’t a sufficient time span to arrange anything tangible. BUT, I did basically everything else.
I traced down all hiking trails on the island and started working down my little list. The Arya of the outdoors.
The short but satisfying Trilha de Costa de Lagoa leads you alongside one side of the Lagoa de Conceição, in my opinion the most vivid spot on the island.
Lingering through the jungle alternated with strolling along people’s backyards, you end up at a tiny town where lakeside bars await your arrival with cold wine (yeah yuck, they do that in Brazil). From there a budget boat drives you all the way back to where you came from.
A bit more physically demanding and therefore more interesting are the trails sprouting out of Lago di Perri.
Balancing on mossy rocks and sliding along slippery tree trunks you’ll reward yourself with views over a stunning lake and even a waterfall if you go far enough (which I unfortunately didn’t, as my +1 didn’t share my trekking passion… and as I liked him more than the trail we headed back ahead of time).
Another interesting one is the Trilha Santinho at the northern tip of the island, going up and down a steep hillside forcing you straight through a densely overgrown wilderness where snakes haste away just in front of your feet hushed by the vibrations of your footsteps. As the trail in itself is rather short (I did it jogging in less than 40 minutes), I decided to initiate at the beginning of Praia de Moçambique, following its pearl white coastline for hours until the forest interrupted this virgin landscape.
These strolls are usually perfect to organize the maze of my mental wanderings, but this day I found a companion leading the way. I don’t know his name or his usual whereabouts, but he was playful and furry and as his blisters and infected eyes revealed the truth about his physical health, I figured he could use a friend who can make the limited lifetime he has left a tad more pleasurable. We were a perfect team.
If you have your hiking boots all tied up anyway, why don’t you head to the Trilha da Gravata when you’re at it? Truth told, it’s a pain in the arse to find the entrance (I climbed over a guard fence, got subsequently bitten in the bum by a bunch of hounds who were NOT waiting on my friendship and then got my entire foot sucked in fluid mud in my attempt of tracing down the real trail), BUT thou shalt be rewarded.
And don’t worry if you spent all those hours you planned to spend in the gym fattening yourself up while watching Netflix: this one is laughably undemanding. I clambered down to secluded beaches and ascended flaring rocks overlooking the secluded bays that appeared to be my little kingdoms.
Watching the waves polishing the rocks into smooth black diamonds your subconscious screams silent hints about that feeling called pure bliss.
The hilltops grant views over that long white stretch called Praia Mole, paragliders running into eternity with these sights right under the shadows of their parachutes.
That brought me to an idea. I paraglided before, in Slovenia and Argentina to be exact, and yes, I enjoyed myself. Why couldn’t those areal adventures tie me up and take me for a little ride through the sky? Well, because the wind wasn’t strong enough on this side of the island to keep 2 people up, for starters. Which is why I went all the way to Santo Amaro, where the wind was exactly perfect and ready to deliver my own all-time high.
Honestly, I was a little bit worried up-front. You see, the company I got hooked up with came up with this inspiring name “Icaro Parapente”. Deep! [Icarus, didn’t that have something to do with some ancient Greek or Latin mythology? Well, then it must sound smart and inspiring!] Yeah… it’s always a bad idea if people who haven’t studied but still want to sound intelligent head down hardcore on the ancient history route. I personally did waste my time with studying Latin, classic Greek and mythology for the duration of 6 years and I can tell you: the amount of people I observed with grammatically incorrect Latin tattoos since then is just too damn high! I also know that Icarus tried to fly but instead crashed into the ocean and died an instant death. Where the hell am I getting myself into?
Luckily, the employees of Icaro Parapente spent all that time I allocated to my studies on practicing the art of gracefully jumping off mountains, so unlike this horrifying name suggests I was in good hands.
If I dare to run off hills on the loose, doing the same attached to some cables wouldn’t be the greatest concern then either. I might have expected a bit of a bigger zipline-network, but in this case it just meant I settled with doing the same track several times. I had worse afternoons.
If sliding through the air gives me such great pleasure, then for sure racing through the sand could match this joyful sensation. So we headed to Dunas de Joaquina, the inimini Sahara of Floripa.
We rented a mellow sitting-down version and a badass standing-up surfboard edition. Guess which one the show-off Leo insisted on riding? Right.
I crushed all my muscles during the numerous high-speed face plants and I ate enough sand to skip lunch, but man, I laughed a lot.
And if you fall often enough, at some point you learn how to stand up and succeed with that one thing you set your mind on (with sandboarding, or with whatever in life).
Talking about good ideas… Flyboarding, you’re doing it! Stop reading, google the nearest flyboarding-outlet in your region and grab that phone right now: you have plans this weekend.
All booked? Great, I’m so thrilled for you, because this brand new adrenaline-outdoors-adventure-whatever almost got me peeing my pants out of pure excitement. Or wetsuit, in this case.
It’s not really that easy, they tie some heavy-weight giant to your feet and then drag you along on a rope behind a jetski… and I wouldn’t say that having a forceful stream of water pouring out from under you while you trying to keep your body straight isn’t all that natural either.
… see?
But once you got it, when the laws of (the in this case rather insane) physics seep through into your behavior and body posture, damn… you’re on top of the bloody world! Or the water, good enough. Whatever lunatic invented this sport should be rewarded with a Nobel Price, is this the place where I can nominate?
Florianopolis. That was one wild ride.